What’s coming up on Thursday?published at 22:26 31 July
Gold medal events:
Artistic gymnastics (women’s individual all-around), athletics (men’s and women’s 20km race walk), canoe slalom (men K1), fencing (women’s foil team), judo (women’s -78kg, men’s -100kg), rowing (women’s double sculls, men’s double sculls, women’s coxless four, men’s coxless four), sailing (men’s and women’s skiff), shooting (men’s 50m rifle 3 positions) and swimming (women’s 200m fly, men’s 200m back, women’s 200m breast, women’s 4x200m free relay).
Highlights
British rowers are used to heaps of gold medals – more than 30 of them in Olympic rowing. GB were the top rowing nation at Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016. Then came Tokyo and not one gold. They were 14th in the rowing medal table, which was a shock.
Team GB won women’s quadruple sculls gold on Wednesday to bring hope for a better Games in Paris. On Thursday, Helen Glover will hope to lead an impressive women’s four in the final at 10:50, while the men’s four won the world title in both 2022 and 2023. Their final is at 11:10. The space of about half an hour could play a huge role in deciding if this Olympic regatta is a GB return to form.
The rowers are not the only ones who had a Tokyo to forget. Joe Clarke did not make the team despite being the defending Olympic champion in K1 slalom canoeing. Now, he is back and will hope to be a big factor in the Paris final from 16:30.
The women’s all-around gymnastics final at 17:15 could see some remarkable history being made. If they are both healthy and nominated for this event, American duo Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee could make this the first women’s all-around final in which the past two Olympic champions have competed. Biles won in 2016, followed by Lee in 2020. If either of them wins gold, they will be the first woman to win multiple Olympic all-around titles since Vera Caslavska in 1964 and 1968.