Key events
In case you missed it last night, here is Rachel Hall’s piece reacting to the Charlotte Dujardin news that broke in the afternoon:
Kieran Pender
From an Australian perspective, the Olympics really begin today. First up the Australian Olympic Committee will name the nation’s two flag-bearers ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony. The smart money for the female flag-bearer is Jess Fox, Tokyo gold medallist and the most successful canoeist of all time. Fox was born in France and has family here – her mother/coach represented France at two Olympics, adding a touching local element. Hockey veteran Eddie Ockenden is among the names being touted as potential male flag-bearers.
The first Australians to see action in Paris will then kick off this afternoon, with the men’s Rugby Sevens squad facing Samoa and then Kenya later this evening. While the Australian women won gold in Rio, the men have never reached a medal match, but hopes are high.
The other major Australian moment today will be the Matildas’ final training session and media opportunity before their Olympic football campaign begins tomorrow against Germany in Marseille. The team has been sweating on a few injury woes, so expect an update tonight on whether key players are fit. I’m in Marseille now – there’s not quite the same Olympic buzz as Paris, but it’s a stunning day on the Mediterranean.
Andy Bull considers what the Covid-hit 2020 Tokyo Olympics meant for Japan and for the Olympic movement: and what these Games in Paris may come to represent for France and the wider world:
“Once it was over, the hosts were so very keen for everyone to please leave that they gave athletes 48 hours to get out of the country. A year later, the Associated Press quoted a Japanese academic studying the legacy of the Games as saying “people don’t want to talk about it or even think about it” …
“If Tokyo ended up becoming the Covid Games, the Paris edition – taking place against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and the unavoidable sense that Emmanuel Macron’s own grand national project is listing beneath his feet – has already been reframed as the Conflict Games.”
I am not entirely clear on how having a former BBC weather forecaster in-house is going to help Team GB win medals. But good luck to them.
Team GB have hired the former BBC weather forecaster, Penny Tranter, as they seek an extra one per cent in their bid for a big medals haul in Paris.
As well as providing daily weather reports, Tranter, who worked for the BBC from 1992 to 2008, has been brought on board to predict longer-term patterns amid fears these Games will be the hottest on record.
Temperatures in the French capital are currently in the mid-20s degrees Celsius but it is forecast to get hotter next week. In an attempt to offset the carbon footprint, Paris organisers have rolled out a number of initiatives, the most high-profile of which is following the lead of Tokyo 2020 and having all beds at the Olympic village made from recycled cardboard.
To improve sleep for their athletes, Team GB brought 942 blankets and 578 mattress toppers. UK Sport issued a target of between 50 and 70 medals for Team GB . If they win 70, it would represent their best result at an overseas Games, beating the 67 they won at Rio 2016.
They have also brought with them a freight weight in excess of 22 tonnes in food and drink supplies alone, which includes 6,500 bags of sweets, salted popcorn, 22,000 cereal bars, 700 jars of whole earth peanut butter and more than 1,000 boxes of muesli.
More than 1,000 bottles of squash have also been brought across the Channel as well as 945 boxes of English Breakfast tea – estimated to contain 47,250 tea bags. A total of 85,000 items of kit have been distributed thanks to the efforts of 400 staff and volunteers. (PA Media)
Angelique Chrisafis
When Paris’s gigantesque, city-centre Olympic Games opening ceremony begins on Friday night, with boats full of athletes gliding side by side down the River Seine in a configuration not seen since the days of King Louis XV, there is more at stake than France’s global image.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, who has promised the Olympics will “light up people’s hearts” in a “summer of French pride”, is depending on the Games to restore morale in a deeply divided nation, which only weeks ago he had warned could be facing “civil war”.
Quite boldly, Paris wants to outdo all previous Olympic Games on every possible front – dazzling visuals, sustainability, gender equality, even by confounding expectations as a famously meat‑eating nation by providing the most ever vegetarian food.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to our live Paris 2024 coverage on the day the sport begins: football and rugby sevens are both due to kick off later.
From a British perspective, the agenda is dominated by news that the dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin, who was aiming to become Britain’s most decorated female Olympian at these Games, has been banned after alleged mistreatment of a horse.
Dujardin yesterday withdrew from the Olympics, and apologised, before news of her ban came later. More on that story, and lots of other stuff, coming up.
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