Page 23 - Olympics

Swiatek starts Olympics tennis event with win at French open truimph site

Iga Swiatek shook off a bit of a dip in the first round of the Paris Olympics tennis competition and grabbed the last four games to beat Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday under a closed roof at Roland Garros, the site of the No. 1-ranked Polish player's four French Open titles. Swiatek, who won a third consecutive championship at Court Philippe Chatrier just seven weeks ago, got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise. She wrapped up the victory by breaking at love when Begu double-faulted on the last point. Day 1 of tennis began with showers that might have contributed to slow lines for umbrella-toting spectators at the facility's security checks near entrances and postponed by hours the start of matches at the 10 courts without retractable roofs. It's a good thing the French tennis federation built a pair of covers recently: 15,000-capacity Chatrier added one in 2020, and the second-largest ..

Olympics: Zhang hopes Chinese swimmers will be seen as clean after tests

Zhang Yufei hopes her international rivals will believe she is competing clean after the Chinese swimming star estimates she took between 20 and 30 drug tests monthly in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics. I don't think there's a single athlete, Chinese or foreign, who would test positive for doping. They would not want to destroy all the hard work they've put in over the years on doping, Zhang told reporters in the mixed zone Saturday when she was the top qualifier for the 100-meter butterfly final. She won her preliminary race in 56.50 seconds during the first day of the swimming competition at Paris La Defense Arena. She said afterwards she is anxious about what her friends and competitors in the swimming world are thinking about Zhang and others from the Chinese team. Zhang said she and her teammates have tested three to four days a week in the past couple of months leading up to the Paris Games and in the wake of a doping scandal involving 23 Chinese swimmers including Zhang .

44-year-old Rohan Bopanna is the oldest Indian athlete in Paris Olympics

Rohan Bopanna, despite being the oldest Indian athlete, will be 17 years younger than the oldest athlete at the Paris Olympics 2024.

Meet the youngest Indian Olympian taking part in the Paris Olympics

India's teenage swimming star Dhinidhi Desinghu will participate in the women's 200m freestyle event at the Olympics in Paris. She has qualified for the event on a universality quota.

Know your Indian women athletes who are going to Paris Olympics 2024

The current contingent consists of 40% female athletes which is a good sign in terms of gender representation at a global level as well.

Olympic organisers apologise for calling South Korean athletes North Korean

Olympic Games organisers said they deeply apologise for introducing South Korea's athletes as North Korea during the opening ceremony in Paris. As the South Korean athletes waved their nation's flag on a boat floating down the Seine River Friday evening, they were announced in both French and English as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. South Korea is the Republic of Korea. We deeply apologise for the mistake that occurred when introducing the Korean team during the opening ceremony broadcast, the International Olympic Committee said in a post on X in Korean. The South Korean Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism Vice Minister Jang Mi Ran requested a meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach over the incident, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. It said the ministry also asked South Korea's Foreign Ministry to file a strong government-level complaint with the French government. The statement said South Korea's Olympic committee separately asked the organisers of t

Ariana Grande to Serena Williams: Celebrities at Olympics opening ceremony

celebrities including Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Kelly Clarkson, Vincent Cassel, Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, Carl Lewis, and Prince Albert of Monaco and his wife Charlene also attended the event.

Paris Olympics 2024 highlights, Day 1: IND def NZ 3-2 in hockey; Satwik-Chirag wins vs FRA

Olympics 2024 LIVE UPDATES: India defeated New Zealand in hockey 3-2 to start their campaign. In Badminton Satwik-Chirag secures comfortable win against France. Catch Paris 2024 highlights here

Paris Olympics 2024: India schedule on July 27, live time (IST), streaming

From Satwik-Chirag in Badminton to India vs New Zealand hockey match: Check India schedule, live match timings on Day 1 of Olympics 2024

Indian shooters eliminated in qualification of 10m air rifle mixed event

Indian shooters were eliminated in the 10m air rifle mixed team qualifications stage of the Paris Olympics here on Saturday. Ramita and Arjun Babuta finished sixth with a total score of 628.7, while Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh ended at 12th place with an aggregate score of 626.3. The duo of Ramita and Arhun Babuta came close and was placed fifth with three shots remaining but fell 1.0 point short of the medal round cut-off. Babuta enjoyed a fine start in the second relay and had a sequence that read 10.5, 10.6, 10.5, 10.9, while Ramita managed 10.2, 10.7, 10.3, 10.1 in the second series, their effort taking the team into the top 8. But, to get into the bronze medal round, they needed to do more than what they eventually achieved. Shooters from China (first), Korea (second) and Kazakhstan (third) dominated the qualifications. A side has to get to the top four to enter the medal matches.

