Singapore's Max Maeder wins kitefoiling bronze medal on Olympic debut
Maximilian Maeder celebrates after winning bronze at the Paris Olympics
At the Marseille Marina today (Aug 9), four riders — Maeder, Slovenia's Toni Vodisek, Austria's Valentin Bontus and Italy's Riccardo Pianosi — raced for podium finishes.
The final, which started on Thursday, was postponed due to wind conditions. He is Singapore's youngest Olympic medalist, at 17 years old.
Australian swim coach Brett Hawke calls out Chinese Olympian Pan Zhanle's world record swim as 'not humanly possible'
Olympic Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle’s stunning world record achievement in the men’s 100m freestyle final has been called out by a renowned Australian swim coach, who argues the feat was “not humanly possible”
Hawke took to Instagram in the wake of the massive achievement, arguing it was just “not humanly possible”. The 49-year-old, whose career has spanned 30 years and who was an Olympic sprint freestyler himself, posted a video saying he was “angry” at the race for a number of reasons. “Look, my friends are the fastest swimmers in history from Rowdy Gaines to Alex Popov to Gary Hall Jr, Anthony Irvin, all the way up to King Kyle Chalmers. I know these people intimately, I’ve studied them for 30 years,” he said.
“I’ve studied this sport. I’ve studied speed. I understand it. I’m an expert in it, that’s what I do, okay. He argued it was not possible to win a 100-metre freestyle by a body length on the field – saying “you just don’t do it”. “It is not humanly possible to beat that field by a body length,” he said.
Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle's historic win at Olympics 'doesn't make any sense'
Swim coach and former Olympic swimmer Brett Hawke has analysed Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle’s win at the Paris Olympics saying the result “makes no sense”
Top Aussie swim coach Brett Hawke has questioned Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle's historic win at the Paris Olympic Games, arguing it "doesn't make any sense". Pan shocked the swimming world when he finished at a record time of 46.40 seconds in the men's 100m freestyle final on Thursday, beating Australian sprint swimmer Kyle Chalmers. The 19-year-old Chinese athlete, who beat his own world record time, touched the wall 1.08 seconds faster than Chalmers and 1.09 seconds in front of Romania's David Popovici.
The magnitude of Pan's final win has come under scrutiny from critics as he finished almost a body length in front of his competitors in what is historically known to be a close race. The criticism comes amid developments in doping accusations against Chinese athletes. Pan has never tested positive for drugs. Speaking to Sky News Australia host Peter Stefanovic on Friday, Hawke, a former Olympic swimmer, said he has "questions" about Pan's 100m freestyle final achievement. "Mate, I think we're all stunned. Everybody watching that swim yesterday was stunned," he told Stefanovic.
Hawke, a five-time Olympian who has coached world swimming greats including Brazil's César Cielo, claimed there were "multiple reasons" why Pan's win "doesn't make any sense". The 49-year-old pointed to Chalmers' achievements in the men's 100m freestyle event in the past, including a first and second placings at previous Olympic Games. "He (Chalmers) has finished second here at this one, but he's got obliterated here by the Chinese swimmer and it just doesn't make any sense for many reasons," Hawke claimed.
Opening Ceremony of the Centenary Olympics Games in Paris on 26 Jul 2024
THE CENTENARY OF THE PARIS 1924 OLYMPIC GAMES
In 2024, Paris will become just the second city to host the Olympic Summer Games three times after London (which staged the 1908, 1948 and 2012 Olympic Games).
The City of Lights first hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, four years after the multi-sport event was resurrected in Athens after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I some 1,500 years earlier. No opening or closing ceremonies were held at the 1900 Olympics, which featured female competitors for the first time in Olympic history, as well as other unique events including ballooning, underwater swimming and cricket. Paris hosted the Summer Olympics again in 1924, becoming the first city to host the Olympics twice. While the Opening Ceremony of the 1924 Olympics was held on 5 July, some competitions began on 4 May, with the Closing Ceremony held on 27 July.
100 years later, on 26 July 2024, Paris will officially welcome the world to the Olympic Games for a third time, while these Olympics will be the sixth held in France (in addition to the three Summer Olympics mentioned above, France has also staged the Winter Olympics on three occasions: Chamonix 1924, Grenoble 1968 and Albertville ‘92).
Paris Olympics 2024 - Things to know
"Olympic Flame" Paris Olympics 2024
Here are some interesting details about the mega event:
- The Paris Olympics 2024 will take place between 26th July and 11th August next year. The Paralympic Games will be held from 28th August to 8th September.
