Key events
A useful explainer for our readers in the UK …
… and for those in Australia …
… while our full Olympic schedule is here, with previews, standings and filters on medals and sports. Definitely one to bookmark for the next few weeks.
Snoop Dogg to be a torchbearer for the Olympic flame
Don’t drop it. Because it’s hot, etc.
American rapper Snoop Dogg will be among the torchbearers carrying the Olympic flame in the final stretch before the opening ceremony of the Paris Games on Friday.
Snoop Dogg, 52, will carry the torch through the streets of Saint-Denis, the underprivileged northern Paris suburb that is home to the Stade de France Olympic Stadium, the town’s mayor Mathieu Hanotin said on social media platform X.
“Saint Denis: last step before the Eiffel Tower. An international cast @SnoopDogg for the last stretch of the Olympic Flame,” Hanotin wrote.
The rapper, who is also contributing to NBC Primetime’s coverage of Games, is better known in the sports world for his Snoop Youth Football League. The championship game is called the “Snooper Bowl”.
Other carriers of the torch in Saint-Denis on Friday include French actress Laetitia Casta and French rapper MC Solaar. Reuters
While we’re on the rowing, you may have missed this excellent interview last week with Georgie Brayshaw.
Team GB had a bit of a shocker in the rowing last time out at Tokyo, we failed to claim a rowing gold for the first time since 1980, winning just one silver and one bronze to finish 14th on the rowing table in a sport we have previously dominated.
Sir Steve Redgrave has brighter hopes for Team GB in Paris.
“I think we’ll be the top rowing nation in Paris”, said the five-time Olympic rowing champion. “At the World Championships last year we got six gold medals and finished second on the medal table to the Netherlands (who also had six golds but more medals overall).
“We’re quite a predictable sport as the tradition is that 80 per cent of world champions go on to become Olympic champions. I expect that to be a bit less in Paris, but we’ve got to knock the Netherlands off their perch’
Explaining the Tokyo 2020 disappointment, Redgrave added: “Losing Jurgen Grobler, who had been men’s chief coach for a long period of time, and Paul Thompson, the best women’s coach, before the Tokyo Games was huge. As an administration we got ourselves a little bit lost. We got so caught up with the politics of change and bringing that change in, which did need to happen”.
Team GB are sending a 42-strong rowing squad to Paris 2024 with medal prospects littered throughout both male and female categories. Mum of three Helen Glover will grab most of the headlines in her pursuit of a third Olympic title after winning women’s pair gold with Heather Stanning in 2012 and 2016.
Enjoyed this on France’s 7ft4in basketball superstar.
Esteemed! Ha. Thanks Luke. Hello all. We are just one day away from the first events starting (men’s football and rugby sevens) before the opening ceremony on Friday. But Andy Murray’s announcement is the big news this morning. Let’s remind ourselves of his match point against Juan Martín del Potro to clinch the gold medal in 2016, to defend his 2012 triumph in London.
I’ll be back later for more – now handing over to my esteemed colleague Michael Butler for the next bit.
Daniel Boffey
The spectacle of the Olympic Games opening ceremony could be overshadowed by the human drama in the White House after it was confirmed that Jill Biden will attend the event on the Seine.
It will be a first appearance on the world stage for the president’s wife since her husband withdrew from his re-election campaign over concerns about his deteriorating health.
Attention was focused on the inspirational Antoine Dupont at last year’s Rugby World Cup, when the hosts were knocked out by South Africa in the last eight.
The seemingly supernaturally talented France scrum-half missed this year’s Six Nations to focus on preparing for the Olympic rugby sevens. Can he lead his nation to glory this summer?
Here is Raphaël Jucobin:
“Paris has waited a century for the Olympic Games to return; it may take that long for rugby to witness another player like Antoine Dupont too.
“France’s chief orchestrator has it all: vision, pin-point ambidextrous kicking, speed of execution, evasive runs and a destructive physique, all of which have helped him dictate matches at will for club and country.”
Australian water polo player isolated with Covid
An Australian water polo player has been isolated at the Paris Games after testing positive for Covid, the country’s Olympic team chief Anna Meares has said.
Close contacts of the athlete, who Meares did not name, were being monitored and tested, but the whole team would train as planned, she added.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed by a year due to the pandemic and were held largely without spectators.
“We were due to have two players from water polo with us, however, currently we have had one athlete from their team isolating with Covid which was detected last night,” Meares told a news conference. “So as a precaution they’re not joining us this morning.
“I need to emphasise that we are treating Covid no differently to other bugs like the flu. This is not Tokyo. The athlete is not particularly unwell and they are still training but sleeping in a single room.”
Meares said the athlete’s teammates would wear masks and adhere to social distancing measures.
“It was late last night when she presented with symptoms and the good thing is that having our own testing equipment means that we can get that information really, really quickly and intervene both in diagnosis and treatment,” Meares added.
“In terms of competitions, we will wait until she gets the all clear and we get the information from our chief medical officer Carolyn Broderick.”
The French health minister, Frederic Valletoux, said there was no risk of a major Covid cluster in France.
“Of course Covid is here. We’ve seem a small peak” in cases, he said. “But we are far from what we saw in 2020, 2021, 2022.”
He added that there was no obligation to wear a mask because the number of cases was still low. “Some precautions are being taken but, because the level at which Covid is spreading is very low, they depend on the organisers.” (Reuters)
In terms of an absolutely vintage Murray five-set tussle, this was a memorable live blog to write – a match that summed up Murray’s relentless fight, sense of theatre and remarkable skill:
Here’s a gallery of Murray’s two decades-plus competing at Wimbledon:
I can’t remember which year it was now, maybe 2004 when he was in the boys’ singles, but a friend suggested we watch the young British player (who neither of us had ever heard of) on a back court. As it turned out he had a pretty decent career …
It was all the way back in 2019, at the Australian Open, that someone got the wrong end of the stick in a spectacular way, and produced a video in which Murray’s fellow professionals retired him. He was experiencing injury issues at the time, but still, had no intention of walking away from the sport. Awkward.
I’ll probably need another coffee before attempting to write something meaningful about Andy Murray – the impact he’s had on the sport, the way he’s conducted himself, and the entertainment he’s given us all. He’s been magnificent, hasn’t he?
Please send me an email with your thoughts on Murray’s career. (Which, of course, isn’t over quite yet.)
Andy Murray to retire from tennis after Paris Olympics
Andy Murray will retire from professional tennis after this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.
The 37-year-old posted on X: “Arrived in Paris for my last ever tennis tournament. Competing for Great Britain [has] been by far the most memorable weeks of my career and I’m extremely proud to get do it one final time!”
Preamble
Hello and welcome to our 2024 Olympics buildup blog. The opening ceremony falls on Friday, officially beginning the Paris 2024 Games, but there is sporting action on Wednesday and Thursday, and a ton of buildup content to feast our eyes on in the next couple of days.
Here we go then, for starters: any breaking news out there today?
