Australia took the lead in its swimming showdown towards america on the Paris Olympics by claiming two of three gold medals on the primary full day of competitors.
Ariarne Titmus turned one of the anticipated races of the Video games right into a blowout when she left Katie Ledecky in her wake at La Protection Area. Titmus led from begin to end within the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night time.
The Australian star referred to as “The Terminator” handed Ledecky a second straight Olympic defeat in an occasion the American received at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Titmus confronted her stiffest problem from 17-year-old Canadian phenom Summer season McIntosh, however she received comfortably as McIntosh claimed the silver. Ledecky settled for bronze.
Titmus swept the 200 and 400 free in Tokyo, and she or he goes for a similar double in Paris. Ledecky goes for a double within the 800 and 1,500.
Australia then made it 2 for two towards the Individuals within the girls’s 4×100 freestyle relay, claiming its fourth straight Olympic title in that occasion.
The quartet of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris set an Olympic document with a successful time of three minutes, 28.92 seconds.
The Individuals — Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske and Simone Manuel — rallied to take silver. China took bronze.
The U.S. lastly acquired its first gold within the males’s 4×100 freestyle relay. The Individuals have been anchored by Caeleb Dressel, who received the eighth gold medal of his profession.
Australia took the silver.
CHINA TAKES FIRST GOLD OF GAMES
The first gold medal of the Paris Olympics went to China when Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao beat South Korea’s Keum Jihyeon and Park Hajun within the closing of the 10-meter air rifle blended group occasion Saturday morning.
Shortly earlier than that, Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev grew to become the primary medalists of the video games after they beat Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich 17-5 for the bronze.
WEMBY’S DEBUT
Victor Wembanyama didn’t disappoint in his Olympic debut because the NBA Rookie of the 12 months had 19 factors, 9 rebounds, 4 steals and three blocked pictures for host France in a 78-66 win over Brazil.
The sport was performed in entrance of a sold-out crowd in help of final 12 months’s high decide within the NBA draft.
Wembanyama and the French group skipped the opening ceremony in Paris on Friday night time to relaxation for his or her Saturday sport in Lille, which is about an hour from Paris by prepare.
FRANCE’S FIRST MEDALS
Luka Mkheidze and Shirine Boukli won France’s first two medals of the Olympics when Mkheidze claimed silver and Boukli earned bronze in judo.
Mkheidze misplaced 1-0 to Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan within the closing of the lads’s 60-kilogram division — a disappointing outcome for the raucous crowd at Champ-de-Mars Arena. About half-hour earlier than Mkheidze’s loss, Boukli claimed France’s first medal of its house Olympics with a victory over Spain’s Laura Martinez in a bronze-medal match.
Paris may have loads of probabilities to cheer on its vaunted judo group, which has a competitor in all 14 weight lessons in these Olympics. France is among the world’s high judo nations.
CANADA SOCCER SCANDAL
FIFA deducted six factors from Canada within the Olympics girls’s soccer event and banned three coaches for one 12 months every for a drone spying scandal.
Two assistant coaches have been caught utilizing drones to spy on New Zealand’s practices earlier than their opening sport final Wednesday. Head coach Bev Priestman, who led Canada to the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021, already was suspended by the nationwide soccer federation after which faraway from the Olympic event. She is now banned from all soccer for one 12 months.
FIFA fast-tracked its personal disciplinary course of by asking its appeals judges to deal with the case.
TENNIS CONTROVERSY
Novak Djokovic was perplexed by the Olympics rules after his 6-0, 6-1 rout in lower than an hour towards an overmatched Matthew Ebden, a 36-year-old doubles participant from Australia who hadn’t competed in a tour-level, main-draw singles match since June 2022.
Djokovic felt different singles gamers deserved a spot on the Olympics as a substitute of Ebden.
Ebden was in Paris to compete in males’s doubles, the place he is been as excessive as No. 1 and at present is No. 3 and has received two main championships. That made him accessible for the singles competitors when Sixteenth-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark pulled out due to a wrist damage.
Ebden was not the primary doubles participant requested to fill in, however he was the primary to say sure. He hadn’t even practiced singles in about two years till taking part in a tiebreaker in coaching on Friday.
In different tennis motion, Rafael Nadal is just not certain whether or not he will compete in singles, saying after he paired with Carlos Alcaraz to win their first-round doubles match Saturday night time that he needs to “make the neatest resolution doable to have the very best probabilities to deliver (a) medal again house.”
Nadal’s first match in singles, towards Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics, is scheduled for Sunday.
Additionally, Angelique Kerber eliminated Naomi Osaka 7-5, 6-3 within the first spherical in a matchup between former No. 1-ranked gamers with a number of Grand Slam titles.
RAIN DISRUPTIONS
Rain continued from the opening ceremony through the first full day of competition and triggered a number of postponements and delays on the Paris Olympics.
Males’s road skateboarding was supposed to start out Saturday however was pushed to Monday due to the showers. The beginning of play within the scheduled tennis matches on the ten smaller courts at Roland Garros was delayed due to rain, however motion began as scheduled within the two fundamental stadiums which have retractable roofs.
The rain may threaten the water quality for swimming in the Seine when the triathlon begins Tuesday with the lads’s occasion on the Alexander III bridge subsequent to Grand Palais.
10-TIME OLYMPIAN
Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze made historical past as the primary lady to compete at 10 Olympic Games in a profession which started representing the Soviet Union. She has competed at each Summer season Olympics since 1988, when she received gold as a 19-year-old Soviet prodigy.
She set her newest document when she stepped into the capturing vary for qualification within the girls’s 10-meter air pistol. Salukvadze positioned thirty eighth and did not advance to Sunday’s eight-shooter closing. She will get one other shot at a medal Friday in qualification for the 25-meter pistol occasion.
In a profession spanning 5 many years, the 55-year-old has competed on three totally different Olympic groups: the Soviet Union in 1988, then the Unified Group which was organized for ex-Soviet athletes in Barcelona in 1992 after the Soviet Union collapsed.
She has represented her house nation of Georgia following its independence for the final eight Olympics.
CHINA’S DIVING QUEST
China has dominated diving for many years and got here to Paris looking for to comb all eight gold medals. The nation acquired off to an ideal begin Saturday when the group of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen received gold within the girls’s synchronized 3-meter springboard with 337.68 factors on 5 dives.
Three years in the past in Tokyo, China received seven of eight gold medals. It has by no means pulled off the elusive gold sweep.
HUNGARIAN FENCER LOSES
An era-defining streak in Olympic fencing was snapped by an upset when Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi lost his opening bout whereas chasing a fourth consecutive gold medal.
Szilagyi received gold medals in males’s particular person saber in 2012, 2016 and 2021 and was attempting to turn out to be the one fencer in historical past to win a fourth.
As a substitute, the streak led to Szilagyi’s first bout of the Paris Video games as he was overwhelmed 15-8 by the Twenty seventh-seeded Canadian Fares Arfa in one of many greatest upsets to date on the 2024 Olympics.
Reporting by The Related Press.
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