Paris saw the best of Olympic sport as Andy Murray ended his career with one last night under the floodlights and US superstar gymnast Simone Biles made history but a decision to allow a female boxer to fight a rival who had previously failed a gender test left organisers under fire.
Murray, Great Britain’s most successful tennis player of the Open era, and a two-time Olympic champion, had hoped that his doughty double act with Dan Evans might delay his retirement by just a few more days. But the US team, Taylor Fritz, 26, and Tommy Paul, 27, proved too strong on Court Suzanne-Lenglen at Roland Garros.
After the dramatics of the previous two rounds, when Murray, 37, and Evans, 34, had saved a plethora of match points to keep the show on the road – and the floodlights on – the result this time rarely seemed in doubt, with the fist-pumping British pair no longer able to rage against the dying of the light in the quarter-final tie.
The match ended 6-2, 6-4, with Evans at the end pushing his visibly emotional friend back on to the court to take the roars of approval on what Murray has said will be his final professional outing.
For a sporting superstar performing at the top of their game, it was to the Bercy Arena that the savvy Olympic spectator went on Thursday night where Biles, 27, won her sixth Olympic gold medal, and second of the Paris Games, in the women’s all-around final.
In doing so, she became the third woman in history to earn the sport’s most prestigious title more than once, after Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia, but the stellar performance in Paris sealed her reputation as the greatest of all time.
It was a welcome and joyful conclusion to the sixth day of the Games that had seen the International Olympic Committee accused by the author JK Rowling of allowing a man to beat a woman for entertainment.
The criticism followed a decision by distraught Italian boxer, Angela Carini, to abandon her welterweight bout against Imane Khelif of Algeria after just 46 seconds on safety grounds.
Khelif, 25, is one of two boxers permitted to fight at the Olympics despite being disqualified from the women’s world championships last year for failing testosterone and gender eligibility tests.
After refusing to shake Khelif’s hand, Carini revealed in a post-fight interview in the North Paris Arena that she had pulled out after being hit harder than she had ever been hit before.
A first punch dislodged her chinstrap and a second smashed against her chin. She was left with a suspected broken nose and bloodied shorts. “I am heartbroken,” she said. “I went to the ring to honour my father. I was told a lot of times that I was a warrior but I preferred to stop for my health. I have never felt a punch like this. I got into the ring to fight. I didn’t give up, but one punch hurt too much and so I said enough. I’m going out with my head held high.
“After the second punch, after years of experience, I felt a strong pain in the nose. I said enough, because I didn’t want. I couldn’t finish the fight after the punch to the nose. So it was better to put an end to it.”
Among the critics of the IOC’s decision to stage the bout was Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against woman and girls, who said Carini had “should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex”.
Rowling, who has become known as an outspoken advocate for the rights of women, labelled the IOC’s safeguarding “a joke”.
She wrote: “Watch this, then explain why you’re OK with a man beating a woman in public for your entertainment … A young female boxer has just had everything she’s worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her. You’re a disgrace, your ‘safeguarding’ is a joke and Paris24 will be forever tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini.”
Khelif and Lin Yu‑ting, of Chinese Taipei, are said by the International Boxing Association (IBA) to have failed a gender eligibility test at last year’s world championships.
On Thursday, the IOC issued a statement that confirmed that both boxers had “complied” with its entry regulations and “have been competing in international boxing competitions for many years in the women’s category”.
“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” it added.
The IOC also accused IBA of changing its gender rules in the middle of last year’s world championships. “The current aggression against these two athletes is based entirely on this arbitrary decision, which was taken without any proper procedure – especially considering that these athletes had been competing in top-level competition for many years,” it said. “Such an approach is contrary to good governance.”
There were three more medals for Team GB on Thursday.
Helen Glover, a two-time gold medallist, missed out on topping the podium again by the narrowest of margins after an enthralling women’s four final against the Netherlands.
The 38-year-old and her crew mates Sam Redgrave, Esme Booth and Rebecca Shorten, had overhauled Romania at the 500-metre mark at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium but had to settle for silver. New Zealand took the bronze.
Glover acknowledged in her post-event interviews that her time might be up. “Half the team think I’ll carry on”, she said. “I don’t plan to carry on but I guess it’s been kind of ‘focus on crossing the finish line then we’ll see’.”
Bronzes in the women’s double sculls and men’s four, after Wednesday’s gold medal in the women’s quadruple sculls, offered fresh evidence of a revitalisation of Britain’s rowing teams after the disappointments of Tokyo three years ago.
Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne and Rebecca Wilde, who finished third behind New Zealand and Romania, spoke of an inner belief that they would pick up a medal. Hodgkins-Byrne, 29, from Hereford, said: “I knew we could do it beforehand, but knowing you can do it is very different to actually being able to do it.”
On winning a bronze in the men’s four with Freddie Davidson, David Ambler and Oli Wilkes, Matt Aldridge, 28, from Christchurch, expressed his renewed commitment to the sport, telling reporters that he was already looking ahead to the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, with track and field starting in earnest on Friday, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic 1500m champion, fired off a last-minute barb at his British rival, and world champion, Josh Kerr.
Asked by the media about the rivalry which has seen the men exchange insults in the press, Ingebrigtsen noted that Kerr did not appear at the European championships in June or run a 1500m race in 2024.
“It is difficult to see someone as a rival when you are never competing,” he said. “Kerr will become known as the Brit who never competes. We’ll see if he runs tomorrow.”
