Paris 2024 Olympics day one: Australia gold, GB silver in rain-hit women’s time trial – live

A significant moment for Team GB in the pool earlier today.

Eva Okaro broke new ground in Paris on Saturday as she became the first black woman to represent Team GB in the pool at the Olympics, aged just 17.

Okaro swam the women’s 4x100m freestyle second leg, in a head-to-head against the USA’s two-time Olympic champion Simone Manuel, and helped Britain into second in their heat, qualifying for the final in seventh place.

In competing at la Defense Arena, Okaro joined Alice Dearing, the first black woman to swim for Team GB in the open water race in the Tokyo Games three years ago, as a pioneer for her sport.“I don’t really get distracted by things like that,” she told the PA news agency. “That’s one of my strengths, just being in the moment every time.

“But thinking about that now is exciting. Being the person a lot of young kids kind of look up to and I just like to keep trying to be that role model and try as hard as I can.

Cycling, Men’s Time Trial: Righto, 34 competitors in this final with Belgian Remco Evenepoel the man to beat, scheduled to depart last. To be honest, I’m finding it hard to concentrate as yet because the expert commentator on the world feed sounds like Matthew Hayden and that’s sent me down a wormhole. More soon.

Some anger over one of the bits from last night. Per Reuters…

A parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous fresco ‘The Last Supper’ featuring drag queens in the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris has sparked fury among the Catholic church and far-right politicians, while supporters praised its message of tolerance.

The unprecedented ceremony on the Seine River, which drew millions of viewers around the world, included a tableau celebrating the French capital’s vibrant nightlife and reputation as a place of tolerance, pleasure and subversiveness.

It recreated the famous biblical scene of Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles sharing a last meal before crucifixion, but with a group of drag queens, a transgender model and a naked singer made up as the Greek god of wine Dionysus.

The Catholic church in France criticised the segment.

“This ceremony has unfortunately included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity, which we very deeply deplore,” the Conference of French bishops said in a statement.

Far-right politicians in France and elsewhere took to social media to express their disgust.

“To all the Christians of the world who are watching the #Paris2024 ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation,” far-right politician Marion Marechal said in a post on X.

Her Italian counterpart, Matteo Salvini, added: “Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians in the world was really a very bad start, dear French. Sleazy.”

American billionaire Elon Musk, who cemented his shift towards right-wing politics by endorsing Donald Trump earlier this month, said it was “extremely disrespectful to Christians”.

France, while proud of its rich Catholic heritage, also has a long tradition of secularism and anti-clericalism. Blasphemy is not only legal, but also considered by many as an essential pillar of freedom of speech in a democratic society.

“In France, people are free to love how they please, are free to love whoever they want, are free to believe or not believe,” Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director, told reporters on Saturday when asked about critics.

Some commentators said the controversy was just another example of 21st century culture wars turbocharged by a 24-hour news cycle and social media.

“Everyone has to take offence it seems,” David Aaronovitch, a BBC Radio 4 presenter said on X. “Leonardo is one of the most famous images in the Western world and has been pastiched, parodied and altered tens of thousands of times.”

One of the pastiche’s protagonists was unapologetic, however.

“It wouldn’t be fun if there were no controversy. Wouldn’t it be boring if everyone agreed on this planet?” Philippe Katerine, the blue naked man in the scene, told BFM TV a day after the show. (Reporting by Michel Rose and Julien Pretot in Paris and Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

While we wait for the men’s 60kg, get this into you: the first of our daily photo galleries. These will be a joy throughout the fortnight, worth returning to often.

Judo, Women’s 48kg. We’re going upstairs to find out if Babulfath has been rubbed out for holding Tsunoda’s straight arm in an unfair way? No! The call goes her way! They continue. We’re 120 seconds into this with arm locks the main attacking move. Make that 165 seconds. “Absolutely engrossing,” says the commentator. Oh no! The Swedish teenager has been rubbed out. A bit blow-up follows. She did something called “snapping back,” getting her into strife. There’s a risk she’ll be kicked out of the bronze medal bout as well according to the TV expert. “You cannot do that. I cannot remember the last time I’ve seen that face-to-face with a referee.”

