The 17-year-old had topped the scores in qualification and improved on that performance with a score of 15.700 from the judges following a flawless fast-paced routine which featured a number of complex release-and-catch manoeuvres.

“I’m so shocked, it’s the dream of all my life. I can’t believe it has happened, I’m speechless,” she said.

Nemour’s success also provided Algeria with its sixth Olympic gold since first competing in Tokyo in 1964.

The North African nation last topped the podium at London 2012, when Taoufik Makhloufi won the men’s 1500m.

Last year Nemour, who was born in Saint-Benoit-la-Foret, France, became the first African to claim a world championship medal in gymnastics when she took silver in the uneven bars final in Antwerp.

And she went one better at the Bercy Arena on Sunday as Qiu Qiyuan of China, the reigning world champion, finished second with a score of 15.500 and American Sunisa Lee took bronze.

“In qualifying, I had 15.600,” Nemour said.

“When I saw her (Qiu’s) 15.500, I really had to fight and gave the performance of my life.

“It’s crazy, I’m honoured to have this medal after all that has happened, it’s a relief.”

The defending Olympic champion, Belgium’s Nina Derwael, ended the competition in fourth.

Nemour switched to represent Algeria, the country of her father’s birth, last year after a dispute with France’s gymnastics federation over her return to action following a knee injury.

First Olympic medal for Cape Verde

Image source: Getty ImagesImage caption,

David de Pina was beaten in his boxing semi-final at Paris 2024 by an opponent who won an Olympic gold in 2016

Cape Verdean boxer David de Pina was forced to settle for a bronze medal after losing his men’s 51kg semi-final bout against Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekhistan by unanimous decision.

De Pina had made history by securing a first Olympic medal for his island nation but was unable to reach the final against an opponent who was seeded second in the competition.

The 27-year-old was Cape Verde’s flagbearer during the opening ceremony of the Paris Games on the Seine.

Meanwhile, Cameroon-born Cindy Ngamba guaranteed the Refugee Olympic Team their first medal in history after comfortably winning her women’s 75kg quarter-final in Paris.

Ngamba, who moved to the UK aged 10, beat France’s Davina Michel with a unanimous points decision to reach the last four and win at least bronze.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Nigeria reached the quarter-finals of the women’s basketball competition with a 79-70 win over Canada.

D’Tigress are the first African side, male or female, to reach the last eight of an Olympic basketball tournament.

“I hope young girls are watching this. I’m the first but I should not be the last,” coach Rena Wakama said.

“If we invest in Africa, we’re capable of doing amazing things, but we [have] got to put some eyes on Africa and develop the game there. It starts with grass roots.”

Nigeria will discover who they will face in Wednesday’s quarter-finals when the group stage concludes on Sunday evening.

Yeboah, who is Ghana’s first woman ever to qualify for the Olympic Games in women’s high jump, will compete at 8:15 am Ghana time.

She’s in Group A alongside women’s high jump record holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine, who jumped higher than any woman in history, setting a world record of 2.10m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in June. This has stamped her as the outright favourite for the Olympic gold medal in this year’s Olympics.

The Ghanaian would need to clear the bar at 1.97m, the height she jumped to secure a ticket to Paris for these games, if she’s to make the final on Friday.

She can also qualify for the final without necessarily meeting the standard qualification of 1.97m if she’s among the top 12 best jumpers after the first round.

Since breaking onto the scene in 2019, the 22-year-old has won back-to-back African Games and African Athletics Seniors Championships gold medals.

In the African Games in Rabat five years ago, she cleared the bar at 1.84m to win and defended it in Accra with a jump of 1.90m.

She won her first gold at the African Seniors Athletics Championships in Mauritius with a jump of 1.79m. A year ago, while a student at the University of Cape Coast, the youngster set a new national record at the FISU Games by clearing the bar at 1.94m, earning her another gold medal and qualifying her for the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

She earlier won gold in the African University Games in Egypt.

In her last event before flying to Paris, Rose won gold at the Confederation of African Athletics Seniors Championships in Douala last month, clearing a height of 1.87m.

In her cabinet are six gold medals from four continental or global competitions.

She capped off that spectacular CV with a 1.97m in the NCAA to qualify for the Olympics, and she’s hoping to do better.

“Qualifying for the Olympics is such a great experience, and I am really happy to see myself there to compete for my country, Ghana,” she told JoySports.

“Looking at my performance at the NCAA, I feel like I will do much better since it’s going to be a competition among ourselves.

“Everyone should expect me to qualify for the finals and see myself on the podium. It will be such a great experience if at least I make it to the finals and get a medal,” she added.

Every height cleared by Rose was a record set by her and broken by herself.

Flying to Paris for the Olympics is a record, and she could be in contention for another record if she makes the final.

The athletes include Rose Yeboah (high jump), Harry Stacey and Joselle Mensah (swimming), and Saminu Abdul Rasheed, Joseph Paul Amoah, Fuseini Ibrahim, Botsio Isaac, and Benjamin Azamati (track and field).

Their campaign kicks off on Tuesday, July 30, with Harry Stacey competing in the Men’s 100m Freestyle – Heat 4.

Rose Yeboah will participate in the Women’s high jump event on Friday, August 2.

Joselle Mensah is set to compete in the Women’s 100m Freestyle – Heat 6 on the following day.

On the same day, Azamati and Abdul Rasheed will take part in the Men’s 100m.

Finally, on August 8, the five sprinters will come together to represent Ghana in the 4x100m relay – Round 1.

Full schedule and start time below

France’s president Emmanuel Macron has just about kept his counsel up to now but there is growing certainty that a slow tease comprising layers of confidentiality seductively dropped over recent days will end with a duet by Céline Dion and Lady Gaga at the glittering opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on Friday night.

