The Paris Olympics' first medals handed out as Summer Games kick into high gear

The first Olympic events started roughly 48 hours before the opening ceremony, and now, just mere hours afterward, medals are about to handed out.

Soccer and rugby began on Wednesday, while handball and archery started their competitions on Thursday; Friday marked the start of shooting.

Here's a look at all the medal events slated for Saturday.

Cycling

Both the men's and women's road final take place early Saturday morning beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Judo

The women's 48kg and men's 60kg divisions will crown their champions on Saturday.

Skateboarding

It's the men's street final coming and going early - competition starts at 11 a.m.

Rugby Sevens

The winners of South Africa and France, and Fiji and Australia, will go right back at it on Saturday to try for gold.

Fencing

The women's individual épée men's individual sabre winners will both be crowed in the 3:00 p.m. ET hour.

Swimming

One of the most popular sports in the Olympics will already be hot and heavy on Saturday, as we will have both the women's and men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay.

Three-time national champion Brody Malone is off to a rough start at the Paris Olympics.

The 24-year-old former Stanford standout fell twice during his routine on the men’s horizontal bars – an event where he won gold in the 2022 World Championships and 2022 Pan American Championships. 

He got back up and finished with a score of 12.233 in the men's qualifying heat for that event.

Malone returned to competition after his career was nearly derailed by a devastating right knee injury in March 2023 that required three surgeries. 

"It was just a rough day, there's really no other way to put it," Malone told NBC's broadcast after the event.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Americans Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook took home the first medal for the United States in the Paris Olympics on Saturday as they finished with a silver in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard event.

Bacon and Cook finished behind China’s team of Yani Chang and Yiwen Chang and ahead of Great Britain’s Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen. They had 314.64 points in the event.

Bacon and Cook missed out on the Olympics last year. But Cook competed in the 3-meter springboard competition in the 2016 Olympics and finished in 13th.

Both divers are renowned on the world stage with multiple medals. Bacon won a gold in the 2019 World Championships in the 1-meter springboard.Chang and Chen dominated the event with 337.68 points. The two divers picked up their first Olympic medals of their careers and add more gold to their resumes. They have multiple gold medals on the world championships.

China already picked up a gold medal in shooting earlier in the day and now have two on their total.

China’s Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao picked up the first gold medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday as they topped South Korea’s Keum Ji-hyeon and Park Ha-jun in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team, 16-12.

It’s China’s 68th medal in the sport of shooting and 27th gold medal. It was Huang’s first medal in the sport and Sheng’s second medal. Sheng won a silver medal in the 10-meter air rifle at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The Chinese pair’s win in Paris followed their gold medal victory in the World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan last year.

It’s the first Olympic medals for the South Korean pair. Keum won a gold medal in the women’s 10-meter air rifle at the World Cup earlier this year.

Kazakhstan took home the bronze medal in the event earlier in the day. It was the country’s fourth medal in the sport – its second bronze. They topped Germany 17-5. Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev were the representatives for Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan’s Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev were awarded the first medals of the Paris Olympics on Saturday as they defeated Germany’s Anna Janssen and Maximilian Ulbrich in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team.

The Kazakhstan team won the match 17-5. Le and Satpayey topped Great Britain’s Seonaid McIntosh and Michael Bargeron on Thursday.

Kazakhstan took home eight medals, all bronze, at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The team had 17 total medals, including 10 bronze, five silver and two gold, at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

The Kazakhstan team only had three medals in the sport going into bronze medal match. The team won two silver and a bronze and now have more bronze to add to their total.

Sergey Belyayev had two silver medals in the men’s 50-meter rifle prone and the men’s 50-meter prone meter rifle three positions in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Vladimir Vokhmyanin won the men’s 25-meter rapid fire pistol.

The Paris Olympics are officially off and running after Friday night’s incredible opening ceremonies that saw athletes float down the River Seine.

On Saturday, the first official medals will be handed out. Several events were underway as Americans and others in the Western Hemisphere began to wake up.

Competitors in shooting, cycling road, judo, rugby sevens, fencing and swimming will be receiving the awards over the course of the day. A bronze medal match started the events in 10m air rifle mixed between Kazakhstan and Germany. The gold medal match was immediately after between China and South Korea.

Later in the day, a medal in women’s 400-meter freestyle will be given out. It will be an event most people will be tuning in to watch. Katie Ledecky, Ariane Titmus and Summer McIntosh will certainly look to steal the show on Saturday afternoon.

“I'm looking forward to the 400 free, day one. I like my chances,” Ledecky said, via the Olympics’ website. “I'm prepared and ready to race.”

