It’s also a huge night for Australia’s women’s football team. The Matildas are enormously popular at home, but they opened their Olympic campaign with a tame defeat to Germany in front of a sparse crowd. Victory over Zambia, the lowest ranked side in Group B, is essential.

Meanwhile, Australia’s qualification hopes have been helped by the extraordinary situation that has engulfed defending champions Canada, who have been docked six points and seen their coach banned for a year.

Expectations are sky high down under for another golden day. Jess Fox, the K1 world champion, is in action on the whitewater. Chloe Covell is a contender in the women’s street skateboarding. And then back in the pool Emma McKeon, Australia’s most decorated olympian, will be out to add to her incredible haul in 100m butterfly.

Later on, in the pool, Ariarne Titmus (AUS) triumphed in one of the races of the Games, leading home Summer McIntosh (CAN) and Katie Ledecky (USA) in the 400m freestyle. All three have held the world record at various times since Tokyo, setting up one of the most eagerly anticipated finals in Paris. Kieran Pender was poolside at La Défense Arena.

It had been billed as one of the marquee races of the swim program in Paris – the race of the decade, even the century. It was supposed to be a nail-biting contest. Instead it was a coronation. Titmus executed her race plan flawlessly, leading at every turn. McIntosh pushed her hard, but the Australian had half a body length by 250m and ultimately won by almost a second.

It’s early in Europe, late in the US, but mid-afternoon in Australia, perfect for basking in green and gold glory.

A day that ended with the southern cross on top of the medal table was kickstarted by Grace Brown who prevailed in a treacherous time trial on the slippery streets of the historic city. Jack Snape was there.

The gold was an extraordinary achievement after Brown only took up cycling at 23 following an injury-plagued cross country career. “When I was running, I had this feeling, like if I really nailed everything, maybe I could get on an Olympic team or something,” she said.

“But I kept getting injured, so I never was able to get up to that next level. I started cycling just out of frustration with my injuries and – I don’t know – it just went really well.”

While we’re on the subject of surfing, a quick public service announcement on the pronunciation of Teahupo’o. In Tahitian every syllable ends in a vowel, and when there are vowel clusters each is pronounced as a separate syllable. So, Teahupo’o is Tay-a-hoop-oh-oh.

For some reason “cho-poo” or similar has become commonplace. If you hear someone saying that you must cast them into the ocean and let Poseidon do the rest.

Storm clouds were welcomed 15,000km away in Tahiti with stormy weather heralding excellent conditions for the first day of the surfing competition at the famous Teahupo’o break. Kieran Pender savoured the swells, sets, and spray.

On Saturday, half a world away from Paris, the second edition of Olympic surfing started with a bang – quite literally. As powerful Southern Ocean swells reach the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, having crossed thousands of kilometres of open ocean, the water heaves upwards and explodes on contact with the reef. The terrifying result is the fearsome Teahupo’o (which roughly translates as “wall of skulls”). And it offers the perfect gladiatorial arena for the world’s best surfers to vie for Olympic gold.

While the sun is shining now, the poor weather of recent days is going to have some lasting effects, most notably on the quality of the water in the river Seine. Paris’ famous waterway is scheduled to host the marathon swim and the swimming leg of the triathlon, but that will only happen if the water is deemed safe for athletes.

Swimming in the Seine is the most controversial and ambitious aspect of the Games. Lots of money has been spent cleaning up the river and building stormwater facilities to minimise runoff during periods of rain, but even so, it’s a mightily difficult problem to solve when faced with such a small window of opportunity. Sean Ingle has more.

Olympic triathletes in Paris are set to miss their first practice session in the River Seine on Sunday because of the deteriorating water quality.

Two days of practice are scheduled before the men’s event on Tuesday, with the women’s race taking place a day later. However, organisers admit the heavy rain over the past 24 hours means the water will likely fail its next test at 4am on Sunday morning.

The first action of the day is not for a couple of hours, and it all kicks off with another busy schedule of badminton from 8:30 local time. Then we’ve got some beach volleyball, handball, rowing, shooting, and volleyball (9:00), archery, gymnastics, and fencing (9:30).

And after a couple of grey days the weather is set fair to bathe the city of light in golden sunshine.

The medal table after one day of the Games makes pleasant reading for Australia. They lead the way with three golds and match the USA’s overall haul of five medals. With more swimming finals to come this evening there’s every possibility they retain that position for another day.

Preamble – Day Two Schedule

Jonathan Howcroft