Paris Olympics
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The Lost Arts August 09, 2024
There were both too many metal guitarists for a stately ceremony on the Seine, and yet, too few. When the broadcast cut to a wide shot of the Conciergerie, it revealed nothing, nothing—a vast expanse of beige wall with a few ant-like figures crawling...
The Bromance Between Anthony Edwards and Kevin Durant August 06, 2024
The second half of the U.S. men’s national basketball team’s final group-stage game against Puerto Rico on Saturday might as well have been a greatest hits compilation for Anthony Edwards: extra-mustard finger rolls, half-speed stepback 3s, hanging t...
The Legendary Katie Ledecky Just Keeps Swimming August 05, 2024
PARIS — Twelve years as a superstar athlete is an eternity, and in the United States, a shelf life that long usually comes with some level of public blowback or fatigue. Haters materialize to find flaws, inventing them if necessary. Or the superstar ...
Olympian Obscenity August 02, 2024
Radical queer ideologues have long been willing publicly to profane Christ and Christian values. But before last week, they had never done so at an Olympic ceremony, which had historically represented our common humanity across nations and cultures. ...
Simone Biles Goes Too Big to Fail August 01, 2024
The human mind is an exceptional machine, although it does have some exceptions. About a million of them, or maybe it’s a zillion? Either way, one known weakness of our brains is that they aren’t designed to grasp huge numbers and other measures of e...
48 Hours in Paris for the Fanciest Olympics Ever July 31, 2024
In an abstract sense, I understood that the Paris Olympics would be a little different than editions held in years past. Paris would host the first summer games post-pandemic, to start—the fact that Tokyo 2020, delayed until 2021, was, for obvious re...
Brittney Griner Came Home July 30, 2024
Dozens of little girls in WNBA jerseys lined up to catch a glimpse of Brittney Griner. They screamed as Griner sprinted toward them with a giant smile, extending her hands to high-five as many as she could. The longtime Phoenix Mercury star even retu...
Why Are American Gymnasts Breaking? July 29, 2024
Shilese Jones swung on the uneven bars at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials a month ago with mesmerizing grace. Her arms extended, her toes pointed, her expression one of total focus, the 22-year-old flung herself backward into the air, pulled her k...
The Unexpectedly Hopeful Paris Olympics July 25, 2024
The first Olympic Games held in Paris, in 1900, were an afterthought—a supplement to the Exposition Universelle, the giant World’s Fair. The inaugural modern Olympics had taken place in Athens, four years earlier, and the founder of the modern Games,...
Who Is Noah Lyles? July 25, 2024
During every Olympic Games, lesser-known professional athletes are catapulted into household names overnight. Typically, they have to win medals. Other times, their personalities are enough to build their own fandoms. Heading into this summer’s Olymp...
Sprinter Noah Lyles Wants Four Olympic Gold Medals July 23, 2024
Noah Lyles is the 27-year-old face of track and field in the United States. Which is why, at 9:41 p.m. on a March evening outside Orlando, four months before the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics, Lyles stands on the track where he has spent t...
Let Old Glory Fly in Paris July 22, 2024
Much has been said about Donald Trump becoming a “unity” candidate after last week’s attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. This appears to be wishful thinking, despite Trump’s polling lead over Joe Biden. In the latest AP-NORC poll, 57 percent...
Simone Manuel Has Already Won July 19, 2024
Simone Manuel stood in front of her hotel mirror, staring at her reflection. She began to pump her arms through imagined water, practicing her freestyle stroke.She needed a jolt of confidence on this Sunday late in June in Indianapolis, before the ni...
The World’s Richest Family Is About to Remake the Olympics June 13, 2024
Paris, that most presentable of capitals, is being polished before it hosts the Summer Games. Around the Champs-Élysées, where some of the benches date to the 1850s, the seats are getting a new layer of paint before an estimated 15 million visitors a...