And not any old duet. The global superstars are expected to perform Édith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’, in a show of soft French power that a momentarily overwhelmed Macron evidently found rather difficult to keep to himself when lightly grillé about Dion’s Instagram posts.

“Apparently she has arrived in Paris, it’s great!” he confessed to the French television channel France 2. “I would be immensely happy if she could be at this opening ceremony, like all our compatriots.”

“I will not reveal anything, what [opening ceremony director] Thomas Jolly and all his teams have prepared”, Macron added with a gallic twinkle in his eye. “There is also a surprise.”

He concluded, with a smile: “I am not responsible for his schedule.”

Dion’s rumoured appearance would mark her first performance since she was forced to halt her touring schedule and step away from the spotlight after being diagnosed in December 2022 with Stiff Person Syndrome, a a rare, chronic neurological disorder that causes muscle stiffness and sometimes intense spasms. She last performed live in New York in the spring of 2020.

According to RTL, every effort has been made to keep the French-Canadian singer relaxed ahead of her comeback.

She arrived in Paris on a private jet trip from her home in Vegas and is staying in a sumptuous suite at the Royal Monceau on the Champs Elysee, from which Gaga, the American singer-song writer who was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanottav, was coincidentally also seen emerging this week, blowing kisses to her fans.

According to some media reports, Dion is being paid a tidy €2m fee and will be dressed in a pink and black feather cape from Dior. As for Gaga, the tight security around the Seine did not stop one intrepid fan posting a photograph of someone who looked very much like her by a white piano on a floating island on the river on Monday.

Neither women will find it difficult linguistically to perform “La Vie en Rose”. Dion was born in French-speaking Charlemagne, Quebec, a small town from Montreal.

Lady Gaga, whose mother is half Italian and half French, has described her mastery of the language as “merdique” but she has talked in the past of how her confidence in the language grows when she gets to practice.

Dion performed “The Power of the Dream” at the opening ceremony at the Atlanta games in 1996, a song written and produced specially for the occasion, and rumours that the 56-year-old was aiming for an Olympics comeback had swirled since she appeared on the cover of French Vogue in April.

Dion had spoken of a gruelling physical fitness program to regain her strength and health from a condition that she once likened to strangulation.

“I want to be my best self. I want to see the Eiffel Tower again,” she told Vogue.

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Amusan, who hails from Ijebu-Ode in the Ogun State of Nigeria, became the first Nigerian athlete to win a Diamond League title as she took the 100m hurdles trophy in 2021, breaking the then-African record held by Glory Alozie in the process. She retained her title in 2022 and 2023. The 27-year-old also won gold at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, and has enjoyed success in the Commonwealth Games, African Games and African Championships.

However, her career has hit a speed wobble in recent times. In July 2023, Amusan was charged by World Athletics (WA) for committing an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV). She did not return a positive test but had three alleged ‘whereabouts failures’ within a 12-month period.

Amusan challenged the decision, and the World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal (WADT), in August 2023, ruled in her favour and no period of ineligibility was imposed on the athlete. WA then took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but the latter backed up the decision that Aumusan was not in the wrong – clearing the cloud hanging over her that potentially threatened her participation in Paris.

Amusan, meanwhile, continued her warm-up for the Games by helping Nigeria win the Women’s 4x100m sprint event at the African Championships in Cameroon. She arrived at the event with an illness, but shrugged off her discomfort and anchored the team which claimed gold on the track.

“You just have to stay humble. The sport is already humbling and for every time I completed this year, I never took anyone for granted,” Amusan said. “So, I had to step in for the team, brace and do my thing for the country and I’m just glad that I was able to have that little strength in me to push through to the finish line. And you are healthy, last year wasn’t and I just wish I could compete here and there.”

Amusan finished fourth in the Women’s 100m Hurdles at the Tokyo 2020 Games three years ago and will be determined to finish at least one place higher when the event’s final is held at Stade de France on the evening of Saturday 10 August – LIVE on SuperSport.

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The news was revealed by a spokesperson from the French Embassy following a strategic meeting with stakeholders.

Scheduled to take place on August 10th, the concert promises to be a highlight of the Olympic festivities, where the vibrant cultural and musical talents of Ghana will be showcased on an international stage.

The event is set to span the entire day with multiple Ghanaian artistes including Sarkodie, King Promise and Darkovibes taking their turns on stage.

Expressing their support and best wishes for the Ghanaian contingent, the French Embassy also announced a significant sponsorship of €20,000 for Team Ghana.

The Africa Fan Zone is expected to attract a diverse audience of athletes, fans, and global visitors.

With Sarkodie, King Promise, and Darkovibes at the helm, the concert promises to deliver unforgettable performances that resonate far beyond the Olympic Games.

Watch announcement video below:

Sarkodie, among other Ghanaian artists, will perform at the #ParisOlympics2024 Fans Zone on 10th August 2024. ??? pic.twitter.com/3awOxXPYPp

— Watez (@watezGH) July 10, 2024

The track and field athletes include Abdul R. Saminu (100m/200m), Benjamin Azamati (100m/4x100m), Joseph Paul Amoah (4x100m), Isaac Botsio (4x100m), Fuseini Ibrahim (4x100m), Edwin Gadayi (4x100m), and Rose Yeboah (High Jump).

In swimming, Joselle Alice Mensah will compete in the 50m Freestyle, and Harry Stacy in the 100m Freestyle.

Accompanying the athletes will be 11 officials, comprising coaches, medics, federation heads, and a press attaché, forming Team Ghana. The President of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) will also attend the Games.

The team will train in Strasbourg for two weeks before moving to the Games Village in Paris on July 21.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are scheduled from July 26 to August 11.

Since 1960, Ghana has won five Olympic medals: one silver and three bronze in Boxing, and one bronze in Football.