Team USA swimmer Nic Fink was within a sliver of glory or disaster when he ended up winning a silver medal in the men’s 100-meter breastsroke in an incredible photo finish in Paris.

The New Jersey native reflected on the heart-pounding finish on “TODAY” on Monday after winning his first Olympic medal.

“It was pretty surreal,” Fink said alongside Olympic legend Michael Phelps. “A lot of times it’s almost cliché to say it’s a fingernail touch, but it actually was last night.

“I was a fingernail away from first, but also a fingernail away from being off the podium, so it almost seems like it was meant to be second. And sharing the podium with Nico and Adam was really cool, too.”

Fink, 31, tied Britain’s Adam Peaty for silver at 59.05 seconds, while Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi edged them by two-hundredths of a second to win gold.

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This may be one of the great rivalries in tennis, but so far it’s Novak Djokovic who has made it count when in matters, breaking Nadal’s first two service games. 

The world number two is in complete control. 

Can Nadal, the King of Clay, dig himself out of this hole?

Some heroes wear capes. One wears a scant pair of floral swim trunks. 

Team USA swimmer Emma Weber lost her cap at the bottom of the Olympic pool. That’s when a man wearing a floral Speedo dubbed “Bob the Cap Catcher” dove in to scoop it up — and became an internet sensation. 

Growing up in Miami, Ashleigh Johnson and her four siblings took swimming lessons as kids, primarily to ease the mind of their mother, who feared they could drown in the family pool while she was at work.

Those lessons led to falling in love with swimming, which led to joining the local Riptides swim team at nearby Cutler Ridge, which eventually led them to a unique sport for Black youths: water polo.

Johnson’s sister and three brothers all took lessons from Carroll Vaughan and thrived in the sport. But Ashleigh Johnson soared as a goalkeeper, using her spindly body, quickness and understanding of angles to become an All-American at Princeton University, where she compiled 100 victories and was the school’s all-time saves leader.

Read the full story here.

China’s Sheng Lihao claimed his second gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics after winning the men’s 10-meter air rifle event.

Snoop Dogg is watching Nadal vs Djokovic while sitting next to Billie Jean King — it’s the combo we never knew we needed.

Novak Djokovic has been ruthlessly dominant in the first set, despite some typically pugnacious resistance from 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal.

The Spaniard was only able to hold one of his service games, making several unforced errors and mishits.

By contrast, Djokovic had an answer for nearly everything Nadal has thrown at him.

Still, this is a highly entertaining heavyweight clash.

The crowd, which is firmly behind Nadal, has gone a little quiet out on court Philippe-Chatrier.

Organizers canceled triathlon training for the second day in a row today due to concerns over the Seine’s water quality, but said they were “optimistic” that the actual event will go as planned tomorrow.

“There’s been quite a lot of rain in the last couple of days, but we are monitoring very closely,” Paris 2024 chief executive Étienne Thobois said this morning at a news conference.

Since 2015, organizers have invested more than $1.5 billion to clean up the Seine and earlier this month, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the river to show it was finally clean enough.

The first triathlon event, men’s individual, kicks off tomorrow morning.

“We are still optimistic that we can hold the competition within the Seine river,” Thobois said. “We hope that tomorrow morning when they’ll wake up they will be able to participate.”

Djokovic has a solid start against Nadal, with the Serbian holding his serve in a nervy opening game, and breaking Nadal’s serve in the second game. 

We’re already seeing some great rallies between these two icons of the game.

Play is underway on court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland-Garros in the second round of the men’s singles tennis. It’s a veritable clash of the titans: Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal, playing against each other for the 60th time in their careers.

Authorities in France are investigating whether far-left militants were behind the sabotage of parts of the country’s rail network, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told French television this morning.

Several train lines across the country were sabotaged ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony.

Darmanin said that far-left militants had used similar methods in the past, and that investigators will seek to establish if those responsible for Friday’s attacks had acted on their own accord, or had been “manipulated” by others.

Several telecommunications networks in France were damaged last night, according to Digital Affairs Minister Marina Ferrari. 

Internet and phone services have been affected in local areas, according to Ferrari, who said on X: “I condemn these cowardly and irresponsible acts in the strongest possible terms.”

Services in Paris do not appear to be affected.

Telecoms network SFR says that its long-distance fiber optic network was “vandalised” in six regions across France last night.

The regions affected are Bouches-du-Rhône, Aude, Oise, Hérault, Meuse and Drôme. 

Teenager Sheng Lihao already won one gold at the air rifle mixed team event on Saturday. The Chinese shooter just added another one, this time solo, at the men’s 10-meter air rifle with a record-Olympic score.

Behind him by just 0.8 points was Victor Lindgren, who made his Olympic debut for Sweden.

Miran Maricic, from Croatia, won the bronze.

