Paris 2024 Olympics day 14: open water swimming, athletics, golf and more – live | Paris Olympic Games 2024

Marathon swimming: The leaders pass the 9.2km mark in the men’s 10km race, and they’re working against the current. Italy’s Domenico Acerenza has closed that gap between second and third and is firmly in contention to cause the top two of Rasovszky and Klemet some real grief. This is some serious squeaky-bum time.

Marathon swimming: Morning to all those waking up in the UK. This men’s 10km swim is nearing the close, with a significant gap now between the top two and the rest. In front is Kristof Rasovszky, with Oliver Klemet right behind him. Rasovszky took silver in Tokyo, which surely increases the desperation to finish first this time round.

The men’s 10km marathon has now been going for 90 minutes and these athletes are in the red zone for pain and exhaustion. Gregorio Paltrinieri is the first casualty and has slipped back into sixth. I am the other major casualty. I, Angus Fontaine (alas, no relation to Logan Fontaine still sitting sixth), am officially tapping out and bringing in Taha Hashim to bring this race home. Thanks for your company and enjoy the finish!

As Brazil’s Guillerme Costa taps out and becomes another casualty of this gruelling 10km swim, we have the Tokyo medallists reprising their supremacy here in Paris. Kristóf Rasovszky from Hungary still sits first with Germany’s Florian Wellbrock second and Italian stallion Gregorio Paltrinieri third.

The other members of this lead pack are digging deep to overhall that trio with brio. Italy’s Domenico Acerenza, Germany’s Oliver Klemet and another Hungarian in David Betlehem are moving up and Team GB’s Hector Pardoe has moved into seventh. Australia’s Nick Sloman has fallen back but hanging on inside this top ten.

I guess golf is gruelling in its own way and the third round of the women’s individual strokeplay is getting ready to tee off…

Another lead change! Now it’s Kristóf Rasovszky at the front of the pack with a 2.3 second lead over Wellbrock. We saw this happen in the women’s event where, almost by mutual consent, the athletes in first and second took turns breaking the water for the other.

Another swimmer has left the field, with Spain’s Carlos Garach Benito tapping out with exhaustion. He is currently hanging onto a steward’s surfboard and clearly in distress. We’ve also seen a yellow card handed to Frenchman Marc-Antoine Olivier for over-zealous contact with a rival. Three of these and he’s outta here.

It’s a sure sign this race is getting down to the business end…

The lead pack in this 10km marathon is into lap four and now numbers six swimmers and its leader, Florian Wellbrock, seems to have made his move. The German champion has surged past Kristóf Rasovszky and is now 2.4 seconds in front of the Hungarian. Also in the pack are and Oliver Klemet and the Italian duo of Domenico Acerenza and Gregorio Paltrinieri. The last member of that bunch is a Frenchman Marc-Antoine Olivier. Australia’s Nick Sloman has moved into seventh but he sits in that peloton pack and is eight seconds off Wellbrock’s pace. His compatriot Kyle Lee is 14th and Team GB’s Hector Pardoe is moving well and is now in 10th.

Yesterday’s 10km silver-medallist, Australia’s Moesha Johnson, has woken up with multiple cuts and scratches along her arms and hands from contact with the reeds lining the banks of the Seine. Apparently race organisers have pruned that greenery overnight so the men have only the jagged walls – and each other – to contend with.

That tussle for supremacy has seen plenty of blood tinting the whitewater thrash of competitors and it’s now turned literal, resulting in the disqualification of Turkish swimmer Kuzey Tuncelli who seems to have breached the laws that dictate that “A swimmer may not make intentional supportive contact with any vessel, object, or support personnel at any time during the swim.” Tuncelli was sitting in 24th at the time.

The lead pack are hugging those walls now and it’s the green cap of Kristóf Rasovszky heading the field with Florian Wellbrock looming large in second and Gregorio Paltrinieri from Italy biding his time in third.

As the field in the 10km marathon rounds the bend for the third lap, it is Kristóf Rasovszky who has snatched back the lead. The 27-year-old Hungarian is a legend in his homeland after winning the silver medal in this event at the 2020 Olympic Games.

