After two weeks of epic competition, friendly rivalries, and breakthrough performances — with romantic, picturesque Paris as its backdrop — the 2024 Olympic Games are coming to an end.
They’ve provided an oasis amid the often stormy and chaotic news cycle — a rare moment for the world to come together and celebrate our shared humanity, resilience, aspirations, and friendship.
The raw tenacity of the human spirit is a beautiful thing to behold, and Olympians show us that our bodies and minds are often capable of so much more than we realize.
Following a scaled-down Tokyo Games in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Summer Olympics in Paris came roaring back in full force. And they didn’t disappoint: Records have been broken, athletes have transcended their limitations, stars have been born, behind-the-scenes moments have gone viral, and our hearts have been warmed and minds inspired by the performances of brilliant, elite athletes — both in and out of competition.
As we bid them farewell (and look forward to the forthcoming Paralympics!), here are four of the “nicest” trends from the Games.
Mental Health: The Simone Biles Effect
The world’s most-searched and talked about athlete from the Olympics, per Google Trends, Simone Biles has forever transformed the way we think about athlete mental health — and what it means to be a champion.
When the world’s spotlight was shining the brightest on Biles, hours after she triumphantly won gold in the women’s gymnastics individual all-around, she took to her Instagram to make her first public statement on social media. The message? “Mental health matters.”
Simone Biles during the artistic gymnastics women’s all-around final on Aug. 1, 2024
With those three words, the 27-year-old summed up a breakout theme of this year’s Summer Games. A growing number of Olympians are joining Biles’ path, sharing the powerful connection between their mental health and physical performance — and in so doing, destigmatizing conversations that previously felt taboo and inspiring change.
Last July, the International Olympic Committee, or IOC released its first Mental Health Action Plan. And just over a year later, the Paris Olympics implemented several of the initiatives outlined in this comprehensive strategy. Olympians felt the benefits, evidenced in the number of elite athletes who publicly shared their own mental health experiences and extolled the value of therapy, breathwork, and new services at the Olympic Village like the Mind Zone.
Learn more about why Paris 2024 will go down in history as the “mental health Olympics.”
Sportsmanship and International Friendship
The most iconic images from the Paris Olympics aren’t athletes posing with their medals or sparkling shots of the Eiffel Tower. They’re the images that represent the values of the Games: excellence, respect, and friendship. These core values serve as the foundation for the Olympic movement to weave together sport, culture, and education, all with the goal of building a better, more harmonious world.
And these aspirational values have been on display in Paris. From Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing down to Brazilian gold medalist Rebeca Andrade on the podium of the women’s gymnastics individual floor final (which also made history as the first all-Black gymnastics podium), to Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee sharing a congratulatory moment seconds after they battled head-to-head to finish a grueling triathlon, sportsmanship across countries and cultures has been on beautiful display.
With so many pf these poignant moments, here are a few more favorites that caught our attention:
-An Olympic podium selfie featuring athletes from North Korea, South Korea, and China was hailed as a rare display of cross-border camaraderie.
-Tennis titans Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal hugged after playing each other for potentially the final time at the Olympics, capping an epic rivalry with a moment of genuine respect.
Winner Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Rafael Nadal of Spain embrace at the net after their second round match of the men’s singles tennis competition on July 29, 2024
-When sprinter Lucia Moris of South Sudan fell during a preliminary heat of the women’s 100-meter race, it was her fellow competitor, Silina Pha Aphay of Laos, who rushed over to help her up.
-After winning gold in the women’s 800-meter, swimmer Katie Ledecky extended her hand to USA teammate Paige Madden, who had just won her first individual medal with bronze. Ledecky invited Madden to join her in the top spot of the podium as the U.S. national anthem played, sharing the spotlight.
-Halfway through the handball match between Brazil and Angola, both teams battling for a quarterfinalist position, Angolan captain Albertina Kassoma injured her knee so badly she was unable to lift herself up. Brazil’s Tamires Araujo Frossard picked her opponent up and carried her to the sidelines for treatment.
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Historic Medal Firsts
The Paris Games have been full of historic firsts and records. Boxer Cindy Ngamba shattered a glass ceiling for the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Team on Sunday, Aug. 4: securing their first medal at any Olympic Games since the team’s formation in Rio in 2016. On Thursday, Ngamba earned a bronze.
When Julien Alfred surprised the world by clinching the gold in the women’s 100-meter sprint, she earned the first-ever medal for her home of St. Lucia. You can feel the emotion and significance of Alfred’s win in the many viral videos of St. Lucians celebrating.
Shortly after Alfred’s victory, Thea Lafond-Gadson scored the first-ever medal for Dominica — also a gold! This was her third Olympics, and she spoke about how the inspiration and excitement of seeing Alfred make history helped provide extra excitement for her competition. Her brother’s reaction to finding out his sister won gold, during football practice, also went viral.
As for Djokovic, he finally secured his gold in the men’s tennis singles, besting Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. On his fifth attempt for a medal at the Games, Djokovic became the fifth tennis pro to achieve the “Golden Slam” in singles — meaning he won all four major tennis competitions, as well as an Olympic gold, per the BBC. He joins Nadal, Serena Williams, Andre Agassi, and Steffi Graf.
Gender Parity
The 2024 Olympics are the first to celebrate full gender parity in competition. According to the IOC, quota places were distributed equally among women and men athletes this year — a major increase from over a century ago. When women first competed in the modern Olympics at the 1900 Games in Paris, they represented just over 2% of athletes.
And with the U.S. leading the medal count (no wonder Beyoncé wanted to introduce the excellence that is Team USA!), it’s the women who are on pace to notch the majority of medals.
Notable female performances include Ledecky setting a record for the most golds won by a U.S. woman — and the most decorated U.S. female Olympian. She was also selected to be a flag bearer in the closing ceremony, alongside rower Nick Mead.
Team USA swimmers Katie Ledecky (left) and Paige Madden (right) attend the medal ceremony of the women’s 800-meter freestyle swimming final on Aug. 3, 2024
Biles won three golds and one silver medal in her triumphant comeback. Swimmer Torri Huske picked up five medals: three golds and two silvers. And with two Olympic gold medals, Kristen Faulkner became the first U.S. woman — and the third woman in history — to win gold in two different disciplines (track cycling and road cycling) at a single Olympic Games.
On the pitch, the U.S. women’s rugby team nabbed its first ever-medal and the first medal for the USA rugby program in 100 years. The men’s rugby team last medaled in the 1924 Games — coincidentally also held in Paris — where they scored gold.
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Ariana Ramsey of U.S. women’s rugby told Nice News, “Women in sports are just on an upward climb … we’re rising, and I’m so excited to see the impact this will have for women in general, even outside of sports. I know change is possible, and we’re doing it. We’re making it happen.”
Added Todd Clever, a global rugby icon and former board member and athlete representative for Team USA Rugby: “Women’s sports are just as competitive, as entertaining, as amazing to watch [as men’s sports] … they deserve all the credit and attention.”
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