Canada women's football coach suspended over drone scandal in Paris

Canada women's soccer coach Bev Priestman was suspended and removed from the team for the Paris Olympics in the wake of a drone-spying scandal Friday, and the head of Canada Soccer said he was investigating a potential systemic ethical shortcoming. Kevin Blue, Canada Soccer's CEO and general secretary, emphasized that the players were not involved in any unethical behavior at the Paris Games. The team is currently training in Saint-Etienne. At the moment we are trying to directly address what appears to look like it could be a systemic ethical shortcoming, in a way that's frankly, unfortunately painful right now, but is turning out to be a necessary part of the rehabilitation process, Blue said. Priestman's future with the team is pending the outcome of our review of this matter entirely," Blue said. Upon gathering more information from that review, that will be an additional opportunity to see what steps additionally need to be taken, if any, Blue said. Earlier in the day, Canadi

Paris Olympics 2024: India's rifle shooters in medal contention on July 27

In badminton, Lakshya Sen and the star doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy will also begin their quest to finish on top of the podium

Chinese-Chilean TT player set to make Olympics debut at 58 in Paris

Table tennis player Zeng Zhiying left China in 1989, the same year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, to teach the sport in northern Chile. Fast-forward 35 years, she will debut in the Olympic Games at age 58 under the name she adopted in the South American nation: Tania. Tania Zeng, who became famous in Chile after winning a bronze medal at the Pan American Games in Santiago last year, retired from table tennis long ago. Though the sport brought her to Chile, she stopped playing to have more time to dedicate to a business she opened and eventually start a family. Her dream of becoming a professional athlete returned during the pandemic. Her pinnacle will be reached in Paris. "I never imagined (making it to the Olympic Games) because I took it up for entertainment, to do some sport," Zeng said in an interview with The Associated Press at the country's Olympic training centre. "I gained confidence by playing a lot. Since I always won, I liked playing more and more. "Qualifying for an

Taliban escapee turns break-dancer at Paris Olympics after 3 years

Olympics is all about triumph of human resilience and Afghan break-dancer Manizha Talash embodies this spirit. It's been three years since she fled the Taliban and is now all set to perform gravity-defying moves when break-dancing makes its Olympic debut in Paris. The 21-year-old Talash crossed the border into Pakistan after Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 before settling in Spain as a refugee the following year. Despite the existential crisis that was brought upon her and her family, Talash did not give up on break-dancing, an art form she stumbled upon while scrolling through a social media post as a teenager in Kabul. She has been in love with it ever since. However, not even in her wildest imagination, she thought that the hobby she picked up in her troubled homeland will make way to the biggest sporting spectacle on earth. The International Olympics Committee changed Talash's life forever by including her in its refugee squad for the Paris Games. She still vividly .

Arson, malicious attacks disrupt train lines in France ahead of Olympics

Around 250,000 travellers were affected by disruptions caused by the Paris train attack on the eve of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

Indian hockey team take on NZ as they eye successive medals in Olympics

Placed in a 'pool of death', the India men's hockey team will have to punch above its weight to better the colour of the bronze medal from the previous edition when it open its Paris Olympics campaign against New Zealand on Saturday. The expectations are high from the Indians after they managed to break a 41-year-old medal jinx at the Tokyo Olympics by bagging a historic bronze. It was a landmark moment for a rich hockey nation like India, who have a record eight Olympic gold medals to boast of. And the bronze has only raised expectations of second consecutive podium finish, but it would be easier said than done. The Indians are clubbed along side reigning champions Belgium, mighty Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and Ireland in a tough Pool B, while Pool A consists of Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, South Africa and hosts France. Four teams from each pool will progress to the quarterfinals. The first three pool matches of India against New Zealand, Argentina (on Jul

Paris Olympics 2024: Do Olympics medals shine with a touch of real gold?

As world-class athletes compete for glory, one question may pop up about whether the coveted gold medals contain just gold. Check all you need to know about Paris Olympics 2024 medals here

Indian shooters aim to break nation's 12-year medal drought in Paris

A squad full of debutants free from past baggage will aim to ace the ultimate test of their lives when the shooting competition of the Paris Olympics begins in the sleepy French town of Chateauroux on Friday. India has won four Olympic medals in shooting out of its overall tally of 35 but none in the last two editions of the Summer Games, putting the additional pressure of expectations on the record 21-member Indian contingent based in central France. The national shooting federation NRAI chose current form over pedigree to pick the squad for the mega event and it will be hoping they hit the bullseye at the National Shooting Centre here. Even the quota winners were made to battle out in the trials with the inexperienced Sandeep Singh pipping 2022 world champion Rudranksh Patil, who had secured India's quota in the 10m air rifle. Patil wrote to NRAI proposing his selection in the team despite finishing behind Sandeep in the trials but the federation stuck to its guns. The athletes

Sai Ashok set to become youngest Indian to officiate boxing events in Paris

India's former international boxer Kabilan Sai Ashok will become the youngest from the country to officiate in the Paris Olympics after he was appointed as Referee Judge for the sporting showpiece beginning on Friday. The 32 year-old is only the fourth Indian since 1904 to officiate at the Olympics and the first to have represented the country as a player and an official at a World Championship event. Sai Ashok, who works as a boxing administrator at the Army Sports Institute in Pune, is also the first Indian to become the president of World Military Boxing Council. He also holds the record of being the only Indian referee to have been fast-tracked from two-star to three-star status. The last Indian to officiate at the Olympics was in 2012 London.

Paris Olympics 2024 India shooting contingent, full Schedule Live Streaming

Manu Bhaker will be looking to make amends after a timid outing in the Tokyo 2020 Games. Check Olympics 2024 India's shooting full schedule, live timings (IST), live streaming and telecast details