The Olympic women’s soccer gold-medal match between Canada and Sweden has been moved from Friday morning in Tokyo to the evening in Yokohama.
There were concerns about playing in the heat with an 11 a.m. kickoff in the National Stadium, and the final couldn’t be played there later in the day due to the venue being used for track and field.
So the match has been moved about an hour outside Tokyo to Yokohama, which is also staging the men’s final Saturday night.
The announcement was made yesterday at Sweden’s pre-match news conference. The game as scheduled would have occurred during primetime in the United States, which lost in the semifinals.
Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd each scored a pair of goals and the United States won the bronze medal in women’s soccer at the Tokyo Olympics with a 4-3 victory over Australia.
It was arguably the best the Americans had looked during the course of a rocky tournament that opened with an uncharacteristic 3-0 loss to Sweden. Rapinoe set the tone early with a goal scored directly from a corner kick.
The loss spoiled the Australians’ first-ever trip to the medal round at the Olympics. No Australian soccer team, men or women, has ever won a medal.
The Matildas were the underdogs against the United States, the top-ranked team in the world and the defending World Cup champions who came to Japan hoping for a fifth gold medal. But the Americans struggled at times during the tournament, including a 1-0 loss to Canada in the semifinals. MDT/AP
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