PARIS — I hope it was better on TV.

In the midafternoon Friday, the skies were cloudy but bright enough, and the Eiffel Tower — the Olympic rings affixed to it halfway up like a gigantic refrigerator magnet — loomed over the Trocadero with the majesty that the designers of this Olympic opening ceremony certainly had hoped to amplify. The ...Read more

PARIS — The 2024 Summer Games began Friday night, with a groundbreaking opening ceremony that sent athletes sailing down the Seine River so an entire city could welcome them.

Marking the first time in modern Olympic history that the parade of nations took place outside a stadium, an estimated 320,000 people lined the riverbanks to see the ...Read more

PARIS — All around the city there was talk of bad weather and nervous glances toward a dour, gray sky.

Sure enough, the clouds let loose in torrents of rain late Friday afternoon, dousing the streets, threatening to spoil France’s big moment.

Then the show began.

A convoy of boats cruised down the Seine, one after another, carrying ...Read more

The Olympics opening ceremony had a lot going on — and viewers in the early going were confused.

Whiplashing from a techno can-can line, to a metal opera number, to sponcon for Louis Vuitton, and a loosely strung-together narrative featuring an Assassin’s Creed-like figure carrying the torch through Paris, viewers watching the televised ...Read more

Had the world not gone mad, as in dangerously loony, this might be the lighthearted Olympics column it wanted to be.

I’d probably start by making fun of the newest Summer Games sport debuting in these Paris Olympics now underway: Breakdancing. Recall that started as a street dance in Black communities around The Bronx in the 1970s and seemed ...Read more

PARIS — To the seven Olympic titles and 15 world championships won during a record-setting track career, Allyson Felix could have added one more distinction: world's fastest mom.

After daughter Camryn was delivered prematurely by emergency cesarean section in 2018, Felix returned for her fifth Games in Tokyo, winning two more sprint medals to...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The world's "heaviest wave" is born near the South Pole, where fierce storms pound the ocean's surface like angry fists, sending pulses of energy racing north, unimpeded, for thousands of miles.

That force is all but invisible until it suddenly rides up a steep, smooth ramp on the ocean floor, curls into a spectacular barrel —...Read more

PARIS — The Seine River, formerly so polluted it was illegal to swim in it, will be the centerpiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, when 10,000 athletes from 206 countries float to the Trocadero in a 4-mile boat parade. If any city can pull off such a spectacle, it is Paris.

If any city can save the Olympics, it is Paris. ...Read more

PARIS — The new sport for the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, which open Friday here and continue for 17 days, is breaking.

It is more commonly known as break dancing, but the dancing part has been removed, presumably, to deflect criticism and encourage its acceptance as a worthy athletic competition. It also fits the Paris Games in more ...Read more

NICE, France — The Emma Hayes era officially got under way Thursday, with the U.S. beating Zambia, 3-0, on the opening day of the women's soccer tournament at the Paris Olympics in a game that was far more one-sided than the final score.

Playing on the French Rivera in steamy Nice, wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and the French Alps, the...Read more

PARIS — Soldiers patrol along the Seine River, dressed in camouflage and blue berets, big rifles slung over their shoulders. The Police Nationale stand guard at checkpoints, turning away people who want to stroll at the water’s edge.

A four-mile stretch of this iconic river, in the heart of the city, is on lockdown.

The 2024 Paris Olympics...Read more

PARIS — The first half of the trick — a kickflip up to the rail, a lipslide down — went great. The second part, not so much.

Nyjah Huston landed too hard, tumbling off his skateboard and skidding across the pavement. Looking toward the sky, he screamed: "Dammit!"

The Southern California skater had arrived at the Tokyo Olympics as an icon...Read more

PARIS — The first gold medals have been awarded during the 2024 Summer Olympics — for an event that took place in the Winter Games more than two years ago.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an appeal Thursday involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who tested positive for a banned substance at a national competition ...Read more

It's an exercise that most elementary school kids go through at some point.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Karlie Kisha's version came in the form of a fourth-grade vision board. Students were to cut out images from magazines and map out their future. Kisha included the Olympic rings on hers. Swimming and soccer were how she planned ...Read more

MARSEILLE, France — The Paris Olympics don’t officially open until Friday. The games, however, already have begun.

That’s not necessarily a good thing for the U.S. men’s soccer team, which returned to the Summer Olympics on Wednesday after a 16-year absence and lost to France, 3-0, before a packed house at the Orange Velodrome.

The ...Read more

LeBron James is set to compete in his fourth Olympics.

Like the previous three times, the Lakers superstar will participate in the opening ceremony.

But for the official start of the Paris Games on Friday night, James will have a role that neither he nor anyone else who has played for the U.S. men's basketball team has held before.

James and ...Read more

Alexis Holmes enjoys watching the video of Team USA’s win in the mixed 4×400-meter relay at last year’s World Championships in Hungary.

Holmes, from Hamden, Conn., was the anchor leg. Nobody expected her to beat Femke Bol, the anchor leg for the Netherlands who is one of the top sprinters in the world.

The announcers kept talking about ...Read more