EVENT ENDED

2024 Paris Olympics: Americans go 1-2 in 100 butterfly; USA men's basketball drubs Serbia; USA women's soccer dominates Germany

The Paris Games are underway. You can stream every moment on Peacock.

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What to know

  • Follow live coverage here
  • Stream every moment and every medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Peacock. Read more NBC News coverage of the Games and the athletes competing in Paris. Follow all the action and track upcoming calendar events before they happen so you'll never miss a beat.
  • Women's gymnastics team qualifications took place early today. The U.S., helmed by Simone Biles, qualified first as a team and has finalists in all-around and individual events.
  • Team USA’s Haley Batten clinched silver in women’s mountain biking after narrowly winning an epic battle with Sweden’s Jenny Rissveds for second place. Elsewhere, tennis star Coco Gauff won the first match of her Olympic debut in straight sets, beating Australia's Ajla Tomljanović without ceding a single game.
  • USA men's basketball began its gold medal defense with a win, defeating Serbia 110-84 in its group play opener. Kevin Durant and LeBron James led the way for the U.S., scoring 21 and 23 points, respectively.
  • Team USA's Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh took gold and silver, respectively, in the women's 100-meter butterfly.
  • Nic Fink, the sole American in the field for the men's 100-meter breaststroke, tied for silver with Great Britain's Adam Peaty.
36w ago / 11:01 PM EDT

What to expect tomorrow

NBC News

NBC’s prime-time broadcast of Day 2 of the Paris Games has concluded.

Here are some of the medal events happening tomorrow:

Shooting — 10-meter air rifle women’s and men’s final — 9:30 a.m. Paris/3:30 a.m. ET and 12 p.m. Paris/6 a.m. ET, respectively

Diving — Men’s synchronized 10-meter platform final — 11 a.m. Paris/5 a.m. ET

Equestrian — Eventing team jumping final and eventing individual jumping final — 11 a.m. Paris/5 a.m. ET and 3 p.m. Paris/9 a.m. ET, respectively

Cycling — Men’s cross-country mountain biking — 2 p.m. Paris/ 8:10 a.m. ET

36w ago / 10:57 PM EDT

Women have brought home the most medals for Team USA

Gold medalist Torri Huske and silver medalist Gretchen Walsh of the U.S. after the swimming medal ceremony for the women’s 100-meter butterfly final Sunday.Sarah Stier / Getty Images

Team USA's women have won nine of the 12 medals Americans have collected in Paris so far.

That includes two of the U.S.' three gold medals — one earned by Lee Kiefer in women's individual foil fencing and one achieved by Torri Huske in the 100-meter butterfly.

Huske was also part of the 4x100-meter freestyle team, winning silver alongside teammates Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh and Simone Manuel.

Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook won silver in the women’s 3-meter synchronized springboard event, securing Team USA's first medal of the Games.

Japan and Australia are tied with four gold medals each, but the Americans thus far have the most medals overall.

36w ago / 10:23 PM EDT

Highlights: USA men's basketball begins gold medal defense with dominant win over Serbia

The U.S. men’s basketball team’s gold medal defense tipped off in earnest today, with a 110-84 win vs. Serbia to open group play.

Kevin Durant led the way for the U.S., scoring 23 points on 8-of-9 shooting. Durant, who missed all of exhibition play leading up to Paris, looked dominant coming off the bench.

LeBron James, playing in the Olympics for the first time since 2012, recorded 21 points, eight rebounds and nine assists, picking up where he left off in London 12 years ago.

Read the full story here.

36w ago / 10:06 PM EDT

Highlights: U.S. women’s soccer team leads group after 4-1 victory over Germany

The U.S. women’s soccer team pulled out to lead its group at the Olympics today with a 4-1 win against Germany, allowing a decent cushion as it heads into its next game against Australia later this week. 

Going into their game against Germany, the American women were tied for first, but their gap in the standings this morning was quickly closed after Australia scored six goals against Zambia in the afternoon. 

But the Americans played beautifully under pressure, forcing Germany’s defense to spend the majority of the game in its own box as they kept possession of the ball. Sophia Smith, who made her World Cup debut only last year, scored two goals and showed pure offensive drive. 

Read the full story here.

36w ago / 9:44 PM EDT

At Olympic swimming heat, ‘Bob the Cap Catcher’ saves the day

The crowd whistled and cheered as he walked past the towering athletes on the pool deck at Paris’ La Defense Arena.

In a floral Speedo, there he was, not an Olympian but still a hero: “Bob the Cap Catcher.”

The world has become fixated after the Speedo-clad mystery man saved the day when the one of the women’s 100-meter breaststroke heats faced a hiccup.

The race’s starter called for the swimmers to step down from their diving platform, spotting an obstacle in the pool: one of U.S. swimmer Emma Weber’s caps.