- The Paris Olympics 2024 will be held in the city exactly a hundred years after it hosted the event in 1924.
- The opening ceremony will not take place in the stadium for the very first time. It will be held on the River Seine.
- The Olympics 2024 will have a total of 32 sports played, with a total of 329 medal events.
- Aquatics has the highest number of medals with a total of 49 events throughout marathon swimming, swimming, water polo, artistic swimming, and diving. Athletics follows next with 48 events.
- 10,500 athletes are expected to be in attendance for the event next year. The final competitor count will be confirmed after the Olympic Qualifier Series concludes.
- The 2024 edition of the Olympics will have a new sport, namely breaking. This is a dance-based sport where there will be competitions for both men and women. 16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls will go head-to-head in solo contests.
- The Olympics 2024 will have 35 venues, with 14 sites to host 24 Olympics sports within only 10 kilometres of the Olympic Village.
- Some events will take place at famous venues in Paris. For instance, beach volleyball will take place at the Champ de Mars beneath the Eiffel tower. Urban sports will take place at La Concorde and fencing and taekwondo competitions will be held at the Grand Palais. The Marathon will begin at the Hotel De Ville.
- The Olympics will also cover other regions in France. The football tournament will cover Nantes, Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne, Lyon, Marseille, and Nice. Sailing will also take place in Marseille, while Lille will host some team sports competitions.
- The Olympic Games will also take place in the French territory of Tahiti for the very first time. The surfing contest will be held on the famous Teahupoo wave of the island.
- Sailing will have two new categories at the Paris Olympics 2024, namely IQFoil or windsurfing and Kite surf or formula kite.
- A new event will be introduced in the canoe category which is called Extreme slalom. There will be four athletes tipping off the ramp simultaneously, with the winner being the one reaching the bottom of the course first. Men and women will have an event each in this category.
- The Olympic Games will also witness three new mixed events. These include the waking mixed relay for 35 kilometres (athletics), Skeet mixed team event (shooting), and mixed Dinghy (sailing).
- Sport climbing, which was introduced in 2021 at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, will have a change in its format. There will be two medal events for both men and women. One will be a combined bouldering and lead event and one will be a speed climbing competition.
- Around 10 million tickets are expected to be available for sale for the next Olympics 2024. Prices are expected to start from 24 Euros while the lowest prices will be around15 Euros for the Paralympic sports.
- The format of the Modern Pentathlon will also change, covering 90 minutes. It will start with riding, followed by fencing bonus rounds and swimming. The final round will be the laser run that combines running and shooting. Every sport will have 5-15-minute breaks in between.
- The Olympic Games will have an IOC Refugee Team. The first such team participated in the 2016 edition of the event in Rio.
- The Olympic Flame will arrive in the country after crossing the Mediterranean Sea. It will mark the celebrations from 8th May, 2024 onwards in Marseille. This will cover four months throughout France. The opening ceremony will start after the Olympic Torch relay ends.
- There will be 762 sessions for the events, with 19 days of competitions. The first official day is 27th July, 2024, which will have the time trial for men and women, along with events for cycling, rugby, fencing, judo, diving, skateboarding, swimming, and shooting.
- All finals for the athletics and swimming events will be held in the evenings from 19:00 and 20:30 (the last day will have a timing of 18:30) onwards respectively. The middle period of 3rd to 4th August will have medal events for judo, table tennis, fencing, archery, athletics, cycling, equestrian, golf, artistic gymnastics, rowing, swimming, and badminton. The last day, i.e. 11th August, will have the track cycling, weightlifting, and wrestling events for women. The women’s basketball final is also scheduled for the final day. The Closing Ceremony will take place thereafter.
THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF PARIS 2024
The Paris 2024 Olympic (16 Jul to 11 Aug 2024) and Paralympic Games (28 Aug to 8 Sep 2024) will be the biggest event ever organised in France. The Olympic Games will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024, when Paris will become the centre of the world—the world of sport, and so much more. The Games are a popular, multicultural festival shared by so many people around the planet and represent a new adventure for France unlike anything it has experienced before.