The Olympic Village is comprised of 10,000 athletes, and a dining hall that can accommodate 3,500 people that will be open around-the-clock.

The dining hall will offer an array of diverse cuisines or grab-and-go options for athletes who are on the go.Some of the athletes are sleeping on cardboard beds with a mattress on top of them. A main theme of the Paris 2024 Games is sustainability, and all the cardboard beds will be recycled and reused.

The Olympic athletes must reside with their country's team, there are no sharing apartments with another country.The security is airtight, no friends and family are allowed in the Village. The only people residing in the Village are athletes, coaching staff, medical personnel, and security.

Athletes who are minors, must room with only other minors on the team. 

Quiet hours are enforced daily from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. local time.

This year the Olympic Village will be located north of the center of Paris in the communes Saint-Denis, Île-Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen, just five minutes away from Stade de France.

Following the Games, the Olympic Village will turn into a place for 6,000 inhabitants, as the city is using the Olympic Games as an opportunity for urban development.

For the first time in Olympic Games history, there will be a ‘Floating Olympic Village’ on a 230-passenger ship named Aranui 5 for those athletes who taking part in the water-based events in Tahiti.

The same rules regarding who can enter the ship will be the same for those staying in the Village at Paris. 

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

The Olympic Village was created a century ago, at the Paris 1924 Olympic Games.

“In bringing young people from every nation together, (the Olympics will) help foster this sense of cordiality that teaches men to become acquainted with each other better first and then hold each other in higher esteem,” Frantz Reichel, the secretary general of the organizing committee of the Olympic Games Paris 1924, said in the Official Report of the Games.

Fast-forward to present day, and now most Olympians cannot imagine what the Games would be like without it. The Olympic Village serves as a melting pot for all the athletes from all across the world to mingle and make friendships.

“If you get rid of the Olympic Village , you get rid of a part of the Games,” Henri Specht, the director of the Olympic and Paralympic Village project at SOLIDEO, said, via the IOC.

“It’s probably the only place and the only time on the planet when you have so many countries coming together at the same location. I think that every nation is very attached to the Village and the athletes who have in it have come out with a unique life experience.”

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

The Olympic rings are plastered all throughout the world during Olympic times. But what do they actually stand for?

The logo was designed and hand-drawn in 1913 by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.

The five rings were drawn to pay tribute to Games’ athletes. Each ring was representing a region of the world where the athletes came from: Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia.

The rings colors – from left to right – are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. They are put over a white background to symbolize the Olympics universality.

While the iconic design was done in 1913, and the flag with the logo coming a year later in 1914, it was not until 1920 where the rings made their Olympic debut.

“These five rings represent the five parts of the world now won over to the cause of olympism and ready to accept its fecund rivalries.” Founder of the Olympic Movement Pierre de Coubertin said.

“What is more, the six colors this combined reproduce those of all nations without exception.”

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

The Olympic motto comes from before the official Olympic Games began.

The original motto was first said in 1881 by the Dominican priest Henri Didon in the opening ceremony of a sports event.

In Latin, the motto is, “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” In English that translates to “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Olympic movement, was in the crowd for Didon’s speech and adopted those words as the Olympic motto in 1894.

“It expresses the aspirations of the Olympic Movement,” the IOC said. “Not only in its athletic and technical sense but also from a moral and educational perspective.”

The motto was changed during a session of the International Olympic Committee in July of 2021.

It now reads in Latin, “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter.” Which in English translates to “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.”

The change was made to recognize the “unifying power of sport and the importance of solidarity.”

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

The 2024 Olympics opening ceremony in Paris has sparked international outrage with drag-queen themed imagery of religious and historical figures.

One display on Friday showed what appear to be numerous performers, including drag queens and a large woman in an aureole halo crown, parodying "The Last Supper," a universally recognizable painting by renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci of Christ and his apostles. 

Harrison Butker, an NFL football player who made headlines with his speech about Catholic faith quoted scripture to condemn the display, writing, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting.’ Galatians 6:7-8."

"Men in wigs front & center at the Olympic Games," OutKick's Riley Gaines wrote in a social media post of her own. "No one ever tell me this group is ‘oppressed’ or ‘marginalized’ again."

This is an excerpt from a report written by Fox News' Alexander Hall.

The Summer Olympics may only take place for a couple of weeks, but the impact they have on France’s economy can stretch out for years.

A study done by the French Center for Sports Law and Economics back in 2016 said that the 2024 Olympics “may generate at up to $11.6 billion and up to 247,000 jobs.”

