The Guardian

Paris 2024 Olympics: Macron visits athletes’ village and water bottles recalled amid final preparations – live

By Michael Butler (now) and Yara El-Shaboury (earlier),

9 hours ago

4.25pm BST

Olympic silver medallist and 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has withdrawn from the Olympics due to a hand injury.

Vondrousova reached the women’s final in Tokyo three years ago as an unseeded player, losing to Swiss ninth seed Belinda Bencic. The Swiss, who gave birth to a daughter in April, will not be in Paris to defend her title.

“I am very sorry, but due to health reason I will not be participating in this year’s Olympic Games in Paris,” Vondrousova posted on Instagram. “I hoped until the last moment that I could go at least in doubles, but problems with my hand won’t allow me on the court.”

Katerina Siniakova, who won gold at the last Olympics in doubles and is a nine-times Grand Slam champion in women’s doubles, will replace Vondrousova in the singles and Linda Noskova will play doubles with Karolina Muchova.

4.18pm BST

Jonathan Wilson’s new column is on the Olympics’ relationship with male football.

4.02pm BST

Re my choice to suggest curry sauce scratch-and-sniff stamps, Kenny has emailed.

Gotta be HP Sauce, a suggestion coming all the way from Singapore. My mother used to marinate pork cutlets in it, with a good dash of white pepper powder. It was almost a once-a-week dish on the dinner table.

3.55pm BST

Nick Ames went to Dnipro to meet Ukraine’s swimmers . Preparations have not been straightforward.

3.29pm BST

While we are on venues … if you missed this last week, this is a good insight into the bold new stadia, upgraded old ones – and the athletes’ candy-coloured village.

3.25pm BST

Here is a sneak peek at some of the venues for this year’s Games.

3.02pm BST

Reigning Olympic champion Alexander Zverev is hopeful the knee injury he suffered at Wimbledon will not impact his chances of gold in Paris but says it is not yet healed.

The German slipped and hurt his knee during a third-round victory over Cameron Norrie at the All England Club and said he played on “one leg” in his fourth-round loss to Taylor Fritz. But Zverev played in his home-city event in Hamburg last week and reached the final, losing on Sunday to Arthur Fils.

The 27-year-old, who beat Karen Khachanov in the final in Tokyo, describes his injury as a bone edema and torn capsule and said that it did not require surgery.

“To be honest, you know, the risk will stay for the next two, three, four weeks maybe because that’s how long the bone heals, and that’s what everybody told me,” Zverev said. “But, at the end of the day I also knew that I don’t want to rest for four weeks because, now we’re playing on the surface where I don’t see that big of a risk of doing the same motion again and doing the same movement again.”

Zverev is on the shortlist of German athletes who could be flagbearer for the nation during Friday’s opening ceremony.

“If someone told me that I should walk in as a flag bearer, it would mean even more to me, to be honest (than winning the Olympics),” Zverev was quoted by SpilXperten. “Leading an entire nation and so many top German athletes into the Olympics is simply the greatest honour an athlete can receive. And of course, the gold medal I won at the last Olympics is one of the highest achievements you can have in sports and for me personally the greatest success in my career.”

Last month, Zverev settled an assault case against him for allegedly pushing and strangling his then girlfriend, a charge he denied. The deal reached between the world No 4 and his former partner Brenda Patea marks the end of a lengthy legal battle , with the Berlin court hearing the case officially declaring no verdict.

2.54pm BST

Trying to think what would be the most British scratch-and-sniff stamp, and I think it would be curry sauce.

Do email me with your suggestions: michael.butler@theguardian.com

2.49pm BST

France launches baguette-fragranced scratch-and-sniff stamps

Visiting Paris for the Olympics and want to share the enticing aroma of a fresh baguette? A scratch-and-sniff stamp on your postcard could be the answer. The crunchy stick of fluffy white bread is a symbol of France around the world and has been a mainstay of its diet for at least 100 years. Many would consider its scent of wheat and yeast unrepeatable. But not the French post office.

“You just have to rub the stamp here like this with your nails,” said postal worker Clarisse Briend. “You can smell the bread, the baguette.” Just don’t expect France’s gastronomic purists to be impressed.

