The 2024 Paris Olympics provided memorable moments both at and away from the Olympic venues — some a bit more controversial than others.
Here are some the most talked-about moments in the Paris Olympics.
ATHLETES ARRESTED
Some athletes were apparently not on their best behavior while outside the Olympic Village.
A member of the Australian Olympic field hockey team was taken into custody in Paris after trying to buy cocaine, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement that police interrupted a drug transaction outside a building in the 9th arrondissement of Paris overnight. They said the investigation has been turned over to a police anti-drug unit for investigation.
The alleged buyer was a 28-year-old member of the Australian field hockey team, prosecutors said. The 17-year-old alleged seller was also taken into custody.
Tom Craig ended up apologizing for his “terrible mistake.”
“I would firstly like to apologize for what has occurred over the last 24 hours,” Craig said, according to the Australian Associated Press. “I made a terrible mistake and I take full responsibility for my actions.
“My actions are my own and by no way reflect the values of my family, my teammates, my friends, the sport and the Australian Olympic team. I have embarrassed you all and I’m truly sorry.”
Australian Olympic field hockey player Tom Craig was arrested for trying to buy cocaine while on a night out after his team’s elimination from the 2024 Paris Games, prosecutors said Wednesday.
After making his statement, Craig was escorted away by an Australian Olympic Committee official without taking questions.
The Australian Olympic Committee later released a statement from 2024 team leader Anna Meares saying Craig had lost his Olympic privileges and been moved out of the athletes village
Additionally, Egypt’s Olympic committee says Tokyo bronze medal-winning wrestler Mohamed Ibrahim El-Sayed will be investigated by the sport’s governing body for an alleged groping incident in Paris.
French prosecutors said Friday it had arrested a 26-year-old Olympic wrestler from Egypt on sexual assault charges. The athlete, who was not named by prosecutors, was detained early Friday after allegedly groping a woman from behind outside a Paris cafe, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The Egyptian Olympic committee later said that el-Sayed would be investigated.
The athlete faces disciplinary measures, including a ban from domestic and international competitions, for “irresponsible behavior” just hours after he had finished his Olympic competition and was scheduled to travel home, the statement also said.
KICKED OUT OF THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE
A young swimmer is at the center of controversy after allegedly being kicked out of the Olympic Village for creating an “inappropriate” environment.
Luana Alonso, a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who was competing at the Olympics for her native Paraguay, according to the report, is a specialist at the 100m butterfly.
However, it wasn’t her performance during the Paris Olympics that has shined a spotlight on the 20-year-old. Rather it is her alleged behavior, including her leaving the Olympic Village, that was not to the liking of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee.
Larissa Schaerer, mission head of the Paraguayan Olympic Committee, asked for her to immediately leave the Olympic Village, saying that her presence “had created an inappropriate environment for the Paraguayan team,” according to the report.
NBC New York reached out to the Paraguayan Olympic Committee for comment.
RUMORED PORN DEAL
France’s Anthony Ammirati made a name for himself at his Olympic debut in Paris — just not for a medal.
The 21-year-old Frenchman, who took the internet by storm when an incidental crossbar crotch clip cost him a shot at the podium, got pitched a sizeable payday from an adult entertainment company for a video workout minus the bar, according to TMZ.
The website claims to have obtained a copy of the offer letter from a live-streaming webcam pornography platform. The deal is supposedly worth $250,000.
It’s not clear if Ammirati would be open to the reported job. In the meantime, he is reflecting on the big miss.
BOXING IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, whose name vaulted into the top of Google searches last week after a 46-second bout reraised gender test issues, stayed atop global headlines as she dominated two more matches to advance to the final.
Khelif hasn’t seen a point scored against her yet in these Paris Games ahead of the final.
Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 world championships after failing an unspecified gender eligibility test, and her presence at the Paris Olympics has become a divisive issue. There’s no indication she identifies as transgender.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Saturday that “there was never any doubt” about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese double world champion Lin Yu-ting being women.
