Cyclist Anna Henderson clears her rival to take second as divers Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen break through
Team GB celebrated their best start to the Olympics in more than four decades as Anna Henderson won silver in the women’s road time trial and divers Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen took bronze at the Paris Aquatics Centre.
A British team had not won a medal on the first official day of the Olympics since 2004 and last took two at the 1980 Moscow Games, but brave performances and a bit of luck brought early success and raised new hopes of a record-breaking surge. this summer.
But it was from the 80,000 people packed into the Stade de France that the loudest cheers came as the lightning feet and seemingly infallible judgment of rugby sevens star Antoine Dupont gave the French team their first. Games gold medalist by creating one try and scoring two against Fiji.
Earlier in the day, heavy rain forced organizers in Paris to postpone skateboarding and delay tennis, but Mew Jensen and Harper were free to try to secure a first women’s diving medal since 1960 for Britain in the pool, as Tom Daley watched and knitted in the stands.
The Chinese pair of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen, unbeaten at world level since 2022 in the women’s 3m synchronized diving, managed to secure gold with ease and the United States’ team of Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook took silver.
It looked like Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith were also in line for third place, but a slip by Smith that saw her fly at an angle off the backboard pushed them into despair and into fifth place.
“We knew Australia had to screw up, basically,” said Mew Jensen, 22, from London. “So for that to happen, we were very shocked, because it’s a very easy dive for them. They are very talented, very experienced.”
Harper, 23, from Sheffield, added: “We knew it was going to be tight. To watch them not play in the last round – I think I knew right away that it wasn’t enough.
“I think in diving, you can tell where or where the score is going to be.
“Well, for us, I think we knew, but at the same time, you’re still waiting for that scoreboard to come up and show whether we did it or not.”
Smith, who cried into a towel as she exited the pool, later admitted: “I screamed under the water.”
Soon after, it was Henderson’s turn to claim some Olympic glory. She won gold easily from Australian veteran Grace Brown, but then pipped American Chloé Dygert to silver by less than a second in the women’s cycling time trial after the American crashed on the incredibly slippery streets of central Paris.
Henderson, 25, from Hemel Hempstead, said: “I can’t believe it. I had a little feeling that I could get on the podium today and take some of the other riders away, but I can’t believe I’ve come second behind someone like Grace.
“I burst into tears when I found out I was second. I just can’t stop smiling. It was a bit confusing because the TV was way back and then I couldn’t see the painting here. I knew I had a medal which was amazing in itself, then it was whether it was silver or bronze.”
Team GB’s athletes were predicted to do particularly well this summer and the early results will give confidence that the top end of UK Sport’s forecast of 50 to 70 medals can be achieved.
Britain’s 30 medals in Athens rose to 51 in Beijing, while the 65 in London was eclipsed by the 67 in Rio. The 64 medals they took at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games was seen as a slightly disappointing run, although it was achieved in difficult circumstances.
Team GB’s men’s hockey team kicked off their campaign with a 4-0 win over Spain but hopes of an early British gold in Paris will center on Adam Peaty, 29, who after relaxing until his semi-finals Saturday night. In the 100m breaststroke as the second fastest qualifier in 59.18 seconds in the swimming heats, he told reporters: “The whole field was a bit slow.”
“The headspace is really good,” he added of his approach to Sunday’s final. “If anything, too relaxed, we don’t feel like we’re here in the moment, but swimming that awakens the mind. I think this is just an experience knowing that I don’t have to spend the energy here.”
Peaty’s main obstacle to securing a third successive Olympic gold is Qin Haiyang, who was among 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics but was allowed to compete after anti-doping authorities accepted the China’s explanation that the kitchen in their hotel was contaminated.
“It’s always in the mind of an athlete,” Peaty said, when asked about doping in the sport. “You definitely want a fair game, you want to win fairly and be around people who do the same and live by the same values. But at the same time, you know, we’ve got a job to do and you can’t let it be a cloud over the road.”
There was general relief on the part of the organizers that the Games had started without any further major incidents, after the sabotage of the French rail system and the occasionally spectacular but certainly wet opening ceremony on the Seine had suffered from bad weather.
SNCF rail chief Jean-Pierre Farandou said he hoped the transport network would be back to normal by Monday, but 160,000 of the 800,000 people due to travel this weekend had faced cancellations.
Almost a third of trains were canceled in northern, western and eastern France and one in four Eurostar services between London and Paris also failed to depart.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the investigation into those behind the attack was progressing.
He said: “We have uncovered a certain amount of evidence that allows us to think that we will soon find out who is responsible for what is clearly not sabotaging the Olympics but is sabotaging part of the holiday of the French people.”
