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Gold medal in sportsmanship
In what will surely be one of the lasting images of the Paris Olympics, Team USA’s Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowed down to the great Rebeca Andrade after she won gold in Monday’s floor competition.
From Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel:
Simone Biles stood to the right, a silver medalist. Jordan Chiles stood to the left, a bronze winner. In the middle was Rebeca Andrade, the Brazilian superstar who had seemingly taken on Team USA all by herself at these Olympics and this time, in this event, had triumphed.
She’d finally won gold here, edging Biles out by just 0.033 points. Biles could have been upset. A lot of athletes would be. She came expecting to win an eighth all-time gold in what was likely her Olympic finale, going out on top in front of a packed crowd eager to celebrate her greatness.
Instead, soreness in her left calf flared up again during a warm-up pass. Her back may have tightened. Doctors checked her out, but at age 27 — the oldest American female gymnast since the 1950s — and Day 8 of an active competition, it was all just a little too much.
She stepped out of bounds twice. She didn’t execute to her normal standards. She got beat. Fair and square, she got beat by a great gymnast.
Yet so often, perhaps too often, these Olympic competitions break down to someone losing gold, not winning silver. The drive for the top of the podium is all-consuming. The need for glory — all the glory — becomes the standard.
Yet Biles saw it completely differently. And so for all the things she has done for gymnastics in her career — push the envelope of difficulty, open up about mental health, fight for safety of the athletes from abusive doctors and coaches — here was one more lesson for the world.
Sportsmanship, courtesy of Simone and Jordan. They cheered for Andrade. They hugged Andrade. They celebrated with Andrade. Then they all stood on that podium.
“Should we bow to her?” Chiles asked Biles. “Absolutely,” Biles answered back. And so they did. No hard feelings. No pouting. No regrets. Just respect. “Rebeca is so amazing, she’s queen,” Biles said. “It was just the right thing to do.”
There couldn’t have been a better way to end this gymnastics competition, even better than Biles soaring out of the Olympics with another golden tumbling run. If mutual admiration and honest competition is what the sport is supposed to be about, then here it was being just that.
Photos of the day
🇸🇪 Mondo breaks his own record: Louisiana native Mondo Duplantis, who competes for his mother’s Sweden, broke his own pole vault world record (6.25 meters) to win his second straight Olympic gold. American Sam Kendricks took silver (5.95 meters).
🇺🇸 Allman wins gold, again: Valarie Allman, a dancer-turned-discus superstar, won her second straight Olympic gold in dominant fashion, out-throwing the silver medalist by nearly two full meters.
🏄 Surfing finale: Reigning World Surf League champion Caroline Marks took gold for the U.S. in a dramatic surfing finale over Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb, while Tahiti native Kauli Vaast won the men’s competition for France on his local surf break.
🏀 Walk-off winner: Netherland’s Worthy de Jong drained a walk-off shot from distance to beat France and win 3×3 gold. On the women’s side, Germany beat Spain in the final while the U.S. took bronze.
Day 10 recap: More from Monday
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Athlete spotlight: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone became a superstar three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics. Now, she’s one of the faces of Team USA and can inch closer to capturing her second straight 400m hurdles gold in today’s semifinal.
An overwhelming favorite: The New Jersey native hasn’t lost a 400m hurdles race since 2019 and she’s held the world record since 2021, most recently breaking her own mark at U.S. trials in June. Her time that day (50.65 seconds) would have beaten four of the nine finalists in the open 400m at trials — the race without 10 hurdles.
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Despite being just 24, McLaughlin-Levrone is already a three-time Olympian, having reached the semifinals in Rio at 17 before winning two golds in Tokyo (400m hurdles, 4x400m relay).
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She enters today’s semifinal (2:15pm ET) after winning her heat by a comically-wide margin of 1.66 seconds.
The challenger: If anyone can give McLaughlin-Levrone a race, it’s Dutch sprinter Femke Bol, who already delivered an iconic performance in Paris to win gold in the mixed 4x400m relay. She and McLaughlin-Levrone are the only women who’ve ever broken 51 seconds in the 400m hurdles, and they’ve combined to run the seven fastest times ever.
More athletes in action:
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👟 Yared Nuguse, Cole Hocker and Hobbs Kessler: All three are in today’s much-anticipated 1500m final. Nuguse is the American record holder, Hocker finished sixth in Tokyo and Kessler is the first American man since 1976 to qualify for the Olympic 1500m and 800m.
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⛵️ Erika Reineke: The Laser Radial specialist (a solo sailing discipline) tried and failed to make the Olympic team three times before finally winning at this year’s U.S. trials. Now 30, the four-time All-American at Boston College gets her medal shot in today’s final.
Best of Team USA social: Gabby Thomas blows away the field … Steph Curry chats with Katie Ledecky … Team USA House goes all-in on basketball theme
Team USA: News | Athletes | Shop
Follow along at TeamUSA.com and @TeamUSA on social media.
