Paris 2024 final day of Olympics: women’s marathon, cycling finals and more – live | Paris Olympic Games 2024

The USWNT won four gold medals from the first five editions of women’s football at the Olympics. They won silver in the other. But since that final gold in 2012, the dominant side in international football has been on a long slow decline.

Englishwoman Emma Hayes was recruited from Chelsea to steer the juggernaut back on course, and she has made an immediate impact, making some brave decisions en route to a gold medal in her first major tournament.

And so 10 games was all it took for Hayes to leave her mark. Yet while this still feels like preamble, this was a title she badly needed. Defeat would have set her on the back foot from the start, raised legitimate ­questions about her suffer-ball style, about Rose Lavelle not getting a minute in the final, about Crystal Dunn at left-back, about the whole “program”. Instead she now has credit in the bank, ­buy-in from players and public.

Since debuting in Tokyo, sport climbing has been a roaring success. The tweak to the program in Paris to separate the speedsters from the boulder & lead technicians worked superbly, allowing a wider range of competitors to shine.

The emotions on display during the lead final made for engrossing television.

It was a thrilling end to a brilliant final day of climbing, which has continued to establish itself as an excellent addition to the Games. Rock climbing is, after all, a basic concept – either you climb high or you fall. While the specifics of the scoring system are complicated, the struggles of certain competitors provide context for how difficult certain holds and routes are. The sight of the exceptional climbers on each event outstripping their opponents and breaking new ground is tense and thrilling.

The men’s basketball tournament at the Olympics is less a competition for gold than a five-ringed banana skin for the USA and it’s NBA superstars to slip on. They looked set for a pratfall more than once in Paris but rallied superbly against Serbia and kept France at arm’s length despite the brilliance of rising star Victor Wembanyama.

It is the USA’s fifth gold in a row in the sport and 17th out of a possible 21 since 1936.

In the end the USA just had too many weapons, too many sharp edges to call on. As Cuba’s coach famously said in 1992, after trying and failing to stifle the first Dream Team: “You can try, but you can’t cover the sun with your finger.”

Let’s begin our look back at yesterday’s action by saluting Faith Kipyegon. The 30-year-old Kenyan won the women’s 1500m gold medal for the third consecutive Olympics. It was her second podium finish of the Paris Games after running to silver in the 5,000m.

She is the world record holder over 1500m and the mile, and broke the 5,000m record last year but that has since been eclipsed. On top of all that she is mother to a six-year old.

She is now one of only 14 track and field athletes to win the same individual event at least three times in a row – and one of two (the other being Usain Bolt) – to do so in a pure track event.

Phenomenal.

This final day of action of the Games of the 33rd olympiad is much shorter than the rest to allow time for all activity to be wrapped up in advance of the closing ceremony (9pm local time). It’s all killer no filler though, with every event offering medals of some description.

It all kicks-off at 08:00 with the women’s marathon. An hour later Spain take on Slovenia for a bronze medal in the men’s handball, while Spain and Greece meet to determine fifth place in the men’s water polo. At 10:35 the USA and Hungary will battle for men’s water polo bronze.

The bulk of the day’s activity comes online from 11:00 with the final activity before the closing ceremony featuring France v USA in the women’s basketball gold medal match. That tips off at 15:30.

My pick of yesterday’s snaps: the perfectly framed table tennis action shot.

More on medal tables and assessing who’s done well and why in this detailed explainer. I confess to not being mathematically literate enough to fully get all of this, but it does seem to stand to reason that Australia have massively punched above their weight at these Games.

China have once again snuck ahead of the USA in the ding-dong battle at the top of the medal table. The US’s final day looks promising though, so they could well end up in pole position for the fourth Games in a row.

Australia and Japan are locked in a tight battle for third, while France are set for their best result since 1948.

63 NOCs have heard their respective anthems over the past fortnight, with athletes from 91 NOCs receiving medals.

Preamble – Day 16 Schedule