We’re closer to the end of the Olympics than the beginning.
The so-called glamour events — gymnastics, swimming, track and field — are mostly over. We’ve already seen most of the athletes who are identifiable by one name: Biles, Ledecky, Lyles, Marchand. There’s still some suspense over basketball and soccer and the remaining track finals, including Thursday’s men’s 200 meters, but this is a good time to zoom out and take stock.
So that’s just what we’re going to do.
Here are the biggest winners of the Olympics so far:
Noah Lyles
Here’s a smattering of things Lyles said publicly in the past year:
“I watch the NBA Finals and they have ‘world champion’ on their head. World champion of what? The United States? … We [track and field] are the world. … There ain’t no flags in the NBA.”
“I’m a true believer that the moment isn’t bigger than me. The moment was made for me.”
“Everybody has their own vibe. I’m a showman.”
And, after failing to win his 100-meter heat in Paris, Lyles told NBC: “I think I’m more excited now that I didn’t win that heat. I’m pretty scared for everybody else right now.”
All this to say, the difference between Lyles becoming an American Olympic legend and one of its all-time laughingstocks came down to five-thousandths of a second.
That’s the margin by which Lyles ultimately won the 100-meter final in what was irrefutably the best moment of the Olympic Games — a photo finish in its biggest single event. Lyles still has to run the 200-meter final on Thursday, but that’s the event in which he’s a massive favorite and it’s slightly lower-profile than the 100.
It’s been a long time since the U.S. had a 100-meter winner — 20 years on the men’s side, and that was Justin Gatlin, whose later PED suspension made his win in Athens hard to celebrate. If Lyles wins the 200, as he’s expected to do, he’ll be the first American man to complete the double since Carl Lewis in 1984.
Lyles not only could put himself in that company, but he’s established himself as a brand name who can back up everything that comes out of his mouth.
Léon Marchand
It’s rare that a non-American athlete becomes must-watch television at the Olympics. The list, over the past 20 or so years, pretty much started and ended with Usain Bolt, at least until Marchand entered the scene.
The native of Toulouse, who swam at Arizona State in college, won gold in all four of his individual events in front of a delirious home crowd. Even on TV, the scene was astonishing — the crowd timing its chants to Marchand’s head bobbing out of the water on the breaststroke was something that will stay with people from these Games.
Marchand going for two golds in a day in the 200-meter butterfly and 200-meter breaststroke — chasing down Hungary’s Kristóf Milák in the final 50 meters to seal the butterfly — produced some of the best drama and best TV of the Games as Michael Phelps cheered him on.
(On a related note, U.S. men’s swimming was one of the major losers of the Games, with Phelps saying he was “pretty disappointed” at the results, which included just one individual gold.)
Even as the United States produced some moments on the women’s side and in the swim relays, finishing with the most gold medals at the meet after trailing for nearly the entire duration, it was Marchand who provided the best entertainment.
Simone Biles
Speaking of Phelps, the greatest swimmer of all time feels like an apt comparison for Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time.
Biles has carried the baton for the American Olympic team since 2016 in the same way Phelps did in Beijing and London. Even in her third Olympic Games, even after Tokyo went off the rails for her three years ago, every event in which Biles competed felt must-watch. And the redemptive arc that could have been pre-written by ChatGPT came true with Biles taking three golds and a silver medal.
Biles even turned the silver — which was a disappointment in the floor event, where she was supposed to win a fourth gold — into a triumph as she and Jordan Chiles bowed down to Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade in the sort of display of sportsmanship that fulfills every Olympic cliché.
At 27, it’s probably (but not definitely) Biles’ last Olympic go-round. She made it count.
Paris
The IOC has made a habit out of holding the Olympics in far-off countries, a couple of which have authoritarian governments, for the past decade.
Since London 2012, the Games have gone to Sochi, Rio de Janeiro, Pyeongchang, Tokyo and Beijing. If you want to know why the Olympics haven’t drawn quite as much of an American audience, start there. (Quick — what’s a tourist attraction in Pyeongchang? Do you know anyone who’s visited? Now answer the same questions about Paris.)
It’s difficult to follow the Olympics in a time zone that’s 10-12 hours different from the East Coast. It doesn’t feel good to read story after story about the Zika virus or athletes being stuck in China if they test positive for COVID. The pandemic — and subsequent lack of crowds — didn’t help either.
Paris’ time zone works perfectly for a U.S. audience, letting people wake up and watch the Olympics all day. In an era where streaming and social media make tape delay a hard proposition, a European time zone makes it so NBC can cover the Olympics both as a live event and in prime time with tape delay, giving it the best of both.
Having recognizable landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower be a part of the Games makes it feel bigger and a little more relatable. So does having American celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and Flavor Flav be characters around the Games, which, let’s face it, is directly correlated to the Olympics being in Paris as opposed to a less appealing destination.