Well, it matters not: the 31-year-old from Japan, Natsumi Tsunoda, is advancing to the gold medal bout, where she’ll take on Bavuudorjiin Baasankhüü (Mongolia).

Judo, Women’s 48kg. It’s nil-all with a minute to go. The Swede is just 18 and to the untrained/naked eye looks the more likely to snag a point here. The gong has sounded – we’re into extra time now, which means golden score. Drama!

Judo, Women’s 48kg. I missed the start but let me tell you that an athlete with a sensational name from Mongolia, Bavuudorjiin Baasankhüü, will be grapping for gold! She blitzed Paraguay’s Gabriela Narvaez 10-zip in the first semi. We’ll learn more about her in just a moment though because the second semi is about to begin, between Sweden’s Tara Babulfath and Japan’s Natsumi Tsunoda. Fight!

Matt Ebden was smashed by Novak Djokovic earlier, but at least he retained his sense of humour about it all. He’ll be a much stronger show in the doubles.

“Hi Adam.” Good afternoon to you, Gary Naylor. “Can the live blog hive mind help here? I’d love to know the Olympian at these Games who has done the least to earn their spot. I’m sure less than the benchmark 10,000 hours will have been put in by some competitors (though many, many more by most of course), but did anyone start a sport this year and find themselves on a barge last night?”

A great question, one that I ponder myself every four years. No solution as yet. But who has come from the clouds to be here at Paris 2024 – does anyone know?

Men’s Rugby Sevens: At the semi-final stage here and the defending champs Fiji are on storming into another gold medal match! Sticking another three on the board with 40 seconds to go, they have an insurmountable 24-7 lead. What a terrific result. They will take on France for the biggest prize of all, who beat South Africa 19-5.

Another try for Fiji! “A stunning second half,” says the TV caller – the scores were level at 7-7 at break and piled on 24 unanswered points thereafter.

The final is a touch over three hours away, straight after the bronze medal match.

Phew. What’s next? Three gold medals so far today – China 2, Austalia 1. Three more this afternoon before a busy night: the men’s time trial and a couple over in the judo. I’ll plug into both after a lap around the grounds, so to speak.

Anna Henderson gets the silver for Team GB ahead of Chloe Dygert (USA) into bronze, by one second, who lost time in the scrap. A wonderful, joyous response from the veteran Brown – what a way to cap her career, an Olympic champion!

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: Nobody can catch Grace Brown! She’s going to be the Olympic champion! Dygert (USA) is competing for silver from here with 1km to go.

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: Brown crosses the line 90 seconds faster than Anna Henderson of Team GB! One rider to go, it’s the world champ Dygert. Scenes!

Kathy Watt won Australia’s first gold on day one at Barcelona 32 years ago. Can Grace Brown, another road racer from rural Victoria, do the same here in Paris? Would be a huge moment for the veteran, retiring after this season. Go on!

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: Just 10 riders to left to finish! Team GB’s Anna Henderson was through the time check quickest until Grace Brown overtook her just now. All eyes on the favourite Chloe Dygert (USA)… and she’s five seconds behind Brown! The Australian is in the gold medal position with 10 km to go!

The Aussie men got the points earlier against Spain in the hoops, much to the satisfaction of Mark O’Connor. “French colour commentator with the ‘awwww Pa-TEEEE’ before this even hits is your XXXIII Olympiad moment until further notice.”

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: 21 finisher, 14 to go. Up top for new, New Zealand’s Kim Cadzow who has a 5.65 second advantage over Audrey Cordon Ragot.

But the major story is whether all the big chances can stay on their bikes. Belgian Lotte Kopecky has taken a huge tumble losing her back wheel! She was the fastest yet to the 22km split – that’s a huge moment. She’s back on right away, made of tough stuff, but it’s going to require something special from her to get back.

Men’s Volleyball: Italy have finished the job against Brazil, knocking off the former giant 25-23, 27-25, 18-25, 25-21. In Men’s Basketball, Germany have easily accounted for Japan 97-77. Over at the Men’s Handball, it’s Holland 10-8 winners over Hungary. To the beach (shocker of a day for it) for Men’s Beach Volleyball, Sweden’s pair have knocked off the Australians in straight sets – how does that happen, exactly?! More team sports coming your way through the course of the afternoon.

