Summer Olympics

Kauli Vaast of France and Caroline Marks of the United States are the second-ever surfing gold medalists after winning in Tahiti on Monday.

Marks defeated Tatiana Weston-Webb of Brazil 10.50 to 10.33 in the women's gold-medal match while Vaast beat Australia's Jack Robinson 17.67 to 7.83 in their gold-medal meeting.

Gabriel Medina of Brazil came into the event as a favorite, but the waves didn't go his way and he was only able to put up one best wave score. Still, he found his way to the bronze-medal matchup, where he beat Peru's Alonso Correa.

Women's Surfing Results

Gold: Caroline Marks (United States) def. Tatiana Weston-Webb (Brazil) 10.50 to 10.33

Bronze: Johanne Defay (France) def. Brisa Hennessy (Costa Rica), 12.66 to 4.93

Men's Surfing Results

Gold: Kauli Vast (France) def. Jack Robinson (Australia), 17.67 to 7.83

Bronze: Gabriel Medina (Brazil) def. Alonso Correa (Peru), 15.54 to 12.43

Though conditions were subpar through the semifinals and bronze-medal matches, the surf turned out to be somewhat favorable for the gold-medal matches.

That led to a big start for Vaast.

The Frenchman came out with a bang, scoring an 8.17 for his first wave before driving through a barrel to score a 9.50 to give him a score of 17.67 after just two waves. Needless to say, that made things comfortable for Vaast and put pressure on Robinson.

Robinson recorded a 7.83 with his first wave, which is a commendable score, but not quite what he needed to be on par with Vaast.

But the surf didn't cooperate with Robinson, and his first wave ended up being his only as time ticked away. Even if he had the chance to surf a few more waves, it's hard to imagine he could have matched or bested Vaast's score.

Vaast, 22, won his first Olympic medal with his performance on Monday, and it only makes it more special that he was able to do it in his native Tahiti.

In the women's gold-medal match, things began very slow with neither surfer being able to find a wave they liked through the first 15 minutes or so.

A slow start quickly picked up in the final minutes of the match as favorable waves started coming for both Marks and Weston-Webb. The slew of waves led to the contest coming down to the final minutes.

Weston-Webb had an impressive run with around two minutes remaining and the judges had to make their scoring decisions as time ran out. With no time remaining, Marks could only wait to see if her score was enough, and it was as Weston-Webb scored a 4.50, leaving her just shy of the win.

Marks' best wave was a 7.50 and her second-best was a 3.00, while Weston-Webb's best was 5.83 with her second-best being a 4.50.

Marks fell just short of medaling in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, placing fourth overall. Now, three years, later she has her first medal, and it's gold.

Keely Hodgkinson upgraded from silver to gold in the women's 800 meters on Monday.

The 22-year-old, who took second in Tokyo, entered the race as the overwhelming favorite and she broke away from the field over the final 200 meters.

Hodgkinson was at the front of the pack for a majority of the race, but she did not shed her closest gold-medal rivals until the final turn inside the Stade de France.

1. Keely Hodgkinson (Great Britain) - 1:56.72

2. Tsige Duguma (Ethiopia) - 1:57.15

3. Mary Moraa (Kenya) - 1:57.42

4. Shafiqua Maloney (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) - 1:57.66

5. Renelle Lamote (France) - 1:58.19

6. Worknesh Mesele (Ethiopia) - 1:58.28

7. Juliette Whittaker (United States) - 1:58.50

8. Prudence Sekgodiso (South Africa) - 1:58.79

Hodgkinson pulled away at the end to win the two-lap race by almost a half second.

The Team GB runner set the pace and did not let go of her spot on the front. She forced others to attempt to push the pace from the outside.

Kenya's Mary Moraa attempted to make a surge at the gold medal on the final turn, but she lost pace in the final 50 meters as Hodgkinson broke away from the pack.

Hodgkinson's win was the first for Team GB in the women's 800 meters since Kelly Holmes at the 2004 Athens Games.

