My thoughts on the 2024 Paris Olympics

Greetings, I am 15-year-old Garrett Zhou, a Durham Academy High School student. I enjoy studying, exercising, playing soccer, and maintaining discipline in general. My history with soccer is fairly straightforward: I began playing when I was 7 years old, and at the age of 12, I was chosen for the ECNL regional Carolinas team as the top player in the state. I was selected to travel with 20 players from my club, NCFC, to play against NY Red Bulls Academy, PDA Academy, and NYFC Academy that summer. I'm currently with the second-ranked NCFC 09 ECNL club.

The 2024 Paris Games were filled with both highlights and lowlights. From the alleged transgender boxer from Algeria to USA Women's Basketball winning their 5th consecutive Olympic championship, there's so much to discuss and unpack. Let's do just that.

To be completely honest, I didn't watch too much of the Summer Olympics this time. Most of the major sports are not fully in for the Olympics, such as soccer, tennis, and American Football not even being in the Olympics. 

Men's soccer national teams send their U-23 team with 3 players allowed to be older than 23. Argentina again is causing the drama by losing their opening group stage match against Morocco. With Morocco leading 2-1 in the 116th minute, Argentina equalized through a header. However, the Morocco fans were not happy with the decision and stormed the field, causing the match to be suspended. However, once the match was restarted, in the 119th minute Argentina's equalizer was determined to be offside. Lionel Messi himself commented on Instagram "Insolito", meaning outrageous. Argentina was not done causing drama, however, as in their quarter-final matchup against France, there would be chaos on the field after France had won 1-0. 

In Women's soccer, world champions Spain were the favorites to win, but looked very fragile in the back and lost in the semi-final to Brazil 4-2. They ended up losing the third-place match as well to Germany 1-0. The final was the US vs Brazil. The redemption Olympics vs Marta's final Games. The former ended up winning 1-0 in the final, marking a 5th Olympic gold for the USWNT. 

Tennis was more committed than soccer, but still, many top players opted out of the Summer Games because of the disruption it provided to their seasons. Still, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic both played, with a big highlight being the matches where Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal played doubles together. However, the Men's Singles Final was a rematch of the Wimbledon Final between Novak and Carlos. This time, it was the Djoker's moment, winning Olympic Gold for Serbia 7-6, 7-6. 

In women's singles, early favorite Coco Gauff crashed out against Donna Vekic, and that left a wide-open field for the rest of the competition. In the end, Chinese tennis player Qinwen Zheng served up a HUGE upset of the absolute world #1 Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals. Iga still ended up winning bronze for Poland. In the finals, Qinwen Zheng faced off against Donna Vekic, and it ended up being the former's day as she brought home gold for China. 

In Men's Basketball, the team to beat from early on was the US, and South Sudan did almost just that, losing to a Lebron game-winning layup 101-100. From there on, the US looked a bit shaky but at the same time in the driver's seat. Steve Kerr stirred up some controversy by not giving Celtics star Jayson Tatum a single minute in many matches. France and Serbia looked challenging, but the US got the job done against both and took home gold.

In Women's basketball, the controversy started before the games even started when Caitlin Clark wasn't selected for the US Women's team. Still, the team continued their win streak since 1992 and took home gold in a very tight final against France. 

There were so many other monumental events that deserve a spot here, but unfortunately, that would be a book-long post and you know I don't do those.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!