Paris Olympics 2024 Day 3 Highlights: Djokovic, Alcaraz through to third round; Korea beat France for archery gold

Japan won the team gold medal in men's artistic gymnastics. China took the silver, while the United States won the bronze.

Carlos Alcaraz is in action in his second-round singles match for Spain against Netherlands' Tallon Griekspoor. Alcaraz has taken off with an early lead of 4-1 in the first set.

Japan's Yuto Horigome has retained his Olympic title in men's street skateboarding. Jagger Eaton of the United States took silver, while his compatriot Nyjah Huston claimed bronze.

The Korean dominance continues in archery as they beat France 5-1 in the gold-medal match of the men's team event.

British swimmer Adam Peaty has tested positive for COVID-19, Team GB confirmed n Monday. Peaty had missed out on the 100 metres breaststroke gold by 0.02 seconds behind Italian Nicolo Martinenghi on Sunday. 

Ukraine diver Oleksii Sereda opened up on Monday about how hard it was to train during a war after he and Kiril Boliukh finished fifth in the men's synchronised 10-metre platform event.

The 18-year-old and his teammate, 17, spent most of their time training in Kyiv, while air alerts and shell bombing were part of their daily lives following Russia's invasion.

"We had a lot of troubles, problems. With like light, for example. We don't have light in Ukraine, sometimes they turn that off," he told reporters after the competition.

"Shells are flying about our houses. Every single day we had like air alerts, we had to go downstairs, hide, then go for the training and always like that, always tired," he said. (Reports Reuters)

Vinayakk: Turkey, who defeated India a while earlier, have lost the semifinal. France win an archery match by the closest measure that is possible. Tied 4-4 after 4 sets. Tied 27-27 after the shootoff. But France shot the 10 that was closest to the center in the tiebreak! Crazy scenes.

Simone Biles and Vinesh Phogat don’t play the same sport; nor are they Olympians of equal stature. Though, they share an eerily similar story. Success for the GOAT American gymnast and the World Championship medalist Indian wrestler has come at an unfairly high price. Their tales do have feel-good chapters of sweat and sacrifices but also turn grim and dark.

Sports got them wings, fulfilled their dreams but was also responsible for their worst nightmare. It first liberated them and then betrayed them. Who they thought was the gamekeeper turned out to be a poacher. The sporting institutions basked in their glory but failed to protect them from in-house sexual offenders – one found guilty, other fighting charges in court. (Read more from Sandeep Dwivedi)

German eventing rider Michael Jung won his fourth Olympic gold medal on Monday after beating his main challengers Christopher Burton from Australia and Briton Laura Collett in the final showjumping contest.

Jung, riding on his bay Hannover gelding Chipmunk, won the three-day competition combining dressage, cross-country and showjumping with a final score of 21.8 penalty points, ahead of Burton with 22.4 and Collett with 23.1.

Securing his third individual Olympics win after London 2012 and Rio 2016, Jung managed to follow up on an outstanding dressage score on Saturday with a flawless and perfectly timed cross-country ride and two solid jumping performances the two following days. (Reuters reports)

Such was the visual appeal of the moment that even the sparkling Eiffel Tower had to fight for attention on Friday night.

On Saturday, a day after the Opening Ceremony on the River Seine, tourists walked past the Louvre and Place de la Concorde as if they were any other monuments. (Read more from Mihir)

France's Sarah-Leonie Cysique and Joan-Benjamin Gaba beat Japanese opponents to reach judo semi-finals at the Paris Olympics on Monday at Champs-de-Mars Arena.

Cysique, a silver medallist in Tokyo, took nine seconds to beat Haruka Funakubo by ippon in the women's under-57kg quarter-finals to the delight of the 8,000 fans packed into the arena.

The atmosphere ratcheted up further when Gaba, making his Olympic debut, took down former world champion Soichi Hashimoto in the last eight of the men's under-73kg. (Reuters reports)

Top seed Novak Djokovic outplayed long-time rival Rafael Nadal in their 60th all-time meeting to progress into the third round of the Paris Olympics men’s singles on Monday.

Djokovic, the 24-time Grand Slam champion, obliterated Nadal from the start, asserting complete dominance over serve and return to find the early breaks. While the Serb was on the verge of completing his first bagel over Nadal, the Spaniard marginally held fort before conceding the first set 6-1 in only 39 minutes. (Read more)

Gianmarco Tamberi can’t resist to make the headlines at the Olympics. At Tokyo 2020, the Italian high jumper had made news after sharing the gold medal with his Qatari counterpart Mutaz Essa Barshim.

