Paris Olympics 2024 day 9 as it happened: Opals into quarter-finals; Lyles wins thrilling 100m gold; Olyslagers, Patterson on high jump podium; Djokovic completes golden slam

Another day down in Olympics-land, where Snoop Dogg is king and Australia’s swimmers are enjoying a well-earned break.

The US claimed a couple of last-day gold medals in the pool - including a fantastic 1500m world record from Bobby Finke - to just pip Australia’s seven first-place finishes with eight of their own.

Don’t worry, there’s more Olympics later today.Credit: AP

And in a red-letter day for the red, white and blue, they can lay claim to having the fastest man on land as well. Noah Lyle’s stunning 9.79 second win in one of the great 100-metre finals is one hell of a way to spend a spare 10 seconds or so.

Australian high jumper Nicola Olyslagers claimed silver and smiled all the while as the Opals sprung a stirring upset to march into the quarter-finals too. The long and short of it, always something doing, which means more of the same tonight and into the early hours.

You can follow our Paris 2024 day 10 blog here.

In the end, the much-hyped battle between Australia and Team USA was a fizzer.

Since last year’s world championships, when Cate Campbell went after the USA’s national anthem and penchant for a cowbell in a tongue-in-cheek interview on Channel Nine, the narrative for these Games has been about how “our greatest ever swim team” was going to wipe the floor with them in Paris.

The swimmers didn’t give it much energy nor oxygen, but an obsession with winning more gold than our significantly larger rival quickly developed. It was dangerous rhetoric that was setting them up to fail.

It says everything about the ethos within the team, and the character of the current bunch, that they could ignore the hype and perform as they did in Paris.

Our swim team needn’t compare themselves to our biggest rivals to gauge whether it was a successful meet.

Australia might have fallen two short of the nine gold won in Tokyo, but it was a successful meet, continuing the sport’s upward trajectory after lean times in London and Rio.

Read Andrew Webster’s full column from Paris here.

It’s been another big day for the unofficial Olympic mascot. Snoop Dogg has tried his hand at fencing. What more is there to say.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

As the bar rose, so did the cream.

Ukrainian Yaroslova Mahuchikh’s gold medal in the women’s high jump came as no surprise since she is the No.1 ranked jumper in the world, and it is only four weeks since she broke a 37-year-old record in the event, right here in Paris. This night, she looked what she is, the most fluent and in-form jumper in the field.

The four women’s high jump medallists (from left): Eleanor Patterson, Iryna Gerashchenko, Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Nicola Olyslagers.Credit: AP

It left Australia’s Nicola Olyslagers with a silver medal for the second Olympics in a row.

But neither she nor anyone would begrudge Ukranians a few spoils right now.

Mahuchikh packed her car and left Dnipro hastily against a backdrop of gunfire and falling shells nearly two years ago. Since then she has lived and trained as an itinerant in at least seven other countries, all the while carrying her homeland’s flag.

“This medal is important, but in my country, Russia killed people,” Mahuchikh said.

“We are fighting for all athletes. Almost 500 sportsmen died in the war and they will never compete. They will never celebrate, they will never feel this atmosphere, so I am happy for this medal. It is for all of them.”

Read the full story from Greg Baum here.

The Olympic mixed-relay triathlon competition will be held as scheduled at 4pm (AEST) on Monday, organisers said in a statement after testing the water quality of the River Seine.

Training sessions for the swimming leg of the triathlon were cancelled due to poor water quality in the Seine and the men’s event was rescheduled last week, taking place on the same day as the women’s.

Taking the plunge into the Olympics most controversial venue.Credit: Getty Images

Organisers confirmed late on Sunday that the relay would take place, despite cancelling Sunday’s training.

“A meeting was held... to review the water quality results,” World Triathlon and the Paris Games Organising Committee said in a joint statement.

“During this meeting, World Triathlon took the decision to confirm the mixed relay competition...

“Water samples on the morning of the individual triathlon events showed the quality to be at a level considered ‘very good’ by World Triathlon’s criteria, according to results analysed and released the following day.”

Belgium, however, will not take part after one of their athletes, Claire Michel, fell ill, with the Belgium Olympic Committee saying in its own statement that it hopes “lessons will be learned for future triathlon competitions at the Olympic Games.”

AP

Hang it in the Louvre, it is just down the road after all.

This composite image from start to finish of the men’s 100-metre final, via the camera of Getty’s Hector Vivas, is just all sorts of lovely.

The view from Hector Vivas’s fixed camera down the 100m straight.Credit: Hector Vivas/Getty

Boxer Imane Khelif said the wave of hateful scrutiny she has faced over misconceptions about her gender “harms human dignity,” and she called for an end to bullying athletes after being greatly affected by the international backlash against her.

“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif said in Arabic on SNTV, a sports video partner of The Associated Press. “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”

The vitriol stems from claims by the International Boxing Association, which has been permanently banned from the Olympics, that Khelif and China’s Lin Yu-ting failed unspecified eligibility tests for the women’s competition at last year’s world championships.

Khelif declined to answer when asked whether she had undergone tests other than doping tests, saying she didn’t want to talk about it.

She expressed gratitude to the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, for standing resolutely behind her while the banned former governing body of Olympic boxing stoked a furore around her participation in Paris.

“I know that the Olympic Committee has done me justice, and I am happy with this remedy because it shows the truth,” she said.

AP

Phil Liggett has called his last Olympic race, confirming that Paris 2024 will be his last Games in the commentary booth.

The 80-year-old made the announcement on Nine’s day nine coverage hours after calling the women’s road race, saying he’ll be too old to commentate on the action once Los Angeles 2028 comes around.

“Another four years from now, I’ll be 85,” he said.

“And I think that’s too old to spoil the viewers’ fun. But boy, I’ll miss it.”

Liggett was emotional before announcing the news, telling host Eddie Maguire “don’t get me crying now”, but said it was the right time to pull stumps on an Olympics career that has spanned 17 Games.

“The last thing I ever want to do is annoy the viewers,” he said.

Nine.com.au

And it’s the Boss by the length of the Longchamps straight. Born To Run comes in on top, garnering almost 40 per cent of the votes in the process. Kate Bush a noble second with Jackson Browne’s ode to a 2.30am start – Running on Empty – in the bronze medal spot.

Stay tuned for more polls throughout the week, and enjoy our winner, because why not.

ICYMI, American long-distance swimmer Bobby Finke won gold and knocked off one of the oldest world records in the pool with his stunning 1500m effort.

Finke’s 14:30.67 winning effort in the pool’s longest race surpassed China’s Sun Yang, whose previous mark of 14:31.02 had stood since the 2012 Games in London.