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

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/

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

Olympics to Hold Its First Esports Games Starting in 2025, Amid Concerns The games industry may be surging, having recently generated more money than movies and North American sports combined, but enthusiasm for esports has ebbed and flowed. Now, though, competitive gaming will get a jolt of recognition: The International Olympic Committee has just formalized the Olympic Esports Games, with the first scheduled for 2025 in Saudi Arabia. Complicating the picture for the IOC: the themes of violence that run through many video games, and a political environment in Saudi Arabia that’s hostile to LGBTQ+ individuals. The IOC hasn’t decided on the exact location and dates or, most importantly, which video game titles the esports athletes will be competing in. In the past, professional esports competitions have mostly been title-specific tournaments, including huge international efforts like the League of Legends World Championship and the Dota International. The last couple of decades have seen esports leagues rise and fall, from the US-specific Major League Gaming (acquired by Activision Blizzard and now owned by Microsoft) to publisher-sponsored organizations like Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League. Large-scale professional gaming competitions have been pushed mostly by game publishers and esports leagues, but the IOC has been exploring esports since 2017, culminating in the Olympic Esports Week in Singapore in 2023 and a subsequent request to study the creation of a formal Olympic Esports Games. The IOC Esports Commission said in a release Tuesday that it has “devised a project which addresses the interest of the esports community while respecting the Olympic values. This is particularly true with regard to the game titles on the programme, the promotion of gender equality and engagement with the young audience, which is embracing esports.” Esports reviving the Olympics Appealing to younger fans has been a priority for the IOC, leading it to adopt new event categories in recent Olympics. In 2020, the traditional Games added surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing, while breaking (what had been known as breakdancing) is debuting at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The IOC has been looking into esports as traditional sports audiences age — a MarketWatch report in 2017 noted that the average NBA viewers were in their early 40s, while average NFL and MLB viewers were in their 50s. But even as the IOC Esports Commission formed to explore how it might integrate competitive gaming into the Olympics, questions arose about whether that marriage would work. Many of the top esports titles are violent first-person shooters, which goes against Olympic values of peaceful competition — the IOC flatly stated a year ago that games from the Counter-Strike and Call of Duty series would never be included in Olympic Esports, according to The Jakarta Post. While the IOC formalizing the Olympic Esports Games seems to put the debate to bed about whether virtual competition is a sport, siloing esports into their own event, away from the traditional Olympics, does send a complicated message. The most pertinent question is whether gamers will flock to esports if they’re hosted by the Olympics, or if they’ll just continue watching tournaments and leagues that have been built up by the games industry and esports enthusiasts. “Years ago I said, ‘The Olympics needs esports more than esports needs the Olympics,’ and I still stand by that statement,” said Rod Breslau, an esports and gaming consultant. “However, there is no denying that esports officially being at the Olympics, and even the creation of its own games, is another major stepping stone in establishing competitive gaming as a ‘real thing’ to the mainstream,” Breslau added. “Video games at the Olympics is validation for an entire generation of kids that grew up playing Street Fighter, Quake or StarCraft.” Esports Olympics in Saudi Arabia Tuesday’s announcement focused on Saudi Arabia’s role in hosting the first esports Olympics, which spokespeople for the country said is a natural extension of Saudi Arabia’s support for traditional sports and efforts to reach young athletes. “Our commitment to esports is simply a reflection of the world our young people live in,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, minister of sport and president of the Saudi Arabian Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said in the press release. “We now all have the chance to write new Olympic history together, the chance to inspire new dreams and new ambitions for literally millions of athletes around the world.” #lesottolenghi #Olympics #OlympicGames #Olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #olympicsparis2024 #2024summerolympics #parisolympicsschedule https://lottolenghi.me/olympics-to-hold-its-first-esports-games-starting-in-2025-amid-concerns/

