Nina Kennedy rounds off Australia’s golden day at Paris Olympics with pole vault victory | Paris Olympic Games 2024 As pole vault world champion Nina Kennedy took Australia to its 18th gold medal at the Paris Olympics, the nation’s best medal haul at the Games, she soared to new heights. After Kennedy had charged towards the uprights, forcefully planting her pole in the box, the 27-year-old flew upwards, gracefully lifting over the bar, before dropping cleanly to clear 4.90m. Kennedy did not know it at the time, but it would be the jump that won her gold. It felt like an apt metaphor for an extraordinary Wednesday from the Australian Olympic team, the best single day in the team’s history, with a total of four golds and two bronze medals. What more appropriate way for the Australians to fly past history and make Paris 2024 the nation’s best Olympics yet? Kennedy became the first Australian to win pole vault gold since Steven Hooker at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and the first Australian woman to win gold, bettering Tatiana Grigorieva’s silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Games. The bar started low, with Kennedy easily clearing 4.40m on her first attempt. She was again comfortable at 4.60m, before suffering a minor mishap at 4.70m. But any fears of an early exit — Kennedy bowed out at 4.40m three years ago in Tokyo, as she battled an injury — were quickly allayed as the Australian soared over on the second attempt. From there, while the field slimmed, Kennedy looked flawless. She took a deep breath at 4.80m, waited in contemplation, before clearing on her first attempt. When the bar was raised five centimetres, Kennedy was again untroubled — waiting for the jump clock to hit 20 seconds before charging forward and sailing over the bar. She was the only vaulter to clear 4.85m on the first attempt, and the only remaining competitor to clear 4.90m (again, on the first attempt). Kennedy clears again. Photograph: Andrej Isaković/AFP/Getty Images With just three athletes left, defending champion Katie Moon from the United States and Canada’s Alysha Newman, Kennedy found herself in the gold medal position. Newman failed to clear 4.90m, while after an unsuccessful attempt, Moon elected to pass on to 4.95m. The American and Kennedy both missed their first attempts at the new height, but Moon had one less chance to give. When Moon failed to clear again, Kennedy did not need to try again. “I knew first-attempt clearances at those high bars were going to take the gold,” Kennedy said afterwards. “I put all my focus into that exact second, and that’s how I won.” Kennedy had shared the gold medal with Moon at last year’s world championships, after the pair were level at 4.90m and both failed to clear 4.95m. The Australian has been asked repeatedly in recent months whether she would consider splitting Paris gold. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Olympic and Paralympic briefing Our daily email briefing will help you keep up with all the goings on at the Olympics and Paralympics Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion “Deep down I knew I wasn’t going to,” she said. “I wanted that outright gold medal. I became really confident in talking to the media, it was really scary, really vulnerable, to lay it all out there and say: ‘I want the fucking outright gold medal, this is what I want.’ That’s really scary — I’m just really happy I got the job done.” Matthew Denny continued Australia’s medal rush in the discus, winning the bronze medal with a throw of 69.31m. Three years ago in Tokyo, the Queenslander was an agonising five centimetres short of third place. But there would be no such heartbreak in Paris, with Denny almost a metre clear of the fourth place throw. Jamaica’s Rojé Stona won gold with an Olympic record throw of 70.00m. Denny’s medal is the first Olympic medal for an Australian in an Olympic throwing event — discus, shot put, hammer throw and javelin. https://lottolenghi.me/nina-kennedy-rounds-off-australias-golden-day-at-paris-olympics-with-pole-vault-victory-paris-olympic-games-2024/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #Olympics #LesOttolenghi #NinaKennedy #AustralianOlympic #ParisOlympicGames2024

