Brazil vs Germany LIVE: Final score, result and reaction from 2020 Olympics

Those first Tokyo Olympics were seen by many as the moment Japan attained critical mass, making of itself something both quintessentially Japanese and quintessentially modern – a version it could offer the world without shame, writes Peter Popham.

“Tomorrow, Emperor Hirohito’s grandson Naruhito, himself said to be dubious about the Games, will declare them open while replacing the word “celebrating” with “commemorating”. And while there is plenty for Japan to look back on with pride, there will be little to celebrate.”

One of Great Britain’s legitimate medal hopes at the Tokyo Olympics takes to the stage over the weekend, with Jade Jones competing in the women’s taekwondo event.

Jones has enormous pedigree in the world of her sport, it’s fair to say - she won gold at the Youth Olympic Games in 2010, before doing the same on the senior stage at London 2012.

She is part of what Team GB performance director Gary Hall called “an incredibly strong and experienced squad”, which sees five fighters taking part representing Great Britain.

Karl Matchett has everything you need to know about when to watch Jade Jones in action at the 2020 Olympics.

For the better part of three months during the pandemic, testing for performance-enhancing drugs came to a virtual standstill worldwide. Only in recent months has it begun to ramp back to normal.

It’s one of the uncomfortable realities of the Tokyo Olympics. Not a single one of the approximately 11,000 athletes competing over the next 17 days has been held to the highest standards of the world anti-doping code over the critical 16-month period leading into the Games.

Statistics provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency pointed to a steadily improving situation as the Olympics approached, but they do not mask the reality that over the entirety of 2020, there was a 45% reduction in testing around the world compared with 2019 — a non-Olympic year in which the numbers wouldn’t normally be as high anyway. In the first quarter of 2021, there was roughly a 20% reduction in overall testing compared with the same three months of 2019.

“Unless you’re a fool, you’d have to be concerned,” said Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. - ap

Events began before the official Opening Ceremony of the games but the first medals won’t be awarded until the next day, 24 July.

The women’s 10m air rifle final in shooting will be the first sport to award a medal on Saturday, followed by Archery, Fencing, and Taekwondo.

A total of 11 medals will be awarded.

The day with the most medals awarded will be 7 August. The second last day of the games has 34 golds up for grabs in Baseball, Athletics, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Canoe Sprint, Diving, Equestrian, Football, Handball, Karate, Gymnastics, Cycling Track, Vollyball, Water Polo, and Wrestling.

More than 160 LGBTQ athletes are competing at the Tokyo Olympic Games, according to Reuters.

Activists told the news outlet they would use the games to push their agenda forward in Japan, where they say the country is behind compared to other western countries.

Gon Matsunaka, founder of Japan’s first LGBTQ centre, Pride House, told Reuters said there aren’t legal protections outside of Tokyo, which passed an anti-discrimination law three years ago.

"I think lots of people in the world think that Japan is the human rights defender, but it’s opposite, because we don’t have any marriage equality, we don’t have any law to ban discrimination on sexual orientation or gender identity," Matsunaka said.

After images of Olympic soccer players taking a knee were excluded from official highlight reels and social media channels, the IOC said Thursday that kneeling protests will be shown in the future.

Players from five women’s soccer teams kneeled in support of racial justice Wednesday, the first day it was allowed at the Olympic Games after a ban lasting decades.

The concession under Olympic Charter Rule 50, which has long prohibited any athlete protest inside event venues, was finally allowed this month by the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC has tried to reconcile enforcing the rule while recognizing, and sometimes celebrating, the iconic image of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raising a black-gloved fist on the medal podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

On Wednesday, the British and Chilean teams kneeled before the opening games and were followed by the United States, Sweden and New Zealand players in later kickoffs. The Australian team posed with a flag of Australia’s indigenous people.

Those images were excluded from the official Tokyo Olympic highlights package provided by the IOC to media including The Associated Press that could not broadcast the games live.

Official Olympic social media channels also did not include pictures of the athlete activism.

“The IOC is covering the Games on its owned and operated platforms and such moments will be included as well,” the Olympic body said Thursday in an apparent change of policy.

The IOC said hundreds of millions of viewers could have seen the footage watching networks that have official broadcast rights and “can use it as they deem fit.” - ap

Press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed at her daily briefing that the president’s wife would continue to attend the Tokyo Olympics’ kick off event following the axing of it’s director over Holocaust jokes more than two decades ago.

Read her full response:

“Certainly we support that decision and disagree with his comments, offensive comments. The First Lady will still plan to attend the Opening Ceremony to support US athletes and represent the US government at the highest level.”

Tokyo hit another six-month high in new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, one day before the Olympics begin, as worries grow of a worsening of infections during the Games.

Thursday’s 1,979 new cases are the highest since 2,044 were recorded on 15 January.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is determined to hold the Olympics, placed Tokyo under a state of emergency on 12 July, but daily cases have sharply increased since then.

The emergency measures, which largely involve a ban on alcohol sales and shorter hours for restaurants and bars, are to last until 22 August, after the Olympics end on 8 August. - ap

The Opening Ceremony is will proceed as planned after its director was fired over jokes made 23 year ago.

Kentaro Kobayashi was fired on Thursday for a Holocaust skit in in 1998. The music composer, Keigo Oyamada, also resigned after comments in the 1990s over bullying classmates at school.

The Tokyo 2020 International Communications Team issued a statement saying the Opening Ceremony is “currently proceeding as planned”, according to CNN.

It will go ahead on Friday as planned, other than its planned director and music composer of course.

The director of the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony, Kentaro Kobayashi, has been dismissed from his role after footage emerged of him making jokes about the Holocaust in 1998.

Strong calls for his sacking came after a clip was widely shared on Japanese social media that showed the comedian in a TV skit which included the line “let’s play Holocaust”.

Tokyo 2020 president Seiko Hashimoto confirmed Kobayashi’s dismissal just one day ahead of the opening ceremony, apologising “deeply” to those he offended and to the people of Japan for “causing inconvenience”.