‘I’m good to go’: Steph Catley fit for Matildas’ Olympics opener against Germany | Paris Olympic Games 2024 Coach Tony Gustavsson expects to have captain Steph Catley and a full-strength squad available when the Matildas face Germany in the opening match of their Olympic campaign on Thursday. The Matildas have been beset by injury woes in the lead-up to the Paris Games, with Catley nursing a calf niggle, Katrina Gorry returning from an ankle injury, and other worries for attacking threat Caitlin Foord and defender Kaitlyn Torpey. But Gustavsson insisted his team was fit and ready to go following an extended pre-Olympics training camp, as all 22 players – 18 squad members and four reserves – trained on Wednesday in Marseille. “Everyone trained today, which is good,” Gustavsson said. “It’s been a challenging preparation period, to be honest. If you look at the game minutes that these players have had over the last six months, with everything from stress fractures to foot surgeries to soft tissue injuries and all that. And then a break, and then coming in [to camp]. So we’ve had to do a lot of hard work and individual planning. “It’s been a little bit of a challenge to get everyone up to speed, but to then see 100% of the players available for training today was amazing,” Gustavsson added. While the coach said that final decisions on availability would be made following a last medical meeting, he indicated that Arsenal star Catley was expected to start against Germany. “If Steph is available, our captain, that’s a no-brainer,” he said. “I’m fit,” added Catley, set to compete in her third Olympics. “I’m good to go.” The Matildas enter the Games with high expectations after finishing fourth at both the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and home World Cup in 2023. But on each occasion the Australians fell in the third-place encounter; the team has never won a medal at a major international tournament. “It would be incredible,” Catley said about the prospect of finishing on the podium in Paris. “This team has gone through a lot, been together for many, many years, we’ve come close to having some pretty amazing results. It’s definitely something that we want to achieve. “But so does every single team in this tournament,” continued the 30-year-old. “Every single team in this tournament is incredible – the Olympics is really, really tough. Not to be clichéd but it really is one game at a time for us. We dream big always – every tournament we go into, we go into to win, to achieve the absolute most we can. But it’s risky to start to think like that, we just need to focus on Germany and how we can beat them.” After the encounter with Germany, the Matildas will face Zambia in Nice on Sunday, before concluding the group with a blockbuster clash against long-time rivals the United States in Marseille next week. The Australians need to finish in the top two of group B, or be among the best-ranked third placed teams, to qualify for the quarter-finals. On the eve of their opening match, and with the Paris 2024 opening ceremony only 48 hours away, Catley spoke of her pride at wearing the green and gold on the Olympic stage. 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 “We know what the Olympics mean to everyone,” said the defender. “We take a lot of pride from the stories we share – meeting Cathy Freeman )ahead of the last World Cup], the connections we have with her, and how many of us grew up watching the Olympics and being so proud to be Australian in those massive moments. “We want to recreate those kinds of moments for young girls watching the TV, up in the middle of the night watching us,” Catley added. “We want to make them proud – we want to give them that Olympic memory we had growing up.” Goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold, meanwhile, had a simple message for Australian fans ahead of the Germany clash: “Set your alarms.” The Matildas’ Olympic opener will take place on Thursday evening local time (3am AEST). “It’s going to be an early one – set your alarms, get around it,” said Arnold. “It means a lot to us.” #lesottolenghi #Olympics #OlympicGames #Olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #olympicsparis2024 #2024summerolympics #parisolympicsschedule https://lottolenghi.me/im-good-to-go-steph-catley-fit-for-matildas-olympics-opener-against-germany-paris-olympic-games-2024/

Nike eyes marketing moment at the Olympics, as industry execs sound off on the brand’s challenges The Olympic Games is undeniably a major brand marketer moment. And lately, marketers have been eyeing everything from women’s sports to Formula One races as opportunities for growth, making sports marketing more competitive than ever. Still, brands are throwing money at the games, including the likes of Powerade, Reese’s, Old El Paso and, of course, Nike. The athletic retailer in particular has already shelled out nearly $143 million in advertising dollars from January through May this year, even before the Olympic Games start, according to data from MediaRadar. That figure is up 10% year over year from the $130 million spent during the same period in 2023. Nike, which didn’t respond to comment on this story, told Reuters that this year’s Olympics were its “biggest” spend yet. In 2021, Nike spent an estimated $39 million on advertising during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, per MediaRadar’s data. The Olympic moment comes at a time that is all too critical for a brand like Nike, which some industry experts say is pressured to improve its standing among consumers after seeing a dip in sales as of late. The 60-year-old retailer faces challenges on more than one front. Full-year revenue (the fiscal year ended May 31 for the company) was up just 1% to $51.4 billion compared to $51.2 billion in 2023, per the company’s earnings report. Meanwhile, fourth-quarter revenues were $12.6 billion, down 2% on a reported basis and flat on a currency-neutral basis, per the report. Nike’s digital sales have also been lagging, dipping 3% year over year from the third quarter of fiscal 2023 to the third quarter of fiscal 2024, marking the retailer’s first digital decline in nine years. Nike is said to have invested too much, too quickly in its direct-to-consumer business, which has become a scapegoat for its poor performance, as ModernRetail reported. In the face of financial headwinds, the company has gone through a series of layoffs to cut costs. https://lottolenghi.me/nike-eyes-marketing-moment-at-the-olympics-as-industry-execs-sound-off-on-the-brands-challenges/ #lesottolenghi #Olympics #OlympicGames #Olympics2024 #parisolympics2024 #olympicsparis2024 #lesottolenghi

Les Ottolenghi: Master Innovator Crafting Quality Solutions and Pioneering Fresh Ideas Les Ottolenghi stands as a master innovator renowned for crafting high-quality solutions and pioneering fresh ideas across diverse domains. With a career marked by leadership roles in digital transformation, cloud technology, mobile solutions, and cybersecurity, Ottolenghi has consistently pushed boundaries. His strategic vision and deep expertise have enabled him to drive disruptive innovation, fostering sustainable growth and organizational evolution. Ottolenghi's impact resonates through his ability to integrate cutting-edge technologies with business imperatives, ensuring that his initiatives not only meet but exceed expectations, setting new benchmarks in the industry. https://lottolenghi.me/ #LesOttolenghi #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #CloudTechnology #MobileSolutions #Cybersecurity #Leadership #DisruptiveInnovation