Medal Count 2021 Olympics: Updated Standings, Highlights After Day 4
July 27, 2021
There was drama everywhere you looked on Day 4 of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, whether it was in the gym, in the water or on the hardcourt. The day's action featured shocking upsets, gutsy performances and some of the best athlete's in the world proving why they deserved to be on the biggest stage possible.
It all added up to Japan maintaining its position atop the gold-medal standings. The host nation now has 10 gold medals after four days of final competitions. China and the United States are close behind with nine gold medals each, and the U.S. is now the overall medal leader with 25 podium-worthy performances.
Here's a look at the updated standings and some of the biggest moments from Day 4.
Tokyo Olympics Medal Count After Day 4
United States: 9 Gold, 8 Silver, 8 Bronze, 25 Total
China: 9 Gold, 5 Silver, 7 Bronze, 21 Total
Japan: 10 Gold, 3 Silver, 5 Bronze, 18 Total
Russian Olympic Committee: 7 Gold, 7 Silver, 4 Bronze, 18 Total
Great Britain: 4 Gold, 5 Silver, 4 Bronze, 13 Total
Italy: 1 Gold, 5 Silver, 6 Bronze, 12 Total
Republic of Korea: 3 Gold, 2 Silver, 5 Bronze, 10 Total
Australia: 3 Gold, 1 Silver, 5 Bronze, 9 Total
Canada: 2 Gold, 3 Silver, 3 Bronze, 8 Total
France: 2 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze, 7 Total
Germany: 2 Gold, 3 Bronze, 5 Total
Full results can be found at Olympics.com
Day 4 Highlights and Recap
One of the surprises of the Summer Games came late on Day 4 when American gymnast Simone Biles pulled out of the women's team competition after completing just one vault in which she had a shaky landing. It was unclear at first why she left, but USA Gymnastics eventually put out a statement saying she left "due to a medical issue." Biles would later clarify why she left the final.
"I felt like it would be better to take a back seat. ... I didn't want to risk the team a medal because they worked way too hard for my screwups," she said, per ESPN's Michelle Steele.
Biles also said she was not physically injured, before adding: "It's been really stressful this Olympic games. ... It's been a long week, a long Olympic process, a long year. I think we're a little too stressed out. We should be out here having fun and that's just not the case."
Biles was replaced by Jordan Chiles ahead of the uneven bars, but she stuck around to cheer on and support her teammates through the rest of the competition. The Americans would hold on for silver, while the Russian Olympic Committee would take the gold medal (Russian athletes are competing as the ROC after a court ruling prohibited Russia from using its team name because of doping violations).
The United States would come up just short in another gold-medal event, losing to Japan 2-0 in the softball final. It was a tense game and also an instance of history repeating itself, as Japan beat Team USA to win gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the last time softball was part of the Summer Games.
While the Americans had to settle for silver in two of the biggest team events, they did find individual glory in the water. In swimming, 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby stunned the world by winning the women's 100-meter breaststroke final, holding off South Africa's Tatjana Schoenmaker and fellow American Lilly King, the defending Olympic champion in this event.
Jacoby is the first swimmer from Alaska to make the U.S. Olympic swimming team, and the shot of fans in her hometown of Seward celebrating her victory provided what is likely to be one of the lasting images of the Summer Games.
"A lot of big-name swimmers come from big, powerhouse clubs," Jacoby said, per the Associated Press. "Me coming from a small club, in a state with such a small population, really shows everyone that you can do it no matter where you're from."
Out on the beach, with a tropical storm fast approaching, American surfer Carissa Moore won the first-ever Olympic gold medal in women's surfing, defeating South Africa's Bianca Buitendag in the final. Moore, born and raised in Hawaii, said winning the event was a dream come true.
"I still feel like I'm going to wake up and I'm going to be like, 'OK, wait, it's finals day,'" she said, per the New York Times' John Branch.
Brazil's Italo Ferreira took the gold in the men's event, easily outpointing Japan's Kanoa Igarashi.
Tennis has largely flown under the radar with so much attention focused on the medal events, but it briefly surged to the forefront when the Czech Republic's Marketa Vondrousova defeated Japan's Naomi Osaka 6-1, 6-4 in the third round of women's singles play.
Osaka, who had the honor of lighting the Olympic torch in the opening ceremony on Friday, played below her usual standards in the match. She had 32 unforced errors and her serve wasn't as sharp as it normally is. Vondrousova played cleanly and made good use of drop shots to keep Osaka off-balance and pull off the upset.
"I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this," Osaka said, per ESPN.com. "I think it's maybe because I haven't played in the Olympics before and for the first year [it] was a bit much.''
Japan can still pin its tennis hopes to Kei Nishikori, who defeated American Marcos Giron in the second round of men's singles play and is in the quarterfinals of the men's doubles tournament alongside teammate Ben McLachlan.