Key events
Diving: Men’s 3m Final: China’s Wang Zongyuan nails his second round dive and scores a towering 91.00 from the judges!
He overtakes his team-mate Xie Siyi to go top of the standings, Siyi is now in bronze position with Mexico’s Osmar Olvera in silver.
Jack Laugher is currently in fourth place, seven points off the medals. Three rounds to go!
Diving: Men’s 3m Final: Huge cheers as the majority French crowd cheer their man Jules Bouyer on. A hush as he starts his bounce on the board… and an explosion of noise as he pulls of a beauty of a dive and enters the water with barely a splash!
Team GB’s Jack Laugher is up next and he improves on his first round, no edge of the board drama this time and a decent execution on a high level of difficulty. He scores an 84 and goes up to second position, for the time being.
James Wallace
Thanks Geoffles. I’m trained on the aquatic centre and the final of the men’s 3m diving. Can I just tell you something – I love watching the diving. As someone who can barely jump in from the side of a pool without ‘issues’ it boggles my mind. The commentary on the BBC is always fantastic too.
They’ve just finished the first round and the two Chinese divers have immediately headed to the top of the standings. Xie Siyi is in the gold medal position with a score of 86.70 and fellow countryman Wang Zongyuan is in second on 81.60.
For Team GB, Jordan Houlden is tied for fourth on 76.50, with Jack Laugher jumping slightly skewiff off the corner of the board to finish round one in joint sixth position – on 74.80.
Geoff Lemon
Alright, I’m out of here. Spain up 10-5 in the water polo semi. The men’s 3m diving final is about to start. Enjoy your time with Jimmy Wallace.
Hockey: India are back in it! Harmanpreet Singh has scored twice in three minutes, once to end the second quarter and once to start the third. Both penalty corners. Does anyone score in hockey in any other way? A couple of other penalties have been saved each way. Spain now need to respond to challenge for bronze.
“I might have missed it in the liveblog – did you or whoever was on earlier see that two-time gold medallist and media favourite Jade Jones lost her first bout?”
I did not see this, Beau Dure. There were about 500 taekwondo matches earlier that were beyond my ken to summarise. You can find the results in here, though.
“Fitting that Germany wins the Men’s K4 blue riband gold medal,” writes in Jeremy Boyce. “In much the same way that it was the British who invented competition skiing, it was the Germans, in the 20s and 30s, who first popularised the sport of canoeing as a leisure pursuit, rather than being a functional activity, for making necessary journeys, hunting, fishing. My friend Volker’s dad was still eskimo rolling into his 80s.”
Volker’s Dad is a good band name.
Golf: Some more context on Morgane Metraux’s card – she shot two under in her first round, with four birdies and two bogeys, then a much more dramatic second round: three bogeys, but also two eagles and five birdies. Hence the six under. I think that adds up? Golf is not my sport and never will be.
Yin and Korda have gone to 5 under with birdies on the 11th, by the by.
Some more context on that Italian sailing gold from earlier, with a British medal hope dashed by officials.
Golf: Second round of four in the women’s comp today, a few golfers have finished up but most are still out there. Morgane Metraux is the clubhouse leader at 6 under, the Swiss finished up on 66 for the round and is done. Lydia Ko for New Zealand is 6 under and currently playing her 16th hole.
Nelly Korda and Yin Ruoning (USA and China) on 4 under while playing the 10th of their second round, nobody else is better than three under, including several who have finished their round.
Water polo: The women’s semi-final is starting, between Netherlands and Spain, who are leading it early 1-0.
Australia and the USA women play the second semi at 18:35 Paris time. The American men beat Australia a day or two ago for a semi-final spot, so there’s a score to settle.
Hockey: Spain into the lead against India, Marc Miralles scores from a penalty corner after 18 minutes. India have had a player come off after being struck in the head with the ball as an attacking cross came in, which was nasty.