“Of the $11.6 billion, approximately $1.5-$3.79 billion (13-33%) is attributed to tourism-related economic impact,” the study said.

This study was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in inflation, so you must take the above numbers with some caution.

Hotel rooms have been at a premium, and with that the cost of hotels in and around Paris have skyrocketed. Three-star to five-star hotel prices have risen anywhere from 41%-64% above the yearly average during the Olympic Games.

To go along with the price increase, the tourist tax is now up to 200%. The tax brings room prices from $2.82 to $16.23 per night per Oxford Economics.

The hope for the French is that the tourists who visit during the games may come back and see things they did not get a chance to see during the Games.

France will draw about 101 million international tourists this year, the most of any Europe destination and up from 98 million tourists in 2023 according to Oxford Economics. However, most of those tourists are coming for the Olympic Games.

International tourism from before and after the Olympic Games is down compared to what it normally is. The high tourism tax’s duration is not just for the Olympic games and could be deterring travelers from visiting France outside of when Games occur.

The IOC understands the ramifications of what the Olympic Games can mean to a city and a country in the long term.

“As the first Olympic Games aligned with Olympic Agenda 2020, Paris 2024 is proving that the Games can bring substantial economic benefits to their hosts, while being socially and environmentally responsible.” Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi said via the IOC.

“These are Games that truly adapt to the needs of their host and to the times we live in, creating an impactful legacy before the Opening Ceremony and long after the sporting competitions have ended.”

Per the IOC, about 181,000 people are currently working or set to work in roles connected with the Games.

“Eighty per cent of the public investment is going to Seine-St-Denis, one of the youngest and most disadvantaged departments in France. The Olympic Village, for example, situated in Seine-Saint-Denis, will provide 2,800 housing units and two new schools, benefitting 6,000 residents.”

The goal for the IOC is for the Olympics not to just have a short-term impact on the economy, but a long-term one that leaves the host city in a better place after the games than before.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

How expensive is it to host the Olympics? In short, quite expensive.

Paris has already spent $9.7 billion on Olympic expenses, and the French taxpayers are paying for about $3.25 billion of that according to The Associated Press.

There is no guarantee you end up making that money back either.

The IOC projects Paris’ will receive $12.2 billion of economic benefit from these games, leaving them in the black should they come true.

The IOC says that the “economic benefits for the city, region, and country and predicted to far outweigh the Games-related investments.

Yet the numbers from past games tell a different story.

In 2012, London spent $14.6 billion and generated $5.2 billion. In 2010, Vancouver spent $7.6 billion yet only brought in $2.8 billion.

In 2008, Beijing spent a whopping $42 billion and only brought in $3.6 million.

According to the University of Oxford, every Olympics since 1960 – except for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles – has been over budget by an average of 172%.

The reason the 1984 Olympics were profitable for Los Angeles was because most of the infrastructure required for the Games were already built.

A lot of cities that were over their budget built brand new stadiums for the Olympic Games. Those stadiums have been seldom used since the Games left their respective cities.

Paris has only built one competitive venue for the 2024 Games, relying on previously built infrastructure and temporary venues to avoid having to build so many new venues.

Time will tell if the 2024 Paris Games can join the 1984 Los Angeles Games as being the only Olympics that has been profitable in the last 64 years. 

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

Singing atop the Eiffel Tower, Céline Dion performed Edith Piaf's "Hymne à l'amour" to close out the opening ceremony. It was her first live performance since announcing her ongoing battle with stiff-person syndrome. 

Dion was diagnosed with SPS in late 2022, causing her to postpone a tour. It is described by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as a rare and progressive neurological disorder which causes rigid muscles and painful muscle spasms.

The beloved singer has opened up in the past about how the condition has affected her ability to sing and walk.

Onlookers, including Kelly Clarkson on NBC’s broadcast, were left speechless and brought to tears by the Olympic performance. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach officially welcomed the more than 6,800 athletes that participated in the opening ceremony on Friday night with a strong message about “solidarity.” 

“You have come to Paris as athletes, now you are Olympians. Stepping into the Olympic village like generations of athletes before you: now I’m part of something bigger than myself. Now we all are part of an event that unites the world,” he said. 

“As olympians we care for each other. We not only respect each other, we live in solidarity with each other.” 

“In a world torn apart by wars and conflicts, it is thanks to this solidarity that we can all come together tonight."

There are 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participating in the Paris Olympics.

The face of U.S. men's track and field is reminding everyone that that is still the case.

