Tokyo Olympics: Day-by-day guide to the key events, big stars and British medal hopes

[Animous]

The Olympics are here so what better way to plan your two weeks than with our day-by-day guide (all times BST).

Latest Olympics medal table

Times & channels for BBC's coverage

Who are Team GB's medal winners?

How are Team GB athletes doing?

What's new at the Tokyo Olympics?

Thursday, 5 August - day 13

Medal events: 27

Athletics (men's triple jump, men's shot put, men's 110m hurdles, men's 20km race walk, women's pole vault, men's 400m, women's heptathlon, men's decathlon), boxing (men's feather), canoe sprint (men's K1 200m, women's C1 200m, women's K1 500m, men's K2 1,000m), cycling (women's keirin, men's omnium), diving (women's 10m platform), hockey (men), karate (women's kata, women's kumite -55g, men's kumite -67kg), marathon swimming (men), skateboarding (men's park), sport climbing (men), table tennis (women's team), wrestling (women's freestyle 57kg, men's freestyle 57kg, men's freestyle 86kg).

Highlights

GB's reigning Olympic champion Liam Heath seeks to retain his sprint canoeing's men's K1 200m final at 03:25. Heath has since added two world titles but Hungary's Sandor Totka is shaping up to be a formidable rival.

The men's hockey final between Australia and Belgium starts at 11:00, with Germany facing India for bronze earlier.

The United States take on Australia in the first of the men's basketball semi-finals at 05:15. France face Slovenia at 12:00 in the second semi-final.

Brit watch

The men's marathon swim (which ends shortly before 01:30) will feature GB's Hector Pardoe, who won an Olympic qualifier in Portugal to book his place. Pardoe's training regime includes swimming 90km per week.

The athletics relays get under way with the women's 4x100m at 02:00. The first three from each round, and the two fastest losers, make the final and the big question is whether Dina Asher-Smith is fit enough to compete after pulling out of the 200m because of a hamstring problem. The men's 4x100m relay follows at 02:30.

Andrew Pozzi has an outside chance of a medal in the men's 110m hurdles final at 03:55, while Tom Bosworth goes in the men's 20km race walk at 04:30.

Holly Bradshaw, fourth at the last World Championships and fifth in Rio, competes in the women's pole vault (11:20-13:30). This year's world number one is American Katie Nageotte, who should challenge Greek Rio 2016 champion Katerina Stefanidi and world champion Anzhelika Sidorova for gold.

Commonwealth champion Galal Yafai fights for a place in boxing's men's flyweight final at 06:48.

Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Lois Toulson dive for GB in the women's 10m platform event (semi-finals 02:00 and final 07:00).

Matthew Walls will ride for GB in track cycling's omnium (07:30-10:30), after picking up world bronze last year. Two-time defending champion Jason Kenny and Jack Carlin seek to reach the quarter-finals of the men's sprint (07:48), with Kenny saying team-mate Carlin is GB's best bet for a medal.

World watch

Grenada's London 2012 champion Kirani James was the fastest qualifier for the men's 400m final but will face tough competition from world champion Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas. Rio champion Wayde van Niekerk failed to make the final, which starts at 13:00.

Anouk Vetter of the Netherlands is the overnight leader in the women's heptathlon, with defending champion Nafi Thiam only in third - and not even the top Belgian athlete (team-mate Noor Vidts is second overall after four events). British world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson pulled out on Wednesday with a calf injury. The final event - the 800m - starts at 13:30.

Ashton Eaton has retired, having won the decathlon in 2012 and 2016, so the crown in the 10-event athletics bonanza is up for grabs. Canadian Damian Warner has a significant lead after day one from Australian Ashley Moloney but German world champion Niklas Kaul is out after sustaining an injury in the final event on Wednesday. The deciding 1500m race starts at 13:40.

Meanwhile, the men's shot put final (03:05-04:15) will feature Ryan Crouser, the American who broke the event's 31-year-old world record in the weeks leading up to the Games. Crouser appropriately described breaking that record as "a huge weight lifted".

A custom-built park on Tokyo Bay will welcome the men's park skateboarding finalists (04:30-05:20). Hawaiian Heimana Reynolds is a leading contender for gold after winning the world title in 2019, his breakthrough year. Reynolds' favourite training technique is rock running: picking up a heavy rock then using it to run, weighed down, along the ocean floor off the coast of Hawaii. And watch out for 'Danish Destroyer' Rune Glifberg - who at 46 is old enough to be the father of some of his fellow competitors.

Players will be hoping for cooler conditions when the second round of the women's golf tournament takes places from 23:30-08:00.

Expert knowledge

Karate is one of the final sports to get under way in Tokyo (02:00-13:40) as it makes its Olympic debut. There are two disciplines. In kata, you compete on your own and demonstrate offensive and defensive moves against a virtual opponent. You score points for technique, timing and athleticism. In kumite, which unlike kata is divided into weight classes, you spar against rivals in a format more familiar to people who've seen the likes of judo or taekwondo. GB won't have any athletes in this year's karate events.

Namibian teens vow to fight Olympics testosterone ban

Friday, 6 August - day 14

Medal events: 23

Athletics (women's 20km race walk, men's 50km race walk, women's javelin, men's 5,000m, women's 400m, women's 1500m, women's 4x100m relay, men's 4x100m relay), beach volleyball (women), boxing (men's heavy), cycling (women's madison, men's sprint), football (women), hockey (women), karate (men's kata, women's kumite -61kg, men's kumite -75kg), modern pentathlon (women), sport climbing (women), table tennis (men's team), wrestling (women's freestyle 53kg, men's freestyle 74kg, men's freestyle 125kg).