Three years later in Paris, Tamberi – the male flagbearer for Italy at the opening ceremony – has become the talk of the town after he lost his wedding ring in the Seine river during the athletes parade on Friday. (Read more)

Flying a drone over the opponents’ training session to gather information is perhaps the most indiscreet piece of espionage carried out in recent sporting history. The buzzing saucers with spidery limbs are spotted everywhere, from weddings and funerals to political rallies and warfronts, underwater and in outer space too. So it was not a piece of improvised spying when some members of the Canadian women’s football employed drones to peep into New Zealand’s training session before their counter.

The price they paid for the brain-fade was too costly — six points were penalised, FIFA banned coach Bev Priestman and two other officials, the Canadian football association were fined 200,000 Swiss francs, and beyond all tangibles, the credibility and integrity of the reigning football champions in Olympics stood tarnished. (Read more from Sanip G)

Lalith Kalidas: And Nadal breaks, finally! Five games into the second set, Djokovic shows first signs of vulnerabilities and Nadal immediately capitalizes to earn his first break and narrow the Serb's lead to 4-2. That might just be the shot in the arm for Rafa to mark a comeback in this set.

British eventing riders Ros Canter, Laura Collett and Tom McEwen won team gold on Monday after solid rides in the show-jumping final as France had to settle for silver in front of a euphoric home crowd due to too many glitches.

The team gold medal, Britain's fifth, makes them the most-winning eventing nation in Olympic history, ahead of Germany and Australia with four medals.

The British team ended the three-day competition with a combined score of 91.3 penalty points ahead of France with 103.6 and Japan with 115.8.

Britain were the clear favourite for gold after Germany dropped out of the race when one of their riders fell. (Reports Reuters)

Yang Hao and Lian Junjie played their parts with aplomb in China's bid to take all eight diving golds on offer by winning the men's synchronised 10 metre platform event on Monday.

The pair led the event from the first round and finished on 490.35 points - becoming the second Chinese diving pair to top the podium so far at the Paris Olympics.

Tom Daley and Noah Williams of Britain took silver with 463.44 points, followed by Canada's Ryan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray who won bronze.

Yang, 26, and 23-year-old Lian have dominated the world championships in the last three years in the event but it was their first time to stand on top of the Olympic podium. (Reports Reuters)

And Nadal serves with all his might to avoid the ignominy of a bagel. The Spaniard finally holds his serve to keep his perfect record intact. Nadal had previously bageled Djokovic, more famously in the 2020 French Open final here in Paris.

The rivalry over the years has been intensely fought and brutally close across 59 meetings. But Monday afternoon has had a contrasting start with Rafael Nadal stuttering to gather pace against a seemingly well-conditioned Novak Djokovic. The Serb has steamrolled his way to a 5-0 lead in the opening set. Nobody has had as much success over Nadal at Court Philippe-Chatrier as Djokovic. While he may have had his own injury concerns for a while, Djokovic has constricted Nadal early on serve to maintain complete command. Remember, Nadal has never been bageled by Djokovic across 60 meetings.

?? Novak Djokovic ? Rafael Nadal ??

A 60th meeting, still remembering the thrill of the first one ? pic.twitter.com/eHErz4WCiG

— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) July 29, 2024

Hannah Roberts looked perfectly at ease relaxing on a covered porch on a rainy July morning in Michigan, just weeks before she left for the Paris Olympics, content that she had put in the work necessary to win the gold medal that escaped her in Tokyo.

For the past three years, the best freestyle BMX rider of her generation has been driven by the silver she took home instead.

“If I'm being honest,” Roberts told The Associated Press, while keeping an eye on the rambunctious kids she was babysitting, “I don't know whether silver or bronze would make too much difference for me. And maybe it's better for me the first time not to win. I think if I would have walked away with gold, I wouldn't have had the motivation to keep going forward.” Now, the 22-year-old Roberts is coming off her fifth world title in a seven-year span, and again the heavy favorite to win Olympic gold. The competition begins Tuesday at the urban sports park built at Place de la Concorde in the heart of Paris. Reports AP

The skateboarders has had it really difficult in the ongoing Paris Olympics. First the event was postponed due to rain and then the a bus carrying the skateboarders from the US and Canada to the venue broke down. However it failed to break the confidence of the skateboarder who decided to skate to the venue.

