The stars that will light up Paris’s skies at the Olympics | Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Paris is a stunning city with its history and monuments, the Seine, the Champs-Elysees, the Eiffel Tower, but when the cauldron is lit on Friday, the postcard landscape will give way to athletes, the only heroes of the Olympic Games. It has been only three years since the “Games of Silence” took place in Tokyo, the stadiums, swimming pools and gyms were empty because of the pandemic. The stars of that time claim their audience, the applause was denied then. This is the pandemic generation, athletes born in the 21st century, children of a time of speed and fear, and most of them have grown competitive since 2020, months of training in solitude and confinement. The Olympic movement has opened up the Games to new sports, but it is still a trilogy of athletics, swimming and gymnastics, plus the addition of a real basketball dream team that will fill the screens and conversations.

Simone Biles, gymnastics (USA, 27)

Simon Biles, the queen who abdicated in Tokyo in 2021, triumphantly announced her return to the throne, the victim of a panic attack caused by the enormous weight of expectations he had taken on in front of the world, perhaps unaware that no one in the world could bear it either. Three years later, the expectations have even increased, but she feels mature, capable of anything and able to add even more gold to the 23 world and Olympic medals, the most in history, that she has. NBC has already announced that August 1 (the day of the individual grand final) will be Biles’ day on the network, and despite the time zone change (noon at Texas Gymnastics), she expects a historic audience. (August 1, 6:15 p.m., individual final).

Rebeca Andrade, gymnastics (Brazil, 24 years old)

When Simone Biles’ head was torn from reality in mid-air and she didn’t know where the sky was, Rebeca Andrade, a 21-year-old girl born in the Rio favela of Vila Fatima, took her place and became the first Brazilian Olympic champion in gymnastics. He didn’t win gold on earth, but he made half the world sing his music, the song of the favelas. Andrade, already a star in her country and, like Biles in the United States, on the cover of Vogue, will later become the world champion in the overall standings in 2022. At 24, her status has changed. He has won the affection of his countrymen with his resilience. He is not afraid to try to conquer the world in front of a Texan in Paris.

Mondo Duplantis, pole vault (Sweden, 24)

Mondo Duplantis has only two competitors, and both are relative. They are himself, and the same human energy that limits him is what drives him, and the law of gravity, the same force that allows him to move forward, bending the carbon pole to fly higher than any vaulter in history. You could say that Duplantis was born (he was born in Louisiana to an American father and a Swedish mother) with a pole under his arm, and from childhood he treated it like Mozart with a piano. Since the age of 18, he has suffered only one defeat, at 19, in the final of the 2019 World Championships. Since then, he has won every title he has competed in, at the World Championships, European Championships and the Tokyo Games in 2021. who broke it (6.17 meters, February 8, 2020, a month before the pandemic), is the only holder of the world record, a feat he repeats twice a year to stay in the habit, and it’s worth it. 6.24 meters. (August 5, 19:00).

Noah Lyles, track and field (USA, 27)

More manga than a Japanese man – he runs around in Goku socks, dyes his hair silver, and on March 1, the day Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama died, He wrote in X that his work “changed his life.”— Noah Lyles (9.83 sec 100m), six-time world champion, winner of only one Olympic bronze, will need all the energy of his hero to reclaim the speed throne left vacant by Usain Bolt and the hearts of fans in front of his Jamaican heirs, who are growing up in the workshops of engineers Glenn Mills and Stephen Francis in Kingston, the factory of Jamaican speed. From the Mills gym, where Bolt was created, came the Oblique Seville, light and small, with a mesmerizing leg cycle and a best time of 9.82 seconds. From the Powell line came the colossal Keeshan Thompson: 1.85 m, 80 kg, with the shoulders of a docker and the legs of a circus strongman in a Samson suit, who ran 9.77 seconds in June, the ninth-fastest time in history. (August 4, 21:50).

