Noemie Fox became the first Olympic champion in Kayak Cross, while Jack Robinson won Surfing silver and Matt Wearn set himself up for a guaranteed gold or silver medal in Sailing.
Artistic Swimming
Australia's artistic swimming team delivered a commendable performance in the Technical routine, showcasing a high level of difficulty (43.200) that tested the athletes' skill and coordination.
The routine was set to "Volcano" by Hans Zimmer featuring challenging elements and designed to the theme Jungle.
Australia currently sits in 10th, with an element score of 152.3071 and an artistic impression score of 83.6000.
The team will now perform their Free routine Wednesday 7 August at 3:30am AEST and Acrobatic on Thursday 8 August at 3:30am, with combined scores determining the medals.
Athletics
In the morning session, Matthew Denny qualified impressively for the Discus final, Nina Kennedy qualified safely through to the Pole Vault final, Alana Yukich ran a personal best to progress to the 400m Hurdles semi-finals. Ellie Beer ran a personal best in her 400m heat but will head to the repechage, Mia Gross (200m) and Sarah Carli (400m hurdles) were unable to force their way into their respective semi-finals.
Under the lights of the Stade de France, Kurtis Marschall placed an impressive sixth after an injury-marred preparation. He cleared 5.85m and almost went over at 5.95m, while Armand Duplantis (SWE) won gold with a world record of 6.25m.
Rose Davies finished 11th in the 5000m final and became the first Aussie woman to run sub-15 minutes at the Olympics or a major championship.
In the sprints, Torrie Lewis backed up her morning repechage run with another strong semi-final performance to finish 7th in 22.92s. At 19 she was easily the youngest in the semi-finals.
Calab Law at only 20 and his first big meet ran well but moves to the repechage. Ben Buckingham and Matthew Clarke ran their hearts out in the 3000m Steeplechase heats but couldn’t produce their best and won’t progress to the final.
Canoe Slalom
Noemie Fox has written another chapter in the Fox family fairytale, winning the first-ever Olympic gold medal in the Kayak Cross event.
After 11 years as a member of Australia’s national team, the 27-year old Olympic debutant was finally able to make her Games dream a reality with Kayak Cross added to the Paris 2024 program.
What makes the feat so remarkable is she only qualified for the Games in June, after winning a silver at the Global Qualification event.
Cycling – Track
Australia’s Men’s Pursuit Team has fired an early warning shot at the velodrome in Paris, setting a national record as the fastest qualifier in a step closer to a gold medal ride.
Kelland O’Brien, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn nudged speeds of 70km/h and after 4000m, stopped the clock at 3:42.958 which was just 0.9 of a second off the world record.
It sets up a round one showdown with defending Olympic champions Italy who were fourth fastest in 3:44.351 when the Team Pursuit resumes at 3:14am AEST on Wednesday 7 August.
Diving
Five-time Olympian Melissa Wu and debutant Ellie Cole have qualified to the Women’s 10m Platform Final, following an impressive showing in the semi-finals.
After qualifying in the morning’s preliminary session, they returned to the pool for the semi-final, aiming for a top-12 finish to secure a place in the final.
Ellie recorded an impressive sixth place finish with a score of 309.90, while Melissa will dive in her fifth-straight Olympic final after securing a score of 294.10 to finish eleventh.
Equestrian
Jumping returned to the Versailles Arena today as the last event of the Paris 2024 Equestrian program got underway.
The individual jumping qualifying was hotly contested, with 74 combinations attempting to secure their place in the final.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be for the Aussies, with all three combinations knocking two poles down, incurring eight faults. With only the top 30 athletes moving through to the final, none of the Australians will ride again in Paris.
Hilary Scott riding Milky Way finished 44th, Edwina Tops-Alexander riding Fellow Castlefield finished 47th and Thaisa Erwin riding Hialita B finished 51st.
Hockey
The Australian Women’s Hockey Team has been left heartbroken, questioning ‘what could’ve been’ after their Olympic campaign ended in a 2-3 loss to China in Paris.
