Kaneto, Murphy, Phelps pick up gold; Manuel, Oleksiak share freestyle gold in dead heat

Wow Simone Biles is assume. Good luck Simone!

Great race. Also the young Canadian Penny Oleksiak beat 7 swimmers in the final 50m to tie for gold! She medals with 4, a new record for a Canadian in a Summer Olympics.

Canada FINALLY gets a gold! That takes them from 41st rank, which they were this morning (although like with the US they like to tally based on overall medals, not value), to 20th. Still not great, but a whole lot better. The best part is that she shared it with the first African American to get a gold in swimming (or if you like, the latter shared it with the former), and she is still very young and has more Olympics to come.

As for Phelps... the most decorated Olympian in history, and deserves it all. Lochte is also pretty great, but obviously Phelps surpasses him. And good on Kaneko and the other athletes as well.

Yay our first gold medal! CBC finally posted the race here: http://olympics.cbc.ca/video/vod/year-old-penny-oleksiak-wins-gold-for-canada-the-women-100m-freestyle.html

What a comeback from 7th at the turn to gold medal! Blazed through. At first they thought it was Penny's alone then the late scoring was due to it being a tie! Simone Manuel hangs on for the shared gold. What a race!

BIG CONGRATULATIONS Kaneto Rie for winning gold in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke!!!????It's been 24 years since Iwasaki Kyōko (岩崎恭子) last won the 200-meter breaststroke in Barcelona. Also well-done KOSUKE HAGINO for taking the silver in the 200-meter individual medley! Hagino now have all 3-coloured medals to take home, how awesome could that be! So really happy for Michael Phelps as well, creating records and history one after the other~ Such a great Olympian!!! What a brilliant race in the Women's 100-meter freestyle!! Congrats to both 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak of Canada and Simone Manuel of the US for the tied- Gold!!!

Thanks for the reports, JT. I watched the news on Japanese TV with no mention of Phelps, Biles or Oleksiak.

News of a Japanese table-tennis player not winning a medal was deemed more important.

@Jimizo

That's too bad. The Manuel/Olesaik race into a tie was really incredible. Both swimmers historic victories. For USA, Simone Manuel the first black woman gold medal winner in swimming, was 3rd at the turn, held her own to hang on and beat the field. For Canada, Penny Oleksiak, our first gold medal in Rio, was 7th out of 8 at the turn, blazed through the field to tie for first, and her 4th medal of the Olympics, a new Canadian record. She might tie Klassen later today for most medals by a single athlete in Canada at 5. And she's only 16. She wasn't expected to start medaling until the next Summer Olympics...in Tokyo! dun dun duuunn! By then she'll be the same age as Manuel is now. A rematch should be exciting

@sf2k

To be honest, I'm not that bothered about the Olympics but I do respect athletes who do impressive things regardless of their nationality. It was an Aussie friend who told me ( a Brit ) about a British swimmer who broke the world record in qualifying and then broke his own world record in the final. No Japanese coworker had heard of him despite the fact that swimming is a major thing for the Japanese in the Olympics.

It's this kind of silly, narrow, patriotic nonsense which switches me off when watching sports in Japan.

Wasn't even close - Phelps was almost 2 secs ahead of Hagino in a Men's 200M, which is a short distance for men that 2 secs win is almost impossible. And what happened to Lochte? Lochte is the World Record holder, leading halfway of the race, yet finished 1 sec slower than his qualifying time - and that's his last race of his career so no holding back!

Rie Kaneto is a pure 200M breaststroker - congrats to her!

Missy Franklin dropped off the cliff - what happened to her? Simone Manuel and Penny Oleksiak tied for gold! Don't see that everyday. Hopefully that'll encourage more minorities to go to swim club.

Jimizo

yeah I like world wide coverage so I get to know what achievement is versus trying. What countries are good at and how things are done or what nuances are made to show who can do better. That's where respect is made, and really the point of the Olympics. Applies meaning to the medal not just about medals if that makes sens

Brilliant stuff again from the great man Phelps, super swim from Hagino too!

It kind of grated a little watching the "analysis" after the race, the experts headed by that hyper-ventilating SMAP member in with the orange rug on his head. Not once did I hear him mention Phelps' achievement. I find the BBC Olympic coverage onlne to be great - they actually talk about athletes from pretty much everywhere.

