The most impressive performances at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris

Jake Yono

8/11/24 

JY Journalism

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were truly remarkable, with 39 terrific sports all being played at the highest level in some of the greatest venues in the historic city of Paris. In this article, I will discuss the most impressive performances of the games and the individuals in their disciplines, showcasing their path to glory in Paris. I am not just going to focus on the top athletes but on what I believe were the most impressive performances at the games.

The first individual I will be discussing is the most outstanding athlete at the games, French swimmer Leon Marchand. In his first Olympic Games, he put on a show for his home nation's fans, winning four gold medals in the 200m breaststroke, the 400m medley, the 200m medley, and the 200m butterfly, where the French faithful cheered every single time he surfaced from the pool. His four golds at his first Olympic Games put him in the same category as great American swimmers Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps, as he is coached by the same coach as these two legends of the sport. As Leon is just getting his career started on the world swimming circuit, he is shaping himself into a true icon of the sport.

Staying in the pool, the next outstanding performance goes to 17-year-old Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh. Unlike Leon Marchand, this was not her first Olympic Games, as she competed in the Tokyo 2020 Games at just 14 years of age, making her the youngest member of Team Canada. Swimming in the 400m, 800m, 200m, and 4x200m relay, she helped her team finish 4th. She is truly the next generation of swimming, and at just 17 in Paris, she took three golds in the 200m butterfly, the individual medley, and the 400m medley, as well as a silver in the 400m freestyle. Summer is currently a three-time Olympic champion, six-time world champion, and the world record holder in the 400m IM. McIntosh is truly a staple for the next generation of swimmers both inside and outside of the pool, as she has many sponsors on her website and is very active on Instagram, which has led many companies to invest in her, such as the action sports company Red Bull, Lululemon, Tag Heuer, and Air Canada. Summer is taking professional swimming by storm, and it's going to take a lot of firepower to catch her.

Now, let's turn to the United States of America, where we find road and track cyclists Kristen Faulkner and Jennifer Valente. Coming into the games, Team USA cycling, both road and track, had been at a low point, snapping a drought dating back to the 1984 L.A. games. These two women both won two golds: Kristen won the 98-mile road race through the streets of Paris, and Jennifer took home gold in the track Omnium event. For their second gold medal, both of these women helped the pursuit team on the track bring another gold to the US. On the track for Team USA, Gabby Thomas impressed with three gold medals in the 4x100m, 4x200m, and 200m dash, meaning that in all three of her events, she won gold—a massive improvement from Tokyo, where she only took silver in the 4x100m and bronze in the 200m.

Leaving the track, we go to Sweden, where another world record in the pole vault was broken by Mondo Duplantis, the reigning gold medalist from Tokyo 2020 and two-time world champion. Just to put this in perspective, out of the top 40 pole vaults of all time, Mondo is listed 21 times on the list. His final attempt in Paris at 6.25m broke his world record, leading him to his second consecutive gold medal. The Netherlands produced track and road marathon stars Femke Bol and Sifan Hassan. Femke anchored the mixed 4x400m relay and kicked hard at the end with her strong short-strided legs, making it look like she was barely making an effort. She took bronze in the 400m hurdles and anchored her team to silver in the 4x400m with Team USA almost running a world record, a massive improvement compared to Tokyo in 2021, where she only took bronze in the 400m hurdles. Femke Bol is more of a short-distance runner, while another woman from the Netherlands, Sifan Hassan, is a true distance runner. Unlike the other athletes I mentioned, the 31-year-old competed in Rio in 2016 in the 1500m, where she finished 5th. Then she came back to Tokyo and took gold in the 5000m and 10000m and bronze in the 1500m. This performance alone would make it onto my list, as doing six long races, including prelims and semis, in two weeks and medaling in all of them is truly amazing. In this Olympiad, Sifan gave up the 1500m and switched to the marathon while still competing in the 5000m and 10000m. She won the marathon on the last day of competition and still managed to win two bronzes in the 5k and 10k, making her an absolute machine in the women's track and road racing world.