As the Hockeyroos huddled, the curtain fell on Renee Taylor and co-captain Jane Claxton’s incredible careers for Australia. Jane celebrated her 250th international in an Olympic quarter-final which would double as her last in the green and gold.
Hockeyroos coach Katrina Powell, who was coaching against her former teammate Alyson Annan, heaped praise on the Aussies post-match.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the athletes,” she said.
“They’re just amazing athletes and they’re just bloody amazing humans, and that’s why it hurts. You want good things for good people, and sport is not fair.”
Sailing
Matt Wearn demonstrated why he holds an Olympic gold medal and two world championship titles by delivering an outstanding performance in the Men’s Dinghy opening series.
He secured a 14-point lead over Cypriot Pavlos Kontides after eight qualifying races and sits in gold medal position, his impressive week also ensures that Matt will leave Paris 2024 with at least a silver medal.
The Mixed Multihull fleet completed all three of their scheduled races, with Brin Liddell and Rhiannan Brown just outside the top 10. They have one more day to qualify for the medal race.
Nia Jerwood and Conor Nicholas continued to impress in the Mixed Dinghy class. Despite their preference for windier conditions, they showed versatility over the past week, remaining in the top five in their only race of the day, which was ultimately abandoned.
Zoe Thomson concluded her Olympic campaign today, finishing 20th overall.
Shooting
Closing out the 10 days of the Olympic shooting competition was the Olympic debut event, Skeet Mixed Teams, with Joshua Bell and Aislin Jones representing Australia.
The heat picked up, the sun was shining and the grandstand was again full.
Josh and Aislin shot a combined score of 141 out of 150, finishing in 11th place overall, just five targets away from a medal opportunity.
Sport Climbing
Sport Climbing returned for its second Olympics and Campbell Harrison made his Olympic debut under blistering conditions, placing 19th in the first segment of the Men’s Boulder & Lead semi-final.
Departing from the format fans saw in Tokyo, the disciplines have been split into two: Speed and Boulder & Lead, with double the medals up for grabs. Australia will only compete in the Boulder & Lead event.
Campbell will continue his semi-final efforts when the men return to the wall for lead climbing on Wednesday 7 August at 6:00 pm AEST.
Surfing
Jack Robinson has won silver in the Men's Surfing competition at Paris 2024, behind 22-year-old Teahupo'o local, Frenchman Kauli Vaast.
Vaast struck the first blow of the gold medal match, surfing a long barrel ten minutes in, and grabbing another solid wave soon after. The Tahitian goofy-footer was controlled and precise, his opening wave registering a score of 9.50, one of the highest-scoring waves of the Olympic competiton.
Jack's response scored 7.83 but Vaast's next ride at 8.17 meant the Aussie had to be extra selective, a big score required to remain in the mix for gold.
Table Tennis
Australia has taken it up to world number four Japan in the men’s Table Tennis teams event, going down fighting in the first round at South Paris Arena.
In a fast and furious three matches, Aussies Finn Luu, Nicholas Lum and Hwan Bae showed grit and tenacity against the reigning Olympic bronze medallists, eventually losing 3-0 to be eliminated from the competition.
The three 19-year-olds are seen as the future of the sport in Australia, and showed exactly why that is the case, not showing any nerves against their highly fancied opponents.
Triathlon
The Australian Mixed Relay Triathlon team of Luke Willian, Natalie Van Coevorden, Matt Hauser and Sophie Linn raced their hearts out in Paris but were unable to challenge for the medals, finishing 12th in a time of 1:28.50.
The medals came down to a dramatic sprint, and photo finish, with Germany (1:25.39) taking gold and causing an upset over defending champions Great Britain and USA for bronze.
Water Polo
The Olympic quarter-finals are calling for the Australian Men’s Water Polo team for the first time since London 2012, despite a 14-13 loss against Japan into the preliminary rounds in Paris.
Knowing they’d done enough to advance to the quarter-finals regardless of the result, the Sharks were given a strong test by Japan, who is ranked last in Group B.
The Sharks will face the United States of America in the quarter-finals on Thursday 8 August.
