Ryan Crouser on course in the shot put as he not only broke the Olympic record once, but four times

Just follow the heavy shot put and be rewarded by a statement from the United States’ Ryan Crouser.

In June, he gave track and field fans a glimpse of what to expect at these 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. It was the Olympic trials for the event, and on his fourth throw of the night, he shattered the world record with a 23.37-meter throw.

So when he stepped onto the field in Japan, he had more high hopes, as his first toss set an Olympic record. On his second throw, he erased that one and set another. Then he just accomplished it again and again, creating Games records in three attempts, and just fell short of his world best by throwing 23.30 meters to claim his gold medal.

Another American, Joe Kovachs, won the silver, and Tom Walsh of New Zealand took the bronze. At the 2016 Rio Games.  it was the same one, two, three in the medals.

As for Crouser had one thing to say when he finished. He looked at the camera and held up a sign: “Grandpa, we did it, 2020 Olympic champion.”

In a totally different event, 17-year-old Nevin Harrison of the United States was the lone American to gain the finals in the 2019 canoe/kayak sprint, and won the gold medal.

Now, at age 19, she was again the only American canoe or kayak sprinter to even qualify for the Olympics, and on Thursday she won the gold again by  winning the 200 meters sprint, the shortest race of the event.

Harrison’s medal was the first in canoe or kayak sprint for the United States since Greg Barton won four times in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Games (one of them with Norman Bellingham as his partner). But no American woman had  won a canoe/kayak sprint medal since 1964.

Then there was Katie Nageotte of the U.S. making her initial Olympic experience, and it was a memorable one as she cleared 16-feet three quarters of an inch to win the pole event gold..

“I was very nervous to even be here,” she said, “but felt more relaxed after my first vault. Just a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to show my gold medal to those back home.”

The United States women’s soccer team had to settle for bronze medals after getting past Australia, 4-3. It had come to Japan in search of gold. It is the prize the team always expects, the one it always believes it deserves.

This time, though, the opponents were better, the connections were’re there, and neither were the results after being shut down 3-0 in its opener against Sweden. Until Thursday, when it needed one last win, one last stand, in the bronze medal match to make something out of what could have been nothing.

The medal arrived in due course, with two goals each from two of the team’s oldest players, Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd in what might have been their final game in a major tournament.

“It’s obviously not the type of medal we wanted,” said Rapinoe, but she made sure they got it anyway.

And this wasn’t easy. The Aussies proved to be a determined opponent and made a go it in the last minute by scoring twice after falling behind 4-1. The  Americans even played the final four minutes with 10 players, out of substitutes, and having watched Alex Morgan limp off after a collision.

“You can’t win them all,” Lloyd said, “this was my eighth tournament and they’ve all had a different story line. They’ve all started and finished in a different fashion. Some have been pretty, some have been ugly, some we’ve just scraped by. This one we didn’t get by.”