Paris Olympics 2024 day 13 as it happened: James, Curry pull US back from brink; massive upset in 200m after Hull cruises into 1500m final; Stingers into gold medal match

Australian golfer Minjee Lee refuses to give up hope of a move back into medal contention as the women’s golf tournament enters its third round today.

Lee is tied for 22nd on +2 for the tournament and is due to start at 7.17pm AEST with Switzerland’s Morgane Metraux leading the field on -8.

Australian Minjee Lee in the opening round of the Olympic women’s golf tournament.Credit: AP

“There’s definitely a low round,” Lee told AOC media after round two.

“You just have to pick your moments. When you have short clubs in, you just take advantage.

“Today obviously I didn’t, but I definitely think there’s a score out there.”

Fellow Aussie Hannah Green is tied for 29th on +3 having improved from being +5 after the first round.

Green also said she wasn’t giving up on finishing the competition with two strong rounds.

Folks, it’s time to say goodbye. As always, we’ve appreciated your company on today’s live blog and your continued readership of our Olympic coverage. It wasn’t raining gold for Australia like yesterday, but there was still plenty of exciting stuff happening in Paris, from the men’s K4 near-miss to the USA’s incredible win over Serbia in the basketball, to the Stingers knocking off the Yanks to reach the water polo final. And that’s the tip of the proverbial Olympic iceberg.

As always, this is a bit of a false goodbye, because it doesn’t have to be a goodbye at all.

Our live blog for day 14 is already up, so if you want to keep the good times rolling, just click here. There’s so much still to look forward to.

We’ll leave you with what you voted earlier this morning as the best Daft Punk song: One More Time. (Personally I disagree, it’s Giorgio by Moroder, but I respect your view.)

Catch you next time.

Win or lose the men’s soccer final on Friday, Thierry Henry says the Paris Olympics have been a triumph for France.

“When we decide to be together, we are unstoppable, no matter the outcome of a match or sport. And that, I think we needed after what happened a little before the competition,” Henry said Thursday.

The show of unity witnessed at the Games has been in contrast to the division created during France’s recent elections when the country looked set to usher in its first far-right government since World War II. A coalition of the French left eventually took the most seats, but it came after political uncertainty when National Rally appeared poised to win.

Thierry Henry is on the brink of his first major honour as a coach.Credit: Getty Images

Henry, coach of the France team, did not make specific reference to the political environment, but his pride at his country’s reaction was clear ahead of his team’s gold medal match against Spain at Parc des Princes.

“As I often say, when we know how to come together, to unite, we are still not bad. And then we have a beautiful country,” he said.

Henry was a World Cup and European Championship winner with France as a player. Now he has the chance to add Olympic gold to his resume and perhaps put himself in the frame for top coaching jobs beyond the Games.

It was suggested to him that he could emulate Novak Djokovic, who completed a full set of major titles by winning gold in the men’s tennis singles in Paris.

“I can’t compare myself to a guy like that,” the Arsenal great said. “It’s up to them (the players) to make sure that we can go and win gold. But did I ever think I was going to be part of an Olympic team? Never.”

The gold medal would be Henry’s first major honour in a coaching career that is still early in its development.

He won the World Cup on home soil as a player in 1998. Gold in France would be extra special, he said, because his family will be watching in the stadium, adding: “maybe that’s what was missing.”

AP

Swedish marathon swimmer Victor Johansson has pulled out of the Olympic men’s 10km event scheduled for Friday citing concerns about the water quality of the Seine river, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported.

Johansson told the paper triathletes had fallen sick after swimming in the urban river during the Olympic competition, without naming any.

“There is a lot of information that has been flying around, but what we know for sure is that people have become ill,” the paper quoted him as saying. “So even though the levels [of E.coli bacteria] have gone down, it didn’t feel good to start. The triathletes were in the Seine for about 20 minutes, and despite the short time, some got sick.”

Victor Johansson pulled out of the men’s 10km event.Credit: AP

Swedish media reported that the nation’s triathlete Tilda Mansson fell sick and was vomiting a few days after competing in the women’s event on July 31, though the team did not confirm there was a connection with the Seine water.

“We have to be in the water for two hours,” said 25-year-old Johansson. “You swallow anywhere from 0 to 250 millilitres of water per hour, so at worst I would have been able to come up from the Seine with half litre of water.”

The Netherlands’ Sharon van Rouwendaal won the women’s 10km event earlier on Thursday, saying she had swallowed some of the Seine water during her swim but was fine about an hour after the race.

The women’s event went ahead as scheduled after organisers said the water quality had met acceptable thresholds.

Reuters

We’re seeing some reader feedback (we’re looking at you in the comments, Stu and squizzy), suggesting that maybe some people out there don’t like Noah Lyles.

Which is fine. You’re entitled to form your own view. But it would be remiss of you to form that view if you haven’t seen the below clip from last year, where Lyles talks about how weird and insular it is that American sports leagues like the NBA crown their winners as “world champions”.

For us, this absolves him of any criticism whatsoever.

Alysha Newman, one of a growing group of athletes to run OnlyFans accounts, caused controversy on Wednesday after celebrating an Olympic pole-vaulting bronze by twerking.

The Canadian pole vaulter had broken her national record by clearing 4.85 metres in a hotly contested final on Wednesday night, becoming the first Canadian woman to win a medal in the event in Olympic history.

Alysha Newman celebrates her third placing in the women’s pole vault.Credit: Getty Images

But her risqué celebration – shaking her posterior towards the crowds and watching TV cameras – will doubtless have been intended to help boost growing revenues for her adult-only OnlyFans’ site. Charging $20-a-month, the 30-year-old’s earnings are expected to soar after her success in Paris.

But social media users were divided on her celebration, with many accusing her of attention seeking while others defended her celebration as enjoying a historic moment.

Telegraph, London

It’s hard work running a 24/7 live blog like this. The Olympics are great, but sometimes we’ve got to mix it up to keep ourselves sane. And we do so in quieter moments - like now, when Paris is asleep - by having silly office debates about vaguely France-related matters.

This one isn’t silly, though. It’s so important we’re throwing it open to you.

Vote early, vote often.

South Korean officials on Thursday said providing Samsung smartphones to North Korean athletes at the Paris Olympics would violate UN Security Council sanctions against the country over its nuclear and missile program.

The South Korean technology giant is a major Olympic partner, and its newest Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphones are being given to all athletes competing at the Games.

The International Olympic Committee confirmed that the phones were sent to the Olympic Village but later said the North Korean athletes had not received them. It’s unclear where the phones might have gone.

North Korean athletes at the opening ceremony.Credit: AP

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said smartphones were among the items banned under a 2017 Security Council resolution prohibiting the supply, sale or transfer to North Korea of “all industrial machinery”.

The resolution doesn’t distinguish between North Korea’s government and its people, and South Korean officials made clear that the smartphones would be banned however they entered the country.

Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said it would be “critical to prevent the prohibited items from entering North Korea.”

He said the Seoul government was making “necessary diplomatic efforts” to ensure sanctions were upheld but refused to provide details.

The same issue arose during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, where North Koreans refused to receive Samsung devices the organising committee had offered under the condition they returned them before heading home, according to South Korean officials.

North Korea sent 16 athletes to Paris to compete in seven sports, including wrestling, swimming, table tennis and boxing.

It did not participate in the Tokyo Games in 2021 because of the country’s self-imposed lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. The IOC then barred the country from participating in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics as punishment for refusing to send a team to Tokyo.

AP