UNDATED (AP) — USA Basketball expects to have its full 12-man roster available for Sunday’s matchup against France. It’s the first game for both teams in the Tokyo Olympics.
Zach LaVine has been cleared to exit the health and safety protocols that stemmed from a coronavirus testing-related issue. He will fly to Japan and rejoin the team Thursday.
Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday and Devin Booker are expected to arrive in Tokyo on Saturday after competing in the NBA Finals. Middleton and Holiday just helped the Bucks beat Booker’s Suns.
In other Olympics news:
— U.S. gymnast Kara Eaker is doing well physically but remains in isolation three days after testing positive for COVID-19. A USA gymnastics official says Eaker is in isolation while teammate Leanne Wong is in quarantine. Both athletes served as alternates for the U.S. team. Wong continues to test negative but was put in quarantine due to contact tracing. The six-women U.S. delegation of Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Grace McCallum, Jade Carey and MyKayla Skinner worked out on each event during podium training on Thursday. They’re staying in a hotel near the venue rather than the Olympic village, a decision made before they arrived.
— While it certainly wasn’t the Olympic start the U.S. women’s soccer team had anticipated, a rare loss didn’t skewer the squad’s hopes for gold. The United States fell to Sweden 3-0 in the team’s opener in Tokyo to snap a 44-match unbeaten streak. It was a surprising result for the favorites in the field. There’s still a good chance that the Americans make it to the knockout round. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the United States fell 2-0 to Norway in the first match, then went on to win the gold medal.
— The Tokyo Olympic organizing committee has fired the director of the opening ceremony because of a Holocaust joke he made during a comedy show in 1998. His dismissal comes the day before Friday’s opening ceremony of the pandemic-delayed Games. Earlier this week, a composer whose music is expected to be used at the opening ceremony was forced to resign because of past bullying of his classmates.
— Four-time women’s basketball gold medalist Sue Bird and baseball player Eddy Alvarez have been chosen as USA flag bearers for Friday’s opening ceremony. They are the first duo to share the honor of leading the delegation into the ceremony.
— Two athletes were among four residents of the Olympic Village who were added to the tally Thursday of people accredited for the Tokyo Games who have tested positive for COVID-19 this month. That brings the number to 91, including European swimming champion Ilya Borodin (BOH’-roh-deen) and a US volleyball player believed to be Taylor Crabb.
— Tokyo’s COVID-19 infections have surged to a six-month high with the Olympic host city logging 1,832 new cases just two days before the Games open. Tokyo is currently under its fourth state of emergency, which will last two weeks after the Olympics end.
— Brisbane will host the 2032 Olympics, the inevitable winner of a one-city race steered by the IOC to avoid rival bids. The Games will go back to Australia 32 years after the popular 2000 Sydney Olympics.
— The International Olympic Committee says it will now include images of Olympic athletes taking a knee in its official highlights reels and social media channels. Players from five women’s soccer teams kneeled in support of racial justice before their games Wednesday. That was the first day it was allowed at the Olympic Games after a decades-long total ban on athlete protest gestures on the field. But the images were excluded from highlights package provided by the IOC to media that could not broadcast the games live.
