Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the U.S. competes in a ladies’s 400-meter hurdles warmth on the Paris Olympics on Sunday in Saint-Denis, France.
Matthias Schrader/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Matthias Schrader/AP
NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer season Olympics. For extra of our protection from the video games head to our newest updates.
PARIS — We’ve entered the ultimate countdown of the Paris Olympics, with seven days of competitors to go.
Trying forward, it’s a packed week for monitor and area. Athletes have already obtained a handful of medals at Stade de France stadium, following some dramatic twists and turns. Julien Alfred upset U.S. celebrity Sha’Carri Richardson within the 100-meter dash to win her native St. Lucia its first medal in Olympic historical past. And American Noah Lyles grew to become the quickest man on the earth after a nail-biting picture end.
On Sunday, the closing ceremony attracts the curtain on an already historic Summer season Video games.
Right here’s a roundup of a number of the spotlight athletes and occasions to catch earlier than then.
Monitor and area
One of many massive moments nonetheless to return on the operating monitor might be Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s anticipated closing within the ladies’s 400-meter hurdles on Thursday. The 24-year-old American retains getting sooner. In nationwide trials a month earlier than the Paris Video games, she broke her personal world report. She’s favored so as to add to her two gold medals.
Additionally on Thursday, the newly-crowned 100m gold medalist Noah Lyles will run the 200 meters, the American’s higher occasion of the 2, in his quest to land the primary Olympic dash double since Jamaican celebrity Usain Bolt.
Pole vaulter Katie Moon of the U.S. goes for a back-to-back gold after topping the competitors in her Olympic debut at the Tokyo Video games in 2021.
Breaking
Breaking is making its debut on the Olympic stage. Sixteen b-boys and 16 b-girls will quickly compete for the gold over two days on the Place de la Concorde, an open-air city stadium.
Victor Montalvo, often known as B-Boy Victor, of the U.S., competes within the B-boy Crimson Bull BC One World Ultimate at Hammerstein Ballroom in 2022, in Manhattan, N.Y. The Worldwide Olympic Committee introduced two years in the past that breaking would turn into an official Olympic sport.
Andres Kudacki/FR170905 AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Andres Kudacki/FR170905 AP
Whereas breaking has its roots within the U.S. and was a mainstay of early hip hop tradition, most of the world’s greatest breakers right now are from international locations around the globe.
That brings some added stress for the 4 Staff USA breakers who will signify their nation in Paris, together with “B-Boy Victor” Montalvo of Staff USA, who’s seen as a gold medal favourite, as are former world champion Phil Wizard and Japan’s b-boy Shigekix.
There may be additionally pressure — some consider that breaking shouldn’t have been included as part of the Olympic program, arguing that it’s an artwork kind fairly than a sport.
“Breaking has elevated rather a lot because the 70s, so lots of people do have a misperception of what breaking is right now, and even just like the tradition and the neighborhood round it” stated Sunny Choi, who’s competing for the U.S. “However there’s all the time — in case you’re doing one thing good, there’s all the time going to be haters.”
Boxing
Two feminine boxers have superior to the semifinals amid a storm of political controversy over gender eligibility in ladies’s sports activities. The Worldwide Olympic Committee has vigorously defended the 2 boxers, Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, left, defeated Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova of their ladies’s 57 kg preliminary boxing match on the Olympics on Friday, in Paris.
John Locher/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
John Locher/AP
The 2 boxers have competed in ladies’s boxing for years, accumulating a typical report of wins and losses in opposition to different ladies. “These two boxers had been born as ladies, registered as feminine passports, have fought on the senior stage for six years with no points,” stated Worldwide Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams on Sunday. As well as, gender transition is unlawful in Khelif’s native Algeria.
The controversy stems from a call final 12 months by the Worldwide Boxing Affiliation to disqualify them from some competitions after claiming that the boxers had failed two unspecified gender eligibility exams. However loads of questions stay: The Russia-linked federation has refused to launch any particulars about these exams, and the disqualification was introduced shortly after Khelif defeated a Russian boxer. The IBA was completely banned from the Olympics final 12 months after many years of corruption accusations. “The tactic of the testing, the concept of the testing — which form of occurred in a single day — none of it was legit,” Adams stated.