IBA Russian president, Umar Kremlev, claimed that DNA test results showed the two athletes have XY chromosomes, citing it as the reason they were disqualified in the world championships. The IBA also cited high levels of testosterone in Khelif’s system.
However, the test results were never published and Khelif has never disclosed her biological markers, calling the decision a “big conspiracy.” The disqualification came after Khelif defeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva in the 2023 tournament. IBA said it stripped Lin of a bronze medal because it claimed she failed to meet unspecified eligibility requirements in a biochemical test.
The IOC has long criticized the IBA and its governance of the sport and eventually banned the Russian-run organization in 2019. In a statement Friday, the IOC said it stands by the athletes and their eligibility to compete, noting that the boxing association’s own documents say the decision was made unilaterally by the IBA’s secretary general.
Those documents also say the IBA went on to resolve at a meeting that it should “establish a clear procedure on gender testing” after it had already disqualified the two fighters.
Two female boxers who were disqualified from the 2023 world championship after being judged to have failed gender eligibility tests were cleared to fight at the Olympic Games in Paris
How does the Olympics test for gender qualification?
Due to the banishment of the IBA, the IOC used rules from 2016 in determining boxers’ gender eligibility.
It leaves regulations up to each sport’s international governing body because “they know their sport and their discipline the best,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters. “I hope we all agree that we’re not calling for people to go back to the days of sex testing which was a terrible, terrible thing to do. This involves real people and we’re talking about real people’s lives here.”
The history of sex testing at the Olympics is decades-long and practices such as invasive physical examination have been exposed as abusive. The IOC in recent years updated its policy to be more inclusive and doesn’t require athletes to undergo “medically unnecessary” procedures or treatment, NBC News reported.
Several Olympic sports’ governing bodies have also updated their gender rules over the past three years, including World Aquatics, World Athletics and the International Cycling Union. The governing body for track and field also last year tightened rules on athletes with differences in sex development.
Can women have high levels of testosterone?
Simply put, yes, in the same way that many men can have low levels of testosterone. However, women with higher levels of testosterone have faced more criticism and questions about their gender.
Many of the rules set by governing bodies for participation in women’s competitions include testing of the athlete’s testosterone levels, but it’s not a perfect test, Adams said as he addressed the boxing controversy.
While scientists and the IOC agree that testosterone is “an important factor shaping performance in elite athletes in certain sports, events and disciplines,” it doesn’t necessarily predict the performance of an individual athlete.
“Many women can have testosterone which will be called ‘male levels’ and still be women and still compete as women. This idea that you do one test for testosterone and that sorts everything out? Not the case I’m afraid,” Adams said.
The IOC spokesman told reporters that there has been “a lot of misinformation around on social media particularly, which is damaging.”
SCANDALOUS LAST SUPPER
Before the games even officially started, Olympic organizers were already dealing with a controversy.
Toward the end of the four-hour Opening Ceremony spectacle, a cadre of drag queens and models walked a red carpet runway along the Passerelle Debilly bridge. One of those stars was none other than “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Nicky Doll. The queen strutted the bridge alongside “Drag Race France” favorites Paloma and Piche.
The queens were joined by dozens of other models and performers in a rendition many online thought resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s famed painting of The Last Supper.
Paris Olympics organizers apologized Sunday to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” during the glamorous opening ceremony.
Religious conservatives from around the world decried the segment, with the French Catholic Church’s conference of bishops deploring “scenes of derision” that they said made a mockery of Christianity.
The ceremony’s artistic director Thomas Jolly had said it was meant to celebrate diversity and pay tribute to feasting and French gastronomy. The Olympics X account called it an “interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus” that “makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”
And there’s potentially bad news for those who didn’t enjoy that portion of the ceremony: Jolly is set to return as the creative director for the Closing Ceremony on Sunday as well.
