Summer Olympics

Anthony Edwards praised the selflessness of Team USA teammates Kevin Durant and LeBron James following Saturday's 104-83 win over Puerto Rico in the 2024 Summer Olympics.

"KD and Bron man, they're the best two people. I mean, team players," Edwards told reporters. "They always want to see the person next to him shine. I told Bron, 'If you ain't got no shot, I'll find one.'"

Suiting up for the United States at a major tournament requires stars to check their ego at the door to some degree.

There's simply too much talent from top to bottom for any one player to expect to run the show. This year's squad in Paris boasts multiple MVPs and future Hall of Famers.

Head coach Steve Kerr also has to be careful to ensure he's spreading the wealth in terms of playing time. Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton is the only U.S. player who isn't averaging at least 17 minutes per game, and nobody is playing more than 22 minutes per contest.

In the case of Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, he's savoring the opportunity to take a step back in terms of his role after joining Team USA. The seven-time All-Star said he's "loving" not being "the guy" like he usually is in Philly, adding that his experience in Paris should prove beneficial when he's lining up next to Tyrese Maxey and new signing Paul George with the Sixers.

The United States' fourth-place finish in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup might have helped cement the sense of a unifying mission before USA Basketball ever put this team together.

The World Cup had hardly ended before numerous stars were reported as showing interest in the Paris Games. Reaffirming Team USA's standing as the best in the world became the ultimate objective, and anybody in the national team frame knew a collective effort would be required to fulfill that.

Following a 3-0 start in the group stage, everything is going according to plan.

The United States made it through unscathed in the group stage of the men's basketball tournament at the 2024 Summer Olympics, but head coach Steve Kerr is still expecting to see more once the knockout rounds tip off.

"I think we got done what we wanted to accomplish, winning all three games and securing the top seed," Kerr told reporters. "We know we have to play better. Part of this tournament is it gets harder as you go."

The U.S. not only went 3-0 in Group C but also had a plus-64 point differential. Germany (plus-47) was the next closest country.

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is averaging 14.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists, while the Phoenix Suns' Kevin Durant hasn't missed a beat after returning from a calf injury. Durant is averaging 16.0 points on 63.6 percent shooting, including 71.4 percent from beyond the arc. Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, one of the few bright spots from the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, is putting up a team-best 16.3 points per game.

To Kerr's point, it might be a stretch to say the United States has been dominant in Paris, however.

Team USA was up just nine points on Serbia at halftime in its first game before the talent gap proved to be too great in the second half. There isn't much to take away from the South Sudan victory, either, because South Sudan is the weakest team in the field. And the final score of Sunday's 104-83 win over Puerto Rico is skewed by Team USA blowing out its foe 39-16 in the second quarter.

The United States can't afford to take its foot off the gas. The road to the gold medal game is only going to get more difficult, and the formula for success won't be as simple as watching the individual talent take over.

The United States closed Saturday night in the pool with a win in the 4x100-meter mixed medley relay.

Torri Huske held on in the final leg of the four-discipline race to give the Americans the world record in the event and their sixth gold medal in the swimming events.

Huske, who swam the freestyle leg, combined with Ryan Murphy, Nic Fink and Gretchen Walsh to win the event.

China finished eight-hundredths of a second off the United States' pace, while Australia settled for third.

Results

1. United States - 3:37.43

2. China - 3:37.55

3. Australia - 3:38.76

4. France - 3:40.96

5. Canada - 3:41.41

6. Netherlands - 3:43.12

7. Great Britain - 3:44.32

8. Japan - 3:45.17

Huske has arguably been the most important United States swimmer at the Summer Olympics outside of Katie Ledecky.

Huske finished off Saturday's victory with a 51.88-second leg in the freestyle.

The 21-year-old now has four Olympic medals to her name from Paris. She took gold in the 100-meter butterfly and silver in two other events.

The United States opted to use two male swimmers in the first two legs. Ryan Murphy swam the backstroke and Nic Fink raced the breaststroke leg.

Gretchen Walsh held on to the lead in the butterfly leg and then handed off to Huske to complete the relay victory.

The gold medal was crucial in the United States' battle with Australia in the swimming events. Team USA now has six golds compared to seven from Australia.

The Americans will earn more overall swimming medals than the Aussies, but the gold medal race will come down to Sunday when the final four swimming champions are crowned.

Katie Ledecky won her fourth gold medal in the women's 800-meter freestyle exactly 12 years after she won her first gold in the event in 2012.

Ledecky joined Michael Phelps as the only swimmers in Summer Olympics history to win four gold medals in a single event.

