Britain’s runners made a blistering start to the track events in the Stade de France, building on seven medals, including three golds, claimed by Team GB on a fabulous Friday in Paris.
Those on the top podium on the seventh day of the Games included Bryony Page, who became Britain’s first Olympic trampoline champion, and the women’s lightweight double sculls and the showjumping team.
A fourth medal in the aquatics centre confirmed a best-ever haul for British divers at an Olympic Games and there were silver medals in the men’s four in the rowing and in the pool for Ben Proud in the 50m freestyle and Duncan Scott in 200m medley.
To top it all, the British golfer Tommy Fleetwood shot a 64 in the men’s competition to end the day sharing the lead with two-time major winner Xander Schauffele and Japanese star Hideki Matsuyama.
With morale high, the track and field got under way in earnest with a powerful performance by Josh Kerr, who both stormed through to the Olympic 1500m semi-final and brushed off a jibe from his Norwegian rival, Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
The 26-year-old finished fastest from the first of three heats in 3min 35.83sec to book his place in Sunday evening’s semis while dismissing a suggestion from Ingebrigtsen overnight that the Briton did not perform in enough competitions to be regarded as a real rival.
Kerr, who beat the Norwegian to the world title in 2023, confidently told reporters: “I’ve heard. I would like to be defined in my career at the end of it, [and] I think I’m just getting started.
“Hopefully that’s medals, fast times and fun battles head-to-head. Everyone can have their own opinions, I have absolutely no problems with that, and I will hopefully be able to be remembered for something slightly different than that.”
European champion Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita and Imani-Lara Lansiquot, also all made it through to Saturday’s semi-finals of the women’s 100m. Asher-Smith said: “I just wanted to get started. You know, you’re kind of just waiting and waiting and waiting. Tokyo was strange for many, many reasons.
“There are so many British fans in the crowd. It really made my heart warm. And I think it just adds this amazing energy and atmosphere that the athletes can feel. We feed off this kind of energy.”
The stellar British performance in Paris after seven days of competition is an improvement on both that of Tokyo or Rio at a similar stage, putting the team firmly on a trajectory for a record haul that could match the upper end of UK Sport’s forecast of 70 medals.
Speaking after her win on the trampoline at the Bercy Arena, Page, who overcame Lost Move Syndrome (LMS) earlier in her career, a psychological condition in which athletes find themselves unable to perform a skill that was previously automatic, offered an insight into the agonies and triumphs of top-level sport.
“I’ve just been struggling with my ankle,” said the 33-year-old. “I had to change my plan. I really wanted to go for the three triple routine which is what I did at worlds, but I had to change it to something that was more comfortable so that I can actually make it in one piece to the Olympics.
“Then yesterday I had a twinge in my neck, my ankles were sore, so I just had started to doubt myself. So I think the shock has come from the fact that I actually managed to do it.”
Page, who won a silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo, was able to add a gold to her Olympic collection by beating Belarus’s Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya, who became the first medal winner among the neutral athletes when she picked up a silver.
Page reiterated her desire to join the Cirque du Soleil as an acrobat although she suggested that she could also be tempted to make an Olympic comeback in four years’ time.
“It feels amazing,” she said. “I’m very shocked at the moment, surprised, overwhelmed, every emotion that you can think of. I’m kind of sad it’s over now.”
There was redemption for Emily Craig and Imogen Grant in the women’s lightweight double sculls after being denied a medal in Tokyo by 0.01 seconds. Craig had mounted a copy of the photo-finish on her living room wall as inspiration.
“That was part of our story and this Olympics was the grand finale,” said Grant. “Not every Olympian gets it right on the first try and it wasn’t that we did anything wrong back in Tokyo. We’ve put in so much work and we are such different and better people this time around. I think there was a certain inevitability to the racing today.”
Romania took silver, more than a second behind Team GB’s finishing time of 6min 47.06sec. Greece were third.
The British showjumping team took gold after Scott Brash, Ben Maher and Harry Charles, performing with strapped arm after suffering a fracture four weeks ago, kept the US team at bay. The hosts, France, finished in third behind the US after Julien Epaillard had one fence down in the final round. Charles, from Alton, said: “I’m pretty speechless. I need a few more hours to reflect.”
With the successful execution of the most difficult dive in the discipline, Jack Laugher, and Anthony Harding delivered a bronze medal in the men’s 3m springboard synchronised final, ensuring that Paris will go down as the most successful Games so far for the diving team.
Laugher, a four-time Olympian who already has a gold, silver and bronze medal in his collection, acknowledged the pressure he and Harding had been under after the early successes of the British diving team, including a bronze for his girlfriend Lois Toulson, in the synchronised 10m platform.
“I would never have heard the end of it if I didn’t get one and she did,” the 29-year-old said.
Kye Whyte, Britain’s silver medallist in the BMX in Tokyo, left the semi-finals on a stretcher after a nasty crash, and was taken to hospital.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian Boxing Association protested to the International Olympic Committee over its decision to allow the Algerian fighter Imane Khelif to compete at Paris 2024, ahead of her quarter-final bout with one of its boxers.
On Thursday Italy’s Angela Carini had abandoned her bout against Khelif, who failed a gender eligibility test run by the International Boxing Association (IBA) at the 2023 world championships, saying she “preferred to stop for my health” and adding: “I have never felt a punch like this.”
Chinese Taipei fighter Lin Yu-ting, a second boxer to fail a gender test run by the IBA and permitted to fight in Paris, also outpointed her opponent, Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova.
IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said the IBA’s decision had been taken “arbitrarily” and said that Khelif “was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female and has a female passport”. He added: “There has been some confusion that somehow it’s a man fighting a woman. This is just not the case scientifically.”
