Olympics 2024 LIVE: Latest news as dressage star Dujardin withdraws over leaked video

LeBron James wasn’t totally sure what the opening ceremony was all about when he was picked for his first Olympics in 2004.

This time, he’ll be one of the stars of the show.

James has been picked by his fellow U.S. Olympians to serve as the male flagbearer for the Americans in Friday night’s opening ceremony for the Paris Games. He becomes the third basketball player — and the first men’s player — to carry the U.S. flag at the start of an Olympics, joining Dawn Staley for the Athens Games in 2004 and Sue Bird for the Tokyo Games that happened in 2021.

And though much of the focus will be on the sporting drama, events throughout the world will inevitably be put into the spotlight during a competition that has a long history of political protest and expression.

Matt Richards senses his time is now. The 21-year-old gives an enthusiastic nod when pointing out how nine intense days could change his life and propel him towards superstardom. He is poised to become one of British swimming’s standout performers at the Paris Olympics.

And in the week before the Games, he announced it would be his last tournament.

Charlotte Dujardin has pulled out of the Olympics due to a video that shows the dressage rider “making an error of judgement during a coaching session” four years ago, for which she is now under investigation.

Dujardin, a three-time Olympic champion and one of the stars of Team GB, was bidding to become Britain’s most decorated female Olympian at this summer’s Games in Paris.

The 39-year-old said she is “deeply ashamed” and the incident “was completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils”.

The Boston Celtics guard is fresh off winning his first NBA championship and the award of Finals MVP, but he was not picked as part of national team director Grant Hill’s original squad.

Australian Olympics chief Anna Meares has said that a convicted rapist would not be picked for the country’s Olympics team, after Steven van de Velde was named in the Netherlands’ beach volleyball squad.

Van de Velde, now aged 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to three counts of rape against a child when he was 19. He met his 12-year-old victim on Facebook, and travelled from Amsterdam to Milton Keynes, where the incident happened in 2014.

Van de Velde, who was allowed to serve his sentence in the Netherlands, was behind bars for just 12 months of the four years and then resumed his career in volleyball, competing in international tournaments since 2018 and eventually being selected for the Netherlands squad for Paris 2024 in June.

Charlotte Dujardin will take no part in the Olympics and has been provisionally suspended for six months by equestrian’s governing body with immediate effect after she was filmed “engaging in conduct contrary to the principles of horse welfare” four years ago.

The three-time Olympic champion had earlier pulled of Paris 2024 due to a video that shows the dressage rider “making an error of judgement during a coaching session”. She is alleged to have repeatedly hit the legs of a student’s horse with a whip while on the ground.

The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) has now confirmed that it has provisionally suspended Dujardin from all competition for a period of six months while it continues its investigation into the footage.

He is yet to turn 30 but Jack Laugher insists he is revelling in the role of an “old soul” as prepares to head into his fourth Olympics in Paris.

Having emerged unscathed from a tumultuous Tokyo cycle, the 2016 diving gold medallist hopes a wiser approach will pay dividends alongside his new synchro diving partner Anthony Harding, who will be competing at his first Games in the French capital.

“I feel like I give that fatherly feel to the team,” laughed Laugher, a relative veteran who made his Olympic debut in London 2012 at the age of 17, where he failed to reach the semi-final stage.