Sports

Tunisia and Japan celebrated unexpected golds on the opening day of swimming medal events before normal service was resumed with the Australian women's 4x100m freestyle relay team smashing their own world record on the way to the title in Tokyo.

The three-match ODI series between Afghanistan and Pakistan will be played at the Mahinda Rajapaksa Stadium in Hambantota, Sri Lanka instead of in the UAE, as originally planned.

Syria's Hend Zaza, at 12 the youngest athlete competing at the Tokyo Olympics, exited the table tennis tournament in the opening round on Saturday, snapping a selfie with her Austrian opponent to remember the occasion.

With no confirmation over the suspension of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 thus far, organisers are likely to go ahead with the much-awaited event starting July 23.

Tokyo, July 22 (Reuters) - More than 160 openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer athletes are due to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, making this year's Games the most inclusive ever.

About 950 people, including officials and journalists, will watch Friday's opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics at the main stadium from which spectators have been banned, one of the organisers said.

The hometown team scored the first win of the Tokyo Olympics as the pandemic-delayed Games began with an 8-1 win for Japan over Australia in the softball.

Japan's women's softball team got the Tokyo 2020 Olympics off to a winning start for the hosts on Wednesday, kicking off a pandemic-postponed Games that the World Health Organization says can be "a celebration of hope" even as COVID-19 cases surge

Deepak Chahar emerged as India's unlikely hero with the bat as the fast bowler hit an unbeaten 69 to help the visitors gun down a 276-run target in a thriller in the 2nd ODI of a 3-match series against Sri Lanka in Colombo on Tuesday.

The so-called bubble to control COVID-19 infections at the Olympic Athlete's Village in Tokyo is already "broken" and poses a risk of spreading infections to the general populace, a prominent public health expert said on Tuesday.