Ledecky won her ninth career gold medal on Saturday, which is the most by any female American Olympian.

The Olympic legend beat Australia's Ariarne Titmus by a full second, while American Paige Madden picked up third place to add to the United States' medal haul inside the pool at Paris La Defense Arena.

Results

1. Katie Ledecky (United States) - 8:11.04

2. Ariarne Titmus (Australia) - 8:12.29

3. Paige Madden (United States) - 8:13.00

4. Simona Quadarella (Italy) - 8:14.55

5. Isabel Gose (Germany) - 8:17.82

6. Lani Pallister (Australia) - 8:21.09

7. Anastasiia Kirpichnikova (France) - 8:22.80

8. Erika Fairweather (New Zealand) - 8:23.27

Ledecky used the final 200 meters to pull away from her closest rival in the 800-meter freestyle.

Titmus was close to Ledecky for a majority of the early laps, but Ledecky kicked around the 600-meter mark to gain separation from the Paris gold medalist in the 400-meter freestyle.

Ledecky's win gave her back-to-back gold-medal doubles in the two longest events in the pool: the 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyles.

The 800-meter freestyle has been Ledecky's best event across four Olympics. She won four of her nine golds in the event.

Titmus put in a very respectable swim behind Ledecky to gain another medal for Australia in the pool.

Madden delivered a terrific swim of her own to land the bronze medal to add to the United States' medal haul.

After the 800-meter freestyle, the United States owns a 24-15 advantage in swimming medals over Australia, but the Aussies lead 7-5 in golds.

United States sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson took home the silver medal in the 100m after a competitive race with Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia.

Alfred won the gold medal with a blazing time of 10.72 seconds while Richardson's silver effort came with a time of 10.87. American Melissa Jefferson took home the bronze with a time of 10.92

One titan of track and field was notably absent from the field. Jamaican runner Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was scratched from the field at the semi-final stage, missing the chance to earn a fifth consecutive medal in the event.

Fraser-Pryce won gold in the 100m in 2008 and 2012 and also added bronze in 2016 and silver in 2020. She previously announced that she was retiring after the 2024 Games, so this was her last chance in the 100m.

The silver represents Richardson's first Olympic medal after she was ruled ineligible for the 2020 Summer Olympics following a positive test for cannabis. She entered the field as the betting favorite.

Alfred's medal is the first ever for the Caribbean country of Saint Lucia, and she had never reached the podium at a major championship event before Saturday's final.

As Alfred and Saint Lucia celebrate the victory, Richardson will now turn her focus toward securing a gold medal in the 4x100m women's relay. The semifinals for that race will take place on August 8 while the final is set for August 9.

Canada's Summer McIntosh used a last-second surge to swim past the United States' Kate Douglass to win the women's 200-meter individual medley.

McIntosh finished in an Olympic record time of 2:06.56, a mark that was two-hundredths of a second better than the previous record set by Katinka Hosszu in 2016.

The United States had two medalists when the race initially ended, but Alex Walsh was disqualified from her bronze-medal position. Walsh was disqualified for an illegal turn on the exchange between the backstroke and breaststroke.

Results

1. Summer McIntosh (Canada) - 2:06.56

2. Kate Douglass (United States) - 2:06.92

3. Kaylee McKeown (Australia) - 2:08.08

4. Yu Yuting (China) - 2:08.49

5. Abbie Wood (Great Britain) - 2:09.51

6. Sydney Pickrem (Canada) - 2:09.74

Ella Ramsay (Great Britain) - DNS

Alex Walsh (United States) - Disqualified

McIntosh flew to the front of the race during the freestyle portion of the individual medley.

The event is made of the four disciplines: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

McIntosh's come-from-behind win was her third victory in Paris. She also captured first place in the 400-meter individual medley and the 200-meter butterfly. McIntosh earned a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle as well.

The 17-year-old Ontario native is now responsible for three of the four gold medals won by Canada at the Paris Games.

Douglass picked up her third overall medal of the Olympics with her silver-medal finish. She was initially part of a two-three finish with Walsh, but the original bronze-medal finisher was disqualified.

Walsh was ruled to have a bad turn between the second and third legs that took her out of the medal podium and gave the bronze to Australia's Kaylee McKeown.

McKeown is now a five-time medalist in Paris. She is responsible for five of the 14 swimming medals earned by Australia.

Douglass' silver was the 22nd overall medal in the pool for the United States and the 12th silver in the swimming events.

The United States stole the show in the 4x400m mixed relay prelims, but the Netherlands grabbed the gold in a stunning final.

