Residents in the Houston area talk about their support for Simone Biles, after the US gymnast's withdrawal from the team final in Tokyo over mental health concerns.

Simone Biles arrives at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre as she prepares for Tuesday's balance beam final at the Tokyo Olympics.

Middle-distance runner Abraham Guem was stranded in Japan for 21 months with four compatriots. Though his chances at the Tokyo Olympics look slim, he has more at stake than medals.

With Japan riding high in the medals table, public disapproval towards the event may be softening -- but a small, loud band of anti-Olympics activists do not plan to stop speaking out -- even if their demonstrations tend to draw just a few dozen people.

Baseball fan Masamitsu Takahashi opened his "izakaya" bar-restaurant in 2013, when Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Olympics. Never had he imagined that, eight years later, he would be watching Japan beating the USA in the quarter-final there all alone. Other bars have decided to stay open despite the state of emergency, but Takahashi says he prefers "to avoid the situation deteriorating to the point where there isn't even baseball".

When Tokyo last hosted the Olympics, in 1964, Itsuo Masuda was deeply depressed, struggling with his sexuality. This year he watched openly gay and transgender athletes compete with pride, in the most LGBTQ-friendly games yet.

Hurling a javelin, leaping over hurdles and sprinting beyond rows of tents to win gold, displaced children in the northwest of war-torn Syria stage their very own Olympics.

Residents in Shanghai react as China takes home 38 gold medals, the second-highest number at the Tokyo Olympics and one less than the United States. Morning commuters say they are proud of Chinese athletes' "historic" achievements, and look forward to Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, which they hope will be "better" than Tokyo's Games.

Timelapse footage shows the conversion of Tokyo's Aomi Urban Sports Park, the venue for 3x3 basketball and sport climbing during the Olympic Games, into a football 5-a-side venue for the Paralympic Games. The work started on 6 August after the sport climbing competition ended, and was completed on 23 August.

With his popularity in freefall, Yoshihide Suga has said he will not enter a race for party leadership key to determining Japan's next prime minister. Markets have responded positively to the prospect of a new leader.

As candidates jostle for the top leadership, analysts fear the country's challenges are too big and voters too impatient for any leader to remain in office long enough to make a tangible difference.

The skateboarding tricks that made Rayssa Leal the youngest Olympic medalist in Brazil's history push girls from early childhood to teenagers onto the country's slopes, where until recently they were the exception.