Paris hasn’t been perfect — using the Seine for the triathlon, for example, looks like a failed gamble, and residents of the city have rightful complaints about the security level that came with integrating so many temporary venues with tourist attractions. But compared to the hosts we’ve gotten for the last decade, it’s lapping the field.
NBC
Everything in the above blurb, of course, serves to help NBC, which has seen its best Olympics ratings in a pretty long time, in part as a result of the Games being in Paris.
But NBC has also done the right thing with these Olympics, and deserves credit there.
Mike Tirico has come into his own as a studio host, and the addition of Phelps to the coverage was just as much of a home run as it looked on paper.
Gold Zone has been fantastic day-in and day-out — and gave people who weren’t diehard fans of the Premier League or “The Office” a reason to subscribe to Peacock.
Being less committed to tape delay, while keeping the prime time show that gives casual fans a way into the Olympics, was unequivocally the right call.
If we have one nitpick, it’s that it should be easier to go online and see what each day’s schedule is, what’s live at a given moment and what the scores are at every live event. That’s always been a problem with the Olympics because there’s so much going on that it’s hard to lay it all out in one place. But as the rights holder, it’s something NBC take the lead on tackling for 2026.
Kristen Faulkner
Inevitably, there are 50 different stories from the Olympics that deserve more coverage than they get. Faulkner’s, though, might lead the field.
A 31-year-old who grew up in Homer, Alaska, Faulkner picked up cycling as a hobby after moving to New York in 2017. She eventually quit her job as a venture capitalist, turned pro and — after getting hit by a car and breaking her shin bone last year — made the Olympics.
Already having qualified for the cycling team pursuit, she got a spot in the women’s road race after Taylor Knibb resigned to focus on the time trial and triathlon.
Then Faulkner went and won gold in the road race by nearly a full minute, becoming the first American woman to do so since 1984.
On Wednesday, she helped the U.S. to gold in the team pursuit, joining a very short list of athletes ever to win gold in what’s technically two different sports (“road cycling” and “track cycling”) at one Olympics.
It’s the sort of story that should be turned into a movie, the kind that would be laughed out of a room as unbelievable and cliché if you pitched it. There might not be a better one that’s played out in Paris.
Today’s back page
Are you ready for some football?
Does a fiery pair of joint practices translate to actual juice for the preseason opener between the Giants and Lions on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, Fox)?
Errr, probably not.
History tells us “juice” and “preseason” are two words that almost never should be used in a sentence together. It’s also worth noting that the practice fights generally involved players whose spots on their respective depth charts are sealed — in other words, not the guys who will be on the field in, say, the third quarter of a preseason game.
The preseason opener is a good milestone to reach. It means real football is close.
But the general rule is the same as training camp: It’s exciting until the moment it actually starts. Then you start getting antsy for the regular season.
A most welcome return
The news from Port St. Lucie appeared to be all positive for Starling Marte on Wednesday. He didn’t play the field, but hit three times as a DH, going 1-for-3 and adding a stolen base.
The Mets lately appear to have found some equilibrium between their awful start to the season and their Grimace-fueled resurgence, but they’ll need to trend more toward the latter to make the playoffs, let alone to do something once there.
Particularly in the midst of a long road trip that has produced an underwhelming 3-3 record after Wednesday’s nail-biting 5-3 win over the Rockies, the possibility of getting Marte back soon should be enticing for this lineup.
Though Marte struggled in 2023, he was in the midst of a bounce-back campaign with a 113 OPS+ before getting hurt.
After a trade deadline when Jesse Winker was the only lineup addition, Marte would fulfill the prototypical saying that the best deadline acquisition is the player returning from injury.
Prospect of the day
Zach Messinger continued to roll on the mound. The Yankees right-hander tossed seven scoreless frames on Wednesday, striking out four for Double-A Somerset.
Messinger, who also threw seven innings in his last start, has not gone fewer than five frames since June 21. His ERA now sits at 3.40, the lowest it’s been since his first start of the year.
— Andrew Battifarano
What we’re reading 👀
⚾ “The Yankees look like the Yankees again,” declares The Post’s Mike Vaccaro, after a soggy doubleheader split in The Bronx that left them atop the American League standings. Two things to watch: The Yankees pushed back Marcus Stroman “to work through some things,” and what about a Juan Soto-Aaron Judge lineup flip?
🏈 Xavier Gipson isn’t a Jets roster long shot anymore. In Year 2, he’s trying to establish himself as a starting-caliber slot receiver.
🏀 Kevin Durant, whom Jim Boeheim calls the best international player ever, and Team USA face Nikola Jokic’s Serbia in Thursday’s Olympics semifinals (3 p.m. ET, USA Network).
🏀 The Las Vegas Aces, um, Team USA women reached the semis, too.
⚾ Little League drama! Staten Island walked it off to set up a rematch with Morristown, N.J., with a World Series spot on the line.
🥇 Quincy Hall is a legend for this 400-meter comeback.
⛸ They handed out figure skating gold at the Summer Olympics. Yes, you read that right.
🎾 Rafael Nadal won’t play the U.S. Open. No vamos.