“Our yeast is gentle,” said Jeanne Barrere, manager of the Leonie Bakery near Paris’s Champs-Elysees boulevard. “This smells more like vanilla.” Barrere’s chief baker Harlem Gbodialo smelled a “sugary, fruity aroma” that he couldn’t place.

Although baguette consumption has declined, France still makes around 16 million per day, or nearly six billion a year.

One legend has it that Napoleon Bonaparte’s bakers came up with the elongated shape to make it easier for his troops to carry. Reuters

2.32pm BST

Dame Sarah Storey to compete in her record ninth Paralympics

Dame Sarah Storey will become the first British athlete to compete at nine Paralympic Games after being named in a 17-strong cycling team for Paris 2024.

The 46-year-old surpassed former swimmer Mike Kenny as GB’s most successful Paralympian at Tokyo 2020 by winning a trio of golds to take her career total to 17.

Fellow reigning Paralympic champions Kadeena Cox, Jody Cundy, Lora Fachie, Neil Fachie, Jaco van Gass and Ben Watson are also in a squad containing six Games debutants.

“Competing in nine Games is a dream I didn’t ever have,” said Storey, who will defend her C5 time trial and C4-5 road race titles in France.

“As a teenager, I wanted to be an athlete for as long as I possibly could but always assumed I’d be too old by 46! I’ve got such a great support around me, led by my brilliant husband Barney and am very excited to pull on ParalympicsGB kit again”. PA Media

Updated at 2.32pm BST

2.14pm BST

Thanks Yara . Enjoyed this piece on Adam Peaty , the supremely talented British swimmer chasing a third consecutive gold medal in the 100m breaststroke. I think there are a lot of people that can find common ground with some of these words.

The past three years have tested the 29-year-old in ways he could have never imagined. Since 2021, he has split from his former partner Eiri Munro, the mother of their three-year-old son; he suffered a broken foot; and he seriously considered retirement after surviving what he described as a breakdown that caused him to become reliant on alcohol as an escape from his problems. In order to make it back for a third Olympic Games, Peaty has had to approach his sport differently.
“When you have children, when you hug them, you realise that it is something greater than anything can ever provide,” he said. “If I touch the wall, if it’s not the result I want I’ll be disappointed. But before, in comparison, in 2021, even 2022 and way before that, I’d be almost tearing myself apart that my life isn’t worth living, because I lost. That isn’t sustainable because that’s not an attitude to have.
“I’m not defined as a human by that. Maybe an athlete and maybe other people will define me that way. But I’ll still have my family; they’re healthy, they’re happy. The sun always rises the next morning no matter what. That’s not defeatist, in any sense. That just gives me peace, so you can attack.”

2.03pm BST

Michael is back and ready to take over from here. Thanks for joining me!

2.02pm BST

As with every Olympic Games, there are discussions surrounding what benefits the host city actually receives.

However, against a backdrop of political uncertainty, people in Paris seem sanguine about sporting spectacle despite grumbles over inconvenience.

Preparations for the massive opening ceremony are well under way. Here are some photos from today.

1.43pm BST

Hopefully, we don’t see something like this in Paris … A 16-year-old British athlete was leading the race for most of the men’s 200m at the European Athletics U18 Championships before he slowed down far too early, enabling half of his competitors to beat him to the finish line. “A lesson learned the very, very hard way,” the commentator exclaims.

1.39pm BST

Victoria Pendleton is one of Britain’s greatest ever athletes. But has often felt like a failure and fraud.

Here is an extract from her fascinating conversation with Simon Hattenstone where she speaks on her Olympic golds, the misery that came with them, and the joy she has found since she retired.

In her memoir, Between the Lines, Pendleton claims the chief coach, Shane Sutton, told her variously to “man up”, “be more of a bitch” and “get more c-u-n-t in you”. (She says he spelled it out so as not to cause offence.) How did she react? “Back in the day you didn’t think anything of it. I was so familiar with that language it didn’t hurt me. It didn’t cut me up inside, but I couldn’t deliver what they were asking.”
The situation reached its nadir after Pendleton admitted to having a relationship with a member of her coaching staff, sports scientist Scott Gardner. In the buildup to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they kept it secret because they knew it could prove disruptive and that her fellow cyclists might regard it as unprofessional. A couple of months before Beijing, Gardner told Sutton about their relationship and Sutton informed the performance director, Dave Brailsford. Sutton and Brailsford told Pendleton and Gardner that it would be best not to tell other team members until after the Olympics.

