International sports

It is usually a race for second place when Katie Ledecky is in the pool for the 1,500-meter freestyle. It’s her signature event.

PARIS – Team USA may be favored by about 30 points to beat South Sudan on Wednesday at the Olympics, but is nevertheless leery of an upset. For good reason.

PARIS – The U.S. women’s gymnastics team has recaptured here what eluded it in Tokyo: gold.

VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France – As Team USA and Japan took the floor, the most obvious thing was the most obvious thing – Team USA’s significant height advantage was potentially overwhelming. While Japan didn’t have a starter over 6 feet tall, the five Team USA starters averaged 6-foot-2. And when that felt suffocating enough, just remember that 6-foot-9 Brittney Griner comes off the bench.

PARIS – Sunisa Lee, the all-around gold medalist in women’s gymnastics at the Tokyo Olympics, woke up one morning last year and was startled by her reflection in the mirror.

PARIS - There’s pressure all over this city. It will live here for two weeks during these Olympics, at every venue and inside the thumping hearts of athletes in every medal-deciding moment. It’s inescapable, and after more than two hours on the sideline during the men’s gymnastics team final, American Stephen Nedoroscik finally had his turn under a career-defining spotlight.

PARIS - The last time Simone Biles stood on the vault runway at the Olympic Games, her body betrayed her. Since then, she has been unstoppable as she has proved, in routine after routine, that she has worked past the mental block that derailed her three years ago in Tokyo - and that she is still the world’s best gymnast.

VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France – Three weeks ago, Kevin Durant slumped by himself in the corner of UNLV’s gym with his hooded sweatshirt pulled tight over his head. The 35-year-old star had missed USA Basketball’s first training camp that day with a calf injury that hadn’t yet been disclosed to the media, and he looked frustrated in his self-imposed detention.

NANTERRE, France – As Caeleb Dressel flung himself from the starting blocks Saturday at Paris La Défense Arena, at the end of the first finals session of the Paris 2024 swim meet, Team USA was still without a gold medal.

Gold medals in Olympic men’s basketball are historically Team USA’s to lose. Marching into the Paris games with a stacked roster that features LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum, led by four-time NBA championship head coach Steve Kerr, this summer’s tournament will be no different.

Washington Post staff

Another Summer Olympics already? It’s true: Because Tokyo 2020 was delayed to 2021 by the pandemic, only three years have passed since the last Games.

According to the International Olympic Committee, “there are no countries participating in the Olympic Games.” There are “athletes from national Olympic committees.”

You know how you can tell that Team USA coach Steve Kerr is serious about the Americans getting their act together – like, together – before it's too late in their all-or-nothing pursuit of Olympic gold?

History’s most decorated gymnast sprints down the vault runway. She tumbles gracefully onto the springboard, flings herself backward onto the vault table and pops off the surface. Soaring through the air, she folds her body in half and grabs the back of her legs for two head-over-heels flips.

When the International Olympic Committee met in 1978 to pick a host for the 1984 Summer Games, it had just one candidate, Los Angeles, after the only other bidder, Tehran, dropped out during the early days of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

Amid concerns about protests, strikes, security and whatever might be floating in the Seine, the City of Light is about to strike a pose on its yearslong Olympics runway. For the next 19 days, Paris will be in front of the international lens as more than 10,000 athletes and seemingly countless fans converge on France to witness and revel in the first Summer Games held in front of crowds in eight years.

In April, Bruce Gemmell received a phone call from someone who had changed his life more than a decade ago. They text frequently, so it wasn’t strange to hear from her. But what she asked of him made him laugh.