Ethiopia's Tsige Duguma made some history of her own with a second-place finish. She became the first Ethiopian to earn a medal in the 800 meters. Ethiopia typically has multiple contenders in the long distance events.

Duguma set a personal best time of 1:57.15. She got past Moraa as the Kenyan faded in the final 50 meters.

Moraa took home the third bronze medal in four Olympics in the 800 meters for Kenya.

Juliette Whittaker of the United States took seventh place in the final. She was the only American in the field. Tokyo gold medalist Athing Mu did not qualify for the event.

Gabby Thomas has gold in her sights.

The American headlines the list of finalists for the women's 200m track and field competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Here is a look at the full schedule and field following Monday's semifinal heats.

Women's 200m Final Schedule

Date: Tuesday, Aug. 6

Time: 3:40 p.m. ET

TV: NBC

Stream: Peacock

Women's 200m Final Field

• McKenzie Long, USA
• Jessika Gbai, Ivory Coast
• Dina Asher-Smith, Great Britain
• Daryll Neita, Great Britain
• Brittany Brown, USA
• Gabrielle Thomas, USA
• Julien Alfred, Saint Lucia
• Favour Ofili, Nigeria  

If the semifinals and Olympics as a whole are any indication, the showdown between Thomas and Saint Lucia's Julien Alfred will be one to watch in Tuesday's final.

Thomas posted the best time of the semifinals at 21.86 seconds, easily winning her heat over second-place finisher Dina Asher-Smith (22.31 seconds). Alfred won one of the other heats with a time of 21.98 seconds.

Thomas entered the Paris Olympics with a silver in the women's 4x100m relay and bronze in the women's 200m from the Tokyo Games on her resume. Meanwhile, Alfred has also become a household name during the ongoing Games.

She won the women's 100m gold medal in a loaded field that also included Americans Sha'Carri Richardson and Melissa Jefferson, who captured silver and bronze, respectively.

It was a historic showing, as Alfred won the first Olympic medal for Saint Lucia in the history of the Games and announced herself to the world as a champion.

Yet she will have to make up some time on Thomas if she is going to win another gold and complete the 100m and 200m sweep.

The frightening thing for the rest of the field is Thomas didn't even seem to break a sweat and put things on cruise control as she finished her semifinal heat. She will surely dial up the intensity and speed even more with a gold on the line.

If she does, it will be her race to win.

Amid a Chinese doping scandal, legendary swimmer Michael Phelps voiced his support for harsher penalties for those who test positive for banned substances.

"If everybody is not going through that same testing, I have a serious problem because it means the level of sport is not fair and it's not even," Phelps said, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN). "If you're taking that risk, then you don't belong in here."

Phelps also emphasized the importance of winning without using banned substances, noting all the accomplishments he achieved without cheating and the lengths he went to to ensure there was no speculation.

"People called me a cheater throughout my career," Phelps said. "I subjected myself to do more testing -- blood and urine -- weekly. Why? For the reason that I could say I'm not cheating, and I am clean and here are the results.

"I did it the clean way," he added. "I won 23 Olympic gold medals the clean way. It can be done."

Phelps, a 23-time Olympic gold medalist, went as far as to say his competition throughout his career used banned substances.

"I don't think I ever competed in an even playing field or a clean field," Phelps said. "I have some speculations of some athletes that I competed against that I thought they were [doping]. But that's out of my control."

Phelps' comments come after the World Anti-Doping Agency and World Aquatics acknowledged that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Of the 23 athletes, nine earned medals at this year's games in Paris.

Whether the World Anti-Doping Agency will take Phelps' suggestions is to be determined, but having one of the greatest swimmers of all time voicing his opinions on such matters should hold plenty of weight.

Noah Lyles cleared his first hurdle in the quest for 200-meter gold by advancing out of his first-round qualifying heat.

Lyles crossed the finish line in 20.19 seconds, which was the sixth-fastest during Monday's run. Fellow Americans Kenneth Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton paced the field with sub-20-second times.