Highlights

Women's football reaches its Olympic final at 03:00. The United States have won four of the six Olympic women's football tournaments, but lost to Canada this time.

In hockey, it's a different story. Britain clinched Olympic gold in dramatic fashion in 2016, winning a late-night penalty shootout against the Netherlands in Rio. But things haven't been so easy for the home nations since. England, beaten 2-0 by the Netherlands in the quarter-finals of 2018's World Cup, are now ranked fifth in the world and the Dutch have been dominant. The final takes place on Friday from 11:00.

Laura Muir has been there or thereabouts for a medal in the women's 1500m (13:50) for years without managing to reach the podium at outdoor world or Olympic level. For Tokyo, Muir has dropped the 800m distance to focus purely on converting her 1500m potential into a medal. Kenya's Faith Kipyegon may be difficult to dislodge from the top step of the podium - the Rio champion lowered her national record just before this year's Games.

At the velodrome, the madison has been restored to the Olympic programme (the men's madison was dropped after 2008, while the women's madison is making its debut in Tokyo). The madison, which involves teams of two riders, is all about tactics and endurance. If you haven't watched it before, you'll probably be relying on the commentators to follow what's happening. Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny ride in the madison for GB at 09:15.

Friday could be Shauna Coxsey's big day after years of build-up to the Olympic debut of her sport, climbing (10:30-14:20). Expect her to excel in the speed and bouldering sections, meaning her success could depend on how she handles the lead climbing, which measures how far up a wall she can get. The big unknown is how she has recovered from a persistent back injury. Slovenia's Janja Garnbret is widely expected to take gold.

Brit watch

Everybody loves the drama of a good 4x100m relay (14:30-14:50), the track equivalent of a penalty shootout. Names can be made, heroes and villains created in the simple passing (or not) of a baton. Britain has had a reasonable amount of relay success lately - both teams took world silver in 2019 and the men were world champions two years earlier.

World watch

Generally speaking, beach volleyball has been dominated at the Olympics by the United States and Brazil - both being countries where playing volleyball on a beach has a certain appeal. But that's changing. Three of the past four world titles in the women's event (02:00-04:50) have gone to other nations, the latest being won by Canada. Friday's medal games will help to illuminate whether that shift in power has reached the Olympic stage.

Rhythmic gymnastics begins on Friday with individual all-around qualification (02:20-09:45). This sport is basically 'the other gymnastics' to British viewers used to watching only artistic gymnastics, since Britain has barely ever entered the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics, which involves routines completed with ribbons, hoops, balls and clubs to complement the performance. Russia dominates rhythmic gymnastics - this year, Dina and Arina Averina could force statisticians to look up the last time, if ever, twins took first and second place in a summer Olympic individual event.

Expert knowledge

Perennially one of the least penetrable Olympic sports, modern pentathlon's women's event takes place on Friday. In a nutshell, athletes swim, fence and ride a horse to end up with a points score that gives them a time handicap for a final event that's a bit like the Winter Olympics sport of biathlon: they must run a cross-country course while occasionally shooting at targets. The first one over the line after the run wins.

The showjumping is usually a highlight as pentathlon's rules require that the rider cannot use their own horse but instead gets supplied with one at random, sometimes with unexpected consequences. A horse named Pingping had an infamous meltdown at Beijing 2008, destroying the hopes of Belarusian rider Yahor Lapo.

Despite pentathlon's unlikely line-up of disciplines - designed to replicate the skills a soldier might have needed a century ago - Britain has a fine pedigree in the women's sport, with multiple Olympic medallists. Kate French and Jo Muir will compete for GB in Tokyo, and both have a shot at a medal. Events run from 06:30 to 12:15.

Saturday, 7 August - day 15

Medal events: 34

Artistic swimming (team), athletics (women's marathon, women's high jump, women's 10,000m, men's javelin, men's 1500m, women's 4x400m relay, men's 4x400m relay), baseball, basketball (men), beach volleyball (men), boxing (women's fly, men's fly, women's welter, men's middle), canoe sprint (women's C2 500m, men's C1 1,000m, women's K4 500m, men's K4 500m), cycling (men's madison), diving (men's 10m platform), equestrian (jumping team), football (men), golf (women), handball (men), karate (women's kumite +61kg, men's kumite +75kg), modern pentathlon (men), rhythmic gymnastics (individual), volleyball (men), water polo (women), wrestling (women's freestyle 50kg, men's freestyle 65kg, men's freestyle 97kg).

Highlights

More than 30 gold medals are available on Saturday so there's going to be action almost anywhere you look. The men's football final (12:30-15:00) will establish whether the gold medal is again heading to Latin or South America, having been won by Argentina twice, Mexico and Brazil at the past four Games. Hosts Japan reached the bronze-medal game in London nine years ago and will hope to do better in 2021.

Tom Daley has what is probably his last opportunity to claim the Olympic 10m platform title that has so far eluded him (07:00-08:30). A bronze medallist at London 2012, Daley has won the event's world title twice, most recently in 2017. Daley won 10m gold at a test event for Tokyo 2020 in May.

[Silent Watcher]

Avoid unnecessary posts such as 'Thank you', 'Welcome', etc. Such posts will be deleted and user will be warned if it happens again. If caught spamming, the following actions are applicable -

• First time - Warning
• Second time - 5000 Points will be deducted
• Third time - Ban for 7 days
• Fourth time - Permanent Ban

If the post helped you, reward the user by reacting to the post like this -