Over the summer, the whole world had its focus directed to Paris, France, and of course Tahiti for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The two-and-a-half week-long event gave us amazing moments in fortunate and unfortunate ways. The Olympics also made way for athletes to grow their social media like Ilona Maher, Tom Daley, and Stephen Nedoroscik. 

Starting with the opening ceremony, the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France were truly like no other as 10,714 athletes from 206 different countries drifted down the Seine river. Just under 10,000 miles away, the Olympic surfers in Tahiti held their own opening ceremony. 

Throughout the competition, all over social media, athletes were sharing the Olympic Village experience, or as some videos referred to it the “Olympic Villa”. Starting with the food, the Olympic Village had a ‘muffin man’, Henrik Christiansen, the Norwegian swimmer who raved about the chocolate muffins online. Another take on the food came from other athletes saying the plant-based food options the Paris Olympics chose were not enough calories to properly fuel the athletes as well as the options being described as just not good. The Olympic host country heard the complaints and quickly tried to change the menu to fit the needs of the athletes’ nutrition. 

Out of the village and in the arenas, athletes were truly making history. Starting with the men’s gymnastics team earning the first Olympic medal in 16 years. This year’s team consisted of Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Stephen Nedoroscik, and Frederick Richard. As four members of the team compete in every event, Stephen Nedoroscik sits on the sidelines cheering on his teammates waiting for his one event, the pommel horse. As he steps up to the pommel horse, he takes his glasses off and scores high enough on his routine to get the bronze medal for his team. As the world watched the world champion in the pommel horse, photos and videos quickly took the internet by storm claiming that Nedoroscik is the Clark Kent of the pommel horse. Although not an actual superhero, he is still a hero to the kids with glasses that play sports. As well as the rest of the men’s gymnastics team, who all brought well-deserved attention to men’s gymnastics. 

In another less popular sport, at least in America, history was made when the women’s Rugby Sevens team beat Australia taking the Bronze medal, the first medal for United States (US) women’s Rugby. As the score was close at 14-12, the US had 14 and Australia took fourth place with 12 points. On a different field, Ryan Crouser took home his third gold medal in the Shot Put event in Paris. However, this third gold medal was a harder journey as he had nerve entrapment in his right elbow and then tore his pectoral muscle. With two procedures, Crouser threw 22.90 meters in the shot put event in the 2024 Paris Olympics. As the Olympics are a huge event and have ten thousand athletes, there will be numerous record-breaking events and photo finishes. Such as the finish to the men’s 100-meter dash race and Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone being the first woman to get back-back gold in 400-meter hurdles. Not to forget the USA women’s soccer team that has won the most Olympic gold medals in soccer history. 

As the 2024 Olympics finish up with the Paralympics, history has been made and changed until the LA 2028 Games. With that, more athletes will have the chance to compete among some of the greatest in the world.