Day Two at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has seen another round of the world's best athletes battle it out for spots on the podium resulting in numerous teams and individuals written into the history books.
The first day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games witnessed a variety of iconic moments with the French Rugby Sevens Team securing the host nation's first gold medal on an unforgettable night at the Stade de France and several other events showcasing prolonged prowess or determined debutants in the swimming, boxing, judo, and gymnastics.
With Day Two offering slightly better conditions, things heated up further with more sports, more controversies, and more flashes of brilliance as a range of athletes continued to push their nations up the medal table.
Drawing a host of A-list celebrities, 27-year-old Gymnastics icon Simone Biles dazzled in her long-awaited return to the Olympic stage on an action-packed second day of the Games.
While famed compatriots including Snoop Dog, Ariana Grande, Tom Cruise, and Greta Gerwig watched on, the four-time Olympic champion posted the highest qualifying score on the floor with a flawless performance on the beam earning a total of 59.566.
Having pulled out of several events at the Tokyo Games in 2021 for mental health reasons which she later put down to the 'twisties', Biles returned in style, even with some heavy strapping to her left ankle.
Brilliant Biles
AFP add: Simone Biles made a blockbuster return to Olympic competition on Sunday, powering through left calf pain to get her multiple-medal bid off to a rousing start.
The American, aiming to add to the four gold medals she won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, tweaked her left calf warming up for her second apparatus, the floor exercise.
It didn't stop her from soaring through her signature Yurchenko double pike vault -- now known as the Biles II -- which even with a big step back on landing earned a 9.4 for execution for a massive total of 15.800 points.
She topped the qualifying standings in all-around, vault and floor exercise, was second
on beam behind China's Zhou Yaquin and just missed out on a place in the uneven bars final.
Even when pain in her leg had Biles crawling on hands and knees toward her teammates, coach Cecile Landi said there was never any doubt that she would continue.
"Never in her mind," Landi said, adding that she was also confident that Biles would be ready to go for the team final on Tuesday and the individual events to follow.
"Pretty amazing," was Landi's assessment after Biles piled up 59.566 points in the all-around standings.
The United States, on a mission to regain team gold after settling for silver in Tokyo three years ago, topped the team standings on 172.296 points, leading Italy, China and Brazil -- who were led by a powerhouse performance from Rebeca Andrade.
Japan, Canada, Great Britain and Romania rounded out the team qualifiers.