For the KJT enthusiasts, here’s more detail from Alexandra Topping on site.
“Katerina Johnson-Thompson has started brilliantly in this heptathlon, and has gone into first place after the first two events here at the Stade de France.
The reigning world champion, who was not fully fit coming into these games because of a persistent tendonitis problem, pulled out a season’s best of 13.40 seconds in the first event, the 100m hurdles.
It wasn’t looking great in the high jump, but an effort of 1.92 metres, again her best of the year, put her in pole position. After the first two events Johnson-Thompson leads with 2197 points after two events, with her Belgian rival Nafi Thiam on 2173. There is still the shot put and the 200m to come tonight, with the long jump, javelin and 800m coming tomorrow.
The increasingly tense high jump competition showed what this event is all about, as KJT and Thiam, 29, battled it out for the highest jump. Thiam looked in great form, sailing over each height perfectly until 1.95 metres, at which point she failed her three attempts.
Johnson-Thompson, 31, looked less assured, needing a couple of attempts to clear the bar at 1.86, 1.89 and 1.92. After sailing over on her third attempt at the latter she hit the mat repeatedly with her hands. At 1.95 she pulled out of her first attempt before knocking off the bar on the next two.
American Anna Hall is the young challenger coming into this event. The 23-year-old was left in third place after the first two events, after a weak hurdles race, usually one of her strengths. A season’s best jump of 1.89 metres in the high jump put her up to third place overall with 2164.
Johnson-Thompson’s team-mate Jade O’Dowda is currently in ninth after hitting a ceiling at 1.80 metres in the high jump. She has 2024 points.”
Hockey: The bronze medal men’s game has begun, with India versus Spain. No score.
The gold game between Netherlands and Germany is 18:00 local time today. Five hours from now.
Germany pip Australia in the K4
Canoe sprint: What a microscopic margin! Four hundredths of a second between gold and silver after the Aussie men surged at the end.
Spain goes out hardest at the start, tries to do what New Zealand did in the women’s race, but can’t quite hold on. Germany push up past them after the halfway mark, then Australia from a fair way back in third come up to challenge the Germans. They go bow by bow through the final stages, but it never looked like Australia quite headed them. The Germans hold it by a fraction at the close.
Max Rendschmidt, Max Lemke, Jacob Schopf and Tom Liebscher-Lucz will top the podium ahead of Riley Fitzsimmons, Pierre van der Westhuyzen, Jackson Collins and Noah Havard.
Canoe sprint: A false start in the men’s K4 500 metres. Annoying Schoolteacher Award goes to the race official who keeps yelling into a bullhorn, “Gentlemen, return to the start line. Paddlers, come around to the start line.”
Dude, they know. They’ve done this before. Shut it.
Rhythmic gymnastics: We take a break there after two rotations, with 90 minutes or so until the other two take place.
Sofia Raffaeli is currently in the lead for Italy, ahead of Boryana Kaleyn for Bulgaria and Taisiia Onofriichuk of Ukraine.
New Zealand gold in the K4!
Canoe sprint: New Zealand boss that race from start to finish. They go out hard and put a big lead on the opposition from the start. The Germans choose to let that happen and then attack in the second half of the course. It looks like Germany will catch them but then the Kiwis find something in reserve, and pull away in the final stretch, finishing perhaps a metre clear in the end.
A sixth Olympic gold and a seventh Olympic medal for Lisa Carrington, who was up front in this boat, leading Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan.
“Thanks girls, well done,” one of them shouts in low-key Kiwi fashion to one of the departing teams as they disembark.
Germany silver, Hungary bronze. The Australians bombed out and finished dead last by almost a second.
Canoe sprint: The women’s K4 final is coming up. Norway, China, Spain, Germany, NZ, Hungary, Poland, Australia, with Beere, Bull, Clarke and Steinepreis who won their semi convincingly.
Sailing: The kite semi-finals have been delayed due to bad weather at Marseille, for all you kite freaks out there. Don’t lie, we know about you.
