Key events
Reuters is carrying a quote from French triathlon federation technical director Benjamin Maze, who with some understatement has told FranceInfo radio “of course there is a little bit of anger and a lot of disappointment” among the athletes about the cancellation of today’s men’s triathlon.
Women’s handball: a convincing win for Germany over Slovenia in the end, to give the Germans their first win at the thrid attempt. The match finished 41-22 in Group A, with seven goals apiece for Xenia Smits and Annika Lott. All the teams in this group are playing today at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, with the next two fixtures being Norway v South Korea this morning, and Sweden v Denmark tonight.
Kieran Pender
Australia has brought in Ben O’Connor for the men’s road race after Luke Plapp withdrew after his crash in slippery conditions in the individual time trial on Saturday.
Plapp was admitted to hospital and required abdominal surgery after the incident, which ruled him out of the road race this weekend.
“Luke is receiving the best of care in hospital and is being well supported by our medical team,” said Australian Chef de Mission Anna Meares. “We expect he’ll be out of hospital this week and wish him a speedy recovery.”
O’Connor is one of Australia’s leading general classification riders; he placed fourth in the Giro d’Italia in May and is expected to ride the Vuelta a España next month. He will ride in support of Australian leader Michael Matthews, alongside Simon Clarke. “Ben has performed strongly this season and is currently in top form,” said Meares.
Gold for Serbia in the 10m air pistol mixed team shooting 🥇🥇🥇
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: after a tense finish Damir Mikec and Zorana Arunović have won Serbia’s first medal of these Games, and it is gold.
Despite at one point trailing Turkey 8-2, a combined score of 20.1 in the fifteenth round of shooting gave them a 16-14 triumph. The Serbian pair had finished fourth in this event in Tokyo.
Şevval İlayda Tarhan and Yusuf Dikeç took silver, with Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh winning bronze for India in the earlier bronze medal match against South Korea.
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: Turkey are Serbia are tied 10-10 in this final 👀
Men’s volleyball: Italy have beaten Egypt 25-15 25-16 25-20 in Pool B. The US face Germany in Pool C at 13.00 local time.
Rowing men’s single sculls: it is the quarter-finals in this today. New Zealand’s Thomas Mackintosh is holding the lead in the first one at the moment.
Men’s hockey: hosts France have copped a couple of thumpings so far in this tournament, losing 8-2 to Germany and 4-0 to the Netherlands in their first two games. However they have taken an early lead against Spain this morning in a match that started at 10am local time.
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: the gold medal match has started, featuring Serbia’s Damir Mikec and Zorana Arunović against Turkey’s Şevval İlayda Tarhan and Yusuf Dikeç.
Men’s volleyball: Italy seem on their way to a second win in Pool B, having taken the first two sets against Egypt 25-15 25-16.
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: and the bronze medal🥉 goes to India! They fumbled a couple of chances to score the final two points they needed, giving opponents South Korea some hope of a comeback as they ate into India’s lead, but ultimately Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh won 16-10. Turkey and Serbia are up next for the gold!
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: there has just been a tactical time out in the bronze medal match, but it hasn’t quite revived South Korea’s fortunes yet. India lead 10-6 going into series nine.
Women’s handball: Germany’s women have taken a 16-9 lead against Slovenia into half-time in the handball. Germany desperately need a result here today, having narrowly lost both their opening matches. Four of the six teams in the group progress, and Germany are the only side in Group A yet to notch a win.
Shooting 10m air pistol mixed team: it is very early doors for the first medal of the day. South Korea’s Oh Ye Jin and Lee Wonho are facing India’s Manu Bhaker and Sarabjot Singh in the bronze medal match. They are just doing the formalities at the moment. Turkey will face Serbia in the final for the gold medal directly afterwards.
It is just gone 9am in Paris, and a couple of team sports have just got going. Germany and Slovenia are playing in the women’s handball, while Italy take on Egypt in the men’s volleyball.
Hello! Good morning from London. It is Martin Belam here very much looking forward to my favourite Olympic sport, the triathlon today *checks earpiece* oh, I hear there is news. Never mind, there is still plenty to look forward to, including medals in shooting, judo, artistic gymnastics, fencing, rugby sevens and swimming. There is a lot to pack in. Allons-y!
Jonathan Howcroft
It’s time for the baton to be passed once again from Melbourne to London and for Martin Belam to steer you through the the morning’s action. À Mercredi tout le monde.
The early starters in the badminton will soon be joined by competitors in beach volleyball, handball, and shooting, with those events all starting at 9:00 local time.
Then from 9:30 shooting will deliver the day’s first medals. It’s the business end of the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team with India and Korea competing for bronze, followed by Türkiye v Serbia for gold.
Day four of Paris 2024 is under way (half-an-hour later than scheduled) with Porte de La Chapelle Arena humming to the sound of satisfyingly spanked shuttlecocks. I’m pretty sure today is the last of the group phase in the singles and doubles, while the mixed doubles are already through to the quarter-finals.
It’s going to be a scorching hot day in Paris with temperatures peaking in the mid-30s. However, there’s a chance of overnight showers with scattered thunderstorms on the cards for Wednesday and Thursday. The poor triathlon organisers better have Plans C through to Z handy.
Men’s 100m favourite Noah Lyles has come under fire for (uncontroversially in my opinion) saying he was the fastest man in the world during the opening ceremony. The 27-year-old won the 100m, 200m, and 4 x 100m relay at last year’s world championships and will enter each of those events next week ranked number one in the world. That’s pretty solid ground if you ask me. Besides, I am very much here for the braggadocious sprinters. More of it please, Noah.
Women’s rugby sevens is enjoying its moment in the spotlight, as Jack Snape reports.
The 66,000 who packed the stadium on Sunday set a new attendance record for women’s rugby, beating the previous one of 58,498 at Twickenham for England v France last year. A similar number returned on Monday. The same is expected for Tuesday’s medal matches, the stands full just as they were for Antoine Dupont’s crowning glory in the men’s sevens days earlier. And they were almost as loud on Monday night, bouncing around the ground in northern Paris but unable to will their side over the line in a surprise 19-14 quarter-final loss to Canada.
One of the most emotional moments of the Games so far arrived yesterday in the fencing when Olha Kharlan won bronze for Ukraine. It was the 33-year-old’s fifth Olympic medal (a list topped by gold at Beijing 2008) but none of the previous four carried such weight.
Kharlan shot to international attention at the 2023 World Fencing Championships when she was disqualified for not shaking hands with her Russian opponent, Anna Smirnova. Her ejection had made qualification for Paris by the standard route virtually impossible but she was handed a lifeline following an intervention from the IOC president Thomas Bach, a former fencer.
Nick Ames has been close to the story throughout and reported on Kharlan’s success from the Grand Palais.
This was for Ukraine. It was for the people back home where every victory, of whatever kind, is laden with meaning few outside can understand. It was for those who have lost their lives while fighting to ensure the country’s athletes remain free to compete. It was for Olha Kharlan’s family in Mykolaiv, where her parents spent months living in their basement under continued Russian attack. And it was for the show of principle that almost denied her the chance to experience this at all.
Earlier today I pointed you in the direction of a gallery of the best images from day three including the incredible shot of a levitating Gabriel Medina. Here’s how the shot came together, featuring the photographer Jérôme Brouillet.
Sean Ingle
The men’s Olympic triathlon was postponed just hours before it was due to start on Tuesday following a 3.30am inspection of the Seine, which found that pollution levels were still too high for athletes to safely swim in.
In a statement, organisers said that the heavy rain over Paris on Friday and Saturday had compelled them to “reschedule the event for health reasons.”
With rain also forecast for later this week, the men’s race has been rescheduled for 10.45am on Wednesday following the conclusion of the women’s race, which is due to start at 8am.
However athletes included Team GB’s Alex Yee and Beth Potter, who are favourites for the men’s and women’s race, face an anxious wait to see if water quality improves.
There is also a risk of thunder and lightning in Wednesday’s forecast, which could throw yet another potential spanner in the works.
“I’m sort of with you on the skating,” emails Jakob Mathiszig-Lee in response to my curmudgeonly post, “but that said I really enjoyed watching the final yesterday, as did my 3 year old.
“I think one of the issues with it is what makes tricks difficult is sometimes extremely difficult to pick up quickly to a casual viewer and a lot of them look extremely similar in real time. That said the commentary team yesterday did a great job of explaining why a trick deserved a high score during the replays and I was completely gripped by the best trick session in the end.”
Thanks Jakob, and I’m pleased you and your three-year-old were absorbed by the action. Ultimately that is the point of the inclusion of events like this, to broaden the appeal of the Games and steer it away from its militaristic Victorian origins. If the occasional innovation doesn’t capture every passing viewer, that’s fine.
I am considerably more excited by the prospect of breaking – as a spectacle. I’m unconvinced how it will play out as sport.
Rhona Rose has emailed in to ask if we can produce a per-capita medal table that takes into account population size. I shall pass that onto the data visualisation geniuses, but a quick squiz would single out Hong Kong as massive overachievers at this early stage, with Kazakhstan, Belgium, Mongolia, and Moldova among the other notable medal-winners.
It’s not been a record breaking few days in the pool but the racing has been spectacular with nail-biting finishes and hyped duels living up to the billing. One such was the women’s 200m freestyle clash between Australian training partners Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan.
Standing atop the podium with a gold medal around her neck, O’Callaghan invited Titmus to join her. The pair stood together, arms around each other, as they sang Advance Australia Fair. Not one but two Australians elevated on the dais – recognition of Titmus’s role in inspiring O’Callaghan to greatness, and of Titmus’s own heroics. Short of the pair touching in a dead-heat and sharing gold, it was perhaps the most fitting way for this gladiatorial battle to end.
Following in the footsteps of their male counterparts, the US women’s basketball team began their Olympic campaign looking like a team with a point to prove. The Americans now have a 56-game Olympic winning streak that dates to the 1992 Barcelona Games. It means 42-year-old Diana Taurasi is on track for a sixth consecutive gold medal.
Watching Tom Pidcock deal with a flat tyre and win the cross-country cycling was much easier to enjoy.
It was a ride of pure, thrilling instinct: a welcome reminder that in the chaos of competitive cross-country biking, sometimes the best plan is no plan at all. And Pidcock, who has won on the snow-flecked peaks of Alpe d’Huez and the dandruff-white roads of Strade Bianche and now the verdant woodland of Paris, is in many ways a cyclist of the romantic imagination, of a time before strategies and specialisation and four‑year plans, when the essence of the sport was simply to get on your bike and thrash the hell out of it.
Specialisation will surely come for Pidcock too in the end. With a second gold safely in the bag, and with his peak years approaching, all the incentives seem to point towards a proper tilt at the Tour with Ineos Grenadiers, the laborious process of chiselling and sanding himself down into a pure mountain machine. But here, amid the tree stumps and the dirt, is where his bold and breathtaking range of skills finds its most vivid and spectacular expression.
I’m going to level with you all, I don’t get skateboarding, especially the street event. Compared to the other youth-focussed modern inclusions (like BMX or climbing) the skills underwhelm me and all that concrete leaves me a little cold. I am happy to be educated, if anyone has a constructive email for me to read.
But apparently yesterday’s men’s final was as good as it gets.
In a heart-pounding 102-minute show of can-you-top-this immediately hailed as the greatest men’s street final ever staged, the trio spent the afternoon swapping medal positions before a packed crowd of about 5,000 spectators that included rapper Snoop Dogg, who had started the day watching Novak Djokovic’s win over Rafael Nadal alongside Billie Jean King at Roland-Garros. The crackling atmosphere was a far cry from the nearly empty Ariake Urban Sports Park where Horigome won his first Olympic gold three years ago.
Scroll to the bottom and enjoy Gabriel Medina levitating.
Yesterday’s success for Team GB has already entered history as magic Monday, but the day also brought news of a positive Covid result for silver medallist Adam Peaty. The absence of panic is a far cry from Tokyo three years ago but the risk of an outbreak remains a concern so early into competition.
Among the highlights of day three was a second round singles match in the men’s tennis. But it was no ordinary clash, featuring the two most successful men in the sport’s history: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
Djokovic is bidding for the only trophy missing from his collection with fate conspiring to deliver the Serbian just one bronze medal in a career that has spanned four previous Olympics. Dominik Koepfer (GER) should prove no obstacle in round three, but danger lurks thereafter with Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE), Alexander Zverev (GER), and Carlos Alcaraz (ESP) his next scheduled opponents.
Nadal meanwhile may have played his final singles match of note, and it was fitting that it came on centre court at Roland Garros, against an opponent with whom he has shared the most active rivalry in tennis history. “I have been suffering a lot of injuries the last two years,” Nadal said. “So if I feel that I am not competitive enough to keep going or physically I’m not ready to keep going, I will stop and I will let you know. But I don’t think every day about if I am retiring or not.”
With the triathlon postponed the first action of the day will once again come in badminton (8:30). Beach volleyball, handball, shooting, and volleyball all kick-off at 9:00 then rowing at 9:30, hockey, judo, and table tennis at 10:00.
Japan top the medal table on the morning of day four, thanks in no small part to their domination of skateboarding. The USA lead the medal count, but only three of their 20 visits to the podium have reached the top step.
It’s always good for a Games to see the hosts with some early momentum and everything is going to script so far for France.
The flags of 36 NOCs have now been raised in Paris, including a brace of golds for Hong Kong, a first podium finish in the pool for Ireland since Michelle Smith at Atlanta 96, and Ukraine’s first medal of the Paris Games, a bronze to fencer Olga Kharlan.
Men’s triathlon postponed due to pollution fears
Disappointing news to start day four in Paris with World Triathlon announcing the postponement of the men’s event due to the water quality of the river Seine. The race has been rescheduled to tomorrow, after the women’s event. That still doesn’t leave much time for the water quality to improve, so further disruption is not out of the question.
Sean Ingle has been covering the story for a number of days and filed this report yesterday after the cancellation of open water practice.
Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century. But since 2015, organisers have spent around £1bn to ensure a cleaner river for the Games – and to allow Parisians to swim in it afterwards.
Renovations have included the construction of a giant basin to capture excess rainwater and stop too much sewage from flowing into the river – as well as renovating infrastructure and upgrading wastewater treatment plants. The hope now is that the forecast hot weather will be enough to drop E coli levels low enough to race.
Preamble – Day Four Schedule
Jonathan Howcroft
Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of the fourth official day of competition of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Day three was when Great Britain came to life at these Games with Tom Pidcock and the equestrian team securing gold medals, along with silvers in the diving, canoe slalom, and men’s 200m freestyle, as well as bronze in the individual jumping. There was also more joy for the hosts with France celebrating a clutch of silver medals to go with golds in fencing and canoe slalom.
It was a night of gripping finals in the pool, more skateboarding joy for Japan, and the awarding of one of the most emotional medals of the 2024 Olympics: bronze to Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan.
So what can we look forward to today?
Medal Events
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🥇 Triathlon – men’s individual (from 8:00) -
🥇 Shooting – 10m air pistol mixed team (from 9:30)
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🥇 Table Tennis – mixed doubles (from 14:30)
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🥇 Shooting – men’s trap (from 15:30)
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🥇 Judo – men’s 81kg / women’s 63kg (from 16:00)
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🥇 Gymnastics – women’s team (18:15)
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🥇 Fencing – women’s épée team (19:30)
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🥇 Rugby Sevens – women’s (19:45)
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🥇 Swimming – women’s 100m backstroke / men’s 800m freestyle & 4 x 200m freestyle relay (20:56)
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🥇 Surfing – men’s & women’s (03:34 Wednesday)
*(All times listed are Paris local)
Simon Burnton’s day-by-day guide
Swimming: women’s 100m backstroke
Kaylee McKeown, Australia’s backstroke queen, is going for six golds in Paris – twice the number she won in Tokyo – and today could bring her first, with the 100m final in the evening session. McKeown broke her own world record last October and goes in as overwhelming favourite; Thursday, Friday and Saturday’s 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley double will be a much harder test.
Surfing: men’s and women’s gold medal matches
Olympic organisers chose to hold the surfing competition in Teahupo’o – approximate translation “wall of skulls”, though it’s been nicknamed The End of the Road – in Tahiti, with athletes staying in a cruise ship moored offshore after locals objected to plans to build housing for them (they could not stop the construction of a judging tower in the reef). The attraction is what surfer.com described as “without a doubt one of the heaviest, scariest, most dangerous left-hand reef break waves in the entire world”.
Other unmissable moments will include Simone Biles competing in the gymnastics team final (18:15) and a blockbuster afternoon on Court Suzanne Lenglen where Rafael Nadal is on third in the men’s doubles, followed by Andy Murray, in what could be the retiring great’s final competitive appearance.
I’m sure I’ve failed to include something notable to you in this short rundown, so feel free to let me know what’s on your agenda by emailing: jonathan.howcroft.casual@theguardian.com or, if you’re still rummaging around in the post-Twitter dumpster fire, find me on X @jphowcroft.
I’ll be around for the first few hours of the blog here in Australia, after which I’m handing over to Martin Belam in the UK.