OLYMPIC GAMES IN A FEW FIGURES:
- Billions of television viewers worldwide
- 350,000 hours of TV broadcast
- Millions of spectators
- 35 venues
- 10,500 athletes
- 20,000 accredited journalists
- 45,000 volunteers
- +600,000 meals served at the Athletes’ Village every day
PARIS 2024 OLYMPIC GAMES KEY FIGURES:
- The XXXIII Olympiad
- 26 July to 11 August 2024
- 19 days of competition (handball, football and rugby take place from 24 July)
- 329 events
- Athletes from over 200 NOCs and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team
- 32 sports (including the 4 additional sports)
- 754 sessions (competitions and ceremonies)
10,500 athletes
2024 Summer Olympics
Emblem of the 2024 Summer Olympics Games from 26 Jul to 11 Aug 2024
The 2024 Summer Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques d'été de 2024), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (French: Jeux de la XXXIIIe Olympiade) and officially branded as Paris 2024, is an upcoming international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 26 July (the date of the opening ceremony) to 11 August 2024 in France, with some competitions starting on 24 July. Paris is the main host city, with events held at 16 other cities spread across Metropolitan France, plus one subsite in Tahiti—an island within the French overseas country and overseas collectivity of French Polynesia.
Paris was awarded the Games at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru, on 13 September 2017. After multiple withdrawals that left only Paris and Los Angeles in contention, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved a process to concurrently award the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics to the two remaining candidate cities; both of the bids were praised for high technical plans and innovative ways to use a record-breaking number of existing and temporary facilities. Having previously hosted in 1900 and 1924, Paris will become the second city ever to host the Summer Olympics three times (after London which hosted the 1908, 1948 and 2012 Games).
Paris 2024 will mark the centenary of Paris 1924 and Chamonix 1924 (which in turn marks the centenary of the Winter Olympics), will be the sixth Olympic Games hosted by France (three Summer Olympics and three Winter Olympics) and the first French Olympics since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville. The Summer Games will return to the traditional four-year Olympiad cycle, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Paris 2024 will feature the debut of breakdancing as an Olympic event and could be the final Olympic Games held during the IOC presidency of Thomas Bach. The 2024 Games are expected to cost €9 billion.
Singapore at the 2024 Summer Olympics
23 athletes will be representing Singapore at the Games from 26 Jul to 11 Aug 2024
Singapore is scheduled to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris from 26 July to 11 August 2024. It will be the nation's eighteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics since its debut at the 1948 Games.
Singapore has competed in every edition since except 1964 in Tokyo, as part of Malaysia team, and 1980 in Moscow, because of its support for the United States boycott.
On 16 April, former Olympian and sailor Tan Wearn Haw have been selected as the Chef De Mission of the Singapore delegation in Paris. In all, 23 athletes will be representing Singapore at the Games with Shanti Pereira and Ryan Lo selected as the flag bearers.
Singapore at the Olympics
Singapore's first Olympic medal was won by Tan Howe Liang, who won silver in lightweight weightlifting in 1960 Summer Olympics. The first and to date only Olympic gold medal was won by Joseph Schooling in the men's 100 metre butterfly at the 2016 Summer Olympics. In table tennis, Jing Junhong, Li Jiawei and Yu Mengyu came close to winning medals by finishing in fourth place for the women's singles events at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, 2004 Athens Olympics and 2020 Tokyo Olympics respectively.
In the 2016 Rio Olympics, Olympic swimmer Joseph Schooling won a gold medal in the Men's 100 metre butterfly in an Olympics record of 50.39 seconds, becoming the first gold Olympic medallist of Singapore. This was also the first gold medal by a Southeast Asian male swimmer and the first Olympic gold that Singapore achieved. During the 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan, Singapore sent 23 athletes to the Games but did not manage to win any medals
Singapore in the Olympics
Singapore’s past Olympic medallists
Singapore made its Olympic debut as a British colony at London 1948 with its sole representative, fireman Lloyd Valberg, who was the late grand uncle of Olympic champion Joseph Schooling. He finished joint-14th out of 27 high jumpers with a 1.8m leap.
Since then, the Republic’s athletes have competed in every edition of the Games, except in Moscow 1980 when Singapore joined a United States-led boycott.
The Straits Times looks at the medallists through the years:
- Tan Howe Liang, weightlifting (1960)
- Feng Tianwei, Li Jiawei, and Wang Yuegu, table tennis (2008, 2012)
- Feng Tianwei, table tennis (2012)
- Joseph Schooling, swimming (2016)
- Max Maeder, kitefoiling (2024)
Paralympic Games Medals
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