Men's 200-Meter Semifinal Qualifiers

Kenneth Bednarek, United States (19.96)

Erriyon Knighton, United States (19.99)

Alexander Ogando, Dominican Republic (20.04)

Tapiwanashe Makarawu, Zimbabwe (20.07)

Letsile Tebogo, Botswana (20.10)

Noah Lyles, United States (20.19)

Joseph Fahnbulleh, Liberia (20.20)

Shaun Maswanganyi, South Africa (20.20)

Eseosa Fostine Desalu, Italy (20.26)

Makanakaishe Charamba, Zimbabwe (20.27)

Filippo Tortu, Italy (20.29)

Joshua Hartmann, Germany (20.30)

Andre De Grasse, Canada (20.30)

Tarsis Gracious Orogot, Uganda (20.32)

Towa Uzawa, Japan (20.33)

Wanya McCoy, Bahamas (20.35)

Renan Correa, Brazil (20.41)

Wayde van Niekerk, South Africa (20.42)

Full results are available on the Olympics' official site

Lyles backed up his title as the fastest man in the world when he beat Jamaica's Kishane Thompson by a mere 0.005 seconds in the 100-meter dash. He didn't have much time to bask in his victory, though, as he had to shift his focus onto the 200-meter run.

The 27-year-old was only a bronze medalist in this event at the Tokyo Games in 2021. However, he's a three-time world champion (2019, 2022 and 2023). He came into Paris as the clear favorite after coasting past Knighton at the 2023 Worlds in Budapest, Hungary.

The qualifying heats aren't where Lyles is expecting to shine, so he was unlikely to empty the tank already and try to post the fastest time possible. He was third in the semifinals for the 100 and was four seconds slower than he was in the final.

A top-three time in his first-round heat was all Lyles needed to move on, and he still would've had the repechage if he had failed to achieve that relatively modest goal.

The repechage is scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. ET with the semifinals slated for 2:02 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

NBC Sports announcer Leigh Diffey addressed the confusion that stemmed from the photo finish in the men's 100-meter dash final.

Diffey said Monday on X he "got it wrong" when he thought Jamaica's Kishane Thompson edged out American Noah Lyles, who was declared the winner after track officials examined the final order:

In Diffey's defense, it was all but impossible to identify the winner with the naked eye in real-time. Even slow-motion replays were difficult to parse with just 0.005 separating Lyles and Thompson.

Lyles himself was mentally prepared for a silver medal as soon as he crossed the finish line.

"They're all experts after it's over, right? I trusted my eyes and instinct and got it wrong by .005 seconds," Diffey said to the Associated Press' Jenna Fryer.

The general uncertainty about who won didn't make for great television, though. Lyles' triumph felt a little anticlimactic because all of the drama was unfolding off the screen. Viewers became aware of the outcome only when Lyles started celebrating on the track rather than anything conveyed by the NBC broadcast team.

Still, fans had ample time afterward to celebrate the 27-year-old becoming the first American male sprinter since Justin Gatlin in 2004 to take the gold in the 100-meter dash.

Chase Budinger's dream of an Olympic medal is over.

Budinger and partner Miles Evans were swept 2-0 by the Norwegian duo of Anders Mol and Christian Sørum in Monday's Round of 16 play. Mol and Sørum won both matches in the best-of-3 format with relative ease, taking the first 21-16 and the second 21-14.

Budinger and Miles were heavy underdogs to Mol and Sørum, who are the reigning gold medal winners and favorites to repeat their triumph from the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo. The Norwegian duo looked the part on Monday and will go into the quarterfinals with all of the momentum in their favor.

Budinger, who played seven NBA seasons before embarking on a volleyball career, should nevertheless see his Olympic run as nothing short of a success. Spending seven years in the NBA is an accomplishment by itself. Doing so and then turning your attention to a completely different sport in your late 20s and then reaching Olympic heights is essentially unheard of.

Budinger is the first player to compete in both the NBA and Olympic volleyball.

Fellow Americans Miles Partain and Andy Benesh also reached the Round of 16 and will compete later Monday against the Italian duo of Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava.