Paris 2024 Olympics day seven: athletics, golf, rowing, swimming and more – live | Paris Olympic Games 2024

Something else helping athletics is genuine star power. The likes of US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. Preliminary heats of the women’s 100m begin today at 10:35.

Athletics at Paris 2024 will be helped by some genuine rivalries. None better than Josh Kerr (GBR) v Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR) in the 1500m. Qualifying starts today at 11:10 local time with Kerr in heat one, Ingebrigtsen in heat three.

Kerr has accused his main rival of having “flaws on the track and in the manners realm” and being surrounded by “yes men”. Ingebrigtsen has countered by claiming he could beat Kerr blindfolded when fit.

It is the type of popcorn-grabbing fare that a struggling sport such as athletics longs for and has prompted natural comparisons with the golden era of British miling in the 1980s when Seb Coe and Steve Ovett rarely hid their antipathy for one another while battling for dominance.

Track and field inside the Stade de France begins today. After a post-Usain Bolt lull, and with the support of Netflix, athletics is bullish again about its primetime offering.

It’s not just athletes in the latest super spikes who have a spring in their step at these Olympics. The whole of track and field does too. And the sport is increasingly not afraid to shout about it.

“Athletics is the heart and soul of the Olympic Games,” said the World Athletics president, Sebastian Coe, on Thursday. “These will be exceptional Games with jaw-dropping sport and the most exceptional talents we have seen in any generation.”

After five days, Paris 2024 has seen only a single world record fall in a swimming event. That compares with six new swimming world records set at Tokyo in 2021 and eight at Rio in 2018. Even the much-hyped women’s 400 metre freestyle – billed as the “race of the century” – failed to topple any personal bests from the three most recent world-record holders, Ariarne Titmus (Australia), Summer McIntosh (Canada) and Katie Ledecky (United States).

Staying with Australia, the country’s women’s football team rank among the biggest disappointments of this Olympics so far, so it came as no surprise when it was announced yesterday that coach Tony Gustavsson would not have his contract renewed. The Swede benefitted from a lack of meaningful scrutiny during a four-year tenure that promised much and ultimately delivered little, despite enormous public support and a World Cup on home soil.

The next coach will be charged with refreshing a small core group of players that have been replied upon for a number of years. The growing popularity of the sport and the importance of the Matildas demands that such a process is more robustly appraised that Gustavsson ever was.

Two-time gold medallist Andy Murray is on the shortlist for Great Britain’s greatest Olympian of all-time. In Australia, that battle could be being played out in real time during the Paris Games.

Australia has a long and glittering Olympic history. But there is one record no Australian has previously surpassed. Since the first Australians competed at the 1896 Games, none have won more than three gold medals in individual events.

At Paris 2024, three Australians across two sports are on the cusp of history and an achievement that would guarantee elevation to the pantheon of greatest Olympians. Jess Fox, Ariarne Titmus and Kaylee McKeown have already won gold at the 2024 Games, and now have the possibility to go where no Australian has gone before.

I was at the Australian Open in January 2019 when tournament organisers clipped together a hastily arranged retirement montage for the chronically injured Andy Murray. Over five years, and many montages, later one of the greatest British athletes of all time finally has finally bowed out of top-level sport.

While the Olympics is necessarily about sporting greatness it is also an opportunity for the world to come together and consider a collective response to pressing issues of the time. One such is the issue of gender eligibility.

The topic exploded yesterday when Italian boxer Angela Carini abandoned her bout against the Algerian Imane Khelif after 46 seconds. Khelif is one of two boxers permitted to fight at the Olympics despite being disqualified from the women’s world championships last year for failing gender eligibility tests.

Before the fight The International Olympic Committee (IOC) came under fire for permitting Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting of Taiwan to compete in the women’s category at these Games.

Last year both fighters were disqualified from the world championships, with the International Boxing Association (IBA) president, Umar Kremlev, saying that DNA tests had “proved they had XY chromosomes and were thus excluded”. XY is the combination of chromosomes in males, while XX is the combination in females.

But last night the IOC issued a statement that confirmed that said both boxers had “complied” with its entry regulations and “have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category”.

“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” it added.

From one GOAT to another; Katie Ledecky yesterday became the female swimmer with the most medals in Olympic history. She now has eight gold, four silver, and a bronze. One at London 2012, five at Rio 2016, four at Tokyo 2020, and three so far at Paris 2024.

Ledecky is a lock for a medal in the 800m freestyle, a race in which she holds the 29 fastest times in history, and five of the top six times this year.

One night after the 27-year-old American became the first female swimmer to win gold medals at four different Olympics after retaining her title in the women’s 1500m freestyle, Ledecky added a 13th Olympic medal, one more than countrywomen Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin and Australia’s Emma McKeon.

Not for the first time these Olympics (and probably not for the last) we begin our daily retrospective by focussing on Simone Biles. As Andy Bull writes: “With Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps gone, Biles is the last of the great Olympic stars of the 21st ­century who is still competing in the Games. She is the biggest draw here, the one athlete who can persuade people who do not much like or care for sport to switch on and watch the best to ever do it.”

And Biles has emitted that star power at full wattage in Paris, helping the USA to team gold, then yesterday securing individual all-around gold to secure her status as the greatest gymnast in history. In case you were in any doubt, her bejewelled goat-shaped pendant spoke volumes.

The curated selection of the best images from yesterday’s action includes another beauty from the boxing competition.

Badminton is our first action of the day with play under way at 08:30 local time. At 09:00 action begins in the beach volleyball, 3×3 basketball, golf, volleyball, handball, and shooting.

It’s taken almost a week but the two titans of world sport have finally made their way to the top of the medal table. China lead the competition for golds, thanks to strong performances in shooting and diving, while the USA are way out in front for overall medals, but only a quarter of those have been gold.

The pool is a microcosm of Team USA’s Games so far with a healthy haul of 20 medals but just four golds. Australia, with five visits to the top step of the podium already stand an excellent chance of winning the meet.

France have only finished in the top five at an Olympics once since the war, and that was London 1948, but the hosts are on track for a result to remember following a fast start.

29 national anthems in total have now been heard across the events, with 50 NOCs receiving medals. Among those is Guatemala, a regular at the Olympics since 1968, but with only one silver medal to show for it – until this week. First, trap shooter Jean Pierre Brol became his country’s maiden bronze medallist, then fellow trap shooter Adriana Ruano won Guatemala’s first Olympic gold.

Ruano originally trained as a gymnast, representing Guatemala at the 2010 Pan American Championships, but she suffered a serious back injury, forcing her to train her competitive focus on another sport.

Preamble – Day Seven Schedule

Jonathan Howcroft