Olympics
It’s 9th day of Paris 2024; see what will happen
The curtain comes down on “Marchand mania” with the final swimming events at La Defense Arena on Sunday, just as the action at the Stade de France athletics track reaches fever pitch with the men’s 100 metres final.
Novak Djokovic takes on Carlos Alcaraz at Roland Garros in a blockbuster men’s singles tennis final, while Xander Schauffele will be hunting for back-to-back gold medals at the Le Golf National course.
Four gold medals are on offer in the pool, three Olympic titles will be decided in artistic gymnastics, while champions will also be crowned in shooting, archery, badminton, fencing and golf.
LYLES TAKES TO FIELD IN ATHLETICS
Stade de France is the place to be for the fans as it stages the men’s 100 metres semi-final and medal race where American Noah Lyles is chasing a rare Olympic sprint double.
Lyles has Jamaican Kishane Thompson hoping to spoil the party, along with Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala, the second-fastest man this year.
Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh fights to add Olympic high jump gold to her World Championship title in the women’s event, after breaking the world record – a mark that had stood since 1987 – earlier this month with 2.10 metres.
SWIMMING COMPETITION ENDS
The swimming competition in Paris ends with four medal events after nine days of thrills, when the fastest woman in the pool will be crowned in the 50m freestyle final. World record holder Sarah Sjoestroem of Sweden is the favourite.
After winning gold in the 800m freestyle, Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen will look to complete the distance double having topped the 1,500m freestyle heats.
The night ends with men’s and women’s 4x100m medley relay finals, with the defending champion United States team under pressure from a Leon Marchand-inspired France.
MOUTH-WATERING CLASH IN TENNIS
The final day of the tennis competition at Roland Garros offers a mouth-watering men’s singles final as Serbia’s Djokovic tries to add a first Olympic gold medal to his 24 Grand Slam titles.
He will be up against Spain’s Alcaraz who will start favourite after beating Djokovic to win Wimbledon.
ARTISTIC GYMNASTS ON BARS AND VAULT
The gold medal in the women’s uneven bars will be awarded on a night when Simone Biles will be watching, not competing. French-born Algerian Kaylia Nemour will be vying for gold.
The men’s rings final and vault also take place.
MEN’S DOUBLES GOLD ON THE LINE IN BADMINTON
China take on Taiwan in what promises to be an electric encounter for gold in the men’s doubles final, while reigning men’s singles champion Viktor Axelsen faces relative newcomer Lakshya Sen from India.
WOMEN’S SKEET SHOOTING GOLD FINAL
Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Wei Meng of China will have to raise her level to make the final of the women’s skeet event, while Britain’s Amber Rutter looks safe behind Germany’s table-topper Nele Wissmer after three rounds of qualification.
Rutter has a point to prove, having missed out on the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID two days before the opening ceremony.
BASKETBALL WOMEN SEAL KNOCKOUT SPOTS
The final women’s group games will be played at Pierre Mauroy stadium in Lille, with eight of the 12 teams going through to the quarter-finals.
Canada take on Nigeria and Australia face already-qualified France, while the United States meet Germany, with both teams having also made it through to the knockout stages
MEN ON THE MARK AT ARCHERY
The men’s individual medals are awarded in archery at Invalides. Turkey’s Mete Gazoz will seek to defend his gold from Tokyo against competitors from South Korea, who have won every archery gold medal in Paris so far.
FOX ON THE HUNT AT CANOEING
Australia’s Jessica Fox resumes her quest for a clean sweep of the canoeing gold medals as she takes part in the kayak cross competition at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium.
VERDICT OUT FOR 3X3 BASKETBALL MEN’S POOL
The men’s pool stage delivers its final verdict after defending champions Latvia locked up a semi-final spot.
The other top team from the pool go straight to the semi-finals, the next four teams play off for the other two spots in the last four and the last two are eliminated.
GOLD ON OFFER AT GOLF
The men’s golf competition concludes at Le Golf National near Paris, with the final round on Sunday.
American Schauffele is on track to repeat his Tokyo triumph, taking the joint lead with Spain’s Jon Rahm going into the final round, with Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood one shot back in third.
RARE CONTEST ON OFFER AT TABLE TENNIS
China’s Fan Zhendong faces Swede Truls Moregard in the first table tennis men’s singles final since 2004 that is not between two Chinese players.
Home favourite Felix Lebrun will fight it out for bronze with Brazil’s Hugo Calderano.
FAIR WINDS AT THE SAILING
Kiteboarding makes its debut on a day filled with racing in the six remaining events in Olympic sailing.
With more wind than during the first phase of the Games, the races are faster and more physically demanding, but without the frustrations of long delays for sailors.
-Reuters
Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.
Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.
“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.
Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”
Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.
Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.
Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.
“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.
“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.
“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”
-Reuters
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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.
The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.
It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.
The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.
Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
–Reuters
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By DAVID LEE
Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.
And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).
In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.
After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.
Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”
In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.
She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”
By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.
Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”
For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.
Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.
Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.
The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.
“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”
-Strait Times, Singapore
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