paris — Australia took the lead in its swimming showdown against the United States at the Paris Olympics by claiming two of three gold medals on the first full day of competition.
Ariarne Titmus turned one of the most anticipated races of the Games into a blowout when she left Katie Ledecky in her wake at La Defense Arena. Titmus led from start to finish in the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night.
The Australian star known as “The Terminator” handed Ledecky a second straight Olympic defeat in an event the American won at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Titmus faced her stiffest challenge from 17-year-old Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh, but she won comfortably as McIntosh claimed the silver. Ledecky settled for bronze.
Australia then made it 2 for 2 against the Americans in the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay, claiming its fourth straight Olympic title in that event.
The quartet of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris set an Olympic record with a winning time of 3 minutes, 28.92 seconds.
The Americans — Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Torri Huske and Simone Manuel — rallied to take silver. China took bronze.
The U.S. finally got its first gold in the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay. The Americans were anchored by Caeleb Dressel, who won the eighth gold medal of his career.
Australia took the silver.
China takes first gold of games
The first gold medal of the Paris Olympics went to China when Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao beat South Korea’s Keum Jihyeon and Park Hajun in the final of the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event Saturday morning.
Shortly before that, Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev became the first medalists of the games when they beat Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich 17-5 for the bronze.
Wemby’s debut
Victor Wembanyama did not disappoint in his Olympic debut. The NBA Rookie of the Year had 19 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots for host France in a 78-66 win over Brazil.
The game was played in front of a sold-out crowd in support of last year’s top pick in the NBA draft.
France’s first medals
Luka Mkheidze and Shirine Boukli won France’s first two medals of the Olympics when Mkheidze claimed silver and Boukli earned bronze in judo.
Mkheidze lost 1-0 to Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan in the final of the men’s 60-kilogram division — a disappointing result for the raucous crowd at Champ-de-Mars Arena. About 30 minutes before Mkheidze’s loss, Boukli claimed France’s first medal of its home Olympics with a victory over Spain’s Laura Martinez in a bronze-medal match.
Canada soccer scandal
FIFA deducted six points from Canada in the Olympics women’s soccer tournament and banned three coaches for one year each for a drone spying scandal.
Two assistant coaches were caught using drones to spy on New Zealand’s practices before their opening game last Wednesday. Head coach Bev Priestman, who led Canada to the Olympic title in Tokyo in 2021, already was suspended by the national soccer federation and then removed from the Olympic tournament. She is now banned from all soccer for one year.
Tennis controversy
Novak Djokovic was perplexed by the Olympics rules after his 6-0, 6-1 rout in less than an hour against an overmatched Matthew Ebden, a 36-year-old doubles player from Australia who hadn’t competed in a tour-level, main-draw singles match since June 2022.
Djokovic felt other singles players deserved a spot at the Olympics instead of Ebden.
Ebden was in Paris to compete in men’s doubles, where he’s been as high as No. 1 and currently is No. 3 and has won two major championships. That made him available for the singles competition when 16th-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark pulled out because of a wrist injury.
10-time Olympian
Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze made history as the first woman to compete at 10 Olympic Games in a career that began representing the Soviet Union. She has competed at every Summer Olympics since 1988, when she won gold as a 19-year-old Soviet prodigy.
She set her latest record when she stepped into the shooting range for qualification in the women’s 10-meter air pistol. Salukvadze placed 38th and didn’t advance to Sunday’s eight-shooter final. She gets another shot at a medal Friday in qualification for the 25-meter pistol event.
She has represented her home country of Georgia following its independence for the last eight Olympics.
China’s diving quest
China has ruled diving for decades and came to Paris seeking to sweep all eight gold medals. The nation got off to a perfect start Saturday when the team of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen won gold in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard with 337.68 points on five dives.
Three years ago in Tokyo, China won seven of eight gold medals. It has never pulled off the elusive gold sweep.
Hungarian fencer loses
An era-defining streak in Olympic fencing was snapped by an upset when Hungarian fencer Aron Szilagyi lost his opening bout while chasing a fourth consecutive gold medal.
Szilagyi won gold medals in men’s individual saber in 2012, 2016 and 2021 and was trying to become the only fencer in history to win a fourth.
Instead, the streak ended in Szilagyi’s first bout of the Paris Games as he was beaten 15-8 by the 27th-seeded Canadian Fares Arfa in one of the biggest upsets so far at the 2024 Olympics.
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