Although Team USA did not qualify for the finals this Games, the Olympic record broken by Sheng was previously held by USA’s William Shaner at the Tokyo Olympics.

The Tokyo Olympics did not go as planned for track and field sprinter Noah Lyles, who had cited his mental health as a roadblock to success during the last Games. But the current fastest sprinter on the planet says he’s more prepared this time around to step into the blocks and bring home some medals for Team USA. 

In 2021, the racial strife in the U.S. and the Covid pandemic upended life for plenty of people, including the athletes, but Lyles said part of what threw him off during the last Games was what wasn’t there: “If there is no crowd, that is most likely when you will see me lose,” he said, referring to the Tokyo Olympic Games that had extremely limited audiences. 

“Even this one has had its own fair share of trials and tribulations, but gosh, I can finally say I’m showing up to an Olympic Games not depressed, and it feels amazing,” Lyles, 27, said at a press conference this morning. 

Lyles, who is hoping to win gold in the men’s 100-meter and 200-meter, told reporters that he was thriving with the help of three therapists: everyday therapist, sports therapist and a grief therapist. 

“As I go into this championship, this biggest stage of the world, I’ve been through the hardest parts. I’ve been at the bottom. I’ve fought my way back up. I’ve fixed the weaknesses. Now here I am stronger than before. If I lose this time, it’s not going to be because I beat myself. It’s just going to be, they had to be that much better.”

Read more about Noah Lyles here. 

The gold medal for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics team figure-skating event will be reallocated in a ceremony at the Champions Park in Paris at 5:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. ET) on Aug. 7, the IOC said this morning.

The International Skating Union retroactively dropped the Russian team from gold to bronze after Kamila Valieva, one of the team’s skaters, was given a four-year ban for doping. Russian athletes are competing in Paris as individual neutral athletes due to the war in Ukraine.

The move will see Team USA upgraded to gold and Japan boosted to silver.

Other reallocations will take place on Aug. 9 at 1:45 p.m. local time (7:45 a.m. ET).

Reigning 10-meter synchronized platform world champion divers from China got to hear their anthem again in Paris, with divers Lian Junjie and Yang Hao clinching their first Olympic medals, and gold ones at that.

British superstar Tom Daley and his young partner Noah Williams bagged silver, with Daley adding a fifth medal to his haul of one gold and three bronze medals that he’d won in previous games.

Canadian divers Nathan Zsombor-Murray and Rylan Wiens walked away with a bronze — their country’s first medal this Games, while Team USA did not qualify for the event.

Brazilian surfer Filipe Toledo delivered a stellar performance in Round 2 of the men’s shortboard competition today, with a score of 9.67. The surfing events of the Paris Olympics are taking place almost 10,000 miles from France, off Tahiti in French Polynesia.

Basketball veteran Chase Budinger steps on to Olympic sands for the first time this afternoon in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The former Pacers, Suns, Timberwolves, and Rockets forward will team up with beach volleyball partner Miles Evans to take on the French duo of Youssef Krou and Arnaud Gauthier-Rat at 10 a.m. ET.

Budinger and Evans enter this tournament as the world’s number 13 duo and the Americans need a win over the number 34 Frenchmen because competition in Pool F will get more difficult. Their next two matches are against No. 5 Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot of the Netherlands and the No. 17 Spanish team of Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira.

The top two teams of each pool are guaranteed spots in the knockout round of 16.

Two of the greatest tennis players of all time, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, will walk onto the court at Roland-Garros today. The legends meet in the second round of the Paris Games men’s singles tournament in the second match of the day, after women’s No. 1 Iga Swiatek beat France’s Diane Parry.

It’s not the first time the Serbian and the Spaniard have met. In fact, it’ll be the 60th and the two could not be more evenly balanced. Djokovic has won 30 of those meetings to Nadal’s 29 since they first faced off on the very same Roland-Garros courts at the 2006 French Open.

While Djokovic’s career is still going strong — he recently made the final at Wimbledon before losing to Nadal’s Olympic men’s doubles partner Carlos Alcaraz — Nadal has suffered with injuries in what will likely be the last years of his career. The 38-year-old Spanish great will be looking to roll back the years to his success at the 2008 Beijing Games, when he beat Djokovic in the men’s singles semifinals on his way to the gold medal.

“It’s going to be possibly the last time we’re going to face each other on a big stage,” Djokovic said of Nadal. “Playing him is like finals, in any tournament. Particularly here, knowing what he has achieved and what he’s done for our sport.”

South Korea’s Ban Hyo-jin won gold in the women’s 10-meter air rifle event at the 2024 Paris Olympics. China’s Huang Yuting and Switzerland’s Audrey Gogniat claimed silver and medal, respectively.

A scintillating men’s 100m breaststroke final yesterday came down to a photo finish between Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, Great Britain’s Adam Peaty and Team USA’s Nic Fink. Martinenghi edged past the joint-silver winners by just 0.02 seconds.