The bloke snapping at this heels is even more accomplished. Florian Wellbrock is a former world record holder in the short course 1500m freestyle, a world champion several times over and a European champ into the bargain. The Bremen Bullet’s first Olympic medal was a bronze in the 1500m in Tokyo. He went two better a few days later winning this 10km event in 1:48:33.7 – 25 seconds faster than Rasovszky in second.

Wellbrock is the man to beat today but today he’s still second behind Rasovszky.

The men are now swimming upstream in lap two of the 10km race and remain tightly bunched with 10 seconds separating first and 10th place. Kristof Rasovszky has snatched back ascendancy and the German duo Florian Wellbrock and Oliver Klemet are riding his wake in second and third with an Italian duo in Domenico Acerenza and Gregorio Paltrinieri making a charge for the pointy end of the field.

This front pack is heading upstream and hugging the plant-fringed banks of the Seine, risking the snags of the vines and the jags on the walls. Yesterday we saw Australia’s Moesha Johnson collide with a tyre and lose vital seconds on eventual leader but thankfully the only collisions so far have been between the swimmers themselves. Luckily there’s an officious Frenchman blowing a whistle at them. Well done monsieur, that should ensure they desist!

Australia has two competitors in this swim: Nick Sloman and Kyle Lee.

Sloman is a three-time national champion and got fifth at the World Championships in Doha to qualify for these Paris Games. The Sunshine Coast boy made his first foray into international competition at the 2018 Pan-Pacific Championships in Tokyo, where he secured a bronze medal in the 10km open water event. The 26-year-old Sloman has since established himself as an open water swimming giant, with gold and silver at the FINA Marathon Swim World Series in 2019 and two silver and one bronze medal in 2022.

For all that Sloman says:

My favourite memory is winning bronze in the 25m butterfly (for) six-seven-year-old boys at my first swimming carnival.

Here in Paris Sloman sits 11th and Lee 13th with Germany’s Florian Wellbrock leading and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri second and Kristof Rasovszky from Hungary hanging tough in third. German Oliver Klemet has taken his spot in fourth with Athanasios Charalampos from Greece in fifth and my French brother Logan Fontaine in sixth.

As we pass the ten minute mark in the 10km marathon swim it is Florian Wellbrock from Germany who now leads Kristof Rasovszky from Hungary. Gregorio Paltrinieri from Italy is third and local hope Marc-Antoine Olivier is swimming beautifully in fourth. I hope he caught Elle Hunt’s awesome feature story last night…

Our early leader in the 10km marathon swim is Kristof Rasovszky from Hungary although Florian Wellbrock from Germany is nipping at his heels. They heads a frantic pack of swimmers who are swimming downstream in lap one. The women did this leg in just over six minutes but the men have managed it in just over five. Of couyrse, the hard work now begins as the field heads upstream, into the current. This leg took 2.5 times longer for the women yesterday. My spies at the Seine say the current is slightly less than what it was yesterday and the water temperature is up from 22 to 23 today.

We move now to the live action in the men’s 10km marathon swim in the Seine. The competitors have been patiently necking hydration gels and bacteria-beating additives on the blocks. We have 31 athletes taking on the river’s cruel currents in the quest for gold. They’re moving to the edge of the barge in readiness… they’re OFF and RACING!

A queen of the Paris track was crowned last night when Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone clinched Team USA’s 100th medal of these Olympics – a gold in the 400m hurdles with a world record thrown in for good measure. Bryan Armen Graham penned this wonderful piece overnight:

McLaughlin-Levrone, who turned 25 on Wednesday, first broke the 400m hurdles world record at the 2021 US Olympic trials, shattered it at the Tokyo Games and has lowered it four more times since, including by nearly three-tenths of a second on Thursday night. In doing so, she became the first American to retain an Olympic title in an individual track race since Michael Johnson’s back-to-back 400m golds in 1996 and 2000. Her winning time of 50.37sec would have been good for third in the second 400m flat semi-final on Wednesday. The owner of seven of the 400m hurdles’ 13 fastest times ever, it’s been more than five years since she lost in the event. So smooth, so efficient, not a wasted movement.

When these Paris Olympics end on Sunday I’m going to miss photo galleries like this…

Raven Saunders made a splash during the women’s shot put qualification by appearing in a full-face black mask and sunglasses, along with dyed green and purple hair. “I’m in full form,” the American said of the outfit. “I had to remind the people, I am who I am.”