Why Olympic wrestler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified India’s star Olympic wrestler Vinesh Phogat is out of the competition ahead of a gold medal match, after being disqualified for being over her class’s weight limit. It’s a devastating end to the Paris games for the wrestler who has led the charge against sexual harassment at the highest levels of her sport. Had she been able to compete and won Wednesday’s match, she would have been the first Indian woman to win a gold medal in any Olympic event. Phogat, who often wrestles at a 53-kilogram weight — or about 116 pounds — made the 50-kilogram (about 110 pounds) berth after another wrestler won the 53-kilogram spot on India’s wrestling team. She knew that getting down to competition weight would be difficult, she said in an April interview: “I gain weight easily. It doesn’t matter how fit I am, I still gain weight because I have a lot of muscle mass.” She had been able to maintain the lower weight until Wednesday, when she weighed in at just 100 grams over the weight limit — despite the drastic measures she had taken over the past week to maintain her 50-kilogram weight. Phogat barely ate, spent hours in a sauna and exercised, and even tried cutting her hair to make weight, according to Team India’s chief medical officer. But that 100 grams — around 3.5 ounces — meant she couldn’t compete in Wednesday’s match, and wouldn’t receive a medal at all despite her dominance. She put up a phenomenal performance in Paris, beating out Japanese Olympic gold medalist Yui Susaki in the first round, and dominating thereafter, seemingly guaranteeing India either a gold or silver medal. Her wins — and sudden disqualification — have put her recent crusade against sexual harassment in India’s national wrestling organization back in the spotlight. And though her Olympics are over, there’s now global attention on her activism as much as her athletic prowess. Sexual harassment is a problem in India — and in sports Phogat spent months last year as the face of a campaign to remove Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh as head of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI), the body governing the sport in India. Phogat and other women wrestlers accused Singh of sexual exploitation, and Phogat in particular alleged that he emotionally and psychologically tormented her following the Tokyo Summer Games, where she just missed out on a medal. After filing a complaint with the Indian Olympic Association, and receiving little response, they mounted a May 2023 protest in New Delhi — where they were reportedly assaulted by police. Sexual harassment is a problem everywhere, and India is no different. A 2024 Centre for Economic Data & Analysis study found workplace sexual harassment to be on the rise in India (though reporting mechanisms have increased, too), and a 2022 World Bank report found harassment on public transportation to be a nearly universal experience in big cities, with 88 percent of those surveyed in New Delhi saying they’d experienced it. Scholars Anil Kumar and Ashutosh Pandey, both professors in the department of sociology at Bayalasi P.G. College, in Jalalpur, India, wrote in a recent study that the “prevalent perception of sexual harassment often portrays it as a joke, where women are deemed both responsible for and deserving of such behavior.” Despite the efforts of Indian feminists, particularly from the 1970s onward, there are still high-profile cases of harassment and violence against women, as well as protests against the police and governments’ handling of the problem. In the case of Phogat and her colleagues, New Delhi police did finally arrest Singh in June of this year on charges of “sexual harassment, intimidation and outraging the modesty of women,” according to The Hindu. He has maintained his innocence. https://lottolenghi.me/why-olympic-wrestler-vinesh-phogat-was-disqualified/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #Olympics #OlympicTorchRelay #ParisPreparations

Paraguay swimmer Luana Alonso who was kicked out of Olympic Village over ‘inappropriate’ behavior wanted to compete for Team USA Paraguayan swimmer Luana Alonso wanted to compete for the United States at the 2024 Paris Olympics instead of representing her home country, according to a report. “I want to represent the United States more,” Alonso allegedly said during a live video on social media before the Olympics, Paraguayan outlet HOY reported. The outlet claimed Alonso wanted to swim for the US because it’s where she attended college and Team USA Olympic qualifications are much different than Paraguay’s. Alonso, who was accused of “inappropriate conduct and booted from Olympic Village in Paris, competed for one season at Southern Methodist University as a sophomore. She also attended Virginia Tech University in 2021-2022. https://lottolenghi.me/paraguay-swimmer-luana-alonso-who-was-kicked-out-of-olympic-village-over-inappropriate-behavior-wanted-to-compete-for-team-usa/ #ParaguayswimmerLuanaAlonso #Paraguayswimmer #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #ParisOlympics

Swimmer Luana Alonso breaks silence on her expulsion from Olympic Village: ‘Stop spreading false info’ | Trending Paraguay’s Luana Alonso has denied reports that she was removed from the Paris Olympics Village for inappropriate behaviour. This denial comes after several news outlets ran stories on her expulsion from the athletes’ village. The story was first published by British tabloid The Sun, quoting Larissa Schaerer, head of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee. Paraguay’s Luana Alonso denies reports of her expulsion from the Olympics Village.(Instagram/@luanalonsom) “Her presence is creating an inappropriate atmosphere within Team Paraguay,” Larissa Schaerer said in a statement published by the outlet. “We thank her for proceeding as instructed, as it was of her own free will that she did not spend the night in the Athletes’ Village.” The Sun report suggested that Luana Alonso, 20, sneaked out of the Olympic Village to visit Disneyland Paris instead of cheering for her teammates. A separate report in Daily Mail also said that she was a distraction to her teammates “with her skimpy clothing and socialising with other athletes.” It added that she was seen walking around the Village in her own clothes rather than the official Paraguayan kit provided to all athletes. In an Instagram Story shared yesterday, the 20-year-old swimmer dismissed reports of her expulsion from the Olympic Village. “I just want to clarify that I was never removed or expelled from anywhere,” Luana Alonso wrote in Spanish on Instagram Stories. “Stop spreading false information. I don’t want to give any statement but I am not going to let lies affect me either,” she added. Take a look at her Instagram Story: Luana Alonso addresses reports of her expulsion from Olympic Village Alonso failed to advance into the women’s 100m butterfly semifinals on July 27, missing out of qualifying by a mere 0.24 seconds. She announced her retirement from the sport shortly after the event, but continued to stay on in the Olympics Village. “I have been swimming for so long, 18 years, and I have so many feelings,” she wrote on Instagram while announcing her retirement. “Unfortunately, I made the decision to stop and I am happy that my last race will be at the Olympic Games.” Alonso was just 17 when she participated in the Tokyo Olympics. The Hindustan Times YouTube channel now has 7 million subscribers. We thank our viewers for their support. Follow the channel for exclusive video news on politics, sports, entertainment & more. Click here. See more Get Latest Updates on Trending News Viral News, Video, Photos and Weather Updates of India and around the world News / Trending / Swimmer Luana Alonso breaks silence on her expulsion from Olympic Village: ‘Stop spreading false info’ https://lottolenghi.me/swimmer-luana-alonso-breaks-silence-on-her-expulsion-from-olympic-village-stop-spreading-false-info-trending/ #Paris Olympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #ParisOlympics #OlympicTorchRelay #ParisPreparations

