🗞 Everybody's Favourite New Team

AUSSIE SPORTS
Late Nights & Early Mornings

📺 With the opening ceremony on Friday (there is Rugby 7s, and Women’s Football action, from Wednesday).

Let’s take a look at how you can view the Paris Olympics.

For the first time since 2012, the Summer Olympics will not be broadcast by Channel Seven. Instead, the upcoming Games will be broadcast by the Nine Network after they paid more than $300m for the rights up to Brisbane 2032.

Nine is gearing up for Paris 2024 with comprehensive coverage spread across two dedicated 24-hour Olympic TV channels, Channel 9 and 9Gem, and an extensive range of content available on 9Now and Stan.

Australian audiences will be able to watch every event from all 32 sports (329 events). Specific scheduling and event details to be announced daily.

We’ll do our very best to update our own Live Sports Schedule to keep you in the loop.

🥇 An Aussie gold rush has been predicted for Paris 2024, with athletes forecast to achieve their best medal haul since Sydney 2000.

The Gracenote Virtual Medal Tally (a super computer that has crunched the numbers from all international performances since Tokyo 2020) has forecast Aussies to win 54 medals - 15 gold, 23 silver and 16 bronze in Paris. Ranking 5th overall.

Should the prediction be accurate, it would be the best performance since Sydney 2000.

😷 Breaking: A second [unnamed] member of the Australian women's water polo team has tested positive to COVID-19 ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Team chef de mission Anna Meares said on Tuesday morning that a player had mild symptoms after testing positive on Monday night.

A few hours later the Australian Olympic Committee said a second player also had tested positive.

The AOC added no other athletes in the Paris team had been diagnosed.

🏀 Josh Giddey believes the Boomers have their "realest chance" ever to win a shock Olympic gold medal after Australia received positive news on injured guard Dante Exum.

The Mavericks veteran is expected to miss Saturday's opening game against Spain (with a dislocated finger), but centre Jock Landale told reporters he had been "cleared" of a fracture and remained a "key piece of the puzzle."

Boomers' group phase schedule (AEST):

• July 27: Australia vs. Spain @ 7pm.

• July 30: Australia vs. Canada @ 9:30pm

• August 2: Australia vs. Greece @ 9:30pm.

🎾 Alex de Minaur has confirmed he will make his Olympic debut in Paris after making a recovery from the injury that caused him to withdraw from Wimbledon earlier this month. 

De Minaur is also preparing to play in the New York edition of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown, (22nd Aug) where Aussie maverick Nick Kyrgios is scheduled to make his return to the game.

NRL NEWS
Big Names Return

📄 TEAM LISTS: Things are getting very serious now as up to 14 teams remain in the hunt for a Top 8 position on the NRL ladder.

Every game is a grand final for several teams as each loss will see them tumble further from contention. (NRL.com)

• Eels: Experienced forwards Bryce Cartwright and Shaun Lane are named to start.

• Storm: Star playmaker Cameron Munster is listed among the reserves as he closes in on a return.

• Broncos: Selwyn Cobbo is back from a groin injury so Corey Oates goes to 18th man.

• Sharks: Liam Ison makes his NRL debut at fullback.

• Dragons: Origin stars Zac Lomax and Ben Hunt return.  

🙋🏼‍♀️ NRLW 2024 Season Launch: The NRLW has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years, with the 2024 season expected to be the biggest yet on the back of record-breaking Women's State of Origin ratings. 

The competition will kick off with a clash between Newcastle and the Roosters in the prime-time Thursday slot on Channel 9 and Fox Sports.

"From the '22 season to the '23 season there were more tackles, more points, more tries, more offloads and as a result of that fans are really responding positively. It's not just about viewership and ratings, it's also registrations at the grassroots level. 

"We saw young girls here today looking up at their idols, saying 'that could be me playing in a professional sports league'. Registrations are up in double figures. That bodes well for any sport because that's the long-term lifeblood of our sport." - NRL CEO Andrew Abdo

AFL NEWS
Key Signings

🫡 icymi: Sydney premiership player Sam Reid has announced his retirement, after suffering an injury setback in the VFL.

