Top five stories from Paris Olympics day 11
Team GB failed to add to their five equestrian medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics as Germany’s Christian Kukuk won gold in the individual jumping final.
Defending champion Ben Maher and Scott Brash – winners of the team jumping event last week – both featured but missed out on the top three.
It was better news in the athletics as Laura Muir, Georgia Bell and Victoria Ohuruogu made the next stage in their events, but Revee Walcott-Nolan will have to qualify through a repechage.
In the diving, Jack Laugher and Jordan Houlden qualified for the men’s 3m springboard diving semi-finals.
Sport climbers Molly Thompson-Smith and Erin McNeice, however, missed out on the final in the boulder section of the women’s boulder and lead event.
Elsewhere, the skateboarding got under way with Britain’s Sky Brown qualifying for the women’s park final, while home favourite Kauli Vaast won surfing gold on the French Polynesian island Tahiti.
Brits fail to add to equestrian medal haul
It’s been a glorious Olympics for Britain’s equestrian team so far, with two golds and three bronzes from the opening five events.
There were high hopes for a sixth medal in the individual jumping final, but the day ended in disappointment for Charles, Maher and Brash.
Team GB suffered a blow early in the day when Charles pulled out of the event, writing on Instagram that his horse Romeo 88 was not fit enough to compete, external, before Maher and Brash knocked over the same fence on their respective runs.
The event was won by Germany’s Christian Kukuk, who pipped Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat in second and the Netherlands’ Maikel van der Vlueten in third.
Muir and Bell through to 1500m semis
With Keely Hodgkinson setting the gold standard for Team GB’s track and field athletes by winning the 800m, Tuesday saw the 1500m runners hoping to follow her example.
It was a fine morning’s work for Laura Muir and Georgia Bell, who both qualified from their heats for the semi-finals, but fellow Briton Revee Walcott-Nolan dropped to Wednesday’s repechage.
In the women’s 400m repechage, Victoria Ohuruogu won her heat with a season’s best 50.59 to qualify for the semi-finals.
Elsewhere, in unusual scenes, the second heat of the men’s 110m hurdles repechage needed four attempts to get under way before Brazil’s Rafael Pereira ran out a comfortable winner.
The first attempt brought a false start, the second was paused because of shouting from the crowd and the third failed when the starting pistol failed to go off.
Skateboarding kicks off in Paris
After a successful debut at Tokyo 2020, the skateboarding got under way in Paris with Britons Sky Brown and Lola Tambling competing in the women’s park preliminaries.
Brown, 16, who was nursing a shoulder injury, scored 84.75 and qualified for the final at 16:30 BST, but fellow Briton Tambling, also 16, missed out.
In the second heat, China’s Zheng Haohao became her country’s youngest ever Olympian as she scored 63.19.
She didn’t reach the final but at just 11 years old, Zheng – who was born one day before the end of London 2012 – will surely have many more opportunities at future Games.
Home favourite Vaast wins surfing gold
Kauli Vaast, born in Tahiti, is competing for France
The surfing took place 9,800 miles from Paris in French Polynesia, but for men’s Olympic champion Kauli Vaast, it could not be closer to home.
The 22-year-old was born and raised in Tahiti, the island where the competition took place to take advantage of its legendary Teahupo’o wave.
The Frenchman first surfed the wave when he was eight years old, and conquered it once more, scoring 17.67 to claim Olympic gold in front of Australia’s Jack Robinson.
The bronze went to Brazil’s Gabriel Medina, who has already made headlines during the Paris Olympics after this remarkable photo of the 30-year-old went viral.
American Caroline Marks won gold in the women’s event with Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb taking silver and France’s Johanne Defay securing bronze.
NBA star Antetokounmpo’s Greece out
Greece’s Olympic basketball hopes relied heavily on two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Giannis Antetokounmpo but he was unable to save his side from defeat by Germany.
The Milwaukee Bucks star, who was NBA MVP in 2019 and 2020, scored a match-leading 22 points but it was in vain as his side slipped to a 76-63 loss.
World Cup winners and second seeds Germany will face either Canada or France in the semi-finals, who play at 17:00 BST.
Today’s other last-eight ties see Serbia take on Australia at 13:30 and Brazil play the unbeaten USA at 20:30.