Canada’s skateboarder Matt Berger filmed himself and fellow countryman Cordano Russell skating down the streets of Paris. (Read more)

No team has reached the quarterfinals yet in the men's basketball tournament at the Paris Olympics. No team has been eliminated, either.

That said, Tuesday and Wednesday sure seem like make-or-break days for some nations — and medal chances might evaporate very quickly for those which stumble again.

With all 12 teams having been in action on either Saturday or Sunday, everyone in the men's tournament at Pierre Mauroy Stadium gets Monday off. For some, that provides a chance to regroup and practice. For others, like the U.S. — which rolled past Serbia in its opener, led by Kevin Durant's brilliant return from a calf issue — it brings a day to relax, recover and go be Team USA fans. (Reports AP)

Argentina made a little bit of history at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Monday as both the country's lightweight double sculls crews made the Olympic semi-finals for the first time.

With Monday's morning rowing program mostly made up of repechages and semi-finals for those eliminated from the main single sculls competitions, both Argentinian lightweight crews secured third-place finishes to progress to the semis and keep their Olympic medal hopes alive.

"We are very proud, it's amazing to be here and to have accomplished this goal. We are very, very happy," a beaming Sonia Baluzzo Chiarruzzo told Reuters after she and Evelyn Silvestro finished behind Ireland and Canada to secure their semi-final berth.

After Ramita Jindal and seven other shooters had adopted their stance in their firing positions for the 10m air rifle final on Monday, Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra turned up behind the shooters.

He was wielding a red baton which he tapped it on the floor three times. (Read more)

China's Sheng Lihao claimed his second gold

Sweden's Victor Lindgren won silver

Miran Maricic won the bronze for Croatia

China suffered its first badminton defeat of the Paris Olympics on Monday, when mixed doubles favourites Feng Yanzhe and Huang Dongping were upset by Malaysian duo Chen Tang Jie and Toh Ee Wei in the opening session of group play.

The country has long dominated Olympic badminton, winning 47 medals, or more than double the combined tally of Indonesia and South Korea, the second- and third-most successful teams. In 17 group stage matches in three days in Paris so far, it has now been defeated once, while in Tokyo, China lasted four days before losing a match.

Chen and Toh won 21-17 15-21 16-21 against Huang and Feng. From Reuters

Tom Daley wouldn’t be in Paris, biting into his 5th Olympic medal, a silver in the synchronised 10m diving, if not for a visit to a museum in Colorado. And a recurring dream. In 2023, two years into his semi-retirement after the Tokyo gold, Daley was at a US Olympic and Paralympic museum with his partner Dustin Lance Black and two kids when a video played about what it means to be an Olympian. Daley broke down.

“I remember the video finishing and I was there crying. It was Robbie (his first son) who turned and said, ‘Papa, what’s the matter?’ Lance looked at me, saw me crying and thought, ‘oh no. I know what this means…’ I said, ‘I just really miss diving in the Olympics’, and Robbie said, ‘but Papa, I want to see you dive in the Olympics’ – and that was that.” (Read more from Sriram Veera)

There is generational greatness on offer at the Paris Olympics, even if not the GOAT (greatest of all time) tags that get tossed around in sport, without any bleating debates ever being resolved.

Korean An Se Young has had such a phenomenal rise since Tokyo Olympics that she makes Chen Yufei, the reigning champion, look distinctly like one of many challengers, while she carries airs of a title holder. (Read more from Shivani Naik)

Taiwan's Wu Shih Yi was handed a walkover in her lightweight round of 16 bout on Monday after Nigerian opponent Cynthia Ogunsemilore was provisionally suspended following positive test for a banned substance.

On Saturday, Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and African Games champion Ogunsemilore tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic on WADA's prohibited list, in an out-of-competition doping control collected on Thursday.

In the quarter-finals, Wu will next meet either Australia's Tyla McDonald or Maria Jose Palacios of Ecuador, who face off later on Monday reports reuters

It has served as a picturesque location for big-budget Hollywood classics. Now, the mighty ocean and abundant aquatic life of Tahiti’s Teahupo’o will host the Olympics.