Canoe sprint: China win the men’s double 500 metres race by a distance, with Liu and Ji finishing two seconds behind their Olympic record that they set two days ago, but most of two seconds ahead of Italy. Spain just claim the bronze, though they don’t know until a couple of minutes later when the close finish is formalised. Fourth are the unaffiliated Russians.
Romania, France, Kazakhstan won the B final earlier, which despite a lot of attempted research I still can’t figure out the point of. Feel free to let me know.
Rhythmic gymnastics: Well, we’ve seen Brazil make an impact on artistic gymnastics in the last two Olympics via Rebeca Andrade, who won gold in the vault in Tokyo and another beating Simone Biles on floor this year.
Might be an influence in rhythmic as well, with Barbara Domingos pulling up the third-best score of qualifying with her hoop routine. It’s a lot of fun: Lion King themed in the music, and she has a lion’s face stitched into her green leotard and is channelling that through her dance moves. That’s a good time.
Sailing: Gold for Italy in the mixed multihull race, ahead of Argentina and New Zealand.
Gold for Indonesia in the speed climbing!
There has been a strong Indonesian presence at this event, and Veddriq Leonardo clinches it with a gold medal in a brilliant men’s final. Two hundredths of a second separate him Wu Peng of China, 4.77 to 4.75.
They’ve both clocked career best times in a head-to-head gold medal match. And in a lovely moment once they reach the ground, Wu Peng beams at his opponent and embraces him with sincerity.
It will leave mixed feelings for Sam Watson of the USA, who set a new world record a few minutes earlier… while winning bronze.
He already had the world record of 4.79 before today. He climbed a 5.03 to win his quarter-final, then lost his semi in 4.93.
Only to somehow, climbing for bronze, pull out a 4.74 to win, in a faster time than silver or gold.
Heptathlon: The shot put will be tonight at about 18:30 local time, if you’re wondering.
Heptathlon: Thiam and Johnson-Thompson both top out at 1.92, with three fails at 1.95.
Jade O’Dowda was sixth for GB on 1.80 after the Belgian Noor Vidts plus Dokter and Hall.
Johnson-Thompson leading the overall standings from Thiam, Hall, and Vidts after the hurdles and the high jump.
Still the shotput, 200 metres, long jump and javelin to go.
Rhythmic gymnastics: Time to once again put this on the record: this sport must be the one that people hang shit on the most often, either this or synchronised swimming.
But it doesn’t deserve that at all.
A real mystery why people say “not a real sport” about something that only women compete in, and something that has a style element. Wonder why that could be…
But athletically it’s extraordinary. The level of co-ordination to control not just your own movement but the apparatus as well. We lose our minds when some footballer volleys the ball to themselves, but they don’t do it with a 10-metre elevation while doing a couple of back handsprings.
Anyways, been watching some of the all-around qualification this morning, where gymnasts take a turn at all four apparatus – clubs, hoop, ribbon, ball. Exceptional skill on display as usual.
Heptathlon: Johnson-Thompson jumps 1.92! On her third and final attempt, she pulls it out and the crowd goes nuts.
Anna Hall bumps off the bar on her third attempt.
Then there were two. And they’ll attempt 1.95.
Gold in the sailing for Austria
No, that’s not a typo, it’s not supposed to say Australia. A landlocked country has won the mixed dinghy medal race ahead of famously maritime nations Japan and Sweden.
Heptathlon: Drama in the high jump! Sofie Dokter withdraws after two failed attempts at 1.89.
Hall and Johnson-Thompson both clear it to catch up with Nafissatou Thiam.
So Thiam gears up again and jumps a 1.92.
Some more from the field, as in the one next to the track.
Heptathlon: Interesting results in the high jump section. A lot of competitors have bombed out at 1.74, Australia’s Tori West a jot lower at 1.71.
