Forget the Euros. The ultimate sporting event of the summer starts shortly. Kicking off July 26, thousands of athletes from hundreds of nations will be competing for gold, silver and bronze across the two weeks (ends August 11). It’s the Paris 2024 Olympics!
Team GB has won a gold medal at every edition of the Summer Olympics, stretching back to 1896, and brought home 64 medals from Tokyo in 2021 (delayed by COVID). This Paris 2024 team will want to continue this rich tradition and write its name in history this summer. And we’ll be supporting them all from the comfort of our sofa!
Of course, with so many British athletes competing – 327 athletes, to be exact, across 24 different sports – we can’t literally support them all. We need to eat, sleep, work, and the rest of it… What will do is set aside time to support our hometown heroes – those athletes representing Bristol at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
We’ve found four athletes from Bristol (and one further afield) that we’ll be throwing our support behind – trying to figure out the rules of the sport as we watch along. So even if you watch nothing else at the Paris 2024 Olympics, don’t miss out on these Bristolian Olympians!
Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe, Artistic Swimming: Duet
Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe met as 10-year-olds at Clifton High School, where they not only became best friends out of the water but inseparable in the pool too. A decade later, the pair made their Olympic debut in the artistic swimming duet event at Tokyo 2020, only finishing 14th. But by the 2023 European Games, they claimed their first medal for Team GB – bronze in the free routine.
Then, at the 2024 World Championships, Kate and Izzy made history with Britain’s first-ever duet World medal, taking silver in the technical routine and bronze in the free routine. This meteoric rise sets them up nicely for their second Olympics, where the pair have a real shot at an Olympic medal.
Artistic swimming: Duet technical routine will take place Friday, August 9 between 18:30-20:30 (BST); then on, Saturday, August 10, the duet free routine will take place between 18:30-21:00 (BST).
Ben Jefferies, Athletics
The Bristol-born runner swapped the South West for the Midwest when he enrolled at Briar Cliff University in Iowa (although the accent’s still a dead giveaway). He has since become a two-time national champion in the 400m dash, breaking several BCU indoor and outdoor records. This is his first ever Olympic Games.
The men’s 400m round 1 is at 18:05 on Sunday, August 4; the men’s 400m semis is at 19:35 on Tuesday, August 6; and the men’s 400m final is at 20:20 on Wednesday, August 7.
Lily Owsley, Hockey
As the only former Olympics-winning Bristolian heading to Paris, Lily Owsley is a serial winner and a major star on the international hockey scene. Having studied at Clifton College, she currently plays as a midfielder or forward for the Dutch club hdm. But she was also part of the Team GB hockey team that won gold at Rio 2016, before taking home bronze in Tokyo, and then gold at 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Team GB Women’s Hockey will play Spain (July 28) at 12:15, Australia (July 29) at 16:00, South Africa (July 31) at 09:30, USA (August 1) at 16:00 and Argentina Women (August 3) at 09:00. The quarter-finals will happen on August 5, the semi-finals on August 6-7 and the final on August 9.
Lele Nairne, Judo
So Lele Nairne is actually from Weston-super-Mare, but there aren’t many for us to support at the Paris 2024 Olympics, so we’ll claim her! Having won the British Judo Championships last year, Nairne is making her Olympic debut in the -57kg category. Nairne has previously won gold in the -57kg category at The 2022 Judo Oceania Open Perth and silver at the 2018 European U23 Judo Championships.
The women’s -57kg elimination rounds (between 9:00-13:00) and medal rounds (from 15:00-18:00) will take place on Monday, July 29.
To see the full Paris 2024 Olympics schedule head here.