1.31pm BST

Shane Lowry has his sights on Olympic gold after a second major near miss of the year. Lowry will travel to Paris next week where he will represent Ireland at the Olympics along with Rory McIlroy, who failed to even make the cut at Royal Troon.

On moving on from his Open disappointment:

Onwards and upwards and on to the Olympics and try to win a medal for Ireland and get on from there. I’m playing good golf and I’d love to win a medal. Obviously I’d want it to be gold, but I’d probably take either three.

I’m very excited about it. Obviously Le Golf National is going to be a great test and a great course and that medal isn’t going to be around your neck until you’re finished on that 18th green at that place.

Matt Fitzpatrick will also hope Paris will be fruitful after a disappointing season. The Sheffield golfer has not finished higher than 22nd in any majors this year and since his 2022 US Open win he has had only one Top 10.

[The Olympics are] something different, something I haven’t done before, so I’m definitely looking forward to it. It would probably be right under there, just under a major. It’s not something that golf has put on the calendar at the start of the year that’s a must.
I wouldn’t say it’s always been high on a golfer’s agenda, but this year it is.

1.19pm BST

Thanks Michael and hello all! Happy Monday! Such a big part of the Games is how many medals each country racks up. National Olympic committees really take pride in where they rank on the leaderboard.

For Team GB, there are some big names that are aiming for gold in athletics and swimming but the expectation is that there is an improvement on the rowing showing from Tokyo.

So who are Team GB’s best chances at medaling? Our all-star lineup of inhale Sean Ingle, Andy Bull, Jeremy Whittle, Donald McRae, Nick Ames and Tumaini Carayol exhale take you through it all.

1.08pm BST

Just like Macron, I’m off for a bit of lunch . Yara El-Shaboury will take you through the next hour or so. Cheers!

12.57pm BST

Speaking of Simone …

12.57pm BST

Not exactly a shock appointment , here. The US female flagbearer will be revealed later this week, surely it will be Simone Biles?

12.51pm BST

President Emmanuel Macron visits the Olympic village

12.31pm BST

Perhaps more so than in any other sporting event , watching some of the superhuman Olympic talent can sometimes be a humbling experience. Watching my wife wince as I ask her to watch me practice my swan dives on holiday hasn’t really got anything to do with what Tom Daley and co will be up to in Paris. However, our Midas Touch series is meant to explain how some of these athletes got so good at their craft, and maybe provide some nifty tips on how you can improve your Parkrun time, or flatten that forehand. Here is what we have published so far, with more to follow.

Updated at 12.37pm BST

12.09pm BST

I mentioned in my intro that there were some changes to some events. Here is a complete run down, courtesy of PA Media, of what differs at Paris 2024 compared to previous Olympic Games.

Breaking to make its debut

A competitive form of breakdancing that blends artistry and dance with acrobatic moves, breaking will debut at the Paris Olympics. The urban dance style, which originated in the Bronx borough of New York in the 1970s, was announced as part of the Paris 2024 programme in late 2020.

Twice World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) championship winner Victor Montalvo and Canadian Phil Wizard (Philip Kim) will be the favourites in the B-Boy category. Montalvo, 30, held off Wizard in the final to take the WDSF World Breaking Championship title last year and became the first American to qualify for breaking at the Olympics. Wizard, 27, won the WDSF championship in 2022.

In the B-Girl category, the 2023 world champion, 17-year-old Nicka (Dominika Banevic) of Lithuania, and Japanese Ami (Ami Yuasa) will be the ones to watch out for.

Kayak Cross also makes its debut

Having made its Olympic debut at Munich 1972, canoe slalom will see a new event added to its roster with kayak cross making its debut at Paris 2024. Kayak cross is an extreme canoe slalom, which sees competitors in kayaks race on white water, jostling each other with their paddles for pole position.

The Olympic event will begin with timed solo runs before introducing a frenetic element of head-to-head competition as four racers face off against each other, vying for position on the course with placings changing rapidly and contact almost inevitable.

Britain’s world champion Joe Clarke and Australia’s Jessica Fox are among the favourites to win inaugural gold medals in the event, but the chaotic nature of the four-person races makes them almost impossible to predict. There will be six medals up for grabs, and an equal number of men and women competing.

Which new sports are returning?