I think there should be a stand-alone story on Kaneto. Her quest to get a gold medal was a long one and her competitive career is full of quite a lot of heart-break - she almost quit before coming here, because she had a run of awful results. Only willpower led her to give it one more chance.

@Jimixo

The English media do exactly the same thing.

Jimizo, the BBC haven't given any coverage to Kaneto's gold save for showing the finals live. There's no articles about her that I can see in the British media, just one liners in articles about other people. And I can assure you next to no Brits will know about her victory. Indeed, she's probably less likely to get coverage because she's Japanese, whereas Europeans and Americans tend to get a mention.

"The English media do exactly the same thing."

When I checked the Guardian site, Phelps was the first thing I saw. Next to it, I found an article on Biles saying she's arguably the greatest gymnast in history. I don't know much about swimming, but I'd say 22 gold medals is astonishing and worth a mention. Biles is supposedly off the scale.

As for Kaneto, I'm sure she's great and I applaud anyone for winning a medal. I don't want to talk down her achievement but it isn't as spectacular 22 golds. I'm pretty sure they don't know about Kaneto as they don't know about most medalists. I just think a quick reference to Phelps would have been normal.

I just think a quick reference to Phelps would have been normal.

Except that your earlier post was about Adam Peaty and how the Japanese media hadn't been mentioning him, despite the fact that he hasn't won any Olympic medals before.

Peaty's treatment by the Japanese media is little different to the treatment of Kaneto by the British media.

@Shumatsu

You're missing my point. Japanese people and Australian people tend to follow the swimming in the Olympics because they are good at it and win medals. British people are less well-informed and I'm one of them. Of course the vast majority of Brits wouldn't know Kaneto as they wouldn't know about 99% of swimmers. It's just that my Aussie friend told me about Peaty's acheivement which I heard was very impressive while no Japanese person in the office who follow the swimming had even heard of him. I asked other Japanese people I know who follow the swimming and got the same answer. I think BurakuminDes, who posted here and is another Aussie ( I think ), who told me more about Peaty.

I just get the sense that Japanese people do tend to focus more on the acheivements of their own athletes and don't seem to be too interested in those of non-Japanese athletes. The media does seem to reflect this.

It's just that my Aussie friend told me about Peaty's acheivement which I heard was very impressive while no Japanese person in the office who follow the swimming had even heard of him

Did you ever consider that there could be a reason Peaty is known in Australia? He won two golds and a silver medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, beating Australians in two of the finals, so I can see how they got on their radar. Whereas Peaty has never beat a Japanese swimmer in a major final (to my knowledge). So why on earth would the Japanese know who he is - or care about him?

I appreciate that you probably didn't know that, but you shouldn't jump to conclusions and make nasty comments about how Japanese engage in "silly, narrow, patriotic nonsense", not least because most countries that tend to win a large number of medals tend to focus on their own achievements.

Have you ever tried watching the Olympics on TV in France (at least pre-digital)? It's as if you were in parallel universe where the only Olympic sports are equestrian, fencing and cycling.

And if we're talking about other Asian countries, the Chinese and Koreans are ridiculously patriotic about their athletes, the former especially.

I can't say as I think the Japanese attitude is particularly unusual or overly patriotic. Indeed, as a country it remains extremely apathetic when it comes to patriotism. The USA, UK, China, France, Korea, even Germany are more patriotic than Japan in a general sense. Let them be excited about their athletes, it doesn't hurt anyone.

All readers back on topic please. This story is not about which events media in various countries cover. Please focus your comments on what is in the story.

OK, back on topic... CBC's coverage of Phelps' victory was marred when the CBC announcer Elliotte Friedman got Phelps' and Lochte's lanes mixed up. There was noticeable disappointment (or was it embarrassment?) in the announcer's voice after he realized his error when the graphic popped up declaring Phelps the winner. I'd link to the video of the gaffe, but CBC has had YouTube pull it for copyright issues. Suffice to say, extreme excitement over the thought of Phelps getting spanked (one the announcers quotes was, "(Phelps) may not even medal!!") changed into a low-toned apology, "I apologize. I got the lanes mixed up. Phelps won."

Many folks are commenting that come-back girl Rie Kaneto looks like Homare Sawa, the great, long-playing football star. I am a fan of both. https://goo.gl/i23lOK But, what is similar about their faces?