Noah Lyles is the overwhelming favorite to win the 200-meter race at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris (he's even going for the world record), and he's very likely to medal in the 100-meter, as well.

The 27-year-old Gainesville, Florida, native has yet to bring home Olympic gold (he earned bronze in the 200-meter in 2021), but he tore it up in the world championships recently to make himself a force to be reckoned with.

Lyles has taken home six golds in worlds, including three last year in Budapest (100-meter, 200-meter and 4x100-meter relay). Understandably, he's confident in what he can do in Paris.

So, prior to heading out on Team USA's boat for the opening ceremony, he put one word on his fingernails: "ICON."

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Ryan Morik.

Seeing sports as unifying is not a new concept. 

Earlier this week, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach spoke to an audience that included French President Emmanuel Macron and other officials, addressing the importance of promoting "Olympic values" during a period of overwhelming global conflict. He later met with hundreds of Olympic athletes in the Olympic Village to share a message, "Give peace a chance." 

"When our founder, Pierre de Coubertin, revived the Olympic Games 130 years ago — right here in Paris — he saw it as a way to promote peace among all nations and people of the world. He was a true ambassador for peace. Today, you — the Olympic athletes — you are the peace ambassadors of our time," Bach said. 

It's a sentiment two-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Crouser shares. 

"It's been a long time since we, as the world, have kind of had a proper Olympics," Crouser told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday. 

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News Paulina Dedaj.

Olympic gold medal pole vaulter Katie Moon shouted out her home state of Ohio on social media in a selfie with NBA great LeBron James.

James, also an Ohio native and Cleveland Cavaliers legend, was selected alongside rising tennis star Coco Gauff to be the flag bearers for Team USA.

Olympic organizers were expecting unpleasant weather for the opening ceremony on Friday, but the constant rain didn’t appear to dampen the mood for the roughly 6,800 athletes participating in the Parade of Nations. 

An intermittent drizzle cleared up before the parade began, but as the boats made their way down the Seine River, it picked back up again. 

Comfortable temperatures in the upper 60s are more than enough to keep spirits high. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Breaking, more commonly known as breakdancing, can be traced back to the Bronx, New York, during the 1970’s.

Breaking is a part of hip-hop culture which is shown through a combination of dance moves, spins, flips, and other techniques. The term “breaking” comes from the instrumental breaks in song that are usually accompanied by beats.

The 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires was the event to put Breaking on the map, and it is now in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The athletes are called “B-Boys” and “B-Girls” and the matches are called “battles.”

The inaugural Olympic competition will take place on Aug. 9-10.

Thirty-two athletes qualified for the event. As the host country France was offered two host quotas (one per gender) while four universality places (two per gender) were on offer.

To be eligible for a universality place the athlete must have competed in the Olympic Qualifying Series (OQS) and placed in the top 24.

The other 26 athletes qualified through their performances in last year’s world championships, the respective continental Games (Africa, Asia, Europe, Pan Am, and Oceania) and the OQS held in Shanghai and Budapest in May and June, respectively.

The scoring is made up of five categories: musicality, vocabulary, originality, technique, and execution. Each category makes up 20% of the judge’s score.

The battles are best-of-three, and each athlete has 60 seconds to complete their routine. Athletes can be penalized for misbehavior at the judge’s discretion.

Each day starts with a round-robin phase consisting of four groups of four. The top two in each group advance to the quarterfinals followed by the semi-finals and into the final battle for medals.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

A heavy metal-opera mash up featuring the French band, Gojira, and opera singer Marina Viotti received mixed reviews on social media after the opening ceremony performance included a headless woman dressed in red, symbolizing Marie Antoinette. 

Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, said the inspiration behind all performances was to reinterpret the way the world sees France. 

“The extraordinary thing is that everyone in France and the rest of the world has an idea of what France is all about. And I want to play with that, that's where I want to start from - breaking down clichés, because clichés come along other things,” he said, according to the Olympics website.

Former President Barack Obama took to social media on Friday to voice his support for the American delegation competing in Paris, adding “You represent the best of the best in our country.”

Simone Biles will not be present at the opening ceremony in order to “rest up” for Sunday’s qualifying events, her family revealed during an interview with NBC. 

Biles, 27, is the most decorated gymnast of all time. She has four Olympic gold medals, one silver and two bronze. 

More than 10,000 of the world’s best athletes set sail in nearly 100 boats on the Seine River on Friday evening. The 3.7 mile parade route highlights some of Paris’ most iconic landmarks.