The Paris organisers have included sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing — all of which also featured as additional events at Tokyo 2020.

Climbing: There will be two events for male and female competitors in Paris - speed climbing and a combined bouldering and lead competition.

Skateboarding: Skateboarding will have two disciplines, street and park.

Surfing: Almost 16,000km from the main Games venues, 48 surfers will compete in the shortboard events in Teahupo’o in Tahiti.

Which sports have been dropped?

Having made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, karate was not included in the 2024 Games. Baseball-softball has also been dropped for Paris but will return at Los Angeles 2028.

11.56am BST

There has never been a 32-year-old female gymnast competing at this level in Great Britain. Tumaini Carayol meets Becky Downie, who has shown courage and resilience to reach Paris after suffering tragedy and a cruel backlash for exposing abuse in her sport.

11.46am BST

This is a great little exclusive story from Sean Ingle .

Great Britain’s triathletes will pursue Olympic gold in Paris with the help of a new weapon: cutting edge trisuits designed to make them go faster on the water or a bike.
The new kit, which uses different materials and covers more of the body than conventional trisuits, was tested secretly in competition by Team GB’s Alex Yee and Beth Potter in a world series race in Cagliari in May. Yee won his race, while Potter was third.

11.31am BST

One nice little subplot for the Olympic football – from a British point of view – will be to see how former Chelsea manager Emma Hayes gets on as head coach of USWNT.

Incidentally, we published an extract of Hayes’s new book yesterday.

Updated at 11.33am BST

11.19am BST

11.08am BST

Authorities recall Paris 2024 metal water bottles on health grounds

French authorities have recalled Paris 2024-branded metal water bottles containing excessive levels of the endocrine disruptor Bisphenol A, less than a week before the start of the Olympics.
The bottles made by French company Vilac contain levels of the chemical that are “not in compliance with regulations”, the government website Rappel Conso said.
The bottles, which were sold in France from late August 2023 until the beginning of June, do not feature on the Vilac online shop anymore.
“Discussions with the licensee are underway to understand the causes of the non-compliance and to ensure that appropriate actions are taken,” Paris 2024 organisers told Reuters.
Bisphenol A has been banned in France since 2015 after being linked with health problems including breast cancer and infertility. Representatives of Vilac were not available for comment outside business hours, while Paris 2024 officials could not say how many bottles were recalled.

11.04am BST

The last time that China and the US didn’t top the summer Olympics medal table was 2016, when Team GB snuck past China into second place , beating the Asian nation by one gold medal, 27 to 26. Before that, you have to go back to Sydney 2000, when Russia comfortably secured second place behind the US.

It would be a shock to see anyone but USA and China claim the one-two spots this time around.

Updated at 11.06am BST

10.47am BST

The other key question to ask is : what will we do with our post-Games blues when it’s all over? Let’s not think about that just yet.

10.46am BST

Team GB to take part in military-style decompression interviews after Games

Team GB athletes will be encouraged to take part in decompression programmes following the conclusion of the Paris Olympics in a move designed to follow the example of military personnel returning home.
The initiative, which has been drawn up by the UK Sports Institute (UKSI), is intended to help competitors reacclimatise to life away from the tightly curated environment of the Olympic village and the routines imposed by competition.
Originally conceived as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, when athletes were forced to step away from full-time training and competition, there have been early signs of a keen uptake of the service, which will consist of tailored interviews between athletes and a network of mental health professionals.
“Performance decompression is designed by the UKSI performance psychology team,” Dr Carrie McRea of the UKSI told the PA news agency. “It is mirrored to the military process. Essentially it’s a structured interview for about 60 to 90 minutes with somebody who’s trained in decompression. So that might be somebody from performance psychology, some clinical psychologists are trained up, and performance lifestyle advisors.
And then to start planning what we call ‘time zero’, so that’s essentially from the point you get back off the plane or train, what are you going to do? What’s going to be your plan? The focus is on reconnecting with normal life. Getting people to think beyond the Games. Often people haven’t really thought what that looks like.”
There will be 327 athletes competing for Team GB in Paris across 26 sports, with 172 female competitors to 155 male. Many of them will have worked closely in the build-up with the UKSI whose remit is to provide support in field of science, medicine, technology and engineering services.
The decompression programmes are one of a number of policy arms in the pursuit of competitive advantage in Paris.
“It came from Covid times,” Team GB’s head of performance services Greg Retter told PA. “The athletes had suddenly had to stop, no training, no competition, nothing. Then they started to re-engage with it again. There was a whole piece that was done by the psychology team looking at what was the psychological burden of having to stop like that?
“That process of talking about that and navigating your way back to becoming a full-time athlete again post-lockdown has informed this work, which is when you come back from a Games, it’s a really good opportunity to have that moment to reflect. Every athlete will be offered it. Obviously not everybody will take it up. But what we’re seeing is that because there’s been really good uptake, that then disseminates amongst athletes and staff.
“Something we’re doing a lot of work on is to engage family and friends. Because it’s not an isolated experience. It’s the planning of their time zero, thinking about who’s going be around to understand what I might be feeling, how I might be coming across. The post-Games blues is probably a reality. During the Games you’re so connected to so many people, and you come home and everything’s dialled down. It can take a while to reconnect to your reality, meanwhile the rest of your reality continues. It takes a while to recalibrate to what that feels like.” PA Media

