Key events
Simone Biles was the star attraction early on day 10, but she could only add a silver to her existing haul of three golds in the finals of the balance beam and floor. She was the centre of attention nonetheless.
Although the American did not close out her Paris Olympics with a golden picturesque finish in a chaotic last day of artistic gymnastics, her final day of competition here was rather an exhibition of the sportsmanship and humanity that has accompanied her greatness. After a fall on the balance beam led to a fifth-place finish, Biles won a silver medal on the floor exercise.
With gold medals in the all-around, team and vault competitions, plus the silver medal on the floor exercise, the 27-year-old leaves Paris with four more Olympic medals. She is now the joint-second most decorated female gymnast at the Games with 11 medals in total and she has also extended her own record as the most decorated gymnast of all time, male or female, with 41 Olympic and world championship medals.
Also in the Stade de France Keely Hodgkinson continued her incredible rise. Still only 22 the British 800m star now has a gold medal to go with the silver she secured in Tokyo.
Hodgkinson took the lead 200m into the race, exactly as she had planned. This time, Moraa was right there behind her, but Hodgkinson didn’t let her get up shoulder-to-shoulder. Instead, she pressed on once, coming into the last bend, and then pressed on again coming out of it. She pulled clear down the straight and ran in alone, fresh air between her and the Ethiopian Tsige Duguma, who had overtaken Moraa as she slipped back into the pack trying, and failing, to break into a sprint that would catch Hodgkinson.
It took Hodgkinson thousands of hours to make it to that finish line, and thousands of miles, and a fair few defeats. And in the end she made winning look so very easy that you only wondered how she ever found it so hard to begin with.
But with the greatest of respect to surfing, the standout achievement of day 10 arrived in the Stade de France. It was the Olympic stadium where Armand Duplantis lived up to his billing, cruising to pole vault gold then delighting the full house with an Olympic then world record. He is the superstar athlete of his generation and his performances have pushed his sport lightyears into the future.
The roar is humongous, and focused on him alone. He sets off. In a few seconds he will be earthbound and away, into the crowd, the star of the greatest show on earth.
But let’s leave him right here, sailing through clean clear air, higher than any human before him, a man flying beyond the earthly plane and into immortality.
There has already been a medal for Australia to celebrate today, albeit one that comes under the official banner of day 10 action (that’s what happens when one of the venues is 12 time zones away from the Olympic stadium).
In the men’s surfing final France’s Kauli Vaast took gold ahead of West Australian Jack Robinson.
Local hero Vaast surfed a near perfect heat to claim gold at Teahupo’o, relegating tube-riding maestro Robinson to silver. The 22-year-old Vaast, who grew up in Teahupo’o and has caught some of the best waves of all-time at the perfect reef pass, quickly established dominance in the final and never gave it up, sparking celebrations on spectator boats in the channel and in a small fan zone.
While we’re looking ahead, here’s the view from a specifically Australian perspective.
We’re not in business until 09:00 local time today, whereupon volleyball is the first item on the agenda, namely China v Turkiye in the women’s quarter-finals.
At 09:30 canoe sprint and handball come onto our radar with 10:00 signalling an avalanche of activity, including equestrian, diving, sport climbing, table tennis, and the morning session of athletics.
Here are the choice cuts from yesterday’s action. My particular favourite is the sparkly sailing.
China and the USA have now pulled clear at the top of the medal table and will duke it out for supremacy for the remainder of the Games.
45 countries have now heard their national anthem at these Games, including the tiny Caribbean islands of St Lucia and Dominica after stunning track and field successes.
73 NOCs in total have made it onto the medal table.
Preamble – Day 11 Schedule
Hello everybody and welcome to live coverage of the 11th official day of competition of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Day ten belonged to Armand Duplantis, who lived up to his billing as the athlete of his generation by captivating the Stade de France en route to a new pole vault world record. Other superstars contributed to another magnificent day of sport without celebrating gold. That includes Simone Biles who had to settle for a solitary silver from her final pair of apparatus finals, and Faith Kipyegon, who was run down by compatriot Beatrice Chebet in the final strides of a controversial 5,000m race.
Elsewhere, Viktor Axelsen defended his badminton gold medal, another Fox – Noemie this time – won on the whitewater, and Team GB got to work in the velodrome. And on an action packed day across the Games there was time for a Tahitian local to triumph on the terrifying Teahupo’o break.
So what can we look forward to today?
Medal Events
🥇 Equestrian – individual jumping (from 10:00)
🥇 Sailing – women’s & men’s dinghy (from 14:43)
🥇 Diving – women’s 10m platform (from 15:00)
🥇 Skateboarding – women’s park (from 17:30)
🥇 Wrestling – men’s greco-roman 60kg & 130kg / women’s freestyle 68kg (from 18:15)
🥇 Hammer – women’s (from 19:57)
🥇 Cycling – men’s team sprint (20:10)
🥇 Long Jump – men’s (20:15)
🥇 1500m – men’s (20:50)
🥇 3000m Steeplechase – women’s (21:14)
🥇 200m – women’s (21:40)
🥇 Boxing – women’s 60kg (23:06)
*(All times listed are Paris local)
Simon Burnton’s day-by-day guide
Athletics: men’s 1500m final
Jakob Ingebrigtsen won gold in Tokyo but since then has twice been pipped by Britons at global tournaments, beaten by Jake Wightman at the 2022 world championships and Josh Kerr at the 2023 event. The 1500m has been a thrilling, hotly contested event in recent years and there are several athletes who could halt the Kerr v Ingebrigtsen hype including another Norwegian in Narve Gilje Nordås, who is coached by Ingebrigtsen’s estranged father, Gjert (who has not been accredited for the Olympics because he faces criminal charges in Norway).
Skateboarding: women’s park final
The 14-year-old Australian and world No 2 Arisa Trew is one to keep an eye on here: last year she became the first female to pull off a 720, and in June was the first to land a 900 (two and a half rotations) and a switch McTwist (if you know you know). The park course is too slow to allow those tricks, but she will be trying to push the boundaries. Meanwhile Sky Brown, who won bronze for Britain at 13 in Tokyo, returns.
Greco-Roman wrestling: men’s 130kg gold final
At the other end of the Olympic age spectrum, Cuba’s Mijaín López, 42 in August, is attempting to become the first athlete to win five consecutive gold medals in the same individual event – and in so doing to present a plausible argument for being the greatest ever Olympian. “I will do it,” he said in March. “The fatigue is there, the physical pain is there, so the mind has to be strong, the motivation has to be even stronger.”
I’m sure I’ve failed to include something notable to you in this short rundown, so feel free to let me know what’s on your agenda by emailing: jonathan.howcroft.casual@theguardian.com.
I’ll be around for the first few hours of the blog here in Australia, after which I’m handing over to Yara El-Shaboury.