But four have gone on to 1.86: Sofie Dokter, Anna Hall, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, and Nafissatou Thiam. The latter has now cleared 1.89, and the others are trying to catch up.
So that top group is the order above is Netherlands, USA, GB, with Belgium leading.
A much-asked question answered: about those who finish fourth.
And from the men’s 100m relay heats: “Oooooo that was close for the Team GB men. It was a photo finish, but GB sneaked into the third spot and will automatically qualify for the final tonight.”
Women’s 100m relay: The latest from Alexandra Topping.
“Team GB’s women have smashed their heat of the 100m relay, coming in pole position with 42.03 (the World and Olympic record belongs to the USA, who ran it in 40.82 at London 2012). Big smiles from Bianca Williams, Imani Lansiquot, Amy Hunt and Desiree Henry. Huge wall of noise here for the French team who finish the heat in second place.”
Diving: Qualification for the women’s 3 metre springboard final is done. The dozen going through include a couple of British hopes and the Australian Maddison Keeney who finished second.
Chen Yiwen, China
Maddison Keeney, Australia
Chiara Pellacani, Italy
Chang Yani, China
Alejandra Estudillo Torres, Mexico
Julia Vincent, South Africa
Grace Reid, Great Britain
Nur Dhabita Sabri, Malaysia
Saskia Oettinghaus, Germany
Valeria Antolino, Spain
Emilia Nillson Garip, Sweden
Yasmin Harper, Great Britain
Table tennis: China have swept France 3-0 to go into the final of the men’s team event, up against Sweden. France will play Japan for bronze.
Canoe sprint: It’s a cruel qualification process in the men’s K4: five entrants in the semi, four of them will go through. So you’re competing to not come last, and only last place gets knocked out.
That’s Canada in semi one, and Denmark in semi two.
Australia qualify first in the first semi, and set a new Olympic record in the process. 1:19:22, two seconds outside the world record but they eased up when they had the race won.
Germany win semi two. The other qualifiers are Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, Serbia, Spain and Ukraine.
Lead climbing: So McNeice for GB and Mackenzie for Australia go through, 7th and 6th respectively, ahead of South Korea’s Seo. Then from fifth up, Bertone for France, Mori for Japan, Raboutou for USA, Pilz for Australia, Garnbret who topped both boulder and lead points to finish top by nearly 40 points. She’s totalled 195.7 compared to Pilz with 156.9. Talk about dominance.
There are your finalists. The final is on Saturday.
Lead climbing: Last, we have the best of the best. Janja Garnbret, who won gold for Slovenia in the three-part combined event in Tokyo in an incredible performance.
She’s such a presence on the wall, taller and more powerful than some of the wiry climbers. You can see the muscles rippling across her shoulders as she works across the sideways section near 45 points, then through the 60 with no problem at all, fingertipping a hold of her entire weight.
Right to the top, gets her hand into the 100 point hold but doesn’t quite hang on! Falls there as Mori Ai did, but what a route.
Lead climbing: Two climbers to go, and Mori Ai nearly gets a perfect 100 on the lead wall! Just falls going for the final hold. What a run from the diminutive Japanese climber. At one transition she swung her whole body weight out in almost a scorpion kick, then used the momentum to shift to the next hold.
Lead climbing: Incredible climb from Jessica Pilz, the Austrian climber who was prominent in Tokyo and also won the combined world champs in 2021. She very nearly clocks the whole wall, ending with an 88.1 in lead alone, and naturally shoots to the top of the rankings.
Brooke Raboutou for the USA gets a 72.1, up into that final patch of yellow holds near the top. She’s second now.
Two climbers to go.
Canoe sprint: Australia’s women go through to the final in the K4 500 metres – that’s four paddlers in a kayak.
Ella Beere, Aly Bull, Alexandra Clarke and Yale Steinepreis burn through their semi to win it comfortably from Norway after leading the whole race.
Alexandra Topping is at the athletics.
