The Rush: Tokyo’s Top 5 Olympic feats in Week 1 of competition
From sibling champions and a nation’s first-ever gold medal to athletes at the opposite ends of the age spectrum, Yahoo Sports details the Top 5 Olympic feats from the first week of competition in Tokyo.
Video Transcript
- Being an Olympian means being among the best in the world. Earning a medal at the games is like flirting with perfection. This is an elite club to say the least.
But every once in a while, the circumstances surrounding an athlete's accomplishments are so unique that we all just got to say, Oh! [INAUDIBLE] Did you see that?
It's time to rank our top five Olympic feats from week one of the Tokyo games.
At number five, Japanese judokas, Uta and Hifumi Abe, became the first siblings to ever win gold at the same Olympics, and this brother-sister tandem nabbed gold on the same day just a few hours apart.
Big brother Hifumi joked, "As her big brother, I can't afford to lose." Wow! Looks like that sibling rivalry is all tied up until Paris 2024.
Coming in at number four is British diver Tom Daley, who finally struck gold at his fourth Olympics.
Daley who was just 14 years old when he made his Olympic debut in 2008, brought home the big prize in Tokyo with partner Maddie Lee in the men's synchronized 10-meter platform.
What's extra special about this win is that Daley, a self-proclaimed queer athlete, got gold in Tokyo where a record number of LGBTQ Olympians are openly out.
At number three, we've got women street skateboarding gold medalist, Momiji Nishiya of Japan. At 13 years old, she's the second youngest person to ever win Olympic gold.
The youngster swept the skateboard podium with the elder stateswoman 16-year-old, Funen Nakayama, taking bronze. Silver medalist Rayssa Leal is also 13. Check out this video of her tweeted by the great Tony Hawk six years ago.
From the beginning of one Olympic career to the conclusion of another, Russian gymnast Oksana Chusovitina is officially hanging up her leotard after eight Olympic appearances.
Competing for team Uzbekistan, the 46-year-old received a standing ovation on her last vault of competition. During her 29-year Olympic career, Oksana competed for three nations, one Olympic gold and 11 world championship medals.
And the top Olympic feat in week one belongs to weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, who won gold, but not just any gold, she earned the first ever Olympic gold medal for the Philippines. It took 97 years of Olympic competition for the nation's first gold brought to you by this bad ass lady lifter.
Pretty inspiring stuff for a single week right? Can't wait to see what other surprises await us at these Tokyo games.