Why is Teahupo’o, which is 15,730 kms away from official hosts Paris, selected as the place for the Olympics’s surfing competitions, you may ask. The answer is simply because it fulfills one of the pledges made by the organisers of the Games: that the Olympics will be spread across French territory. (Read more)

The first time Perina Lokure Nakang began to run for sport, she ran 9 miles (14 kilometers) along the road near her refugee camp in northwestern Kenya.

Now, the 21-year-old South Sudanese runner is competing in the Paris Olympics, among many of the 37 athletes on the Olympic refugee team who are pushing to see more refugees like her able to compete in the Games.

“I told myself if I continue running this, it is going to change my life,” she said. “In the Olympics, everyone is looking to me to represent them.” They are getting support from former refugee Olympians and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, who told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday that the team is “a symbol of inclusion, of equality, of achievement for a large community around the world of refugees and displaced people."

Two books hit the stands across Paris in the months leading up to the Olympics. One was written and published by the family of Pierre de Coubertin, replete with nuggets from his personal life and the stories behind the revival of the Olympics.

“We saw it as an incredible opportunity… he is a figure that can kind of come back from the dead and be put on the spotlight in France,” Alexandra de Navacelle de Coubertin, a fourth-generation descendant of the ‘founder’ of the modern Olympics, tells The Indian Express. (Read more from Mihir Vasavda)

Simone Biles has five elements – two each on Vault and Floor exercise and one on Beam – named after her. There’s a very good chance that the city of Paris cedes its title rights to these Games, and turns 2024 altogether into the Simone Biles Olympics. The start to this high-style takeover, on Sunday, was sensational.

Olympic medals never come easy, extracting every ounce of fight from an athlete. So, Simone limped at one point after a dodgy landing during the All-Around team championships qualification. And then she crawled towards her teammates on her hands and knees till she found strength in her niggling ankle and calf. They talk of the glamour and grandeur of her superhuman feats in the air, but Simone was all grit in her Paris opening, as she went from limp-crawl to fly, a 0 to 100, on the cue of a start. (Read more from Shivani Naik)

Shivani Naik: One of the biggest upsets on the badminton courts at Paris has been China's Huang Dongping and Feng Yan Zhe, falling 21-17, 15-21, 16-21 to Toh Ee Wei and  Tang Jie Chen of Malaysia on Monday.  The Malaysian 22-year-old mixed doubles female player survived debilitating illness of Bone Tuberculosis n 2022, but has returned to slay. Huang Dongping is the reigning Olympics mixed doubles champ. 

Bone TB is very painful, 'very suffer' like Ee Wei once told Express, stressing that popping painkillers was fairly routine when she struggled with the ailment. The most heartbreaking thing for her was that it made her mother weep, watching her struggle in hospital.  Ee Wei was diagnosed with Bone TB at 21. She had suffered from acute sinus issues (chronic sinusitis) prior to that in February of 2019. A junior World Championship silver medallist back in 2018 alongside Pearly Tan, she underwent a surgery for sinus-related issues at 18. It's been there all the time, she says, the sport of badminton amplifying trouble in something as basic as breathing. The nose would be blocked, and it would be very hard to breathe. Yet, Bone TB would be another punch in the gut. It was especially thwarting for someone so sporty and bubbly, dynamic and lively as Ee Wei.

She had started badminton at age 7, playing in the house in Malacca. Her father would watch her getting immersed in the sport and pack her off to a local coaching centre. After a week of training, the sessions would increase. There's a Youtube clip of Ee Wei's, where she dives in front from the midcourt to send back the shuttle, and then next instant, tumbles back to sit on the court floor, and still manages to return from that hugely unbalanced position. There's another where she misses a forehand tap completely like a racquethead gasping at air, but then drops the racquet and connects a backhand with the dipping shuttle below net level. Ee Wei simply loves badminton and is mightily good at it too. Koo Kien Keat, former doubles great from Malaysia, called Ee Wei a 'daring player'. You wouldn't know if you watched her only on court, just how debilitating her situation was, just months ago.

