Damian Lillard scored 21 points and the Americans got back to winning — and winning easily — with their first victory of these Olympics, romping past Iran 120-66 on Wednesday.
Japan won its second straight Olympic softball gold medal, beating the United States 2-0 Tuesday night behind 39-year-old Yukiko Ueno in an emotional repeat of the 2008 victory in Beijing.
The winning streak for the world’s top-ranked team is now 50 games and counting in Olympic competition. A’ja Wilson scored 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in her debut as the Americans beat Nigeria 81-72 on Tuesday in the opener for both teams.
Kelsey Stewart hit a game-ending home run leading off the seventh inning, and the United States rallied late to beat Japan 2-1 Monday and win the Olympic softball group stage — and with it the right to bat last in the gold medal game.
For the first time since 2004, the U.S. men’s basketball team has lost in the Olympics. And the Americans’ quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal is already in serious trouble.
Good luck telling Yuto Horigome to move on. The Tokyo native now has a weighty argument that he should be left alone: a shiny gold Olympic medal won in the city where he learned to skate as a kid and honed his derring-do skills on its teeming streets where skateboarders sometimes aren’t welcome
It is only qualifying but Russia pulled off a stunner in qualifying, posting a top score of 171.629, more than a full point ahead of the U.S. total 170.562.