PARIS: There were many contenders to be crowned stars of the 2024 Olympic Games which wraped up yesterday. AFP Sports looks at some of the best: Biles proved as popular a draw as the Eiffel Tower, the 1.42m bundle of brilliance standing tall on her return to the Olympics after the trauma of Tokyo.
In Japan she was forced to withdraw from most of the Games with a debilitating mental block known as the “twisties”. Three years on, watched by an enraptured full house at Bercy Arena including her husband, NFL player Jonathan Owens, Tom Cruise and Lady Gaga, Biles resumed the gold run she had begun at Rio 2016. The 27-year-old pipped Rebeca Andrade for the coveted all-around crown on her last tumble on the floor.
That was book-ended by titles with the US team and vault -- where she executed her Yurchenko double pike, the Biles II, her sixth eponymous skill. Stumbles on the final day as tiredness -- both mentally and physically -- set in left her with silver behind Andrade on the floor. In a mark of her class as a person she bowed to the Brazilian on the podium.
A new star was born in the Paris pool with Leon Marchand enthralling packed houses at La Defense Arena by completing a feat not seen since the days of Michael Phelps. The 22-year-old emphatically won all four of his individual races -- the 200m butterfly, 200m breaststroke and 200m-400m medley double. It thrust him into elite company as the first male swimmer to do so at a singles Games since the American legend in 2008.
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