Sydney McLaughlin, track and field (USA, 24)

She is a discreet star of track and field, and despite this, despite her certain allergy to the limelight and her very few appearances, Sydney McLaughlin has managed, with her talent, her speed and her records, to give great value to a test that has so far been secondary in the women’s program, the 400m hurdles, an event in which she was already Olympic champion in Tokyo at the age of 21 and in which she holds the world record (50.65 s). Bob Kersey’s UCLA student is so good that, if she were to participate, she would also be the favorite in the 400m, since with 48.75 she has the best world record of the year. And yet it is not written that he will leave the purple podium of Paris with gold. A threat that is becoming increasingly close is the long-legged Dutchwoman Femke Bol (50.95 sec), world champion in Budapest in McLaughlin’s absence (August 8, 21:25).

Leon Marchand, swimming (France, 22 years old)

If Michael Phelps was an eel, Leon Marchand was an angler. This amazingly aquatic organism, more compact than its American predecessor, represents a new link in the evolutionary chain of amphibians. Genetics did the trick. His father, Xavier Marchand, a medley swimmer for France, won several medals at the European Championships. The rest was shaped by Bob Bowman, the legendary coach who discovered and turned Phelps into the greatest swimmer of all time. Together, they made history. Last year, Marchand was a three-time world champion in the 200m and 400m individual medley and 200m butterfly in Fukuoka. There is no French athlete in Paris who arouses greater expectations. Praised by his audience, he could be a big star at the Games.

David Popovici, swimming (Romania, 19 years old)

Exceptional for his light and elastic physique, and exceptional for a Romanian, a country without great aquatic traditions, David Popovici has progressed regularly from the children’s categories and in the summer of 2022 broke the world record in the 100m freestyle. He is barely 19 years old, and he comes to Paris with the poster of the main favorite to shine at the Queen’s Test. His results in the 100 and 200m this spring in the Europa League confirm that he will dive into the La Defense pool like a real knife. Ready to swim at speeds unknown to mankind. There is only one problem, and it comes from China. His name is Jeanle Pan, and at the World Championships in Doha in February he finished the relay in 46.80 seconds. It is the great duel of the Games.

Katie Ledecky, swimming (USA, 27)

The undisputed matriarch of world swimming, Katie Ledecky will don the latex cap, ready to cement her legendary status in Paris. She has ten Olympic medals to her name, seven gold. His case is unique in its longevity and consistency, a phenomenon typical of the professionalization of a sport that was previously useless for swimmers to make money. Unlike Janet Evans, her predecessor, Ledecky is rich. That has helped her maintain her excitement. In France, he promises to swim three free events: 400, 800 and 1500 meters, as well as the 4×200 relay. The 400 against Mackintosh and Titmuss could be the race of the year.

Mathieu Van der Poel, cycling (Netherlands, 29 years old)

For a cyclist, Mathieu van der Poel is a man of exquisite taste. Not every victory is worth anything to the Dutch phenomenon, he does not fight for trifles. His varied CV as the king of the one-day classics consists almost entirely of magnificent jewels and a luxurious safe. A yellow jersey of the Tour here (something his grandfather, the great Raymond Poulidor, never achieved), two Roubaixes there, three Tours of Flanders, Milan-San Remo, a road rainbow, several cyclo-crosses… Olympic gold would shine brightly there. To do so, he would have to transform the Sacré-Coeur climb into the Poggio, Carrefour de l’Arbre or Koppenberg, sacred places of cycling where he has already left his mark. (August 3, from 11:00 to 17:00).

“Dream Team”, basketball, USA.

It will certainly be so, because the magic of the unforgettable American team Barcelona 92 ​​still lingers, the team that for the first time in history brought together the wizards of the NBA, forming a star-studded lineup (Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird…) that will never be equaled. The fact is that basketball in the United States, the US team, is on its feet when the Olympic Games approach, and is lagging behind when it comes to participating in the World Cup. The group that Steve Kerr currently coaches did not go beyond fourth place in the last World Cup, ahead of Germany, Serbia and Canada, and on the other hand, it has not stopped fighting for Olympic gold since the magnificent challenge of the Spanish team in Beijing in 2008. In Paris, looking for a fifth consecutive summit, Kerr puts forward another museum team led by LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. Barring a catastrophe, second place is at stake.

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