Key events
A queen of the Paris track was crowned last night when Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone clinched Team USA’s 100th medal of these Olympics – a gold in the 400m hurdles with a world record thrown in for good measure. Bryan Armen Graham penned this wonderful piece overnight:
McLaughlin-Levrone, who turned 25 on Wednesday, first broke the 400m hurdles world record at the 2021 US Olympic trials, shattered it at the Tokyo Games and has lowered it four more times since, including by nearly three-tenths of a second on Thursday night. In doing so, she became the first American to retain an Olympic title in an individual track race since Michael Johnson’s back-to-back 400m golds in 1996 and 2000. Her winning time of 50.37sec would have been good for third in the second 400m flat semi-final on Wednesday. The owner of seven of the 400m hurdles’ 13 fastest times ever, it’s been more than five years since she lost in the event. So smooth, so efficient, not a wasted movement.
When these Paris Olympics end on Sunday I’m going to miss photo galleries like this…
Raven Saunders made a splash during the women’s shot put qualification by appearing in a full-face black mask and sunglasses, along with dyed green and purple hair. “I’m in full form,” the American said of the outfit. “I had to remind the people, I am who I am.”
Speaking of US dominance of basketball, Serbia almost pulled off one of the all-time Olympics upsets when they had the men’s “Dream Team” on the rack and 76-62 down at the start of the final quarter of last night’s semi-final. Coming into the Paris Games, the US had won gold in eight of the last 10 Olympics, with their last stumble coming in 2004 when they won bronze. Luckily, Steph Curry came to the rescue….
Photograph: Mark J Terrill/AP
Heard about the Opal who wanted Gold? Australian basketball GOAT Lauren Jackson is at her fifth Olympics and is yet to win the shiniest medal of all. Instead, at every turn, Jackson and her Opals teammates have been foiled by Team USA whom they meet tonight in the semi-final at Bercy Arena. Can they snap the hoodoo and send Lauren out a winner? Kieran Pender asks: why not?
The torrent of gold Australia has experienced at these Paris Olympics has finally slowed to a trickle. Not that the green and gold army will be resting on the laurels of their 18 gold so far. They have a few ironmen and ironwomen in the fire on Day 14…
The first event of Day 14 will be the men’s 10km marathon swim in the Seine. If yesterday’s women’s event was anything to go by, the blokes are in for a tough day. Powerful currents played havoc with the field and their efforts to negate them saw many competitors hugging the rutted and ivy-covered walls of the river. That tactic was effective in avoiding the worst of the swirls and eddies but also resulted in plenty of skinned knuckles and skinned feet. If you like blood in the water with your sweat and tears this is the event for you.
In the end, Australia’s Moesha Johnson was beaten in the home stretch by Netherlands iron-woman Sharon van Rouwendaal. Silver-medallist Johnson was gracious in defeat and saluted her training partner:
I knew coming under that bridge as well, no matter which way I took, Sharon might have taken the other option,’ Johnson says. ‘I think we’ve just been together in training through some tough times, and to be there together on the podium just means so much.
If you’re a sports fan for whom too much sport is never enough and yet the athletic endeavour involved in clicking through this link is an exertion too far, here’s your Day 14 buffet of blood, sweat and tears in a handy shopping list cut, pasted and bolded. Better put another pot of coffee on the hob…
15:30: Open Water Swimming Men’s 10km
17:00: Golf Women’s Stroke Play Round 3
17:00: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Last 32
17:09: Taekwondo Women’s Welterweight 57-67kg Last 16
17:21: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Last 16
18:00: Diving Men’s 10m Platform Preliminary Round
18:00: Gymnastics – Rhythmic Women’s Group All-Around Qualification
18:00: Table Tennis Men’s Team Bronze Medal Match (France v Japan)
18:05: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump
18:15: Sport Climbing Men’s Bouldering & Lead Combined Final – Bouldering
18:30: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Semifinal
18:40: Athletics Women’s 4 x 400m Relay Round 1
18:50: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Semifinal
19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 57kg Repechage Round
19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 86kg Repechage Round
19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 57kg Repechage Round
19:05: Athletics Men’s 4 x 400m Relay Round 1
19:07: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg Qualification
19:10: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Semifinal
19:14: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 125kg 1/8 Final
19:14: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 62kg 1/8 Final
19:21: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg 1/8 Final
19:23: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Javelin Throw – Group A
19:30: Athletics Men’s 800m Semifinal
19:30: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Semifinal
20:05: Athletics Women’s 100m Hurdles Semifinal
20:10: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 125kg Quarterfinal
20:10: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 62kg Quarterfinal
20:13: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 2 (rescheduled)
20:17: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg Quarterfinal
20:22: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 3 (rescheduled)
20:31: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 4
20:32: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Javelin Throw – Group B
20:35: Sport Climbing Men’s Bouldering & Lead Combined Final – Lead
20:40: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Final B
20:40: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 5
20:49: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 6
20:50: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Final A
21:00: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Final B
21:00: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Riding
21:00: Water Polo Men Classification Round 5-8 (Italy v Spain)
21:10: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Final A
21:20: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Final B
21:30: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Final A
21:40: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Final B
21:40: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Fencing Bonus Round
21:50: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Final A
22:00: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint Qualification
22:00: Hockey Women Bronze Medal Match (Argentina v Belgium)
22:20: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Swimming
22:30: Gymnastics – Rhythmic Women’s Individual All-Around Final
22:30: Taekwondo Women’s Welterweight 57-67kg Quarterfinal
22:35: Water Polo Men Semifinal (Serbia v USA)
22:40: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Laser-Run
22:40: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Quarterfinal
22:41: Cycling – Track Men’s Sprint Semifinal
22:48: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint 1/32 Final
23:00: Diving Women’s 3m Springboard Final
23:00: Football Women Bronze Medal Match (Spain v Germany)
23:00: Table Tennis Men’s Team Gold Medal Match (China v Sweden)
23:00: Weightlifting Men’s 89kg
23:38: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint Repechage Round 1
Here are Simon Burnton’s Day 14 highlights…
Friday 9 August Day 14
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Women’s breaking
The breaking competition, incongruously held at the historic Place de la Concorde, lasts only two days with the women’s (AKA b-girls) event today and the men (or b-boys) tomorrow. Nicka – the Lithuanian Dominika Banevic, who has been breaking since the age of eight – won the world and European championships last year aged 16 but the two Asian Games finalists, 671 (China’s Liu Qingyi) and Ami (Japan’s Ami Yuasa) are seen as the breakers most likely to make tonight’s final throw down.
