Good evening!

If you watched the men’s pole vault final, you saw Sweden’s Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis put on an absolute clinic. The 24-year-old had gold wrapped up after clearing 6m, a height none of his competitors could match. He then proceeded to raise the bar (literally) to 6.25m and break his own world record of 6.24m in front of 75,000 fans at Stade de France.

Respect.

In the women’s pole vault, Australia’s Nina Kennedy has qualified for the final which will take place on Thursday morning (AEST). While a gold medal for Kennedy isn’t quite as certain as it was for Duplantis, she is the current world champion and has every right to believe she can be an Olympic champion.

Let’s go, Nina!

And for those who wrote in regarding yesterday’s ‘Anything but Paris’ blunder. Thanks for reading to the bottom of the newsletter, I see you, appreciate you, and I’m sorry.

Paris ‘24: Medal tally

Paris ‘24: The headlines

Tuesday 6th August (All times are in AEST)

🛶 5:30pm: Canoe Sprint, Men’s and Women’s K4 and K2 (Heats)
Canoe Sprint begins today at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium where the Rowing events took place last week. Australia has men’s and women’s crews of two and four racing their heats. 

🏃‍♂️ 6:00pm: Track and Field, (Morning Session)
On the track, Australians Jess Hull, Linden Hall and Georgia Griffith are set to compete in the heats of the Women’s 1500m. In the field, Cameron McEntyre will compete in the Men’s Javelin and Brooke Buschkuehl is in the Women’s Long Jump. Meanwhile, Tayleb Willis and Ellie Beer have one more chance to make the semi-final of their events in the Men’s 110m Hurdles and Women’s 400m Repechages.

🏊‍♀️ 6:00pm: Diving, Men’s 3m springboard (Preliminary)
Kurtis Mathews is making his Olympic debut after he won the Australian trials for this event in June. He must finish in the top 18 in this preliminary round to advance to the semi-final tomorrow at 6:00pm.

🛹8:30pm: Skateboarding, Women’s Park (Preliminary)
Arisa Trew and Ruby Trew will skate for Australia in this event. Unlike Jess and Noémie Fox, they are not sisters. The final is set to take place later at 1:30am (AEST). 

🏀 10:30pm: Men’s Basketball, Australia v Serbia (Quarter-Final)
This match is do-or-die for the Boomers who scraped through the pool stages with a win against Spain and losses to Greece and Canada. In Paris, they are looking to better their bronze medal from Tokyo.

🏊‍♀️ 11:00pm: Diving, Women’s 10m platform (Finals 🥇)
Two Aussies are competing in this final. Five-time Olympian Melissa Wu qualified 11th out of 12 for this final. Fellow Aussie Ellie Cole, 17, qualified sixth.

Wednesday 7th August

🚴‍♂️ 1:30am: Track Cycling, Men’s and Women’s Team Sprints and Pursuits
In the women’s events, Australia is racing in the team pursuit and qualifying starts at 1:30am. In the men’s events, Australia qualified third in the team sprint and first in the team pursuit last night. The first round of team sprint starts at 2:59am and the finals of the team pursuit will begin at 4:10am.

🏐 3:00am: Women’s Water Polo, Australia v Greece (Quarter-Final)
The Stingers are unbeaten in Paris so far and will be looking to maintain their clean record in this do-or-die clash with Greece. Australia topped Pool A while Greece were fourth in Pool B and have only won one of their four matches so far.

🏐 5:00am: Women’s Beach Volleyball, Australia v Switzerland (Quarter-Final)
Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar won silver in Tokyo and have looked strong through the preliminary stages. They are playing Swiss pair Zoé Vergé-Depré and Esmée Böbner for a spot in the semi-finals.

🏃‍♂️And then it’s time for track and field finals…

3:49am: Men’s 400m (Semi-Final )
Australian Reece Holder will race in semi-final 3. Holder ran a personal best (44.53) in his heat and finished third to qualify for the semi-final.

3:57am: Women’s Hammer Throw (Final 🥇)
No Aussies in this final. Canada’s Camryn Rogers and Finland’s Krista Tervo were the top two qualifiers. Poland’s Anita Włodarczyk won gold in Rio and Tokyo.

4:15am: Men’s Long Jump (Final 🥇)
No Aussies in this final. Miltiádis Tentóglou from Greece is the defending Olympic champion and favourite to win the event.

4:50am: Men’s 1500m (Final 🥇)
No Aussies in this race but the battle between Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Great Britain’s Josh Kerr is set to be an absolute thriller. Watch out for American Cole Hocker too.

5:40am: Women’s 200m (Final 🥇)
American Gabby Thomas was the fastest qualifier for the 200m by milliseconds. Saint Lucian runner Julien Alfred will be looking to add another gold to her Paris haul after winning the 100m earlier this week.