Off of a meteoric push from Femke Bol, the Netherlands beat out the U.S. to secure the gold medal with a winning time of 3:07.43

The Dutch score did not beat the U.S. record time of 3:07.41 that was set on Friday, but it's safe to say the Netherlands can live with simply grabbing the gold.

Here's a look at the final results of the 4x400M Relay.

1. Netherlands: 3:07.43
2. United States: 3:07.74
3. Great Britain: 3:08.01
4. Belgium: 3:09.36
5. France: 3:10.84
6. Jamaica: 3:11.67
7. Italy: 3:11.84
8. Poland: 3:12.39

The United States claimed silver despite leading for a significant portion of the race. That represented an improvement on the bronze finish the U.S. had at the 2020 Olympics, which was also when the event debuted.

The Netherlands didn't qualify for the event in 2020. Needless to say, Saturday's performance was a defining moment for the relay team of Eugene Omalla, Lieke Klaver, Isaya Klein Ikkink and Bol.

Bol's 47.93 anchor leg was what made the difference in the race, as she was able to overtake Kaylyn Brown in the final seconds to pull off the upset victory. The time was the fastest among the women's competitors in the event.

Kristof Milak needed every inch of the men's 100-meter butterfly to claim his second-ever gold medal at the Summer Olympics.

The Hungarian recovered from a slow start to beat out Canada's Josh Liendo by nine-hundredths of a second.

Liendo was in front for most of the race, but his final stroke toward the wall did not time up perfectly. That allowed Milak to touch the wall first for gold.

Liendo and Ilya Kharun produced a two-three finish for Canada.

Results

1. Kristof Milak (Hungary) - 49.90 seconds

2. Josh Liendo (Canada) - 49.99

3. Ilya Kharun (Canada) - 50.45

4. Noe Ponti (Switzerland) 50.55

5. Maxime Grousset (France) - 50.75

6. Nyls Korstanje (Netherlands) - 50.83

7. Matthew Temple (Australia) - 51.10

8. Naoki Mizunuma (Japan) - 51.11

Milak's dream of an individual gold in Paris was in doubt through the first 50 meters of the race.

The Hungarian was in the middle of the contenders as they made the turn back to the wall. Liendo appeared to have a decent shot at winning until the end, but Milak timed his stroke up perfectly and out-touched the Canadian for the gold medal.

Milak's win came a few days after he took second behind France's Leon Marchand in the 200-meter butterfly.

Milak now has a gold and a silver in each of the butterfly events. He took second behind Caeleb Dressel of the United States in Tokyo. He is responsible for two of Hungary's seven medals at the Paris Games.

Liendo and Kharun picked up Canada's sixth and seventh medals in the swimming events with their silver-bronze finish. Kharun also took bronze in the 200-meter butterfly.

The United States did not have a finalist after Dressel's failure to qualify, and more importantly for the Americans, Australia did not medal as the race for the most swimming medals comes to a close .

American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik won bronze in the Saturday final of the men's pommel horse competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Nedoroscik scored 15.300 to earn a place on the podium.

Nedoroscik's score knocked two-time Olympic champion Max Whitlock off the podium and put him in third place with three competitors left to go.

Ireland's Rhys McClenaghan earned gold, while Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan claimed silver.

The full results of Saturday's final are below.

Men's pommel horse final results

1. Rhys McClenaghan, Ireland (15.533)
2. Nariman Kurbanov, Kazakhstan (15.433)
3. Stephen Nedoroscik, United States (15.300)
4. Max Whitlock, Great Britain (15.200)
5. Oleg Verniaiev, Ukraine (14.966)
6. Takaaki Sugino, Japan (14.933)
7. Hur Woong, South Korea (14.300)
8. Loran de Munck, Netherlands (13.733)

Kurbanov performed first and set the bar high with a 15.433, beating out all qualifying scores.

Nedoroscik had previously qualified for the competition by tying McClenaghan's qualifiers-leading 15.200 score.

Whitlock performed after Kurbanov, but a break in form left Britain's most decorated gymnast off the podium in what he says will be the final Olympic appearance of his career.

McClenaghan became the first Irish gymnast to win an Olympic medal with his routine. The win represented redemption for McClenaghan after he finished seventh during 2020 Tokyo Games after coming off the pommel horse.

Nedoroscik earned his second bronze medal of the Olympics after his pommel horse routine also helped Team USA claim bronze in the men's team competition.

The former Penn State gymnast will add his two bronze medals to a list of accomplishments including a 2021 world championship and two NCAA titles.