Cycling, Women’s Time trial: Jeremy Boyce informs me that we are now up to four riders coming off, with American Taylor Knibbs falling twice. “She still posted a great time and had a face on as she passed the finish line, who can blame her?” That’s the good old Olympic spirit you’re going to hear plenty about.

Men’s Football: Argentina has gone 1-0 against Iraq in the 13th minute via Thiago Almada. Having won the gold medal the last two times, they are already in a spot of bother having lost to Morocco in a match played before the cauldron was lit.

Men’s Tennis: shock and awe stuff from Novak Djokovic, carving up Aussie Matt Ebden 6-0, 6-1 in 53 minutes – thanks for coming, catch you in the doubles. As for Carlos Alcaraz, he’s also through in straight sets 6-3, 6-1 over Lebanon’s Hady Habib.

Men’s Hockey: Australia held on against Argentina. Here’s Mike Hytner’s recap:

The Australian men’s hockey team survived a late scare against Argentina to get off to a winning start with a narrow 1-0 victory.Blake Govers scored the only goal of the game at Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, firing into the net from a penalty corner in the last second of the first half. It stayed 1-0 until Argentinians nearly found an equaliser right at the death but despite a manic goal-mouth scramble the Kookaburras were able to secure an ideal start to their campaign. Ireland are up next for the world No 4 side, before matches against Belgium, New Zealand and India follow.

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: all riders away! Chloe Dygert, the world champ, is last to depart. Brit Anna Henderson was the fourth last to go, with riders from Austria, Christinia Schweinberger and Australian Grace Brown making up the final four.

Brown has announced her retirement at age 32, so it’s now or never for her. She did win this event at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games two years ago.

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: “Conditions are atrocious,” writes Jeremy Boyce, who is watching the French TV coverage. “There have already been two women down, both on the same bend, more to come? The most slippery are the white-painted areas around junctions, roundabouts, etc. They’re a total skid pan, then anything recently repaired with smoothed fine tar. Commentators are worried for the riders.”

And a queston from Mark Wilson. Does anyone know the answer? “What’s is the tube-like thing in a box which the medalists get along with their medals?”

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: Elisa Longo Borghini leaves the gates to a huge cheer. The 32-year-old Italian has enjoyed a massive career, taking two Olympic bronze medals in the road race at Rio and Tokyo – she’s ighly fancied here. France’s best medal chance, Juliette Labous follows her down the ramp. History is against her though: a home nation has never won a medal in the women’s time trial, TV says.

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: In the two minutes I’ve been watching, two riders have crashed off their bikes. The wet weather is an ongoing talking point.

More on that here from Reuters – all eyes on the Seine:

Paris 2024 organisers said they are confident the triathlon events will take place as scheduled on Tuesday even though the recent rainfall might lead to Sunday’s training session being cancelled due to concerns over the water quality in the Seine.

“The rain that has fallen on Paris over the last 24 hours is likely to impact the quality of the water in the Seine over the next 24 to 36 hours,” organisers said in a statement to Reuters.

“Depending on current water quality levels and the conditions expected over the next 24 hours, it is possible that the familiarisation (athlete training) scheduled for Sunday 28 July at 8 a.m. may be cancelled.”

A decision on whether the training will be held will be made at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Sunday.

“We are nonetheless confident in our ability to organise the events as planned from 30 July. Given the weather forecast for the next 48 hours, we expect the water quality to return to below limits within the next 24 to 36 hours,” the statement said.

“As observed in July, with summer conditions (more sunshine, higher temperatures, prolonged absence of rain) water quality is improving significantly.”

Cycling, Women’s Time Trial: 10 of the 35 competitors are still to take off in the pouring rain. Looking at the split times (taken at 22km of the 32.4km course) the Afghanistan rider Yulduz Hashimi is leading the way by 30 seconds. She’ll be overtaken eventually, but it’s quite something that she and her sister Fairiba are taking part in these Hames despite the Taliban government’s ban of women’s sport.

Reporting here from Press Association:

Adverse weather conditions in Paris have led to the Olympic men’s street skateboarding being postponed by 48 hours until Monday. An elaborate opening ceremony to officially get the Games under way on Friday was blighted by heavy rain, which refused to relent overnight and early into Saturday morning.