Greece led the Parade of Nations for the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, which has been a tradition held since 1928. The tradition is a nod to the birthplace of the Olympics.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee has 101 athletes in its delegation, including NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo went for a swim in the Seine River on Wednesday, fulfilling her promise to show the river was clean enough ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games.

Since 2015, organizers have spent $1.5 billion trying to clean up the Seine River before the Olympics.

People were banned from swimming in the river for over a century due to concerns about the rivers flow and pollution. Even as recent as early June tests done by the monitoring group Eau de Paris indicated unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria until recent improvements.

After taking a dip, Hidalgo called today “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work.”

Cleaning up the Seine River has been a longtime goal for the French. Former French President Jacques Chirac vowed to clean up the river back in 1988 when he was the Paris Mayor but to no avail.

Hidalgo was initially supposed to swim the Seine River in June, but it had to be delayed due to snap parliamentary elections in France.

When the date was announced of Hidalgo’s swim, the French people got “I’m pooping in the Seine” trending online to protest the Olympic games by defecating upstream before the mayor’s swim.

Despite the threat, today’s event went without incident as numerous city officials and athletes invited to swim were throwing a ball around in the water and having fun.

The Seine River will be featured during the opening ceremony and will be the host of several open water swimming events during the Olympic Games including marathon and swimming and swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Team USA has two flag bearers: LeBron James (basketball) and Coco Gauff (tennis).

For the American side, team captains and fellow players normally choose flag bearers.

The Paris Games will be James’ fourth Olympics. The NBA legend made his Olympics debut in 2004. The 39-year-old helped team USA win gold in 2008 and 2012, and was named the 2012 USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year.

When he steps on the court for his first game, he will join Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant as the only three players to ever play in four Olympics for Team USA men’s basketball.

Gauff is only 20 years old and is a rising star in the tennis world.

The U.S. Committee selected Gauff to play alongside Jessica Pegula in the 2020 Tokyo Games but she had to pull out after testing positive for COVID-19. The Paris 2024 Olympics will be Gauff’s Olympic debut.

Gauff won her first grand slam title when she won the U.S. Open in 2023.

Sue Bird (women’s basketball) was the flag bearer for Team USA in the Tokyo 2020 Games. 

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

U.S. swimmer Regan Smith is an Olympic medalist, a world record holder, a world champion and even an adoring cat owner. But the 22-year-old former Stanford swimmer might best describe herself as a proud American. 

Smith qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris after her dominating performance in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter fly at the recent U.S. Olympic Swimming Team Trials in Indianapolis. She set the world record in the 100-meter. 

She described it as a "gratifying" experience, one that has again given her the chance to wear a swim cap with the American flag alongside her name.

Ahead of her second appearance in the Summer Olympics, Smith told Fox News Digital that she first got the opportunity to represent the U.S. when she was 15. 

"It almost moved me to tears," she said.

In Smith’s retelling of this moment, she didn’t make mention of medals or records, just the pride she felt. 

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News  Paulina Dedaj.

Even though some of the Games began on Wednesday, the Opening Ceremony will take place on Friday, July 26, at 1:30 p.m. ET.

For the first time in Olympic history, the ceremony will not take place or lead into a stadium. The opening ceremony will be a boating parade through the recently cleaned Seine River. Since 2015 organizers have spent $1.5 billion to clean up the river before the Olympics began.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo recently swam in the river to prove that the Seine River was once again safe to swim in again after people were banned from doing do due to health concerns.

The parade will run about 3.7 miles, taking the 10,500 athletes participating in the games through the center of Paris. The parade route will conclude in front of the Trocadéro, where the rest of the Olympic protocol and final shows will take place.

The Opening Ceremony will be the largest attended in the history of the games, as residents of Paris along with tourists from around the world can go along the river and watch.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

Katie Ledecky, 27, is already one of swimming’s all-time greats.

With her seven Olympic gold medals and 21 World Championship titles, Ledecky holds the most medals of any women’s swimmer in history. The Maryland native won her first gold medal at age 15 in the 2012 London Olympic Games defeating reigning world champion Kate Ziegler in the 800m freestyle.

In the 2016 Rio Olympic Games her success in the 200m, 400m, and 800m, saw her claim the most individual titles in the pool. She also set new records in the 400m and 800m that year.

Ledecky is also the most decorated woman in World Championship history. She is the only swimmer to win five consecutive world titles in an individual event, the 800m freestyle. No one has beaten Ledecky in the 800m freestyle in over a decade. She has been honored with the USA Swimming Golden Goggles Award for Female Swimmer of the Year seven times.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.