Before the race, 2023 world champion Qin Haiyang of China had been joint favorite for the gold along with Peaty.

Canada’s women’s soccer coach issued an apology yesterday, after she received a one-year ban from the game for her part in a spying scandal at the Paris Olympics. Bev Priestman said she would “take accountability” and cooperate with ongoing investigations.

“I am absolutely heartbroken for the players, and I would like to apologise from the bottom of my heart for the impact this situation has had on all of them,” she said in a letter issued by her lawyers. 

Team USA’s women surfers put on a show during Round 1 of Olympic surfing in Teahupo’o Tahiti.

All of the American surfers won their heats to automatically advance to Round 3 of the competition.

Check out the best of the action below and on Peacock.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach apologized to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in a phone call yesterday, after organizers wrongly introduced the South Korean team as North Korean during the opening ceremony.

As the athletes made their way down the Seine on Friday, announcers identified them as “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” the official name of North Korea.

South Korea’s official name is “People’s Republic of Korea.”

“The problem was identified as a human error, for which the IOC is deeply sorry,” the statement by the IOC read.

Good morning! It’s Day 3 of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Here are some of the medal events to watch out for as you wake up and beyond.

Shooting — 10-meter air rifle women’s and men’s final — 9:30 a.m. Paris/3:30 a.m. ET and 12 p.m. Paris/6 a.m. ET, respectively.

Diving — Men’s synchronized 10-meter platform final — 11 a.m. Paris/5 a.m. ET.

Equestrian — Eventing team jumping final and eventing individual jumping final — 11 a.m. Paris/5 a.m. ET and 3 p.m. Paris/9 a.m. ET, respectively.

Cycling — Men’s cross-country mountain biking — 2 p.m. Paris/ 8:10 a.m. ET.

Archery — Men’s team bronze medal and gold medal matches — 4:48 p.m. Paris/10:48 a.m. ET and 5:11 p.m. Paris/11:11 a.m. ET, respectively

Skateboarding — Men’s street final — 5 p.m. Paris/11 a.m. ET.

Canoe slalom — Men’s canoe single final — 5:20 p.m. Paris/11:20 a.m. ET.

Artistic gymnastics — Men’s team final — 5:30 p.m. Paris/11:30 a.m. ET.

Swimming — Women’s 400-meter individual medley final — 8:30 p.m. Paris/2:30 p.m. ET.

Swimming — Men’s 200-meter freestyle final — 8:40 p.m. Paris/2:40 p.m. ET.

Swimming — Men’s 100-meter backstroke final — 9:19 p.m. Paris/3:19 p.m. ET.

Swimming — Women’s 100-meter breaststroke final — 9:25 p.m. Paris/3:25 p.m. ET.

Swimming — Women’s 200-meter freestyle final — 9:41 p.m. Paris/3:41 p.m. ET.

Fencing — Women’s saber individual bronze and gold medal bouts — 8:50 p.m. Paris/2:50 p.m. ET and 9:45 p.m. Paris/3:45 p.m. ET, respectively.

Fencing — Men’s foil individual bronze and gold medal bouts — 9:15 p.m. Paris/3:15 p.m. ET and 10:10 p.m. Paris/4:10 p.m. ET, respectively.

Follow all the action and track upcoming calendar events before they happen so you’ll never miss a beat.

On July 20, Team USA lost 117-109 to a team of WNBA standouts in the league’s All-Star game. 

What could have been a win for Team USA ahead of their departure for the Paris Games — and an opportunity to garner some hype as the women’s basketball team prepares to face off on the biggest international court — turned out to be a disappointing loss for some of the league’s biggest and most decorated stars, including Brittney Griner, Diana Taurasi and Sabrina Ionescu. 

But that shouldn’t be a discouragement for Team USA — in 2021, ahead of the Tokyo Games, it also lost to team WNBA in the All-Star game, but went on to win gold at the Olympics anyway.

Neftalie Williams has parlayed his passion for skateboarding into directing San Diego State University’s new Center for Skateboarding, Action Sports and Social Change.

“We’re looking at how skateboarding helps young people build communities, and particularly at a time when people who have dis-similar backgrounds and at a time when in the US right now we need more reasons to see each other or see the other is the self,” Williams said.

Williams isn’t just a sociologist and assistant professor at SDSU, he’s also the first “Ambassador of Skateboarding” and envoy for the U.S. Department of State.

Read the full story here.

The 2024 Paris Olympics will take on a particularly special meaning for Brittney Griner.

The WNBA star will be competing for her country for the third time in Paris — and the first time since she was detained in Russia on drug charges for nearly 10 months in 2022.

“BG is locked in and ready to go,” Griner told NBC News. “I’m happy, I’m in a great place. I’m representing my country, the country that fought for me to come back. I’m gonna represent it well.”

Read the full story here