Speaking of US dominance of basketball, Serbia almost pulled off one of the all-time Olympics upsets when they had the men’s “Dream Team” on the rack and 76-62 down at the start of the final quarter of last night’s semi-final. Coming into the Paris Games, the US had won gold in eight of the last 10 Olympics, with their last stumble coming in 2004 when they won bronze. Luckily, Steph Curry came to the rescue….

Heard about the Opal who wanted Gold? Australian basketball GOAT Lauren Jackson is at her fifth Olympics and is yet to win the shiniest medal of all. Instead, at every turn, Jackson and her Opals teammates have been foiled by Team USA whom they meet tonight in the semi-final at Bercy Arena. Can they snap the hoodoo and send Lauren out a winner? Kieran Pender asks: why not?

The torrent of gold Australia has experienced at these Paris Olympics has finally slowed to a trickle. Not that the green and gold army will be resting on the laurels of their 18 gold so far. They have a few ironmen and ironwomen in the fire on Day 14…

The first event of Day 14 will be the men’s 10km marathon swim in the Seine. If yesterday’s women’s event was anything to go by, the blokes are in for a tough day. Powerful currents played havoc with the field and their efforts to negate them saw many competitors hugging the rutted and ivy-covered walls of the river. That tactic was effective in avoiding the worst of the swirls and eddies but also resulted in plenty of skinned knuckles and skinned feet. If you like blood in the water with your sweat and tears this is the event for you.

In the end, Australia’s Moesha Johnson was beaten in the home stretch by Netherlands iron-woman Sharon van Rouwendaal. Silver-medallist Johnson was gracious in defeat and saluted her training partner:

I knew coming under that bridge as well, no matter which way I took, Sharon might have taken the other option,’ Johnson says. ‘I think we’ve just been together in training through some tough times, and to be there together on the podium just means so much.

If you’re a sports fan for whom too much sport is never enough and yet the athletic endeavour involved in clicking through this link is an exertion too far, here’s your Day 14 buffet of blood, sweat and tears in a handy shopping list cut, pasted and bolded. Better put another pot of coffee on the hob…

15:30: Open Water Swimming Men’s 10km

17:00: Golf Women’s Stroke Play Round 3

17:00: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Last 32

17:09: Taekwondo Women’s Welterweight 57-67kg Last 16

17:21: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Last 16

18:00: Diving Men’s 10m Platform Preliminary Round

18:00: Gymnastics – Rhythmic Women’s Group All-Around Qualification

18:00: Table Tennis Men’s Team Bronze Medal Match (France v Japan)

18:05: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump

18:15: Sport Climbing Men’s Bouldering & Lead Combined Final – Bouldering

18:30: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Semifinal

18:40: Athletics Women’s 4 x 400m Relay Round 1

18:50: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Semifinal

19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 57kg Repechage Round

19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 86kg Repechage Round

19:00: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 57kg Repechage Round

19:05: Athletics Men’s 4 x 400m Relay Round 1

19:07: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg Qualification

19:10: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Semifinal

19:14: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 125kg 1/8 Final

19:14: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 62kg 1/8 Final

19:21: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg 1/8 Final

19:23: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Javelin Throw – Group A

19:30: Athletics Men’s 800m Semifinal

19:30: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Semifinal

20:05: Athletics Women’s 100m Hurdles Semifinal

20:10: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 125kg Quarterfinal

20:10: Wrestling – Freestyle Women’s 62kg Quarterfinal

20:13: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 2 (rescheduled)

20:17: Wrestling – Freestyle Men’s 74kg Quarterfinal

20:22: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 3 (rescheduled)

20:31: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 4

20:32: Athletics Women’s Heptathlon Javelin Throw – Group B

20:35: Sport Climbing Men’s Bouldering & Lead Combined Final – Lead

20:40: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Final B

20:40: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 5

20:49: Sailing Men’s Formula Kite Final – Race 6

20:50: Canoe Sprint Women’s C2 500m Final A

21:00: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Final B

21:00: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Riding

21:00: Water Polo Men Classification Round 5-8 (Italy v Spain)