She recalled starting to train a month after her hospital treatment for bone TB was over. 'No muscle, no energy, no strength for 3 months,' she remembered. While her teammates trained on the courts, and she would hear them squeal and guffaw as doubles sessions do, she would be in the gym in a tranquil tedium, knowing she had a lot of strength work to catch up on. What others took for granted – the speed, the strength, the breathing, the stamina – she would need to slowly build. Just getting to a badminton court would be a struggle, as coaches Nova Widianto and Rexy Mainaky would urge her to take it slow and not rush. 'Slowly. Slowly, slowly' she recalled the strength returning for her to play her delectable and delightful strokes the way she liked playing them. The coaches knew her struggle, her federation rallied around her and they wanted her back to being her spry self, she recalls.

A fan of the legendary Indonesian Lilyana Natsir, Ee Wei would be paired with Tang Jie Chen, a power player, and they won the Orleans title even without adequate court time. She would be trundling away in the gym, with not many on-court sessions together with her partner. She fought through that post-rehab conditioning soreness of muscles, every day and worked with S&C coach Nick Hedayatpour, who is called the strength artist at Kuala Lumpur. Two years since that Orleans title, the XD duo would set alight Paris at the Olympics.

Amit Kamath: Meanwhile in men's hockey, Australia were scrambling against Ireland when the Irish scored a goal just before the second half. The Irish slotted in a penalty corner with just over five minutes left in the first half. This is a game --- that could have massive repercussions on a group that also has Olympic champions Belgium and the Indian hockey team. Only four countries from each group progress to the quarters.

Australia, remember, are notorious for their results at the Olympics. The men's team has won just the one gold.

But Australia do not even allow Ireland to get to half-time with score level, earning a stroke which Blake Govers converts. 

Australia 2-1 Ireland at half time.

Meanwhile in men's hockey, Australia are trailing 0-1 against Ireland. The Irish have slotted in a penalty corner with just over five minutes left in the first half. The result --- if it holds --- could have massive repercussions on a group that also has Olympic champions Belgium and the Indian hockey team. Only four countries from each group progress to the quarters.

Australia, remember, are notorious for their results at the Olympics. The men's team has won just the one gold.

South Korea's Ban Hyo-jin won the gold

China's Huang Yuting claimed the silver.

Switzerland's Audrey Gogniat took the bronze. 

Paris Olympics organisers cancelled the triathlon swimming training session for the second day in a row on Monday, with 24 hours to go until the men's race, after heavy rain affected water quality levels in the Seine.

Fifty-five triathletes are scheduled to line up at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Tuesday on a floating pontoon next to the Pont Alexandre III and dive into the Seine, marking the first time athletes have competed in the river at an Olympics since 1900 reports Reuters

Manu Bhaker-Sarabjot Singh qualify for the 10m air pistol bronze match, whereas Ramita Jindal has bowed out in 10m final air rifle event. You can switch the tab to follow our India-centric live blog. Click here

Flying a drone over the opponents’ training session to gather information is perhaps the most indiscreet piece of espionage carried out in recent sporting history. The buzzing saucers with spidery limbs are spotted everywhere, from weddings and funerals to political rallies and warfronts, underwater and in outer space too. So it was not a piece of improvised spying when some members of the Canadian women’s football employed drones to peep into New Zealand’s training session before their counter.

The price they paid for the brain-fade was too costly — six points were penalised, FIFA banned coach Bev Priestman and two other officials, the Canadian football association were fined 200,000 Swiss francs, and beyond all tangibles, the credibility and integrity of the reigning football champions in Olympics stood tarnished. (READ MORE)

The men's gymnastics team will be played today. China and Japan rolled through qualifying on Saturday. China is the favorite to win its fourth Olympic team title after posting a total of 263.028 at qualifying. Japan is a seven-time Olympic champion and finished second at 260.594. Japan's Daiki Hashimoto will defend his all-around title. The Japanese won silver in Tokyo in 2021, while China took bronze. Defending champion Russia is ineligible due to the war in Ukraine.

The biggest highlight of the Roland Garros schedule is Rafael Nadal taking on Novak Djokovic in the second match of the day on Court Philippe Chatrier. It is the 60th meeting of the longtime tennis rivals, more than any other two men have played against each other in the sport’s Open era, which began in 1968.

Djokovic, a 37-year-old from Serbia, has 24 Grand Slam titles, making him the only man in tennis history with more than Nadal’s 22.

A warm welcome everyone. Monday's slate for the Paris Olympics includes a blockbuster tennis match, a handful of the world's biggest basketball stars, a couple of compelling swimming finals and a gymnastics showdown.