The 32-year-old informed teammates on Tuesday morning he was retiring effective immediately.

He ends his career as a 181-gamer with the club, having made his senior debut in 2010 and played 22 games in the club's premiership season two years later, when he kicked a goal from 13 disposals against Hawthorn in the Grand Final. He kicked a career-best 31 goals that year.

✍🏼 Melbourne have confirmed a pair of key re-signings, with first-year speedster Caleb Windsor and premiership swingman Harrison Petty both re-signing with the Demons. (ZeroHanger)

📺 WATCH: 3mins of AFL marks but they get increasingly higher (Aussie Thingz on YouTube)

WORLD NEWS
New Favourite Team

⚽️ Eight years have passed since Leicester City shocked the world by winning the English Premier League - but there is an even more far-fetched and unlikely story brewing in the Japanese top flight.

Machida Zelvia, who only formed in 1989 and were a non-league team until 2009, are five points clear at the top of the J-League with 14 games left.

They had never even played at the highest level before this season.

Just like in England back in 2016, plenty have been waiting for the bubble to burst - but the team from western Tokyo remain confident.

"We want to win the title and we have that belief," Machida striker Mitch Duke.

The imposing Australia international, is only a year or so younger than the club he joined at the start of 2023.

"We have passed the halfway mark and played everyone. We can match it with anyone in the league, no matter what the history of the other teams. They have to chase us and it is ours to lose," Duke said.

🎾 Andy Murray has confirmed he will retire from tennis after the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 37-year-old is planning to play in the singles and doubles at what will be his fifth Games.

⚽️ EPL Whispers: Manchester City are weighing up move for Eberechi Eze with Kevin de Bruyne's future at club uncertain, PSG are interested in Manchester United's Jadon Sancho and Bruno Fernandes, and Aston Villa target Portugal forward Joao Felix.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says the club are trying to strengthen "certain positions" as they close in on the signing of Italy defender Riccardo Calafiori.

Real Madrid continue to be linked with a potential move for Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold next summer.

📸 The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series reached the Causeway Coast, Northern Ireland, at the weekend. Moody.

🏀 Kevin Durant's timeline to play for Team USA keeps getting pushed back as he recovers from a right calf strain. But he will absolutely be on the Olympic roster when it is set later this week.

🏎️ Carlos Sainz has claimed his Ferrari replacement Lewis Hamilton is not a better driver than him - and reckons that everyone on the grid would say the same.

Ferrari announced a shock deal to bring seven-time world champion Hamilton to the Prancing Horse for the 2025 Formula One season in February

OLYMPICS
Cardboard Beds

🍃 The organising committee of Paris 2024 has vowed to make it the greenest Games in Olympic history, with half the carbon footprint of London 2012 and Rio 2016.

From tables made out of shuttlecocks to plant-based menus, Paris 2024 have announced a number of initiatives that they claim will help them reach their targets.

The beds in the athletes’ village at Tokyo 2020 were constructed using recycled cardboard "aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes" because they would collapse under the weight of more than one person. 

• 18,000 beds, and 8,000 for the Paralympics.

• 30% of all meals in Paris will be plant-based.

At previous Games, some stadiums had to rely on diesel generators for power. Paris organisers have instead promised to focus on connecting stadiums to the public electricity network.

🇺🇸 LeBron James has been named the Team USA men's flag bearer for the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony. He’s the first men’s basketball player to receive the honor in U.S. history, at his fourth Olympics.

🔥 American rapper Snoop Dogg (born in the host city of the next Olympics - LA) has been named as one of the final torchbearers of the Olympic flame before Friday's opening ceremony in Paris.

The 52-year-old will carry the torch through the streets of Saint-Denis in the north of Paris, which is home to the Stade de France Olympic Stadium, on Friday.

🏏 The Women's T20 World Cup will expand to 12 teams for the 2026 tournament in England and grow to a 16-nation competition for 2030, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced.

Ten teams will take part in the 2024 tournament in Bangladesh in October, where Australia will aim to win a record-extending fourth successive title.

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