Read the full story here.

36w ago / 9:05 PM EDT

French President Macron calls Léon Marchand after swimming gold medal

Nick Zaccardi

At a news conference following French swimmer Léon Marchand's 400-meter individual medley gold medal win, Marchand said French President Emmanuel Macron called to congratulate him.

"That was the first time for me. He called me. He told me that he was watching the final with his whole family," Marchand said. "Everyone was kind of, like, screaming on the phone. It was kind of funny. I was very grateful for that phone call.”

The medal ceremony then became extraordinary, he said, because the glow from speaking to his country's president was still warm.

“I had goosebumps on the podium," Marchand said. "I felt really proud to be myself and to be also French tonight.”

36w ago / 8:37 PM EDT

Highlights: Marchand wins Olympic gold and the admiration of France as Huske and Walsh go 1-2

Reporting from Nanterre, France

French swimmer Léon Marchand electrified a partisan crowd today with an Olympic record time in the 400-meter individual medley before American Torri Huske and Italian Nicolo Martinenghi also won their first gold medals.

A capacity crowd filled Paris La Défense Arena, with thousands of fans decked out in bleu, blanc et rouge in hope of crowning a new national hero. Marchand did not disappoint.

His time of 4:02.95 broke the Olympic record of all-time great Michael Phelps and fell just short of the world record held by Marchand himself.

“I think it’s a dream for every one of us,” he told NBC, wearing the gold around his neck. “I got the chance to do it today. That was amazing. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Read the full story here.

36w ago / 8:12 PM EDT

Kiefer and Scruggs take Olympic gold and silver in all-American foil fencing final

Reporting from Paris
Lauren Scruggs and Lee Kiefer of the U.S. during the women's foil individual gold medal bout Sunday in Paris.Al Bello / Getty Images

PARIS — Two American women squared up for a sword fight in the palace at dusk. Both emerged with Olympic medals.

This, the Grand Palais in the center of the French capital, was the stage for the women’s foil fencing match-up between Lee Kiefer, 30, and Lauren Scruggs, 21, the first all-American fencing final since Beijing 2008.

Kiefer — the defending champion and pre-tournament favorite — won 15-6 to retain the gold medal.

“There’s a million different obstacles that happened to make it to this point,” she told reporters afterward. “So getting through all these things that you can’t even predict is just freaking cool and fun.”

36w ago / 7:52 PM EDT

Convicted Dutch rapist booed on Olympics beach volleyball debut

Reuters
Reporting from Paris

There were boos and mixed feelings among the crowd as Netherlands beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, a convicted rapist, made his Paris 2024 debut today.

His team, however, was unapologetic about van de Velde's taking part in the Olympics, saying that “the past is in the past” and that the matter should not be brought up at the Games.

Van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison in Britain in 2016 following the rape of a 12-year-old girl two years earlier when he was 19.

He spent 13 months in prison — one year in Britain and one month in the Netherlands — before being freed there after what he did was reclassified under Dutch law as a lesser offense of “committing indecent acts” and his sentence was reduced.

36w ago / 7:38 PM EDT

Surfing's second day of competition runs in conditions that challenge some riders

Olympics surfing organizers called the day of competition "on" this morning, setting the stage for Round 2 and its two-person heats that resulted in advancement or elimination.

After yesterday's fairly clean, mostly overhead waves, today's version of Teahupo'o served up unpredictable waves that sometimes lost their signature barrels and folded as winds shifted and sometimes hit waves sideways and foiled the break's organized power.

The softer, weirder, head-high waves, however, may not have given less-recognizable names any advantage, because favored names in surfing advanced.

Candelaria Resano of Nicaragua rides a wave in the second round of women's surfing at the Paris Games in Teahupo'o, French Polynesia, on Sunday.Ben Thouard / Getty Images

Some of the surfers who advanced to Round 3 were Brazil's Tatiana Weston-Webb, who still managed to find a juicy barrel; France's Johanne Defay, who dispatched Australia's Molly Picklum as she enlisted deft takeoffs and deep tube rides; and Japan's Matsuda Shino, who used her goofy foot stance to face the wave and step into voluminous barrels against Portugal’s Teresa Bonvalot.

China's Yang Siqi wisely ripped as if this wasn't big, cavernous Teahupo'o, hitting the lip, a rare move at the break, and free-falling successfully to the bottom. Peru's Sol Aguirre was on the same page, switching to a small-wave shredder of a board mid-heat, but it wasn't enough to overcome Siqi.

Saffi Vette of New Zealand jumps off the back of the wave in the sixth heat of women's surfing Round 2 on Sunday at the Paris Olympic Games in Teahupo'o, French Polynesia. Ben Thouard / Getty Images