Chase Kalisz got things rolling, claiming the first U.S. gold at the Olympic pool.By the time the morning was done, the powerhouse team had a whole bunch of medals.Six of them in all, quite a start Sunday for the Americans in the post-Michael Phelps era."I'm happy to be here and kick the U.S. off," said Kalisz, who won the 400-meter individual medley.There was room for others to shine, as well. Host Japan won a swimming gold, Tunisia claimed a surprising spot atop the medal podium, and the mighty Australian women set the first world record of the competition in the 4x100 freestyle relay.The Americans certainly had no complaints about their opening-day performance. In Phelps' record-setting career, which encompassed five Summer Games, they never won six medals in the first session of finals."A pretty good start for the U.S.," said Kieran Smith, who in his first major international meet snagged a bronze in the men's 400 freestyle. "We executed today. I'm really proud of us."The Aussies, who hope to challenge America's dominance in the pool, picked up three medals Sunday. The free relay was never in doubt, not with a dynamic quartet that included sisters Bronte and Cate Campbell swimming the leadoff and anchor legs, respectively, joined by Meg Harris and Emma McKeon. McKeon blew away the field on the third leg and Cate Campbell touched in 3 minutes, 29.69 seconds. At the medal ceremony, the sisters touchingly draped their medals around each other's neck.The silver went to Canada in 3:32.78, while the Americans capped their morning with one more medal to surpass their best first-day haul from the Phelps era (five in both 2004 and 2008). With Simone Manuel anchoring the relay, they touched just behind their rivals to the north in 3:32.81.Kalisz was the first U.S. medal winner of the Tokyo Games, and Jay Litherland — who was born in Osaka — made it a 1-2 finish for the Americans by rallying on the freestyle leg to claim the silver. Brendon Smith of Australia earned the bronze.In the 400 free, 18-year-old Tunisian Ahmed Hafnaoui was the stunning winner from lane eight, his victory punctuated with loud screams that could be heard throughout the largely empty arena."I was surprised with myself," said Hafnaoui, who joined Ous Mellouli as a gold medalist from the north African country. "I couldn't believe it until I touched the wall and saw the 1 (on the scoreboard)."Hafnaoui finished in 3:43.26, followed by Australia's Jack McLoughlin and Kieran Smith. The top three were separated by less than a second after eight laps of the pool.The U.S. women did their part, too. Japan's Yui Ohashi won gold in the women's 400 IM with an electric breaststroke leg, but two Americans were right in her wake. Emma Weyant earned the silver, while the bronze went to Hali Flickinger."After we saw (Kalisz and Litherland go 1-2), we kind of looked at each other and said, 'It's our turn,'" Weyant said. "I think that really got our team going."Kalisz, a protégé and former training partner of Phelps, touched first in 4:09.42. Litherland was next in 4:10.28, just one-10th of a second ahead of Brendon Smith.Kalisz flexed his muscles and then climbed atop the lane rope, splashing the water while a contingent of his teammates cheered him from the stands at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. "U-S-A! U-S-A!" they chanted. Kalisz was the silver medalist in the grueling event at the Rio Games five years ago. Now, at age 27, he's the best in the world at using all four strokes."That one was the most special type of pain," Kalisz said. "I had vowed that I was going to make that hurt as much as possible and give my absolute best to accomplish this."Litherland came over to give the winner a hug, having ensured the Americans got off to the best possible start at the pool."To come back and do this with Chase means a lot," said Litherland, who finished fifth in the 400 IM at Rio.After putting on their medals during a masked-up victory ceremony, Kalisz and Litherland walked around the deck arm-in-arm. No social distancing for them.The Americans seized their chance after Japanese star Daiya Seto stunningly failed to advance to the final, having finished ninth in the preliminaries after making a tactical error attempting to save his energy for the medal race.The finals were held in the morning Tokyo time rather than their usual evening slot, a nod to U.S. television network NBC, which wanted to show the finals live in prime time back in America.That was the same format used at the 2008 Beijing Games, where Phelps won a record eight gold medals. He retired after Rio, having captured 23 gold medals overall, but the Americans still have plenty of star power for the post-Phelps era.Ohashi helped to make up for Seto's flop in the men's IM. She pulled away in the breast to win in 4:32.08.Weyant gave chase in the freestyle leg but settled for silver in 4:32.76. Flickinger was third in 4:34.90, while Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu, the defending champion, faded to fifth.The only people in the stands of the 15,000-seat arena were media, VIPs, officials and swimmers who weren't competing Sunday. It was an eerily quiet atmosphere at times, though many ignored requests by Japanese organizers to refrain for any sort of cheering to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.There was a drum in the stands, as well as a few horns to spice things up. In a striking touch before the first race, the loudspeakers blared the song "Pompeii" by the British band Bastille, which includes the lyrics, "But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?"In the pool, it was business at usual. But it certainly felt like plenty had changed in an Olympics that were delayed a year by a worldwide pandemic and are finally being staged under tight restrictions that included a ban on all fans.The Americans had no complaints.Even with Phelps looking down from a broadcast seat, they are off to a dynamic start at the Olympic pool.