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Watchlist: Win or go home
Two of Team USA’s most popular teams play knockout games today, with the USWNT facing Germany in the semifinals and U.S. men’s hoops facing Brazil in the quarterfinals.
Featured events:
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⚽️ Women’s Soccer: USA vs. Germany (11:45am, USA); Brazil vs. Spain (3pm, Peacock)
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🏀 Men’s Basketball: USA vs. Brazil (3:15pm, USA) … Other quarterfinals today include Serbia vs. Australia (8:30am, USA) and France vs. Canada (12:15pm, E!).
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👟 Track & Field: Men’s 1500m Final (2:50pm, NBC); Women’s 200m Final (3:40pm, NBC)
Medal events:
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⛵️ Sailing: Women’s (8:45am, Peacock) and Men’s Dinghy Finals (9:45am, Peacock)
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🌊 Diving: Women’s 10m Platform Final (9am, NBC)
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🛹 Skateboarding: Women’s Park Final (11:30am, E!)
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👟 Track & Field: Women’s Hammer Final (2pm, Peacock); Men’s Long Jump Final (2:15pm, Peacock); Women’s 3000m Steeplechase Final (3:15pm, NBC)
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🤼 Wrestling: Men’s Greco-Roman 60kg (1:30pm, Peacock); Men’s Greco-Roman 130kg (2pm, Peacock); Women’s Freestyle 68kg (2:50pm, Peacock)
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🚴♂️ Men’s Track Cycling: Team Sprint Finals (2pm, Peacock)
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🥊 Boxing: Women’s 60kg Final (5pm, Peacock)
Non-medal events: Artistic Swimming, Beach Volleyball, Canoe Sprint, Handball, Hockey, Sport Climbing, Table Tennis, Volleyball, Water Polo.
Primetime (NBC): Women’s Diving 10m Platform Final and Men’s 400m Semifinals (8pm), Women’s 400m Hurdles Semifinals and 200m Finals (9pm).
For a complete schedule, click here. Every event streams live on Peacock. Sign up here.
Sport climbing is “almost impossible”
Sport climbing is underway in Paris, where the event looks a bit different than it did when it made its Olympics debut three years ago.
Three disciplines: Bouldering, lead and speed climbing were all combined into a single medal event in Tokyo. This time, speed was separated into its own event (bouldering and lead are still combined) to more accurately reflect who’s best in the disparate specialties.
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Bouldering: Athletes navigate a 4.5-meter wall (~15 feet) without ropes, earning points for completing four obstacles. It combines strength and problem-solving, with competitors actually getting more time to study the wall (eight minutes) than climb it (five).
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Lead: Athletes get six minutes to study a partially inverted 15-meter wall (~50 feet), then they’re put into isolation while they wait. Once it’s their turn, they have six minutes to climb as high as they can.
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Speed: A head-to-head race up a 15-meter wall (~50 feet), which elite men can do in under six seconds and elite women can do in under seven seconds.
What they’re saying: “For somebody watching at home, the thing to remember is that what these competitors are doing is almost impossible,” says Alex Honnold, the world-famous “Free Solo” climber. “I wouldn’t even be able to get past the starting holds on a lot of [these].”
Athletes to watch: Team USA’s Sam Watson, who was once “so unathletic that he got cut from a fifth-grade track team,” set the speed climbing world record twice on the same day back in April (4.85 seconds then 4.79 seconds). Poland’s Aleksandra Mirosław has broken the women’s speed world record 10 times since 2021, including twice in Monday’s qualifiers (6.21, then 6.06).
Schedule: Men’s speed and women’s combined qualifiers are today, and the program ends with the men’s and women’s combined finals on Friday and Saturday.
Lightning round
🥈 GIF of the day: China’s Zhou Yaqin (silver in beam) reacts after seeing Italy’s Alice D’Amato (gold) and Manila Esposito (bronze) biting their medals while posing for the camera. Too good.
🇵🇭 Seems like a pretty good deal: Filipino gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo will receive quite the haul for earning a gold medal. Among his winnings: a fully furnished house, 13 million in cash (~$225,000 USD), a lifetime supply of ramen and free colonoscopies for life.
⚽️ All-European final: France beat Egypt, 3-1, and Spain beat Morocco, 2-1, to set up an All-European men’s soccer final between two football-obsessed nations.
💪 The wrestler who never loses: Amit Elor, the 20-year-old wrestling phenom who hasn’t lost in five years, might be Team USA’s most dominant athlete. The back-to-back world champion demolished her opponents on Monday and is on the verge of winning gold.
Daily trivia
Simone Biles earned her 11th Olympic medal on Monday (seven gold, two silver, two bronze), tying her for the most by any non-swimmer in U.S. history.
Answer at the bottom.
In non-Olympics news…
🏈 Bulldogs on top: Georgia is the No. 1 team in the preseason coaches poll after earning 46 of a possible 55 first-place votes. Rounding out the top 10: Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Michigan, Penn State and FSU.
Plus:
Trivia answer: Allyson Felix (Athletics)
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