Skateboarding organisers have therefore been forced into a hasty rescheduling of the men’s street event, which was supposed to start on Saturday at midday but has now been pushed back.

Other events were also affected, with the start of play in the tennis on the outside courts delayed at Roland Garros.

While Court Philippe Chatrier and Court Suzanne Lenglen have roofs and were able to begin on time at midday, all the others were covered by orange tarpaulins.

British trio Jack Draper, Cameron Norrie and Dan Evans are scheduled back-to-back on Court Six and were among those forced to wait, with Katie Boulter also due to play outside on Court 11.

It’s chucking it down with rain. At the equestrian, where it is team and individual dressage qualification day (I’ll catch up on the main results later), it’s unpleasant but I suppose not that big of a deal? Time trial cycling, however…. yikes. As Joe Pearson notes in Indianapolis: “The course is absolutely drenched. Man, that’s got to be anxiety-inducing for the riders. And the viewers.” Not wrong. I’ll go there next.

Men’s volleyball: Brazil struck back, taking the third set 25-18 to get on the board. But Italy, at 17-14, aren’t far from wrapping this up in four sets. There are Proper Olympic events and Not Serious Olympic Events, and volleyball is firmly the former. Looking forward to watching hours and hours of it over the next two weeks.

Men’s tennis: Djokovic makes a statement! Aussie Matt Ebden, more a doubles operator, has conceded the first set to the no1 seed without winning a game. Wow.

What’s that? You want to see one of the greatest finishes ever? Bruce McAvaney calling Flintoff home in the 400 hurdles at Seoul. One of my earliest life memories.

Speaking of Australia… here’s a round-up! Very handy, I’ll be reading this every day as I watch old clips (guaranteed tears) of Debbie Flintoff, Duncan Armstrong and co.

Cycling – Women’s Time Trial: It’s straight to the medals here, with five of our 35 competitors out of the starting gate. Jumping down the list to the end, American Chloe Dygert takes off in about 40 minutes from now – that’s the world champion in this event from 2019 and 2023. Aussie Grace Brown takes off 90 seconds before her – this could be the first medal for the green and gold at Paris 2024.

“Afternoon Adam.” Hello, Guy Hornsby! “Great to have you back on the Olympic blog. It’s been a cracking day so far with GB diving bronze (handed to us after Australian heartbreak), rowing, gymnastics and Adam Peaty in the pool. It all comes at you so fast. Really looking forward to the rugby 7s semis as well as the road race cycling. How on earth do you keep up with it? It must feel like trying to OBO ten T20 games at the same time!”

Yes, spinning plates! Speaking of the cricket, the Windies had a great first session. As for the diving, I was at the theatre with my four-year-old when the Australian duo botched their final crack. But they’ll make up for it in the drink later on where there is a chance Australia can win three medals in a session for the first time. Can’t wait.

Men’s hockey: I mentioned the Dutch are coming into this as the top team in the world, what I didn’t spot is that they just knocked off South Africa 5-3. Tidy start.

Men’s volleyball: Italy are two sets up against Brazil! I was working on the men’s gold medal match at Earls Court in 2012 and remember well the utter devastation of the Brazilian men after throwing away a two-set advantage against Russia, their coach breaking down in tears at the press conference. This time around, the Italians are entering the 12-team tournament ranked no4 in the world, Brazil No6. Poland, who haven’t won gold in this event since Montreal, are the team to beat on paper.

Men’s hockey: it’s three-quarter time in Australia v Argentina. The Kookaburras went 1-0 in the 30th minute and have maintained that advantage. Earlier today, Belgium saw off Ireland 2-0 and Team GB sorted out Spain 4-0. I was disappointed to see last night that Pakistan, who won this event three times in 1960, 1968 and 1984, haven’t qualified this time around. Oooh, as I prepare to hit send, Tom Wickham goes within an inch of doubling the advantage for the men in green and gold. 10 minutes to go. If you’re wondering, the Dutch are the gold favourites.

