The 2024 Paris Olympics ended its first week with the ladies’s all-around gymnastics competitors, an occasion that’s all the time among the many most-watched contests on the video games. Whereas the end result wasn’t a shock, it was inspiring. USA! USA!
Day six Olympics wrap-up: Biles wins gold
By far the largest story of day six on the Paris Olympics is gymnast Simone Biles profitable gold in ladies’s all-around gymnastics. The 27-year-old athlete edged out Brazilian Rebeca Andrade by simply 1.199 factors.
Different notable day six finishes: 17-year-old swimming phenom Summer season McIntosh received her second gold medal by dominating the 200-meter butterfly. China’s Zheng Qinwen upset heavy favourite Iga Swiatek by knocking her out of medal rivalry within the tennis semifinals. And Liam Corrigan, Justin Finest, Michael Grady, and Nick Mead received the primary U.S. rowing gold medal in males’s 4 since 1960.
Gender and the 2024 Olympics
The Paris Olympics opened with some gender-based envelope pushing: drag queens (gasp!) have been included within the opening ceremony. The ordinary suspects decried it as a “shame” and headed for his or her fainting couches, whereas everybody else thought “cool” or barely seen. However the drag queen dust-up was solely a preview of a bigger gender challenge going through the Olympics and sports activities as an entire.
The Olympics has made regular progress towards gender parity during the last 30 years or so, and 2024 marked a milestone for the video games. For the primary time ever, half of the athletes competing the Olympic Video games are ladies. A 50/50 cut up seems like a purpose achieved, however the extra advanced (and politically charged) challenge lies inside these gender classes.
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif immediately grew to become the middle of a gender-based firestorm on day six of the Olympics when her opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, threw within the towel lower than a minute into their struggle, main Donald Trump, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, and others to protest Khelif’s inclusion within the video games. Khelif’s lifetime document within the ring is 42 wins and 9 losses—respectable, however not indicative of an overwhelming fighter—however she was disqualified from the World Boxing Championships in 2023 by the Worldwide Boxing Affiliation which mentioned she failed a gender eligibility take a look at, reportedly on account of “excessive ranges of testosterone.” The IBA is not clear about the way it assessments its athletes, although, and the circumstances behind Khelif’s disqualification are murky, to say the least.
Khelif was assigned feminine at delivery. Her passport says she’s feminine, and that is the factors the Olympics makes use of to find out eligibility. However, in response to the Related Press, for the reason that Tokyo Olympics in 2021, many sports activities governing our bodies like World Aquatics, World Athletics, and the Worldwide Biking Union have up to date eligibility guidelines, and now bar athletes from ladies’s occasions who’ve transitioned from male to feminine and went by male puberty. The IOC’s place is that no scientific or political consensus exists on gender and equity points.
Why are Olympic athletes pictured biting their medals?
You will have seen images of varied Olympians biting into their medals on the the rostrum like they’re chocolate bars. Biting was a down-and-dirty solution to test if one thing was gold. Gold is gentle, so you’ll be able to depart tooth marks in it. The Olympics, although, have not awarded gold pure gold medals since 1912, so athletes usually are not checking purity. As a substitute, they’re following the instructions of photographers. “It’s grow to be an obsession with the photographers,” Olympic historian David Wallechinsky informed CNN. “I feel they take a look at it as an iconic shot, as one thing which you could most likely promote. I don’t assume it’s one thing the athletes would most likely do on their very own.”
The oldest and youngest Olympians on the 2024 Olympics
Mary Hanna is the oldest athlete on the 2024 Olympics. She’s 69 years previous and is a reserve rider for the Australian equestrian group. Hanna will solely compete if one other member of her group cannot, however 65-year-old Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo from Spain, additionally an equestrian, is not a back-up, so he is is prone to be the oldest athlete to truly compete on the video games this yr. So if you’d like a shot at Olympic glory, stand up on that horse; you bought 4 years till the Los Angeles video games.
The youngest athlete competing on the Olympics this yr is 11-year-old skateboarder Zheng Haohao representing China. She turns 12 just a few days after the Ladies’s Remaining on August 6. There are a number of different younger skate boarders competing—like Thailand’s Vareeraya Sukasem who’s 12 years previous, 13-year-old Heili Sirviö from Finland, and 14-year-old Canadian skater Fay DeFazio Ebert—however there’s additionally a skater on the opposite facet of the age spectrum. Nice Britain’s Andy Macdonald is competing within the park occasion on August 7, and he is 50 years previous. Macdonald is proof that it is by no means too late, though whether or not he breaks a hip stays to be seen.
