China wins first gold of Paris Olympics 2024

(fromL) South Korea’s Keum Jihyeon and Park Haju (silver), China’s Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao (gold), Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev (bronze) pose on the finish of the taking pictures 10m air rifle combined staff in the course of the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games at Chateauroux Taking pictures Centre on July 27, 2024. (Picture by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

China took the primary gold of the Paris Olympics on Saturday, because the rain that dampened the opening ceremony took its toll on the primary full day of sporting motion.

In a carefully fought ultimate of the mixed-team 10-metre air rifle, teenage duo Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting outscored Keum Ji-hyeon and Park Ha-jun from South Korea 16-12, Kazakhstan grabbing the bronze.

The rain already claimed one sporting casualty early Saturday because the moist climate which deluged Friday evening’s audacious pageant on the River Seine continued to trigger complications.

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The lads’s road skateboarding competitors, on account of happen on the Place de la Concorde within the historic coronary heart of Paris, was postponed till Monday on account of rain in a single day, organizers stated.

The downpours additionally disrupted play on the opening rounds of tennis at Roland Garros, with no motion on the ten uncovered outdoors courts till 13:30 native time (1130 GMT), organizers stated.

Torrential rain had lashed members and spectators in Friday’s amphibious opening ceremony, the place round 7,000 athletes paraded alongside the Seine in an armada of boats earlier than a show-stopping finale which climaxed with a glittering gentle present on the Eiffel Tower and a efficiency from singer Celine Dion.

The ceremony acquired broadly favorable critiques, with France’s center-right Le Figaro each day describing it as “stuffed with surprises however typically disjointed.”

The Worldwide Olympic Committee nonetheless was compelled to apologize for a gaffe in the course of the ceremony that noticed South Korea’s athletes incorrectly launched as North Korean.

“We deeply apologize for the error that occurred when introducing the South Korean staff in the course of the broadcast of the opening ceremony,” the IOC stated in a submit on its official Korean-language X account.

Swimming duel

Elsewhere on the sporting entrance, swimming, badminton, rowing, biking, hockey and basketball get below method together with the browsing competitors, almost 16,000 kilometers (9,950 miles) kilometers away on the French Pacific island of Tahiti.

Swimming will take middle stage on the La Protection Area for the ladies’s 400m freestyle — one of many most-anticipated occasions of the whole Olympics involving three swimmers who’ve held the world report.

Australia’s defending champion Ariarne Titmus will dive in as favourite after clocking the second-fastest time ever final month behind solely her personal 3min 55.38sec world finest.

She surprised US rival Katie Ledecky in an electrical Tokyo ultimate three years in the past, with the American nice gunning for revenge.

Canadian teenage sensation Summer season McIntosh, additionally a former world report holder, completes the hotly favored trio.

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Different gold medals on provide on the primary evening of motion within the pool come within the males’s 400m freestyle and the boys’s and ladies’s 4x100m freestyle relays.

Reigning French Open champions Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz are among the many prime attracts on the primary day of motion on the clay courts of Roland Garros — climate allowing.

Ladies’s world primary Swiatek is first on courtroom towards Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, with Alcaraz to observe towards Lebanese world quantity 275 Hady Habib.

However the greatest focus can be on the boys’s doubles, with Alcaraz teaming up with 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal in a Spanish dream pairing.

Chinese language shooters Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao will begin as favorites for the primary gold of the Video games after a dominant victory eventually yr’s world championships in Baku.

Medals can even be on provide Saturday within the diving pool, with the ladies’s synchronized 3m springboard ultimate, the place one other Chinese language pairing, Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen, are favorites to strike gold.

The primary biking medals of the video games can be determined with the boys’s and ladies’s particular person occasions trials happening on a difficult 32.4-kilometer course.

French rugby followers will flock to the Stade de France to see if Antoine Dupont can lead the host nation to gold in rugby sevens.

France nonetheless should overcome South Africa in Saturday’s semi-finals to succeed in the gold medal match towards the winner of the opposite last-four conflict between holders Fiji and Australia.