French Open and Wimbledon champ Carlos Alcaraz is on court. And there’s nothing easy about his first game of the tournament against Lebanese right-hander Hady Habib. The man ranked 275 in the world got a look at a break point but wasn’t able to convert, the Spanish superstar getting his act together to hold with an ace. Despite his recent run, Alcaraz isn’t the no1 seed – that’s Novak Djokovic, who claimed the bronze medal way back in 2008. The Beijing winner was Rafa Nadal, who appeared at the business end of the opening ceremony, and is competing in Paris unseeded.

Thank you, Martin. I’m Feeling Very Olympic Today! I’ve had a great time doing these blogs over the last few Summer/Winter games, very much looking forward to getting my teeth into day one from Paris, where over the next five hours there will be four gold medals up for grabs, along with plenty else of interest.

Just on those medals, so we’re all on the same page:

1330 BST: Cycling, Women’s Time Trial

1532 BST: Cycling, Men’s Time Trial

1500 BST: Judo – Women 48kg followed by Men 60kg

Between times, I’ll have a close eye on tennis, hockey, volleyball, basketball, badminton – the lot! Tuck into the first afternoon of a great fortnight. And stay in touch with me throughout by dropping me a line or pinging me a tweet.

That is it from me for today. I am going to hand you on to Adam Collins. I will be back with you tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day / evening / night / morning!

Poland’s Iga Świątek has progressed. She went through a sticky patch in the second set, and at one point while Irina-Camelia Begu was serving she seemed poised to take the match to a third set. But it wasn’t to be for the Romanian. Świątek won 6-2 7-5.

The tennis schedule has been hugely disrupted on the outer courts by the weather, but according to the order of play Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Australia’s Matthew Ebden should be up next in a men’s singles first round match. Your guess may be as good as mine here though …

South Africa have just scored a lovely goal in the men’s hockey, but it will presumably end up a consolation, as the Netherlands now lead that match 5-2 in Pool A in the third quarter and have seemed well in control. In Pool B, Australia and Argentina have just reached half-time locked at 0-0.

Number one seed in the women’s singles tennis Iga Świątek isn’t having things all her own way. She has just broken Irina-Camelia Begu’s serve to make the second set 5-5, having won the first.

I only had it on in the background and so wasn’t following Australia v Spain too closely in the men’s basketball, but Reuters reports that Spain’s Usman Garuba, who plays for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA, was booed by the corwd after being involved in incidents with first Josh Green and then Josh Giddey. Angelica Medina for Reuters described the encounter as “feisty”.

Greece and Canada are the other two sides in Pool A, and they face each other at 21.00 local time tonight. Australia play Canada on Tuesday 30 July.

In Pool B, in a match that is nearing the end of the first quarter, Germany narrowly lead Japan.

Some quotes from Team GB’s Scarlett Mew Jensen, who won a bronze medal earlier today. She told the BBC “I am very much lost for words, a month ago I didn’t think I would be here. To be up on the boards and to come away with that … I can’t imagine anything better.”

Her diving partner Yasmin Harper told viewers: “We’re so excited, we are so pleased with ourselves. We came into this event knowing this is what we want and we had to stand on the boards and deliver and I’m so proud that we were able to do that this morning.”

It would not be an Olympic Games without a diplomatic incident. Reuters reports that IOC president Thomas Bach will speak personally with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol to apologise after his country was mistakenly introduced as North Korea at one point in yesterday’s opening ceremony.

The Olympics has a clumsy track record with this. You may recall that in 2012 the North Korean women’s football team nearly refused to compete after their team was introduced on the big screen at Hampden Park in Glasgow next to South Korea’s flag.

I mentioned earlier that there was a lot of tennis happening. Well, there was meant to be a lot of tennis happening, but the weather has had other ideas. Poland’s Iga Świątek, the number one seed, is in action. She is one set up and leading the second set against Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania.

Fourth seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy is also ahead by one set against Ana Bogdan of Romania, but as yet everything else is washed out.

The covers are on the outer courts at Roland-Garros, and there are some rather forlorn looking spectators still braving it out there in the rain in the hope play might start at some point.

 

Updated: Juli 27, 2024 — 2:33 pm

Tinggalkan Balasan

Alamat email Anda tidak akan dipublikasikan. Ruas yang wajib ditandai *