Simone Biles toasts Olympic glory with racy snaps alongside Team USA gymnast Jordan Chiles Simone Biles celebrated her three gold medals at the 2024 Olympics in Paris by posing for a set of eye-popping snaps with fellow Team USA gymnast Jordan Chiles. Barely 24 hours after the 27-year-old openly complained about reporters constantly asking her about ‘what’s next’ following her new achievements at the Olympics this summer, Biles took to social media to put her close bond with Chiles, 23, on display. ‘red, white, biles&chiles,’ she captioned her post on Instagram. The pair can be seen hanging out on a balcony in what presumably is the Olympic Village, which is located in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Both gymnasts wore booty shorts with ‘TEAM USA’ printed on them as they also showed off their back muscles with crop tops Chiles also posted a series of pics with Biles on Instagram. She wrote ‘team usa girlies…’ with a red heart emoji as a caption to her post. After claiming gold in the teams finals, all-around events and women’s vault earlier this week, Biles expressed her frustration with the line of questioning taking place after her performances in Paris. Addressing reporters on X, she posted: ‘you guys really gotta stop asking athletes what’s next after they win a medal at the Olympics.’ Biles then added in another post: ‘let us soak up the moment we’ve worked our whole lives for’. When asked by a fan what does come next for her after winning another gold, she replied: ‘babysitting the medal’. https://lottolenghi.me/simone-biles-toasts-olympic-glory-with-racy-snaps-alongside-team-usa-gymnast-jordan-chiles/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #ParisOlympics #OlympicTorchRelay #ParisPreparations

Today at the Olympics: Monday’s schedule and highlights including Keely Hodgkinson and Noah Lyles Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth. Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts. Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda. Monday’s highlights Simone Biles has already won three gold medals in Paris but she has further finals to come on the balance beam and floor exercise on the final day of artistic gymnastics. Biles has the chance to make history in the events – if she wins both she will join American swimmer Katie Ledecky and former Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina on nine Olympic golds, which is the most of all time. The headline star athlete of Monday and perhaps the entire Olympics is Noah Lyles. The Team USA sprinter is back from the thrilling 100m final in a bid to double up and take gold in the men’s 200m first round. Zharnel Hughes, Letsile Tebogo, Andre De Grasse and Erriyon Knighton are among the biggest threats to Lyles. Keely Hodgkinson goes again in the women’s 800m final, with the Team GB star likely to face a challenge from Kenya’s Mary Moraa. https://lottolenghi.me/today-at-the-olympics-mondays-schedule-and-highlights-including-keely-hodgkinson-and-noah-lyles/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics