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Wrestling: men’s 86kg final
There have been rivalries, and then there was David Taylor v Hassan Yazdani. For years it seemed nothing could keep these representatives of clashing cultures of the USA and Iran apart: in Tokyo both breezed through the competition before Taylor’s last-second takedown saw him edge a thrilling final 4-3, and they’ve gone on to meet in the final of every major championship since. But in a stunning upset Taylor, by then unbeaten in two and a half years, lost to Aaron Brooks in the US trials and promptly retired to go into coaching, and this is the start of a new era.
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Hockey: women’s final
The Netherlands have dominated women’s field hockey for years: of the 15 World Cups they have reached 13 finals and won nine, including the last three in a row; of 16 European championships they have reached 14 finals and won 12, including the last four; and they have reached the last five Olympic finals, winning three. They top both the men’s and women’s world rankings, the latter by a huge margin. It would be a major surprise if they are not involved in today’s two medal games, but can anyone stop them?
Another Day 13 gold worth its weight in platinum was that won by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo. The unfancied 21-year-old beat none other than the USA’s 100m winner Noah Lyles to the tape and even sacrificed a few split seconds off his time to thump his chest moments before the line.
Turns out that was an act of triumph but also a tribute to his mother, who died in May. Tebogo later revealed he had taken three to four weeks off because he was struggling to process her death. But with the Paris Games looming and the race of a lifetime nigh, he set his jaw and took to the track wearing spikes that carried his mother’s date of birth.
It wasn’t really clicking for me that she’s really gone. For me, I have to find the reason why I started my athletics journey and why I should continue going on. It was really a beautiful race for me. She’s watching up there, and she’s really, really happy.
Of all those hundreds of medals, one was perhaps a little more precious. Arshad Nadeem wrote his name into history by winning the men’s javelin final yesterday and becoming the first track and field athlete from Pakistan to win gold at an Olympics. Nadeem entered this competition an underdog but the javelin thrower overcame the odds to become his country’s first medallist since 1992 (when it won a bronze medal in men’s hockey in Barcelona). Nadeem’s record-breaking throw also made him only the fourth athlete to cross the 90m mark in the men’s javelin at an Olympics.
The medal tally of these Paris Olympics continues to expand but the top three remain intact. The USA still lead the way with 30 gold and China sit close behind with 29. There’s daylight between those two superpowers and Australia who sit third with 18 gold.
Preamble
Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of the 14th official day of competition at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Day 13 was a veritable bourguignon of drama, glory and controversy. The US became the first nation to hit 30 gold medals thanks largely to the brilliance of their track athletes. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone led the way by beating her own world record in the women’s 400m hurdles before the Americans clinched more gold through Tara Davis-Woodhall in the women’s long jump. Then Grant Holloway, three-time world champion and silver medallist in Tokyo, cruised to victory in the 110m hurdles.
The only bittersweet moment for the US team came when Noah Lyles was deprived for gold in the 200m final. He had a reasonable excuse, but surely not even the gloriously immodest Lyles couldn’t deny Botswana its first medal of these Games – a gold, no less – when Letsile Tebogo ran the fastest race of his life to deny Lyles the 100-200m double.
There were no medals to be had for Great Britain in track and field on Day 13 but Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the heptathlon after four events in the seven-event discipline and there was a ray of gold for Team GB in the form of Ellie Aldridge becoming the first Olympic gold medallist in kitesurfing. Similarly, Australia’s river of gold dried up on a day which delivered “only” two silver and two bronze medals, while the Stingers earned a shot at gold with a dramatic comeback win over Team USA in the women’s water polo.
We have a long good Friday before the final weekend of this XXXIII Olympiad. Will Day 14 signal a golden age for your team?