Turkey captures three more medals in Tokyo

TOKYO

Three Turkish athletes clinched bronze medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Aug. 6, increasing the country’s total medals tally at the games to 10.

Ali Sofuoğlu won his medal in the men’s karate kata event, Merve Çoban in the women’s karate kumite 61-kg and wrestler Taha Akgül in the men’s freestyle 125-kg class.

Akgül, beat his Mongolian opponent Lkhagvagerel Munkhtur 5-0 to claim the second Olympic medal of his career, following his gold at the 2016 Rio Games.

Çoban was said to have missed a chance at gold.

“This was not what I expected,” she said. “I finished third in the Olympics but I’m sorry I didn’t get the gold medal, which was the reason I am here for.”

The Turkish Olympic team headed to the last weekend of the Tokyo Games, which close on Aug. 8, with a total of 10
medals: One gold, one silver and eight bronze medals. Meanwhile, Turkish athlete Eda Tüysüz finished fourth in the women’s javelin throw final with a score of 64.0 meters.

Elsewhere in the Tokyo Olympics on Aug. 6, beach volleyball players roasted on the sands of Tokyo Bay and Olympic race walkers broiled in Japan’s supposedly cooler north. With solar and political heat clinging to athletes in their final three days of the Games, climbers clambered up the walls in the sport’s Olympic debut while Team USA claimed the women’s volleyball gold for the birthplace of the sport.

The boxing gold went to a dominant Cuba as Julio la Cruz outclassed Russian world heavyweight champion Muslim Gadzhimagomedov to win his second Olympic title and his country’s third gold of the five awarded so far.

On the track, Joshua Cheptegei made up for his silver in the 10,000 metres to win the 5,000m Olympic title on Aug. 6, succeeding two-time champion Mo Farah.

The 24-year-old Ugandan world record holder in the distance timed 12min 58.15sec. Canada’s Mohammed Ahmed won silver in 12:58.61 and Paul Chelimo of the U.S. the bronze in 12:59.05. Outdoor athletes continued to suffer from Japan’s punishing summer weather.

Sapporo in the far north was chosen for the 50km race walk for some respite from the heat of the capital, but Dawid Tomala of Poland had to fight Tokyolevel temperatures to take gold with a dominant second half.

Enduring air temperatures of up to 32 degrees Celsius, and a higher 45 on the shadeless sand at Shiokaze Park, April Ross and Alix Klineman from the United States won the women’s beach volleyball.

They regained the gold for the sport’s birthplace for the first time in nine years, to chants of “U-S-A” from 20 team staffers in an otherwise empty arena.

In an Olympic first, the fight for the men’s climbing gold went down to the wire, with 18-year-old Spaniard Alberto Gines Lopez edging out Nathaniel Coleman of the United States, while Austria’s Jakob Schubert surged from seventh place to grip the bronze.

Schubert’s effort shut out top contenders Adam Ondra of the Czech Republic and Japan’s Tomoa Narasaki in the sport combining three disciplines: A sprint up a 15m wall, bouldering around and over obstacles and a timed climb that tests athletes’ endurance