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It’s here: The Summer Olympics kick off today. To keep our community informed about what’s going on at the Games over the next 17 days, we’ll have a Nice News correspondent on the ground in Paris reporting on some of the most inspiring athlete stories. We’ve also added a new “Eyes on Paris” section below, where you’ll find photos, reminders of major events, recaps, and more. Keep scrolling to read today’s special Olympics-focused features (and click here to learn how to watch the opening ceremony, which begins at 1:30 p.m. ET).
Sports
“A Piece of History”: 2024 Paris Olympic Medals Include Chunks of Eiffel Tower
The winners at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be taking home a piece of Paris, not only in their hearts but also in their hands: Each of the 5,084 gold, silver, and bronze medals contains an 18-gram hexagonal chunk of iron from the Eiffel Tower.
Completed in 1889, the City of Lights’ iconic landmark has undergone numerous renovations, and certain metallic elements were removed and preserved in the process. Sections of the original iron, stripped of its brown paint, have found new life in the medals.
“The concept came after a few discussions. We realized that there’s one symbol known across the world, which is the Eiffel Tower,” Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee, told the Associated Press earlier this year.
On one side of the Olympic medals is the iron, engraved with the phrase “Paris 2024” and the Olympic rings and flame. On the other is an image of Greek goddess of victory Nike standing in the Panathenaic Stadium, where the 1896 Games were held, with the Eiffel Tower and the Acropolis of Athens in the background.
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Sports
16-Year-Old Hezly Rivera Is Team USA’s Youngest Paris Athlete
Team USA’s women’s gymnastics roster is short, comprising just five athletes, four of whom competed in the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Which makes it all the more impressive that Hezly Rivera made the cut. The New Jersey native, freshly 16 and still two years away from graduating high school, is the youngest member of Team USA across all sports.
“It feels incredible,” Rivera told Good Morning America ahead of the first women’s gymnastics qualifying event this Sunday, adding, “I felt so happy and super excited because this is what I’ve been working for my whole life. So for it to finally come true is so exciting and so surreal.”
She’s not sure what she’ll be competing in just yet, but told People magazine she’s strongest in the beam and bars, which makes sense given that she earned gold in balance beam at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials and fourth in uneven bars. Learn more about the young athlete — from her favorite food to her favorite gymnastics event.
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Sports
More Olympians Are Talking About Mental Health — And the US Committee Is Listening
In the three years since Simone Biles withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics due to a mental block, often called “the twisties” in gymnastics, the world of elite athletics has only gotten more open about mental health. Swimmer Caeleb Dressel, for example, took eight months off after Tokyo to focus on his mental health, and has seen a therapist at least once a week for two years now.
Thankfully, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee has taken notice. It created a mental health task force in 2020 and now has 15 psychological service providers who worked with more than 1,200 athletes last year, Jess Bartley, the senior director of psychological services, told The Athletic.
“One of the things we work with athletes is: What is the place that sport has in your life? How is your identity tied up in this? What are all the different pieces? What does it mean to make the Olympic Games or not make the Olympic Games?” said Bartley. “We’re just understanding that these are whole human beings.”
Zooming out, a recent study found that fans actually appreciate when their favorite sports stars are open about taking time off for mental health reasons — meaning that fears of rejection among athletes are largely unfounded today. “Athletes no longer need to suffer in silence,” lead author Dae Hee Kwak wrote in The Conversation.
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Inspiring Story
Always prepared
Two scouts and their troop leader put their preparedness training to use on a recent flight from New Mexico to New York, stepping in to help perform CPR on a passenger experiencing a medical emergency. “We did what we needed to do,” the troop leader, Evan Gilder, said.
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Eyes on Paris
For our first installment of Eyes on Paris, we have to share this incredible shot of the full moon perfectly lining up with the Olympic rings display on the Eiffel Tower earlier this week. To start planning your viewing schedule, check out NPR’s roundup of some of the most anticipated events and moments to look out for. Let the Games begin!
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Quote of the Day
“The Olympics are a wonderful metaphor for world cooperation … the kind of international competition that’s wholesome and healthy, an interplay between countries that represents the best in all of us.”
– JOHN WILLIAMS
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