Jason Kelce pays tribute to USA women’s rugby star Ilona Maher at the Olympics as Kylie Kelce posts hilarious clip of her husband ‘after all of the excitement’ Jason Kelce paid tribute to US women’s rugby sevens star Ilona Maher in Paris as her team picked up bronze at the 2024 Olympics on Tuesday. The former Philadelphia Eagles star and his wife Kylie spent the day cheering for the Americans across competitions in the French capital. After a long day of supporting their countrymen at the games, Kylie posted a hilarious clip of Jason on her Instagram story. The video shows her husband looking spent on a chair, gripping a stack of cups in one hand and his phone in the other while holding a rugby ball and a miniature volleyball between his left forearm and torso. Kelce also sported a USA hat, a rugby jersey with the athletes’ signatures, and a button-down draped in American colors and Maher’s face printed in different places. ‘Yes, that’s @ilonamaher on his shirt,’ Kylie captioned. ‘When you finally sit down after all the excitement…’ Jason Kelce wore a shirt with Ilona Maher's face as the print at the Olympics on Tuesday Jason Kelce wore a shirt with Ilona Maher’s face as the print at the Olympics on Tuesday And his wife Kylie shared a hilarious video of the ex-NFL star tired out from a big day in Paris And his wife Kylie shared a hilarious video of the ex-NFL star tired out from a big day in Paris Maher and the USA women's rugby sevens team secured a bronze medal finish over Australia Maher and the USA women’s rugby sevens team secured a bronze medal finish over Australia The clip was scored by Jelly Roll’s newly-released track ‘I Am Not Okay’. She also listed the American victories for the day, including men’s volleyball’s 3-2 win over Germany and USA women’s gymnastics bagging gold in the artistic finals. Maher and her team started the day with a 24-12 semifinal loss to New Zealand but bounced back and beat Australia 14-12 to secure a podium finish. The All Blacks would lose to Canada in the gold medal game. On a more impressive note, Simone Biles and the USA women’s gymnastics team secured gold in team competition. With Biles at her show-stopping best, the Americans’ total of 171.296 was clear of Italy and Brazil and the exclamation point of a yearlong run in which Biles has cemented her legacy as the greatest ever in her sport and among the best in the history of the Olympics. Besides Biles, teammates Suni Lee, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, and Hezly Rivera contributed to the redemption story in Paris. Share or comment on this article: Jason Kelce pays tribute to USA women’s rugby star Ilona Maher at the Olympics as Kylie Kelce posts hilarious clip of her husband ‘after all of the excitement’ #lesottolenghi #Olympics #OlympicGames #Olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #olympicsparis2024 #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 https://lottolenghi.me/jason-kelce-pays-tribute-to-usa-womens-rugby-star-ilona-maher-at-the-olympics-as-kylie-kelce-posts-hilarious-clip-of-her-husband-after-all-of-the-excitement/

Report: Brazilian swimmer Ana Carolina Vieira banished from Olympics after sneaking out of village Brazilian swimmer Ana Carolina Vieira was banished from the 2024 Olympic Games after sneaking out of the Olympic village following her country’s elimination from the 4×100 freestyle relay. According to Tom Balogun of the Daily Mail, Vieira, 22, snuck out to meet up with boyfriend and fellow swimmer Gabriel Santos without authorization. When questioned, Vieira was reportedly disrespectful and challenging. Santos was also disciplined but allegedly apologized for leaving and breaking the rules. “The Brazilian Confederation of Aquatic Sports (CBDA), the COB decided to punish the two athletes for having left the Olympic Village without authorization last Friday,” a statement from the body began. “In addition to this fact, the athlete Ana Carolina, in a disrespectful and aggressive manner, contested the technical decision taken by the Brazilian Swimming Team committee. “Thus, athlete Gabriel Santos was punished with a warning and athlete Ana Carolina Vieira was punished with removal from the delegation. She will return to Brazil immediately.” https://lottolenghi.me/report-brazilian-swimmer-ana-carolina-vieira-banished-from-olympics-after-sneaking-out-of-village/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #ParisOlympics #OlympicTorchRelay

Countdown to Paris 2024: Torch Relay Kicks Off as Olympic Fever Grips France As of late July 2024, the Paris Summer Olympics, set to commence on July 26, 2024, are generating significant buzz with several key updates and developments capturing global attention. First and foremost, the Olympic torch relay, which began its journey in Greece, is now making its way through various French cities, creating a festive atmosphere nationwide. The relay, which will conclude at the opening ceremony in Paris, has already been marked by vibrant celebrations and enthusiastic crowds, setting an exciting tone for the games. In terms of infrastructure, Paris has made substantial progress in preparing for the Olympics. The city has invested heavily in upgrading existing venues and constructing new facilities, including the stunning Aquatics Centre and the new Olympic Village, designed to be both environmentally sustainable and technologically advanced. The Paris 2024 organizing committee has emphasized eco-friendliness, with many venues utilizing green energy sources and sustainable materials. Athlete preparations are also in full swing, with numerous national teams conducting their final training camps and trials. A particular highlight is the anticipated debut of several new sports, including breakdancing, which will feature prominently for the first time in Olympic history. The inclusion of these sports has sparked considerable interest, especially among younger audiences. https://paris2024.ai/ #ParisOlympic2024 #Paris2024 #SummerOlympics #OlympicGames #ParisOlympics

Winter Olympics Will Return to Salt Lake City, Site of Bidding Scandal, in 2034 The Utah capital’s victory was ratified only after Olympic officials threatened to pull the Games if the U.S. authorities undermined the World Anti-Doping Agency. https://lottolenghi.me/winter-olympics-will-return-to-salt-lake-city-site-of-bidding-scandal-in-2034/ #lesottolenghi #Olympics #OlympicGames #Olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #olympicsparis2024 #lesottolenghi #SaltLakeCity #SaltLakeCity2034 #WinterGames #2034WinterOlympics