Category: Olympics

Australia will be out to make an immediate impact at Paris 2024 with medal hopes in swimming, cycling, diving and rugby sevens – all times AEST

The Paris Olympics are under way and Australia will be out to start with a bang as Ariarne Titmus, Sam Short and Elijah Winnington are among those to chase swimming medals. The Dolphins’ men and women will also renew each of their rivalries in the 4x100m freestyle relay events.

Grace Brown will hope to go at least one better after finishing fourth in the women’s individual time trial in Tokyo, while the Boomers face familiar foes Spain in their men’s basketball campaign and the Kookaburras kickstart their men’s hockey campaign.

11.30pm: Men’s qualification: Jesse Moore

3.30am: Women’s singles: Tiffany Ho v Beiwen Zhang

4.20am: Women’s doubles: Angela Yu and Setyana Mapasa v Nami Matsuyama and Chiharu Shida

7pm: Men’s – Group A: Australia Boomers v Spain

11pm: Men’s preliminary – Pool A: Izac Carracher and Mark Nicolaidis v David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig

2am: Women’s preliminary – Pool B: Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar v Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia

11pm, 1.10am: Men’s canoe single heats: Tristan Carter

12am, 2.10am: Women’s kayak single heats: Jessica Fox

10.30pm: Women’s individual time trial: Grace Brown

12.32am: Men’s individual time trial: Lucas Plapp

7pm: Women’s synchronised 3m springboard final: Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith

5.30pm: Eventing team dressage: Australia

5.30pm: Eventing individual dressage: Shane Rose, Kevin McNab, Christopher Burton

9.15pm: Men’s – Pool B: Australia Kookaburras v Argentina

6pm: Men’s -60 kg elimination round of 32: Joshua Katz v Andrea Carlino

6.12pm: Women’s single sculls heats: Tara Rigney

8pm: Women’s double sculls heats: Amanda Bateman and Harriet Hudson

8.50pm: Women’s quadruple sculls heats: Caitlin Cronin, Laura Gourley, Rowena Meredith and Ria Thompson

12pm: Men’s semi-final: Australia v Fiji

8.30pm: Women’s 10m air pistol qualification: Elena Galiabovitch

8pm: Men’s street preliminaries: Shane O’Neill

1am: Men’s street final: Shane O’Neill (TBC)

3am: Men’s round one: Ethan Ewing, Jack Robinson

7.48am: Women’s round one: Molly Picklum, Tyler Wright

7pm: Women’s 100m butterfly heats: Emma McKeon, Alexandria Perkins

7.12pm: Women’s 400m freestyle heats: Jamie Perkins, Ariarne Titmus

7.30pm: Men’s 100m breaststroke heats: Sam Williamson, Josh Yong

7.45pm: Men’s 400m freestyle heats: Sam Short, Elijah Winnington

8.15pm: Women’s 4x100m freestyle relay heats: Australia

8.26pm: Men’s 4x100m freestyle relay heats: Australia

4.30am: Women’s 100m butterfly semi-finals: Emma McKeon, Alexandria Perkins (TBC)

4.42am: Men’s 400m freestyle final: Sam Short, Elijah Winnington (TBC)

4.52am: Women’s 400m freestyle final: Jamie Perkins, Ariarne Titmus (TBC)

5.12am: Men’s 100m breaststroke semi-final: Sam Williamson, Josh Yong (TBC)

5.34am: Women’s 4x100m freestyle relay final: Australia (TBC)

5.44am: Men’s 4x100m freestyle relay final: Australia (TBC)

12.30am: Mixed doubles round of 16: Nicholas Lum and Minhyung Jee v Ovidiu Ionescu and Bernadette Szocs

6.15am: Men’s singles round of 64: Finn Luu v Alberto Mino

8pm: Women’s singles first round: Daria Saville v Zheng Qinwen

From 8pm: Men’s singles first round: Matthew Ebden v Novak Djokovic, Rinky Hijikata v Daniil Medvedev

From 8pm: Women’s doubles first round: Daria Saville and Ellen Perez v Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula

4.05am: Women’s preliminary round – Group A: Australia Stingers v China

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British rower dreamed of Olympic glory aged 14 watching London 2012 and her dad fished the discarded diary note out of the bin and kept it for years

At the time, Lola Anderson had written it off as a cringeworthy adolescent whim. She was far from the only youngster to have been swept along by the endless summer of London 2012 and, watching Great Britain surge down Dorney Lake towards one of their four rowing golds, was struck by “this massive wave of inspiration”. Her love for the sport had been growing and, at 14, this was the moment to spell out a plan for the future.

She ran to find her diary and started writing. “My name is Lola Anderson and I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics and represent Team GB in rowing and, if possible, win a gold medal,” read the entry. But immediately self-consciousness set in. Looking back now it is easily diagnosable. “Teenage girls don’t necessarily have the most belief in ourselves and I got very embarrassed,” she says. “I kinda thought ‘That was a really cocky, arrogant thing to have written’. Back then, on a good day I wasn’t capsizing. I ripped the page out and threw it in the bin.”

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• Bev Priestman sent home as new spying scandal allegations emerge
• Assistant coach Andy Spence to lead defending gold medallists

The Canadian Olympic Committee has removed women’s national football head coach Bev Priestman for the remainder of the Paris Games following an alleged drone spying scandal.

The COC said in a statement released early Friday that assistant coach Andy Spence would lead the defending gold medallists for the remainder of the tournament.

