Good evening!

I’ll be with you all weekend, delivering your schedule, results, medal tally and stories that matter at 5pm every day.

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Paris ‘24: Medal tally

Paris ‘24: Tonight’s top moments

Friday 2 August (All times in AEST)

🏌️‍♂️ 5:00pm, Men’s Golf: Individual Stroke Play (Round 2)
Australians Min Woo Lee (59th) and Jason Day (21st) will be looking to improve on a challenging opening round yesterday and make their way up the ladder. Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama currently leads by two shots. 

🏀 5:30PM, Women’s 3×3 Basketball: Australia v Azerbaijan, Australia v Spain (Group Games)
Australia are currently top of the eight-team competition table, having won three of their first four games. Tonight, they face Azerbaijan at 5:30pm and Spain at 8:30pm. Should they finish the group stage in the top two, they progress straight to the semi-finals. 

🏃‍♂️ 6:05PM, Athletics: Day Session  
One of the great Olympic spectacles – the track and field stadium program – kicks off tonight, and there are plenty of Australians in action. Ashley Moloney and Daniel Golubovic will compete in the Men’s Decathlon, Nicole Olyslagers and Eleanor Patterson start their Women’s High Jump qualification campaign, and Oliver Hoare, Adam Spencer, and Stewart McSweyn have the first round of the Men’s 1500m. 

🏊‍♂️ 7:00PM, Swimming: Heats Session  
Another night of blockbuster swimming action. Kaylee McKeown and Ella Ramsey feature in the 200m Medley heats, Matthew Temple and Ben Armbruster line up in the 100m Butterfly heats, Ariarne Titmus and Lani Pallister will take on the 800m Freestyle (less than 24 hours after winning gold in the 4x200m relay), and Australia’s 4x100m Mixed Medley compete in one of two heats.  

🚣‍♀️ 7:42PM, Women’s Rowing – Pair Finals (Medal Event 🥇) 
Australians Annabelle McIntyre and Jess Morrison are in the six-team medal race after coming first in their semi-final. Here, they’ll be looking to secure a spot on the podium. 

🎾 8:00PM, Tennis: Men’s Doubles Semi-Final
Australian duo Matthew Ebden and John Peers will have to beat third-seeded U.S. duo Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul for a spot in the gold medal match. 

🏑 9:15PM, Men’s Hockey: Australia v India (Group Game)
Australia have won three of their four matches in Paris so far, and currently sit in second position of Pool B (the top four of six teams in the two pools qualify for the quarter-finals). India’s men’s hockey team is the most successful team ever in the sport, having won eight gold medals. 

🎾 9:30PM, Tennis: Men’s Singles Semi-Finals
The pointy end of the tournament — Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime takes on Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz for a spot in the gold medal match. It will be followed by the Women’s Singles bronze medal match between Iga Świątek of Poland and Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlová. 

🏀 9:30PM, Men’s Basketball: Australia v Greece (Group Game)
It’s a crucial game for the Boomers. A loss here could see them slip out of contention for a quarter-final berth. They’ll have to overcome a Greek side led by NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.

🏊‍♀️ 10:00PM, Women’s Water Polo: Australia v Canada (Group Game)
Australia currently sits in second position in Group A after two games, and look to have done enough to progress to the quarter-finals next week. This match against Canada is crucial for determining where they finish in their group, and the team they’ll face in the next knock-out stage of the tournament. 

🛶 11:30PM, Canoe Slalom: Men & Women’s Kayak Cross Time Trials  
Tim Anderson and Tristan Carter will compete in the men’s event, followed by the Fox sisters in the women’s event at 12:40am. This is the first qualifier for the event, which couldn’t possibly result in Jess Fox bringing home a third gold medal. Surely not. Unless…

Saturday 3 August (All times in AEST)

🥊 1:38AM, Men’s Boxing: +92kg Quarter-Finals
Australian Teremoana Teremoana will face Uzbekistan’s Bakhodir Jalolov in the top weight division, with the winner guaranteed a three-in-four chance at a medal. 

🏃‍♂️ 2:00AM – 6:00AM, Athletics – Night Session  
The Athletics program continues at the Stade de France. Ashley Moloney and Daniel Golubovic will continue the program in the Men’s Decathlon, Rose Davies, Lauren Ryan, and Isobel Batt-Doyle will line up in the Women’s 5000m, Taryn Gollshewski features in the field for the Women’s Discus, Abbey Caldwell, Catriona Bisset, and Claudia Hollingworth compete in the Women’s 800m, and we get our first look at a relay with the 4x400m Mixed Relay Heats.