10.15am BST

A nice little detail from this piece : more than 8.8 million tickets have already been sold for Paris 2024, more than for any other Olympics. A further million tickets remain available for members of the public to buy from the official website.

10.12am BST

I would tentatively add to that venues list the venue for surfing , which will not take place in Paris at all, but 15,000km away in Tahiti, part of French Polynesia. That beats the record for the furthest event from a host city, set at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics when equestrian events were held in Stockholm due to quarantine restrictions.

Here is a bit more background on the surfing. Interesting that competitors will have six days prior to the start of the contest to practise. However, security is expected to bar surfers from assessing the wave from watercraft, and sessions will be regimented. “We normally are free to roam and can surf whenever we want, and we are our own dictators on when we want to surf and how we want to approach the event,” Australia’s Molly Picklum has said. “But for the Olympics, you get given a time slot, and then that’s the time you have to surf, and you’ve got to make it work if the waves are good or bad.”

It is a world-renowned spot for surfing, with a wave previously considered so dangerous that women’s events were banned in 2006, and only reintroduced to the World Surf Tour in 2022 after the Olympic announcement. The decision to cancel the event in 2006 was reportedly made without consultation and has drawn criticism over the years since.

Cancellation of the world tour event didn’t spell the end of women surfing the wave. In 2015 the Hawaiian world champion longboarder Kelia Moniz famously attempted to surf the heavy wave on a longboard – a challenge far greater than surfing it on a shortboard. In 2016 Kennelly won the WSL XXL Big Wave Awards Barrel of the Year at Teahupo’o, an award with no gender criteria. Kennelly was the first and only woman to have achieved this feat, and was also the first woman to tow surf the wave when pulled in by a jet ski in 2005.

Updated at 10.14am BST

10.01am BST

I enjoyed this piece , on the most iconic venues at the 2024 Games.

First venues on the list are obviously the beach volleyball arena, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, as well as the Champ de Mars Arena venue for judo, wrestling, which will also host the para judo and wheelchair rugby during the Paralympics.

9.45am BST

This is a good place to whet your appetite: our writers have rounded up six GB athletes, six Australians, six Americans and six from around the world who have stories well worth following.

9.40am BST

The opening ceremony is on Friday , involving a waterborne extravaganza in which more than 10,000 athletes and national officials will sail down the Seine in 160-plus open-topped boats, and will be watched from the river’s banks by 300,000 spectators.

As is customary, there will be a few events this week, starting on Wednesday with the men’s football – including France v USA and Argentina v Morocco.

9.36am BST

Preamble

It’s been a long three years since Tokyo 2020 (in 2021) but once again, the best sporting competition in the world is upon us, pushing events as varied as rhythmic gymnastics, sport climbing and marathon swimming front and centre of your screens. Breaking will make its Olympic debut in Paris, as does kayak cross, while surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and 3x3 basketball will all return. Elsewhere there are a host of changes to catch up on: men will be part of the artistic swimming competition, there is a new class in women’s boxing, while the shooting and weightlifting events have been altered slightly.

But let’s not get too bogged down in the minutia. As the athletes arrive this week at the village, and broadcasting trucks set up along the Seine, this is a time to dream big. Embrace the chaos, it is once again time to fall in love with fencing and water polo.