Paris ‘24: The headlines

In case you missed it…

 The Hockeyroos lost their quarter-final to China 3-2. It was a frustrating loss for the Hockeyroos, who were unbeaten in the pool stages of the tournament but failed to capitalise on their opportunities against China. Jane Claxton, co-captain of the side, confirmed it was her final game for the Hockeyroos after over 250 matches in the green and gold.

🏄‍♂️ Aussie surfer Jack Robinson won a silver medal in the Olympic surfing competition. The 26-year-old was beaten by Frenchman Kauli Vaast who claimed two high-scoring waves (9.5 and 8.17) early in the final. In inconsistent surf, Robinson was only able to get one wave (7.83) and waited patiently for a second wave for most of the 30-minute heat. It was a sweet victory for Vaast who grew up close to Teahupo’o, the break where the event was being held.

🤸 Simone Biles won silver in the women’s artistic gymnastic floor routine. Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the gold medal after producing a flawless routine. They were joined on the podium by Biles’ American teammate Jordan Chiles. Biles was gracious in defeat, "I've accomplished way more than my wildest dreams – not just at this Olympics, but in this sport. So I can't be mad at my performances.” She finished her campaign in Paris with three gold medals and a silver. 

🏃🏽‍♀️Australian sprinter Torrie Lewis made an impressive start to her Olympic career, making the semi-final of the women’s 200m. The 19-year-old finished seventh (22.92) behind some of the world’s fastest women after setting a new personal best of 22.89 in her heat. She will return to the track later this week for Australia’s relay team.

🏐 The Sharks, Australia’s men’s water polo team, lost their final group-stage match to Japan (14-13). Despite the result, they finished second in Group B and will play the U.S. (who finished third in Group A) in the quarter-final on Thursday morning (AEST). Australia’s best result in men’s water polo is fifth at the 1984 and 1992 Olympic Games.

🏟️ Sweden’s Armand Duplantis became the second man to win consecutive gold medals in the Olympic pole vault. After confirming gold at a height of 6.00m, Duplantis decided to raise the height to 6.25m for an attempt at the 6.24m world record he set in April. With a crowd of 75,000 clapping him in, Duplantis cleared the bar on his third attempt and broke the world record for the ninth time. Australian Kurtis Marschall finished the final in sixth place with a vault of 5.85m, the second-best jump from an Australian at the Olympics after Steve Hooker who cleared 5.96m to win gold in Beijing.

🏃🏽‍♀️Controversy followed the women’s 5000m race after Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, who finished second, had her medal stripped and then reinstated. Kipyegon was originally disqualified for jostling with Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay. She then successfully appealed the disqualification. Beatrice Chebet of Kenya won gold while reigning Olympic champion, the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan, won bronze.

🏃🏽‍♀️Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain delivered as the favourite to win the 800m. The 22-year-old led the race almost the whole way and won gold. Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia and Mary Moraa of Kenya won the silver and bronze.

Paris ‘24: What we’re talking about

Noémie Fox wins gold in kayak cross

Noémie Fox won gold in the kayak cross on her Olympic debut. 

What happened?

After defeating her older sister, Jess, in the heats on Saturday, Noémie continued her march to gold as the top qualifier in the semi-final and eventual winner of the final.

France’s Angèle Hug and Great Britain’s Kimberley Woods finished in second and third while Germany’s Elena Lilik rounded out the field in fourth and missed out on the medals.

Family ties

After Noémie crossed the line, the Fox family jumped into the water in celebration. 

Fox joins her older sister Jess as an Olympic champion in Paris after Jess won two golds in the K1 and C1 canoe slalom events. All three women’s Canoe Slalom events were won by the sisters.

The sister’s parents, Richard Fox and Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, were both Olympians in the Canoe Slalom.

What is kayak cross?

This was the first Olympics to include the new Canoe Slalom event, Kayak Cross. The event sees four competitors race down a whitewater paddle course. It begins with a 15-foot drop before competitors must pass through gates while negotiating a strong current; there is also a mandatory barrel roll at a designated point along the course. Competitors receive a time penalty if they miss any gates. Whoever crosses the line first wins. 

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Anything but Paris ‘24

🏏 Graham Thorpe, an English cricketer and coach, died yesterday aged 55. Thorpe played 100 Test matches for England and scored 6,744 runs for the side over his 12-year career between 1993 and 2005. Steve Elworthy, the chief executive of Surrey County Cricket Club (where Thorpe played domestic cricket), said: “He achieved remarkable feats for club and country and was a hero to so many cricket fans,".

🏉 Three-time premiership player and Brownlow medallist Dustin Martin has called time on his 15-year career in the AFL, effective immediately. The 33-year-old played 302 games and scored 338 goals throughout his illustrious career with Richmond.

🏉 Meanwhile, Geelong Cats legend Tom Hawkins has also announced he will retire from the AFL at the end of the season. Hawkins won three premierships and is the games-record holder played for the club having played 359 games. He has kicked 796 goals during his 18-year career, the 13th most of any AFL or VFL player.

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