🤸‍♂️ 2:00AM, Men’s Trampolining – Qualification & Finals (Medal Event 🥇)  
Let’s bounce. Australian Brock Batty will first appear in the qualifications from 2:00am, followed directly by the final. It’s a field of 16, with eight progressing to the final.

🎾 3:00AM, Tennis: Men’s Singles Semi Finals
Novak Djokovic will face Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the other semi-final, with the gold medal match set for 8pm on Sunday night (AEST). 

🚴‍♂️ 4:00AM, BMX Racing – Men’s & Women’s Semi-Finals and Final (Medal Event 🥇) 
In one of the most inspiring stories in the Australian Olympic team, Saya Sakakibara goes into the semi-finals of the Women’s BMX Racing event having won all three of her quarter-finals earlier this morning. After following her older brother, Kai, into the sport, Saya nearly quit BMX racing after Kai sustained a traumatic brain injury in a crash in the 2020 World Cup. She was then seriously injured in a crash in the Tokyo Olympics, but has overcome all challenges to be back at the top of her sport in Paris. A serious gold medal contender, with the final being run at 5:50am (AEST). 

Then, it’s time for swimming…

🏊‍♀️ 4:30am, Men’s 50m Freestyle (Final 🥇)
The fastest race in swimming. Aussie Cam McEvoy will be in Lane 5, but Olympic record holder Caleb Dressel in Lane 2 is one to watch. The world record is a blistering 20.91 seconds, set back in 2009.

🏊‍♀️ 4:36am, Women’s 200m Backstroke (Final 🥇)
We’ll be watching Kaylee McKeown in Lane 5, as she looks to secure the double-double of winning both the 100m and 200m backstroke gold medals in both Tokyo and Paris.

Paris ‘24: The headlines

In case you missed it…

🏊‍♀️ Australia's women's 4x200m freestyle relay team claimed gold in spectacular fashion, setting a new Olympic record of 7:38.08. The team of Mollie O'Callaghan, Lani Pallister, Brianna Throssell, and Ariarne Titmus dominated from the start, finishing 2.78 seconds ahead of the U.S, who took silver, with China taking bronze. This win marks Australia's fifth gold medal in the pool in Paris, and is an improvement on the bronze medal they won in the same event in Tokyo three years ago. Australia’s women’s team also holds the world record in the event, which they set at last year’s World Championships. U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky became the most decorated female Olympic swimmer of all time with the silver medal in this race — she now has 13 medals, including eight golds.

🏃‍♀️ Australian race walker Jemima Montag won bronze medal in the women's 20km walk, finishing only 31 seconds behind gold medallist Yang Jiayu of China and setting a new Australian record in the event. Montag never dropped out of the top five walkers in the race, and shaved over four minutes off her time in the same event in Tokyo, where she finished sixth. She becomes the seventh Australian to win an Olympic medal in the event, and will compete again in the Mixed Marathon Race Walk Relay.

🤸‍♀️ Simone Biles has once again proven her dominance in gymnastics, securing gold in the All-Around competition — a gymnastics event where individuals compete across the vault, balance beam, uneven bars. and floor. It completes a near-perfect return to Olympic competition for the American, who withdrew from the Tokyo Games midway through the competition because of mental health concerns. Biles is now undoubtedly one of the greatest female gymnasts of all time, winning her sixth Olympic gold medal and continuing her record of winning every All-Around Olympic or World Championship competition she has entered since 2013. Accepting the gold medal, Biles wore a diamond necklace of a goat, saying it was “a little ode... They always call me the GOAT [greatest of all time], so I thought it would be really special if I got a necklace made”.

🏀 The Australian Opals have kept their Olympic dreams alive with a crucial five-point victory over Canada in women's basketball. It means the side is in third place in Group B, and seventh in the combined group rankings. The top eight of the 12 teams progress to the quarter-finals. Sami Whitcomb top-scored with 19 points, while Cayla George was a critical element to the side’s performance off the bench. The Opals will next play on Monday morning, where they’ll face host nation France at 5am AEST.

🏄‍♂️ Australian windsurfer Grae Morris is guaranteed a medal in the men's Windsurfing event, and will enter the grand final medal race in top position on the leaderboard after a series of 14 races so far. The final race will have only three competitors to determine the medal order. Morris will become the first Australian medal in Windsurfing since the 1992 Olympics. The race is set to start after 10:23pm AEST, but is dependent on conditions.