At 45, Jake Gibb is almost certainly at his last Summer Games. And yet the four-time Olympian offered to give it up for the remote chance that Taylor Crabb could have the experience even once.“At the end, Jake and (coach Rich Lambourne) told me it was my decision to make. They’ll stick by me whatever I want to do,” said Crabb, who tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew from the Olympics so that Gibb could replace him on two-person beach volleyball team.“I was not going to risk this opportunity for Jake and Rich,” Crabb told The Associated Press. “This is Jake’s last year. This is everything he’s worked for. I want him to go out on top. This is our goal coming into it. And I want to see him fulfill that.”Although he was vaccinated, asymptomatic and had provided the required negative results before boarding his flight, Crabb came back positive during intake testing on Sunday after arriving in Tokyo. He continued to submit samples, hoping for a negative test that would have allowed him to return to the Games, but he withdrew on Thursday night, hours before the deadline for the U.S. governing body to submit its roster.Alternate Tri Bourne was to join Gibb on the sand on Sunday night for their first match, against Italy.Crabb told the AP from his quarantine hotel in Tokyo that Gibb offered to forfeit the first match and even the second one, on Wednesday, on the chance that the extra time would allow the Olympic first-timer to provide the negative tests that would have allowed him to play.Two losses to start the Olympics almost certainly would have doomed their chances of moving on to the knockout round. But there also was no guarantee that Crabb would have gotten out of quarantine in time for the third and final match of the round robin.“There was a risk of me still having dead virus in me and testing positive,” he said. “And if there was a 1% chance that I would test positive and ruin this moment for our team, I was not going to let that happen.”Instead, Crabb has been in his hotel room for more than 23 hours a day, FaceTiming with friends and family until he will be allowed to board a plane, perhaps as early as Tuesday night. He also has been helping his former team scout opponents.“It still makes me feel important and part of the team, which is huge for me,” he said. “Because if I didn’t have that, along with the devastation of not being able to play with them, that would have been worse for sure.”