“There is an amazing atmosphere here at the Stade de France, where we have a brilliant day of track and field ahead. Including – for my money – its best event: the heptathlon!
I’ll be following Liverpool’s favourite daughter Katarina Johnson-Thompson over the next two days as she attempts to achieve her Olympic potential – she finished 14th at her debut Olympics in 2012, came sixth in 2016 and failed to finish in 2020 because of injury.
The 31-year-old, who has once again struggled with injury in the lead up to the Games, is not the favourite, but she’s an athlete of huge talent and in the next 48 hours, British fans will hope she will be in the running.
After becoming world heptathlon champion again in Budapest last year, she pulled out of the European championships heptathlon at the start of June after only three events. She missed a fortnight of training and had a number of injections in her achilles.
We’ve finished the 100m hurdles, and we’re deep into the high jump – at this stage there is a lot of moving up and down the ranks so there is not much point looking at the leaders in the field this early on. Following the heptathlon requires quite a lot of board watching as every event – basically how fast you are, how high you jump, how far you throw – is translated into points. And points make prizes (sorry).
The Belgian Nafissatou (Nafi) Thiam, 29, is the one to beat here. She only came 5th in her heat with a time of 13.56 (she’s quite tall, which isn’t an advantage in the hurdles). But Thiam really dominates in the field events and she’s also strong at the 800m – she’s the ultimate all-rounder, which, of course, is what this event is all about. Emma Oosterwegel from the Netherlands came first in this one.
The youngster Anna Hall, 23, from Team USA is also among those to watch in the heptathlon – in the third heat she came only 6th but with a decent time of 13.36.”
Lead climbing: Nonaka Miho of Japan, taking on the wall with her hair full of coloured streaks, falls a couple of moves short of McNeice, ending in fifth spot. She’ll have to rely on other results if she’s going to qualify. Remember the top eight go through to the final.
Lead climbing: Home-town hope Oriane Bertone goes to the top of the rankings with a strong climb, though she falls like so many approaching that 60-point transition. Her huge bouldering score is enough to go to the final though. Erin McNeice for GB is third – she’ll go through if one more climber falls, or be knocked out if they all pass her combined score of 123.7.
Lead climbing: A barnstorming climb for Seo Chaehyun of South Korea, who gets across the 60-point section transition that has seen a lot of athletes fall. They basically have to jump at that point to catch another hold, and it’s extremely hard. She does it, notches 72 for the lead, and into third spot.
There are still seven climbers to go, which means Mackenzie has qualified for Australia. The final seven could qualify, or if they fall, could send another of the current top eight through.
Lead climbing: These are the women’s semi-finals, by the by. Molly Thompson-Smith for Team GB just put up a really strong lead climb, finally stacking it at 57 points, but she had a very low boulder score so she’s well back in the pack.
On the other hand, Oceania Mackenzie for Australia attacks the wall confidently but falls with a 45.1, but in her case that’s enough to take the lead because of her excellent boulder score of 79.6, she just about topped that discipline.
Geoff Lemon
Thanks Wal. For me, the timing is perfect, because we’re into one of my very favourite Olympic disciplines, the lead climbing.
If you haven’t been watching so far, the Tokyo Olympics had all three climbing disciplines combined. This time they have split speed climbing off on its own, which is a straight race up a wall. They’ve left combined the bouldering, which is about technical moves on obstacles low to the ground, and the lead, which is way more awesome.
You have one massive wall of different holds, with different possible ways to tackle them, and each climber gets one shot at it, on their own, roped for safety, and they get points for each marker they pass on the way up the wall. They have six minutes to take their time over the route, and there are no second chances. It’s gripping, literally.
The Women’s 10km marathon sprint swim was an amazingly gruelling watch this morning, imagine what it was like to actually do. Tip of the swimming cap and twist of the nose peg to all the competitors.