In male cycling, the two best athletes were Remco Evenepoel of Belgium and Harrie Lavreysen of the Netherlands. First, Remco dominated the road circuit, winning gold in the road race, which lasted 170 miles, and the time trial, which was 20 miles long, making him the most decorated road cyclist at the games. On the cycling track, Harrie Lavreysen won three golds in all three of his events—the Keirin, the individual sprint, and the team sprint—making him by far the most awarded track cyclist at the games. Next, let's turn to Greco-Roman wrestling, where one man has been dominating the 130kg division for four straight Olympic Games with four gold medals—Mijain Lopez Nunez from Cuba. With his gold medal finish in his final match and his retirement this year, Mijain was selected to be an Olympic committee flag bearer for the closing ceremony. I had to include him in this article, as he is the only Olympic athlete of all time to have five gold medals in the same event.

In the surfing competition, I would like to highlight Caroline Marks of Team USA. In her first Olympics, she took home gold by only 0.17 of a point in the gold medal match. In the second edition of surfing at the games, Caroline represented Team USA in style in her first games at 22 years of age. She is active on YouTube and Instagram, and her main flagship partner is Red Bull Extreme Sports, which supports her through her surfing journey. Surfing is a sport that should stay in the Olympic Games, as it takes skill, bravery, and the ability to read the wave in competition. The last impressive athlete I'm focusing on is Yusuf Dikec, the Turkish air pistol shooter who competed in the mixed-team event and went viral for using no equipment and keeping his hand in his pocket. Some background info on him: he is a retired soldier and police officer in Turkey, and this is his fifth Olympic Games, dating back to Beijing in 2008. He helped his team win back-to-back world cups in the 10m air pistol team events. So to all the fans who have misconceptions about him, Yusuf was not called out of the army; he has been a pro shooter for his nation for over 20 years.

Wrapping up this article, I chose the most impressive performances to talk about in-depth. Now I will explain some more of the best performances. In women's gymnastics, Suni Lee from the US took bronze in the all-around and uneven bars, while Simone Biles won gold on the floor. Both of these women, along with Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera, contributed to team gold. In track, Team USA's men's and women's 4x400m relay teams both won gold, but in the 4x100m, the men fell short due to handoff mishaps. In the women's race, the handoff between Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry was very shaky, but the anchor, Sha'Carri Richardson, came back and won gold for the US. The queen of the 400m hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin, showed out again with no competition in her event, which led to another world record of her own. Like Mondo, out of the top 35 marks of all time, Sydney holds 13 of them, including the world record set in the final. On the men’s distance side, Cole Hocker beat the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen with his kick down the home stretch for gold. In the 5000m and 10000m races, Grant Fisher qualified at the trials in June, and in the Olympics, he came from behind to take bronze in both of these races, leaving a huge mark on world distance running for the United States.

In swimming, Katie Ledecky and Kate Dougan continued their dominance, winning a combined eight medals and contributing to the 19 that the women’s swimming team won for the US. Australia challenged them the whole way with their trash talk and execution to back it all up, as they had the second-most swimming medals in the competition with 18 compared to the US's 28. I would like to shout out the USA women’s soccer team for winning gold, led by Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and captain Lindsey Horan, for their fifth gold medal and seventh in the seven editions of women’s soccer at the Olympics. In Rugby Sevens, the USA women beat Australia to take home bronze for their first Olympic medal, led by Ilona Maher, marking a big moment for American rugby. Last but not least, of the four new sports I wrote about in my preview article, breaking was by far my favorite one. Three rounds of dancing on and off between competitors, scored by judges with music they did not know beforehand, is what they must dance to. Unlike gymnastics, where gymnasts get to choose the music they do their routine to, most breakers do come from a gymnastics background. Starting in the Bronx, NY, in the '70s, the nicknames B-Boy and B-Girl have stuck up to the games in their debut. Canada’s 27-year-old B-Boy Phil Wizard and Japan's 25-year-old B-Girl Ami took home the first golds at the inaugural event. Breaking was quite interesting to all fans, even to me, but I love it. Wrapping up the Olympics, all of the athletes across the 39 sports have something to be proud of, as they are truly the best athletes in the world. Today I showcased some of them in their truly outstanding performances against world-class competition. Thanks for checking this one out.