Related video above: Olympic surfing bittersweet for Native HawaiiansJohanne Defay of France was devastated when the mega sponsor Roxy dropped her right before she became a pro surfer in 2014, shattering her confidence and threatening her career altogether."They were just like 'Oh, you don't look this way, you know, for, like, pictures," Defay said. "And I just felt like I was never doing enough or I wasn't fitting in, in the way that they wanted for their brand."Now, Defay is headed to the Tokyo Olympics for surfing's debut at the Summer Games, buoyed by an upset win against reigning world champion Carissa Moore at the high-intensity Surf Ranch competition last month.Though there's much excitement and renewed enthusiasm for the women's game, years of objectification, pay disparities and an opportunity gap have taken their toll. Industry leaders from the professional World Surf League and the developmental USA Surfing say they're committed to righting the wrongs that have long held female surfers back in the male-dominated sport.The mental, financial and logistical roadblocks for women in surfing date back centuries.Hawaiians who invented the sport treated it as an egalitarian national pastime that all genders, ages and social classes enjoyed, according to Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, a Hawaii surfing historian. But Christian missionaries who arrived on the island tried to ban surfing in large part because of nudity — surfing naked was common at the sports' inception. Though locals largely defied the colonizers, female surfers saw their ranks shrink disproportionately."When it comes to controlling nudity, it's about controlling female bodies," said Walker, also a BYU-Hawaii history professor.Even for Moore, the child prodigy who could beat the boys before growing up to be — at 18 years old — the youngest World Surf League champion in history, said she's also struggled with her body image. Moore is 28 now and has spoken openly about starving herself as a teenager, only to binge eat later, and once even trying to force herself to throw up."Everyone had this idea of what a surfer girl should look like. And there were a lot of 'hot lists' or the 'cutest surfer girl list,'" Moore said. "I never made them, but then you see who actually made them and you feel like: 'Oh, I guess, like, that's what I should look like.'"Modern day professional surfing in a previous iteration had a decentralized approach that left brand sponsors in charge of many of the competition logistics, which would vary widely from one event to another, said Greg Cruse, USA Surfing CEO. And though it wasn't an official rule or standard, there was clearly a preference for the men's game. Surfing schedules are determined in the morning based on what the ocean waves are like, and it was no secret that the boys' and men's competitions would be given the best surf conditions, usually in the morning. Female surfers took the scraps, if they were invited at all."There'd be the event directors and they would kind of schedule things the way they wanted to schedule and there would be bias from the outdated patriarchy. It's changed immensely," Cruse said. "It took a while for the women to complain about it."A turning point came in 2013, when new ownership took over the professional league and the rebranded WSL began to prioritize standardizing the competitions and rebuilding the women's events, said Jessi Miley-Dyer, a retired pro surfer who now runs the WSL's competition as senior vice president.In 2019, the WSL as the leaders of the $10 billion surfing industry also began offering equal prize money for all its events, making it one of the few professional sports leagues to achieve pay equity."It was an important statement to make around the value of our athletes. More than anything, it speaks to the emphasis on women's surfing. We believe men and women are valued the same," Miley-Dyer said. "It's the right thing to do."The announcement was emotional for many, including Miley-Dyer. Back in 2006 when she won a pro event, she earned just $10,000 — a third of what the top male surfer took home."I cried because it means so much," Miley-Dyer said. "I had also retired, so it wasn't something for me, but it felt something to me and so many people like me."Next year will be the first time the WSL will include its women surfers at the famous Pipe Masters competition, allowing them the chance to ride the Banzai Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii, considered by many the best waves in the world.The WSL has also committed to hosting the same number of events and in the same locations for both the men and women, though the competition at the highest level today still has twice as many male competitor spots — 36 — compared to the women's game.In terms of skill and experience, the damage caused by decades of sexism has not yet been fully reversed.It used to be that girls could begin competitive surfing training at about 11 years old while boys began as early as 4, Cruse said, adding that USA Surfing has closed this experience gap.And surfboard makers, like many male leaders in the sport, used to believe that girls and women weren't strong enough to paddle or ride powerfully enough to pull off airs, or aerial maneuvers, so they were given bigger surfboards that are physically easier to ride, but limited their ability to progress into more explosive moves.So while airs have for years become the gold standard in the men's competition, it is rarely done by the top female surfers today. Moore, the U.S. surfer to beat at the Olympics, is the first woman to land an air during competition, a milestone achieved just recently but has no doubt electrified the women's game and its future."They started demanding getting the same type of equipment that allows you to generate more speed and turn sharper and harder," Cruse said. "Right now, there's a group of girls coming up. The girls under 16 are better at airs than any of the women in the WSL. They already have the air game and it's next level and there's going to be a changing of the guard."For Defay, she persevered during her first year without corporate backing. She remembers feeling humiliated hearing others take for granted their private car services arranged by their sponsors after Defay arrived on a two-hour bus ride in order to save money.She's thankful fellow pro surfer Jeremy Flores helped sponsor her "insane" rookie season, as a nine-month season can cost as much as $80,000 in travel costs alone.Now, they're equals, teammates in Japan on the French Olympic surfing team.The 27-year-old Defay's journey to the pros has made her hungrier than ever to prove her talents and worth at the world's most elite sporting event. And she'll do it with the body she has learned to appreciate, regardless of how any sponsor may have judged her before.Though Roxy didn't respond to requests for comment on Defay's past sponsorship deal, the surfer declares this:"I like my shoulders now and my butt," Defay said with a smirk. "It's just what it is and what makes me surf this way, so I try to celebrate it."