21:10: Canoe Sprint Women’s K2 500m Final A

21:20: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Final B

21:30: Canoe Sprint Men’s K2 500m Final A

21:40: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Final B

21:40: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Fencing Bonus Round

21:50: Canoe Sprint Men’s C1 1000m Final A

22:00: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint Qualification

22:00: Hockey Women Bronze Medal Match (Argentina v Belgium)

22:20: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Swimming

22:30: Gymnastics – Rhythmic Women’s Individual All-Around Final

22:30: Taekwondo Women’s Welterweight 57-67kg Quarterfinal

22:35: Water Polo Men Semifinal (Serbia v USA)

22:40: Modern Pentathlon Men’s Individual Semifinal A – Laser-Run

22:40: Taekwondo Men’s Welterweight 68-80kg Quarterfinal

22:41: Cycling – Track Men’s Sprint Semifinal

22:48: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint 1/32 Final

23:00: Diving Women’s 3m Springboard Final

23:00: Football Women Bronze Medal Match (Spain v Germany)

23:00: Table Tennis Men’s Team Gold Medal Match (China v Sweden)

23:00: Weightlifting Men’s 89kg

23:38: Cycling – Track Women’s Sprint Repechage Round 1

Here are Simon Burnton’s Day 14 highlights…

Friday 9 August Day 14

• Women’s breaking
  The breaking competition, incongruously held at the historic Place de la Concorde, lasts only two days with the women’s (AKA b-girls) event today and the men (or b-boys) tomorrow. Nicka – the Lithuanian Dominika Banevic, who has been breaking since the age of eight – won the world and European championships last year aged 16 but the two Asian Games finalists, 671 (China’s Liu Qingyi) and Ami (Japan’s Ami Yuasa) are seen as the breakers most likely to make tonight’s final throw down.

• Wrestling: men’s 86kg final
  There have been rivalries, and then there was David Taylor v Hassan Yazdani. For years it seemed nothing could keep these representatives of clashing cultures of the USA and Iran apart: in Tokyo both breezed through the competition before Taylor’s last-second takedown saw him edge a thrilling final 4-3, and they’ve gone on to meet in the final of every major championship since. But in a stunning upset Taylor, by then unbeaten in two and a half years, lost to Aaron Brooks in the US trials and promptly retired to go into coaching, and this is the start of a new era.

• Hockey: women’s final
  The Netherlands have dominated women’s field hockey for years: of the 15 World Cups they have reached 13 finals and won nine, including the last three in a row; of 16 European championships they have reached 14 finals and won 12, including the last four; and they have reached the last five Olympic finals, winning three. They top both the men’s and women’s world rankings, the latter by a huge margin. It would be a major surprise if they are not involved in today’s two medal games, but can anyone stop them?

Another Day 13 gold worth its weight in platinum was that won by Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo. The unfancied 21-year-old beat none other than the USA’s 100m winner Noah Lyles to the tape and even sacrificed a few split seconds off his time to thump his chest moments before the line.

Turns out that was an act of triumph but also a tribute to his mother, who died in May. Tebogo later revealed he had taken three to four weeks off because he was struggling to process her death. But with the Paris Games looming and the race of a lifetime nigh, he set his jaw and took to the track wearing spikes that carried his mother’s date of birth.

It wasn’t really clicking for me that she’s really gone. For me, I have to find the reason why I started my athletics journey and why I should continue going on. It was really a beautiful race for me. She’s watching up there, and she’s really, really happy.

Of all those hundreds of medals, one was perhaps a little more precious. Arshad Nadeem wrote his name into history by winning the men’s javelin final yesterday and becoming the first track and field athlete from Pakistan to win gold at an Olympics. Nadeem entered this ­competition an underdog but the javelin thrower overcame the odds to become his country’s first ­medallist since 1992 (when it won a bronze medal in men’s hockey in Barcelona). Nadeem’s record-breaking throw also made him only the fourth athlete to cross the 90m mark in the men’s javelin at an Olympics.

The medal tally of these Paris Olympics continues to expand but the top three remain intact. The USA still lead the way with 30 gold and China sit close behind with 29. There’s daylight between those two superpowers and Australia who sit third with 18 gold.

Preamble