The COVIDLympics, Day -2: It begins...

• I'll do the changeover here.  I'd been using my local time zone, but figure about 5 Pacific is the start of the new day of competition most days, so we go from there.
• USA headline:  The USA women's soccer team is about to take their worst loss in 15 years.  3-0 down to the team which eliminated them in Rio, Sweden, and they aren't looking good at all!!!
• An Australian equestrian athlete has been thrown out of the Games for testing positive for at least the after-effects (a metabolite) of cocaine!
• Zach LeVine and Jerami Grant have both cleared protocols and will rejoin Team USA for the men's basketball tournament next week.  The NBA Finals are now over (Scott Foster did his job!!!), so the team will be full strength for their Sunday opener, barring any more COVID problems.
• And 3-0 is the final.  A major blow to USA medal hopes in soccer.
• ESPN reports that the 2007 and 1997 games are the only other two games at which the USA lost by 3 or more goals.
• It is now official:  Brisbane, should the movement survive to 2032, will be the 2032 Summer Olympics host.  Five of the 77 members at the meeting voted against the bid on a yes-no vote.
• The chief of the World Health Organization with a chilling, yet more correct than he realizes, comment about the coronavirus at the IOC meeting today:  The world will see the end of the coronavirus pandemic when it chooses to do what is necessary to end it.  And I don't see that happening for a while...   
• The IOC meeting will continue on the closing day of Tokyo 202(1).
  
• Even with events starting today, $128,000 has been placed with UK betting outfit Betfair on a prop bet that the Games will be cancelled before the Opening Ceremony takes place at about 4 AM Pacific time on Friday.  Once a 90-1 proposition, it has been bet down to 10-1.
• Reuters is reporting that the Opening Ceremonies on Friday are set to be a more "sobering" experience than previous OC's.
• The US women's gymnastics team, expected to contribute heavily if the USA is to top the medal table in Tokyo, will not be staying at the Olympic Village, with one alternate already positive for the coronavirus and another in contact tracing.
• World number one skeet shooter and gold-medal favorite Amber Hill of Great Britain is out of the Olympics:  COVID, confirmed by test before she was to leave for Tokyo.
• KARMA, BIOTCH!!!  Taylor Crabb, out of the Olympics with a COVID diagnosis.  Crabb, as reported a couple days ago, weaseled his way into the Games after being banned TWICE for misconduct with underage girls.
• If there are any kneeling protests during the Games, the IOC has prohibited it's social-media team from publicizing them.
• Women's basketball player Sue Bird and baseball player (Marlins organization) and former Olympic silver-medalist in speed-skating Eddy Alvarez will carry the US flag in the Opening Ceremony.