The president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee hinted Friday that even local fans may be barred from venues when the games open in just under two months.Fans from abroad were ruled out months ago as being too risky during a pandemic.The prospect of empty venues at the postponed Olympics became more likely when the Japanese government decided Friday to extend a state of emergency until June 20 as COVID-19 cases continue to put the medical system under strain.The state of emergency was to have been lifted on Monday. The extension in Tokyo, Osaka and other prefectures raises even more questions if the Olympics can be held at all.Organizers and the IOC are insistent they will go ahead despite polls in Japan showing 60-80% want them called off."We would like to make a decision as soon as possible (on fans), but after the state of emergency is lifted we will assess," organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto said at her weekly briefing.Hashimoto promised to decide on local fans by April, then put it off until early June. Now the deadline is within a month of the July 23 opening date."There are many people who are saying that for the Olympic Games we have to run without spectators, although other sports are accepting spectators," Hashimoto said. "So we need to keep that in mind. We need to avoid that the local medical services are affected. We need to take those things into consideration before agreeing on the spectator count."Cancellation pressure grows daily on Tokyo and the IOC as more questions arise about the risks of bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes from more than 200 countries and territories into Japan, a country that has been largely closed off during the pandemic.The IOC says more than 80% of athletes and staff staying in the Olympic Village on Tokyo Bay will be vaccinated. They are expected to remain largely in a bubble at the village and at venues.In addition to athletes, tens of thousands of judges, officials, VIPs, media and broadcasters will also have to enter Japan.Earlier this week, the New England Journal of Medicine said in a commentary: "We believe the IOC’s determination to proceed with the Olympic Games is not informed by the best scientific evidence."It questioned the IOC’s so-called Playbooks, which spell out rules at the games for athletes, staff, media and others. The final edition will be published next month. Also this week, the Asahi Shimbun — the country's second-largest newspaper — said the Olympics should be canceled.The British Medical Journal last month in an editorial also asked organizers to "reconsider" holding the Olympics in the middle of a pandemic.On Thursday, the head of a small doctors' union in Japan warned that holding the Olympics could lead to the spread of variants of the coronavirus. He mentioned strains in India, Britain, South Africa and Brazil.Japan has attributed about 12,500 deaths to COVID-19, a relatively small number that has gone up steadily in the last few months. The vaccination rollout began slowly in Japan, but has moved more quickly in the last few days. Vaccinated people are estimated at about 5% of the population.The IOC, which often cites the World Health Organization as the source of much of its coronavirus information, has been steadfast in saying the games will happen. It receives about 75% of its income from selling broadcast rights, which is estimated to be $2 billion-$3 billion from Tokyo. That cashflow has been slowed by the postponement.Japan itself has officially spent $15.4 billion or organize the Olympics, and government audits suggest the figure is even higher.Senior IOC member Richard Pound told a British newspaper this week that "barring Armageddon" the games will take place. Last week, IOC vice president John Coates was asked if the Olympics would open, even if there were a state of emergency."Absolutely, yes," he replied.IOC President Thomas Bach has also said "everyone in the Olympic community" needs to make sacrifices to hold the Olympics.The message got pushback from Japanese social and local media, some of which noted that the IOC and the so-called Olympic Family are booked into many of Tokyo's top five-star hotels during the games.Hashimoto defended the IOC's leadership."The IOC has a strong determination to hold the games," she said. "So such a strong will is translated into strong words. That’s how I feel."