🤽‍♂️ Australia's men's water polo team won a nail-biting match against host nation France by a single goal, 9-8. France is the fourth-ranked team in the world, meaning Australia has now beaten two of the giants of water polo after also defeating Serbia earlier in the Games. It won’t get any easier for the Sharks as they attempt to secure Australia’s first-ever medal in the men’s event (Australia’s women’s team have three). They’ll next face Tokyo bronze medallists Hungary. Awin guarantees Australia’s progression to the knockout phase of the event.

Paris ‘24: What we’re talking about

Here’s what you need to know about the women’s boxing controversy

An Olympic boxing match has reignited fierce battles around gender eligibility and regulatory inconsistencies in the sport. Italian Angela Carini was 46 seconds into her bout against Algeria's Imane Khelif, when Khelif landed a punch on her nose, and she withdrew. Here’s what you need to know.

Imane Khelif

Khelif, 25, began competitive boxing in 2018. In 2021, she made it to the quarterfinals at the Tokyo Games before being eliminated. The next year, she won the African and Mediterranean Championships and silver at the World Championships.

Regulatory issues

In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA), which is not recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), held the World Boxing Championships.

Partway through the competition, the IBA disqualified Khelif and another boxer, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, for failing a gender eligibility test. It’s since said the two “did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognised test”.

There is no indication Khelif is trans or intersex.

IBA President Umar Kremlev told Russian state media in 2023 that the two boxers failed the test because they had XY chromosomes, typically found in people assigned male at birth; this has not been supported by the IBA or by any official documentation.

The IBA has not offered any further details of the test.

Olympics

The IOC does not recognise the IBA due to financial issues. It declared Khelif and Lin eligible to compete in women’s events at the Paris Games.

The IOC said the IBA's disqualification of the two athletes in 2023 was “sudden and arbitrary”.

Khelif and Carini

During an Olympic match this week, Khelif’s competitor – Angela Carini – chose to abandon the bout after a punch to her nose dislodged her chinstrap and left her bleeding.

The Italian boxer later said she had “never felt a punch like this” and stopped the fight “for [her] health”.

Reactions

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said: “From my point of view it was not an even contest.”

The Algerian Olympic Committee has defended Khelif, saying she was the subject of “unethical targeting and maligning… with baseless propaganda from certain foreign media outlets.”

Australia’s boxing captain, Caitlin Parker, said she “doesn’t agree with [Khelif and Lin] being allowed to compete in sport, especially combat sports… It can be incredibly dangerous.”

The IOC, while defending the two athletes’ participation, said it was “saddened by the abuse that the two athletes are currently receiving.” It said that “every person has the right to practise sport without discrimination.”

Khelif will next face Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori at 1am on Sunday morning (AEST). Yin will compete in the 57kg division at 11:30pm tonight (AEST).

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Anything but Paris ‘24

Your Super Netball Grand Final Preview

The Adelaide Thunderbirds and Melbourne Vixens will face off tomorrow in the 2024 Suncorp Super Netball Grand Final, held in front of a sold-out crowd of over 9000 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Both teams have had remarkable seasons, but it all comes down to this.

The Adelaide Thunderbirds, who topped the competition ladder during the regular season, have had a relatively smooth path to the Grand Final. Their dominant performance in the Major Semi-Final saw them secure a spot in the decider with a comfortable 25-goal victory over the Vixens a week ago.

Their best-in-league defence, led by Shamera Sterling-Humphrey, Matilda Garrett, and Latanya Wilson, along with the key attacking forces including Eleanor Cardwell and Georgie Horjus, have proven difficult for almost every team in the league to overcome.

The Melbourne Vixens, on the other hand, have had a more challenging journey. After an up-and-down end to the season, they secured their place in the Grand Final with a nail-biting one-goal victory over the West Coast Fever in the Preliminary Final last weekend.

This is the fourth time the teams will play each other this season — the Vixens won the first game in Round 2, while the Thunderbirds have had the upper hand in the last two encounters.

The details
Who: Adelaide Thunderbirds v Melbourne Vixens
Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide
When: 6:30pm local time (7:00pm AEST)
How to watch: Fox Sports or Kayo Freebies

A message from our sponsor

Boosting Athletic Performance with AI: Insights from Deakin’s Dr. Lyndell Bruce

Dr. Lyndell Bruce, a Sport Scientist at Deakin University, is all about using the latest tech and data to boost athletic performance.

Take Artificial Intelligence, for instance. Last year, Mitch Aarons, a School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences PhD student, designed and created a decision support system (DSS) for coaches to use to assist in their match-day decision-making.

The system compares data from historic match outcomes and in-game team metrics with the current performance characteristics of two teams during a match to provide real-time feedback on a team's chances of winning and how their chances might be improved

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Think beyond the field. Study sport at Deakin.

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