Day Two at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has seen another round of the world’s best athletes battle it out for spots on the podium resulting in numerous teams and individuals written into the history books.
The first day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games witnessed a variety of iconic moments with the French Rugby Sevens Team securing the host nation’s first gold medal on an unforgettable night at the Stade de France and several other events showcasing prolonged prowess or determined debutants in the swimming, boxing, judo, and gymnastics.
With Day Two offering slightly better conditions, things heated up further with more sports, more controversies, and more flashes of brilliance as a range of athletes continued to push their nations up the medal table.
We’ve rounded up five key takeaways from Day Two of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Brilliant Biles makes a return to the world’s biggest stage
Drawing a host of A-list celebrities, 27-year-old Gymnastics icon Simone Biles dazzled in her long-awaited return to the Olympic stage on an action-packed second day of the Games.
While famed compatriots including Snoop Dog, Ariana Grande, Tom Cruise, and Greta Gerwig watched on, the four-time Olympic champion posted the highest qualifying score on the floor with a flawless performance on the beam earning a total of 59.566.
Having pulled out of several events at the Tokyo Games in 2021 for mental health reasons which she later put down to the ‘twisties’, Biles returned in style, even with some heavy strapping to her left ankle.
The sullied Seine causes more cancellations
The rain that caused mayhem during the opening ceremony Friday returned on Day One to postpone the skateboarding and impede the beach volleyball. While the weather improved for Day Two, the effects of heavy rain lingered to cause more cancellations despite the clear skies.
An extensive clean-up of the Seine River in preparation for the games culminated in Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo taking a swim on 17 July to prove that the water quality was safe enough, but alas, it was deemed too polluted for some events on the second day of proceedings.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Triathlon released a joint statement explaining that the recent rain had exacerbated the River Seine water quality and that the first Seine triathlon training sessions needed to be cancelled.
“The priority is the health of the athletes,” read the statement. “The tests carried out in the Seine revealed water quality levels that in the view of the international federation, World Triathlon, did not provide sufficient guarantees to allow the event to be held.
“Given the weather forecast for the next 48 hours, Paris 2024 and World Triathlon are confident that water quality will return to below limits before the start of the triathlon competitions.”
With triathlon competitions set to start on Tuesday, organisers will be hoping that they’ve seen the last of Parisian rain for the summer but in the event that it returns there are several contingency plans in place.
The triathlon events have two contingency days, 1 and 2 August, built into the programme while the open water swimming can also be moved to Vaires-sur-Marne, on the Marne River east of Paris, if it is deemed necessary.
In a worst-case scenario, the swimming events of the triathlon could be dropped making it instead a duathlon for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Olympics pre-race triathlon event in Seine River canceled over water quality concerns.
The surfing kicks off far from the Seine River
There is one aquatic sport which won’t be relying on any events in Paris. Situated almost 10,000 miles (15,700 km) away from the French capital, the surfing has kicked off in the legendary surfing spot Teahupo’o in Tahiti.
Having debuted at the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, it’s just the second time surfing has been part of the Olympic Games and six nations (Canada, China, El Salvador, Spain, Mexico and Nicaragua) made their own Olympic surfing debuts after two years of qualifying events around the world.
There are 48 competitors representing 21 different nations overall with an equal split between men and women.
The youngest surfer competing in today’s events was 15-year-old Siqi Yang from China.
Japanese youngsters reign supreme
From one teenager to another, Japan’s 14-year-old Coco Yoshizawa continued Japanese domination of the women’s skateboarding event, coming out as the best on the Place de la Concorde course.
Yoshizawa got gold in the all-teenage women’s street skateboard final with 272.75 points from her three best runs while Liz Akama, also of Japan, was awarded silver with 265.95 points and Brazil’s Rayssa Leal collected bronze with 253.37 points, cementing Japanese supremacy in this particular heat.
Leal, the oldest of the three winners on Sunday, made the top 3 of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, coming in second and also sharing the podium with two young Japanese skateboarders Momiji Nishiya in first and Funa Nakayama in third.
“I knew that if I wanted to win, I had to go for the most difficult tricks. I didn’t aim for second or third place; I aimed for the top spot with my highest difficulty moves,” said Yoshizawa. “After making it I was not so much happy as relieved,” she said.
So, who’s at the top of the medal table at the end of Day Two?
At the time of writing, as Day Two of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games draws to a close, Australia has been ousted from first place with Japan rising to the top spot with four of its seven medals made of gold as well as two silvers and a bronze.
Australia follows in second with the same amount of gold medals and silver medals but one less bronze than Japan.
Team USA has ousted the People’s Republic of China but despite a whopping total of 12 medals, more than any other nation, remains with one less gold than both Japan and Australia.
France, meanwhile, has improved its count and now has three golds, three silvers and two bronzes keeping the host nation in fourth.
The Republic of Korea makes up the top five for the second day running with three golds, two silvers and a bronze.
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