PARIS: Simone Biles clinched her fifth Olympic gold medal as she made a triumphant return to the women’s gymnastics team final at the Paris Games on Tuesday, reinforcing her status as one of the greatest athletes just three years after withdrawing from the same event at the Tokyo Games.

Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all-time, earned the United States their 11th Olympic medal in the women’s team event with a solid performance on all four apparatus after starting off on the vault, from which she soared high into the air while executing the Cheng to earn 14.900 points.

With the crowd rallying behind Biles and her team-mates in the absence of the French team that failed to qualify for the final, the United States finished an impressive 5.802 points ahead of second-placed Italy.

While the Italians won their first women’s Olympic team medal since the 1928 Olympics, an incredible, high-flying vault by Rebeca Andrade landed Brazil the bronze, their first ever medal in the discipline.

In table tennis, the Chinese took the first step in what could be gold medal sweep in the sport when Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha beat North Korea’s Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong 4-2 in the mixed doubles final.

The victory also marks the first gold for Wang, 24, and Sun, 23, who attracted many travelling fans to cheer them on in France.

It’s also a moment of redemption for China’s table tennis dream team, which have won 33 of the 38 golds since the event was introduced to the Summer Olympics in 1988, but missed out on the inaugural mixed doubles gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

Wang and Sun, however, set the record straight with an 11-6, 7-11, 11-8, 11-5, 7-11, 11-8 win.

There was more joy for Japan in judo where Japan’s Takanori Nagase triumphed in the men’s under 81kg final, beating Georgian Tato Grigalashvili, before Andreja Leski triumphed in the women’s under 63kg final to hand Slovenia its first gold medal of the Games.

Britain’s Nathan Hales clinched the men’s trap gold with a new Olympic record, while Serbian pistol shooters Zorana Arunovic and Damir Mikec stood atop the podium in the 10-metre air pistol mixed team contest.

New Zealand’s women defended their rugby sevens title with a gritty, come-from-behind 19-12 victory over Canada. The United States took the bronze after beating Australia 14-12.

Coco Gauff, the world number two and one of Team USA’s flagbearers, crashed out of the tennis singles in a stormy defeat to Croatian Donna Vekic at a roasting Roland Garros.

Vekic won 7-6 (9/7), 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals after Gauff claimed she was “getting cheated” in an argument with the chair umpire over a line call in the sixth game of the second set.

MEDINA MAGIC

In Tahiti’s Teahupo’o, Brazil’s Gabriel Medina powered through a giant blue barrel for the highest score of the surfing competition so far.

Medina got the wave of the event so far in his round-five heat against Japan’s Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Kanoa Igarashi, a 9.90 out of 10 that was, if anything, underscored.

Taking off deep, Medina pumped through an enormous tube and signalled to the judges that he thought it was worth a 10 before flying into the channel. Most of those on the flotilla of boats and jetskis watching metres away screamed in agreement.

After the ride he launched himself into the air, raising his right arm and pointing towards the sky in a gravity-defying moment.

Medina backed it up with a 7.5 for a 17.4 points total to cement him as a favourite to win gold.

In an electric Monday night in the pool, Canada’s 17-year-old swimming sensation Summer McIntosh won her first Olympic gold, producing an extraordinary effort in the 400m individual medley, leaving American pair Katie Grimes and Emma Weyant trailing in her wake.

“It was an amazing feeling. It’s always just about having fun, as well as pushing my body to its limits,” said world record-holder McIntosh, whose winning time of four minutes 27.71 seconds was the fourth-fastest ever.

Red-headed rocket Mollie O’Callaghan toppled fellow Australian and defending champion Ariarne Titmus to claim gold in the women’s 200 metres freestyle in an Olympic record in a duel of club-mates.

Both are coached by Dean Boxall and train at the same Brisbane pool but O’Callaghan came from third going into the final lap to finish 0.54 seconds ahead of Titmus in second.

A nailbiting men’s 200m freestyle saw Romania’s David Popovici pip Britain’s Matthew Richards to gold by a fingertip, winning by just 0.02 seconds.

Olga Kharlan won bronze for Ukraine as she rallied from a six-point deficit to beat Choi Sebin of South Korea and hand her country their first Paris Games medal, in the women’s sabre.

Kharlan, now a five-times Olympic medallist, triumphed 15-14 to the cheers of an ecstatic crowd at the Grand Palais.

The 33-year-old is at the Olympics through an IOC invitation after being disqualified for refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent at last year’s World Championships in Milan.

To huge cheers of the home crowd, France’s Manon Apithy-Brunet, a bronze medallist in Tokyo, won the gold medal bout 15-12 to leave countrywoman Sara Balzer, the 2023 world champion, with a silver medal.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2024