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• Group B: USA 3-0 Zambia
• Emma Hayes wins first competitive match as US coach

Mallory Swanson scored a pair of goals just moments apart in the first half and the United States opened their Olympics campaign with a 3-0 victory Thursday night over Zambia, giving new coach Emma Hayes a win in her first major tournament with the team.

Trinity Rodman also scored for the US, who are hoping to add a record fifth gold medal to their Olympic collection.

Overmatched from the start, Zambia were reduced to 10 players in the 33rd minute when Pauline Zulu was sent off with a red card. Hayes’s team dominated the early portions of the game, keeping 70% of the ball and posting 13 shots with a 3.4 xG in the opening 25 minutes.

Zambia, overflowing with attacking talented, struggled to create any opportunities before they found themselves in a three-goal hole. Star forwards Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji failed to register a shot in the first-half, and could muster only three efforts on goal across 90 minutes.

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• Ruling on Russian doping upgrades US to gold
• Team to be presented medals in special ceremony

The US figure skating team was formally confirmed as gold medalists from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics by a sports court ruling on Thursday, opening the way for the team to receive medals at the Paris Summer Games.

“We are thrilled to finally honor these incredible athletes,” Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said in a statement. “We are especially excited that the beautiful city of Paris will join us in this celebration.”

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After controversially missing out on Tokyo 2020 the double world champion canoeist believes he can prosper in Paris

“You don’t want to put limitations on what is possible but it’s still pretty hard to say I’m going to win two gold medals at the Olympics,” says Joe Clarke with the grounded optimism that defines him. Clarke is already an Olympic champion, having been an unlikely winner of the canoe slalom in Rio in 2016, and last September he won two gold medals at the world championships.

On his home course at Lee Valley, Clarke dominated the canoe slalom and kayak cross at the worlds with an audacious display of courage and skill that means he has realistic expectations of repeating the double at the Paris Olympics.

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• Group A: France 3-0 USA
• Michael Olise shines for hosts in win

Stunning goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Michael Olise helped France to a 3-0 victory over the US in the Olympic men’s soccer tournament on Wednesday.

Loïc Badé added the third with a late header to seal a win that had looked in doubt until former Arsenal striker Lacazette struck with a long range effort in the 61st minute in Marseille.

The host nation had to ride its luck against a US team that saw a shot from Đorđe Mihailović hit the cross bar when the game was still goalless. Lacazette’s goal came almost immediately after.

On a wild opening day for Olympic soccer, Morocco beat Argentina 2-1 in a game that was suspended for about two hours because fans invaded the pitch deep into stoppage time. And the Americans looked as if they could produce another upset when repeatedly opening France up.

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• Diver and rower to lead GB athletes at opening of Games
• Glover says it is ‘probably the biggest honour of my life’

Tom Daley and Helen Glover have been named as Team GB’s joint flag bearers for the opening ­ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday. The duo boast three Olympic gold ­medals between them with Daley coming into the Games as the defending champion in the men’s 10m synchro diving event.

Glover won coxless pairs gold in both London and Rio, and came out of retirement in 2021 in a quest to add to her medals tally in the French capital. Daley is the first diver to be afforded the honour of carrying the flag in the opening ceremony, while Glover is the second consecutive rower after Moe Sbihi in Tokyo.

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• Chinese swimmers tested positive before Tokyo Games
• US star looking to add to seven Olympic golds

Katie Ledecky referenced allegations around Chinese doping in her opening press conference at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday, saying she hopes to face “clean” athletes in the coming weeks.

Twenty-three Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned drug trimetazidine months before the last Olympics, in Tokyo, but were still allowed to compete after the World Anti-Doping Agency accepted an explanation from Chinese authorities that the athletes had stayed at a hotel with a contaminated kitchen.

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• Game suspended and completed behind closed doors
• Spain beat Uzbekistan on first day of men’s competition

The Argentina coach Javier Mascherano said he had never witnessed such a circus after a pitch invasion triggered a dramatic and long-delayed climax to the country’s 2-1 defeat against Morocco in their Olympic opener in Saint-Etienne on Wednesday.

The match on the first day of men’s football at the Games was mired in chaos after a pitch invasion forced it to be suspended for more than an hour. Play eventually resumed behind closed doors and although Cristian Medina thought he had salvaged a 2-2 draw for Argentina, when he scored deep into injury time, the goal was subsequently ruled out for offside by VAR when play resumed for a few minutes after the long stoppage to clear the stadium of fans.

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Athletes arriving at the Paris 2024 Olympics have been uploading videos of themselves testing out their cardboard beds on social media. Some people have dubbed them 'anti-sex beds' but athletes like Tom Daley, Daria Saville, Ellen Perez and Rhys McClenaghan proved how much the cardboard can withstand by jumping, somersaulting and cannon-balling onto them.

• Tom Daley tests out the Olympic Village’s ‘no-sex’ cardboard beds

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• FBI is looking into allegations of Chinese doping
• French Alps given 2030 Winter Olympics

What was expected to be a simple coronation of Salt Lake City as the 2034 Winter Olympic host turned into complicated Olympic politics on Wednesday, as the IOC pushed Utah officials to end an FBI investigation into a suspected doping coverup.

In a separate decision earlier in Paris, the 2030 Winter Games were awarded – with conditions – to France for a regional project split between ski resorts in the Alps and Nice. That project needs official signoff from the national government which is still being formed after elections in France earlier this month.

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