With Geoff Lemon’s arrival my stint for now is done, lots going on, over to you Geoff!
Women’s Heptathlon 100m hurdles:
Heat three is a scorcher, the fastest of the trio we’ve seen this morning. Annik Kaelin of Switzerland looked mightily impressive, finishing with a personal best time of 12.87 seconds, she sits top of the table overall after round one.
USA’s Taliyah Brooks is second in 13.00 seconds flat and Belgium’s Noor Vidts third in 13.10 seconds. Anna Hall, the current World number one finished in sixth place in 13.36 seconds.
There’s not a lot to split them after the hurdles – Johnson-Thompson is currently in 79 points off the lead in eighth position. There’ll be lots of to-ing and fro-ing in the standings over the next six events.
Women’s Heptathlon Events Today:
10:05: High jump
18:35: Shot put
19:35: 200m
Then tomorrow things head towards a climax, the 800 metres always a magnificent spectacle to close it out.
09:05: Long jump
10:20: Javelin throw A
11:30: Javelin throw B
19:15: 800m
Diving: women’s 3m springboard semi-final: Just before we bring you the results of the third heat of the Heptathlon hurdles there’s been a bit of a, erm, twist in the women’s 3 metre springboard final with China’s Chang Yani – one of the synchro gold medalists – placing way down in 17th after the first round of dives.
Team GB’s Yasmin Harper and Grace Reid have had more solid first rounds but will have to improve to threaten the podium positions, they sit in 8th and 13th respectively. Four more rounds to go.
This is a fascinating read from Sean Ingle on artistic swimming – the sport previously known as synchronised swimming:
Great Britain has never won an Olympic medal in artistic swimming – the sport previously known as synchronised swimming. But Kate Shortman, 22, and Izzy Thorpe, 23, are intent on making history – and defying glib misconceptions – in Paris.This year they won Britain’s first world championship medals in the sport. And while artistic swimming may seem graceful and effortless, making it look easy is far from simple. The pair spend at least 40 hours a week working on their swimming, gymnastics, flexibility, yoga and routines – as well as lifting weights.
As they spend much of their three minute routine under water, the pair also do apnoea – or breathwork – training and can hold their breath for three minutes and 30 seconds.
“I can’t stress how hard the sport is,” says Shortman. “Because it’s so glamorous and we put on costumes, it’s a distraction from how hard it is. You have to be very athletic, very fit, flexible and strong. It encompasses everything really. And, just to say, the smile is fake.”
Thorpe adds: “We’re supposed to be smiling so you can’t see the pain.”
Women’s heptathlon 100m hurdles: Oh no! There’s a delay before the second heat in the heptathlon hurdles as Germany’s Sophie Weissenberg has injured herself in the warm up. It looks like she clipped a hurdle with her trailing leg, that looked extremely painful.
This does not look good for the German, she stays down for a long time and will not be able to take part. Will bring you more news on that as it comes through but that could well be her competition over before it has started. What heartbreak, stuff of nightmares for the number nine ranked competitor.
The gun goes on heat two with a sombre mood in the air. Netherlands’ Emma Oosterwegel takes first place with 13.41 seconds with Germany’s Carolin Schaeffer in second. Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium – the defending champion – crossed the line fifth in 13.56 seconds.
Women’s heptathlon 100m hurdles: Strong run from Johnson-Thompson as she crosses the line second with a season’s best of 13.40 seconds, Poland’s Adriana Sulek-Schubert took first place in 13.32 seconds.
Team GB’s Jade O’Dowda was third, also chalking up a season’s best of 13.53 seconds and Ireland’s Kate O’Connor came seventh in 14.08 seconds.
Colin Jackson on the TV commentary is pleased with what he saw from KJT:
You want to have a real confident start to these seven events. It takes a solid seven events to get that medal. Katarina Johnson-Thompson will be happy with a season’s best. It always helps when you arrive and achieve something you haven’t so far this season. A great start.”