Simone Biles steals show at Olympic Games while Team GB claim more golds

Team GB bagged two more gold medals and Simone Biles led the USA women’s gymnastics team to Olympic redemption on a steamy day in Paris when organisers faced exacting questions over their preparations for the extreme weather.

A win in the 4x200m freestyle race ahead of the USA and Australia and a Games record in the men’s trap shooting final from Nathan Hales doubled Great Britain’s gold medal haul.

It was a dazzling floor routine by Biles, including a double straight somersault, that sealed a gold medal for the USA, three years after the most decorated gymnast in history had pulled out of events at the Tokyo Games following a mental health crisis.

The USA team coach had spoken of this being a “redemption tour” following a silver in Tokyo and the crowd in the Bercy Arena roared its approval of Biles’s final dangerously difficult routine set to music by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé even before she landed a last aerial assault that pushed Italy into silver, Brazil into bronze and Great Britain into a heartbreaking fourth position.

Biles had suffered from “the twisties” – a traumatic mental block that caused the American to lose herself in the air whenever she attempted to twist – but throughout Tuesday night she was laughing along with her teammates Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee and Hezly Rivera, and soaked up the adoration from a raucous crowd.

The British gymnast Becky Downie said: “We did everything we possibly could. We went for broke. To be that close in such a big comp is really hard but hopefully these guys will be back and have more finals to come.”

There had been much better news earlier in Paris for Team GB when Hales set his Olympic record in the men’s trap competition to win a third gold medal of the Games for Britain, beating the silver medallist, Qi Ying of China.

“I just try and keep everything as we always do and treat it exactly the same way I treat finals in training,” the 28-year-old from Chatham said. “I just push through and keep focused on what I’m doing, not on what other athletes are doing.”

The Team GB’s swimmers James Guy, Tom Dean, Matt Richards and Duncan Scott also retained their gold medal in the 4x200m freestyle race ahead of the USA and Australia.

Related: Paris 2024 day four: Team GB retain relay gold, Murray and Evans rally again – as it happened

At Roland Garros, there was much fist pumping as Andy Murray and Dan Evans went right to the wire again, winning a 10-point match tie-break against Belgium’s Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen to secure a place in the quarter finals of the men’s doubles, and delay further the 37-year-old former Olympic gold medallist’s retirement with a 6-3, 6-7 (8), 11-9 win.

After appearing to have lost the match in the final tie-break, they had fought back and it was Murray with a serve down the middle that opened up an easy smash for Evans who put it away to win the match.

Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal will also appear in the Olympic quarter-finals, after the Spanish pair defeated Tallon Griekspoor and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands earlier on the same court.

A thrilling day of sport when temperatures hit 35C in Paris was a welcome distraction for organisers as they found themselves blaming climate change for rescheduling the men’s triathlon and advising athletes staying in an Olympic village that lacks air conditioning to open their windows.

After a failed 3.30am inspection on Tuesday, only hours before 55 triathletes were set to dive in from the starting line near the Pont Alexandre III, the men’s triathlon had to be rescheduled for 10.45am local time on Wednesday because of safety concerns about completing the swimming section in the Seine.

The explanation given was that the equivalent of the annual rainfall for July had fallen on the city on Friday and Saturday, leading to higher than permitted faecal bacteria known as E. coli entering the river.

The world’s media questioned whether it had ever been a good idea to bet that a €1.4bn infrastructure upgrade to the capital’s antique sewage system and water treatment plants would allow for triathlon and marathon swimming in the famously polluted Seine.

“We are living in the 21st century where unfortunately there are far more meteorological events that happen which are beyond the control of the organisers,” Aurelie Merle, the Paris 2024 director of sports, replied. “We’ve gone from heavy rain to extreme heat in very few days. So it’s actually hard to control how it can affect the quality of the river.”

Team GB’s Alex Yee and Beth Potter, who are respective favourites for the men’s and women’s races, face an anxious wait to see if the 1500m swim in the Seine will go ahead alongside the 40km bike ride and 10km run.

There had also been fresh criticism of both the decision to not install air conditioning in the athletes’ accommodation in the Olympic village in the name of sustainability and the subsequent U-turn to allow delegations with the money to pay for mobile units.

As it emerged that Team France had been among those who had opted to pay for the air conditioning, the authorities were left fielding accusations of hypocrisy after previously claiming that such cooling was not necessary as the rooms would be kept fresh via a geothermal water system pumping cold water underneath the buildings.

Bernadette Szocs, a table tennis player representing Romania, said she and her teammates had resorted to keeping their terrace doors open all night in hope of some relief from the heat.

“There is no air conditioning, just this fan and it is not enough,” she told the Guardian. “Somehow we were lucky that it was not so hot outside so we didn’t need it so much but it is now hot and you can feel it is too hot in the room. [The fan] is not powerful enough and when it is pointing at you it is good but after it is turning you don’t feel it. We are sleeping with the door open in the night. The rooms are small and we are two persons.”

A spokesperson for Paris 2024 said athletes were being advised to drink lots of fluids, open windows at night and keep the blinds closed during the day.

“We remind everyone that, when it comes to high heat, we’ve tried to find a balance in the design and fit-out of the village between a long-term objective to create a model sustainable neighbourhood of the future; and a short-term responsibility to give high-performance athletes the best conditions in which to prepare,” the spokesperson said.

“For what is often the biggest competition of their athletes’ lives, certain national Olympic committees have chosen to equip themselves with additional mobile cooling units. These appliances are at their own cost, and Paris 2024 is offering support by proposing air conditioners that will subsequently be made available to Paralympic athletes. Additional solutions will be made available to the athletes, such as fans, or a few mobile air-conditioning units for the most exposed rooms.”

Meanwhile, a distraught Charlotte Worthington was unable to defend her Olympic title in the women’s BMX freestyle qualifiers, finishing 11th in the 12-rider field and missing the cut of the top nine qualifiers for the final on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old, who has struggled with mental health issues since her success in Tokyo , took an hour to compose herself after missing qualification.

“I am really proud of the journey to get here,” she said. “Up there I wasn’t fighting any other battle, other than the battle against myself.”