Weightlifting
The U.S. Olympic weightlifting crew is using excessive expectations heading into competitors this week. Many have eyed Olivia Reeves after an impressive 2023 marketing campaign, who will make her Olympic debut right here in Paris as a possible gold medalist. She received a gold medal win in her weight class at this 12 months’s Worldwide Weightlifting Federation’s World Cup during which she positioned first within the competitors’s two levels: the snatch, and the clear and jerk.
American weightlifter Hampton Morris poses for a photograph at a Staff USA media summit in New York.
Andres Kudacki/AP
cover caption
toggle caption
Andres Kudacki/AP
The crew additionally consists of Hampton Morris, who at 20-years outdated, would be the youngest American weightlifter to compete on the Olympics since 2000. Earlier this 12 months, he broke the clear and jerk 61 kg report, lifting 388 kilos (176kg in Thailand).
“I feel the very best factor for me to do is simply not let myself overthink something, attempt to not put an excessive amount of stress on myself,” Morris stated. “Simply want to remain relaxed, however keep targeted. Have a superb meet.”
A number of athletes cited the explosive development within the sport over the past twenty years, and the caliber of athletes who competed for the chance to compete in Paris.
“It’s simply an honor to be right here, and it’s additionally actually cool to see simply how a lot ladies’s weightlifting has advanced in 24 years, and even I simply the final two quads that I’ve competed in,” stated Jourdan Delacruz, who’s making her second look on the Olympics. “The expertise has skyrocketed. It was extremely onerous to get right here, and that’s simply because the expertise pool was so unimaginable.”
There have been simply 4 feminine medalists since ladies’s weightlifting was added to the Olympic program in 2000, on the Sydney Video games.
Wrestling
If Martial sports activities are your factor, Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling are already underway at Champs-de-Mars Enviornment. American coach Herb Home says the U.S. crew this 12 months is in a “rebuilding” part.
“We’re thought of the underdogs, possibly,” Home stated, describing America’s Greco-Roman athletes. “I feel lots of people are going to be stunned.”
One twist this 12 months is that prime Russian wrestlers — typically among the many easiest on the Olympic Video games — aren’t competing this 12 months. Some had been rejected by the Worldwide Olympic Committee due to their public help for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Others, together with Russian star wrestler Shamil Mamedov certified for Paris however declined to take part.
Taekwondo
On Wednesday, in the meantime, motion resumes within the beautiful Grand Palais in central Paris. Fencers have wrapped up their competitors, so the venue constructed for the Paris Exhibition of 1900 might be turned over to taekwondo athletes.
Taekwondo originated in conventional Korean martial arts and has gained reputation world-wide. 4 American athletes will struggle below the palace’s hovering glass dome: Religion Dillon, Jonathan Healy, C.J. Nickolas and Kristina Teachout.
Soccer
The fourth-ranked U.S. ladies’s nationwide crew is aware of it would play for a medal on the Paris Olympics. The query is what shade.
The People tackle fifth-ranked Germany Tuesday within the semifinals and it’s a rematch between the 2 groups. Final week the U.S. thumped Germany 4-1 in group play. The U.S. has had a more durable time within the knockout spherical. It squeaked by Japan within the quarterfinal after a dramatic and spectacular additional time purpose from Trinity Rodman within the quarterfinal.
No. 9 Brazil and top-ranked Spain play in Tuesday’s different semifinal match.
The U.S. received bronze on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and in addition had its earliest-ever exit from the Girls’s World Cup final 12 months. Since then, the U.S. has introduced in a brand new coach (Emma Hayes), youthful roster and a brand new angle.
The U.S. has not misplaced at these Olympics (4-0) and it’s simply the second time the USWNT has opened the match with 4 victories.
If the People win on Tuesday, they’d advance to the gold medal recreation on Saturday. A loss means the U.S. would play for the bronze on Friday.