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China won the first gold medal of the Paris 2024 Olympics, after winning the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event held Saturday morning.South Korea won the Silver medal, while Kazakhstan won the bronze medal.

Qatar Museums announced that the National Museum of Qatar (NMOQ) has achieved Carbon Neutrality Certification for the reporting period of April 2022 to March 2023. The milestone reflects the museum's proactive approach to sustainable operations, setting an example for cultural institutions worldwide.Commenting on the occasion, Director of National Museum of Qatar Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Thani said "the National Museum of Qatar's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint has resulted in this remarkable accomplishment. This certification is testimony to the museum's perseverance towards operating in an environmentally conscious manner."Founding Chairman of GORD Dr. Yousef Alhorr said that "by embracing sustainability, museums become guardians of both time and our planet, safeguarding artistic treasures and cultural heritage, all while minimizing their environmental footprint. NMoQ's attainment of carbon neutrality not only sets a powerful example for the global art sector, but also serves as an inspiration for organizations across various sectors within Qatar, urging them to prioritize environmental responsibility. Ultimately, NMoQ's success reaffirms Qatar Museums' role in pursuing Qatar National Vision 2030, paving the way for a low-carbon future."To attain carbon neutrality, Qatar Museums' National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) initiated strategic measures. These include transitioning to renewable energy sources, implementing energy-efficient technologies, supporting waste reduction and recycling, promoting sustainable transportation, engaging employees in eco-friendly practices, optimizing water usage, and conducting a comprehensive carbon footprint assessment. These comprehensive efforts showcase the museum's unwavering dedication to environmental stewardship and sustainability, solidifying its role as a global leader in responsible cultural institution management.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani expressed his pleasure to attend the opening ceremony of the 33rd summer Olympics Paris 2024, wishing the Qatari mission the best results.In a post on his official X account, HH the Amir said that he was happy to attend the opening ceremony of the 33rd summer Olympics Paris 2024, which presented the city of Paris and the friendly French Republic.His Highness added that he wished the Qatari mission well and success to all the participating athletes.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met today with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Keir Starmer, at His Highness's residence in the capital Paris.The meeting dealt with discussing bilateral relations between the two countries and ways to enhance and develop them, in addition to discussing a number of regional and international issues of joint interest.The meeting was attended by HE President of the Qatar Olympic Committee Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al-Thani, HE Chief of the Amiri Diwan Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, and a number of senior officials.On the UK side, it was attended by Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs Toby Parker, and a number of senior officials.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani attended the reception for the 33rd Summer Olympic Games, Paris 2024, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. The reception was attended by a number of heads of state, and representatives from Olympic committees of friendly and brotherly countries.

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday graced the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics held on River Seine in Paris as the French capital welcomed the world’s athletes for the 33rd Summer Games.Earlier yesterday, His Highness the Amir attended a special reception for the 2024 Olympic Games at the Elysee Palace. The reception was hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron who later declared the Games open.The reception was attended by a number of heads of state and representatives from the National Olympic Committees from around the world.Qatar’s medal hopefuls - led by global track and field star Mutaz Barshim - also featured in the athletes parade last night that was conducted atop boats carrying sporting representatives of more than 200 countries and territories.For the first time ever, an opening ceremony of the Olympic Games ventured beyond the confines of a stadium.IOC president Thomas Bach delivered a moving speech at the end of the ceremony urging those watching live to ‘dream big’.Besides Barshim, the Qatari athletes delegation includes Abderrahman Samba, Abubaker Haydar, Bassem Hemeida, Ismail Dawood, Ammar Ismail, Saif Mohamed, and Shahad Mohamed in athletics, Saeed Abu Sharab and Rashid Saleh al-Athba in shooting, Fares Ibrahim in weightlifting, Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan in beach volleyball and Abdulaziz al-Obaidly in swimming.Barshim, who won a silver medal at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics and a gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, will be aiming to retain his Olympic gold in what might be his last participation.While the celebration of French culture, fashion, and history captivated the 300,000-strong crowd along the banks of River Seine, inclement weather yesterday prompted hundreds to depart prematurely from the ceremony held under grey skies.“Despite the rain, the ceremony was fantastic,” Ohio resident Avid Pureval, 34, said yesterday. “It was refreshing to have it on the river instead of a stadium. It was unique and interesting,” Pureval added.Unprecedented security measures were implemented for the opening ceremony. A massive security perimeter encircling both sides of the Seine River was guarded by a combined force of over 77,000 personnel, including police, military and private security.The show kicked off by presenting a fabricated storyline. A pre-recorded sequence showed French football star Zinedine Zidane carrying the Olympic flame on a high-speed dash through Paris, culminating in a unique metro journey. Michael Phelps and Martin Fourcade, the two most decorated Olympians ever, took centre stage to reveal the gold, silver, and bronze medals.Paris is hosting the Olympic Games for the first time in a century, with over 10,500 athletes competing for 329 gold medals.Some of the biggest sporting names to feature in the Paris Games include American gymnast Simone Biles, tennis star Novak Djokovic of Serbia, Jamaican sprint queen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, sprint star Caeleb Dressel of the US, Kenyan long distance giant Eliud Kipchoge, American basketball icon LeBron James, Australian swimming superstar Katie Ledecky, Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka, Great Britain’s skateboarding giant Sky Brown and Japanese gymnast Daiki Hashimoto.The first gold of the Games will be awarded today (Saturday). The closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics is scheduled for August 11. Page 12, Sport Pages 1, 2, 4

More than 180,000 Palestinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis in four days, the UN said yesterday, after an Israeli operation to extract captives’ bodies from the area.Recent “intensified hostilities” in the Khan Yunis area, more than nine months into the Israeli war on Gaza, have fuelled “new waves of internal displacement across Gaza”, said the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA.It said “about 182,000 people” have been displaced from central and eastern Khan Yunis between Monday and Thursday, and hundreds are “stranded in eastern Khan Yunis”.The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern city, announcing its forces would “forcefully operate” there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Yunis yesterday. The Nasser Hospital said 26 bodies were brought to the medical site.Israel’s offensive has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.According to UN figures, the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4mn people have been displaced at least once by the fighting.Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden spoke yesterday with Jordan’s King Abdullah, discussing the push to reach a ceasefire in the devastating Gaza conflict, the two countries said.“The president updated King Abdullah on his ongoing efforts to secure a hostage release and ceasefire deal, and preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period,” the White House said in a statement.Jordan’s royal court confirmed the call, saying that King Abdullah “stressed the need to end the war on Gaza immediately and ensure the flow of sufficient aid through all crossings, while guaranteeing its delivery to civilians across the Strip without delay or hindrance.”

Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura joined dancers, an opera diva and even a heavy metal band in an opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics that sought to proudly showcase French culture. The first-ever opening ceremony held outside a stadium – on the River Seine – had to battle driving rain that cast a pallid gloom over the City of Light. Tokyo Games gold medallist in high jump Mutaz Barshim and women’s 100m sprinter Shahd Ashraf carried Qatar’s flag in the boats along the Seine River.

Canadian soccer chiefs on Friday pleaded with FIFA not to deduct points from their women’s Olympic football team as a drone-spying scandal led to head coach Bev Priestman being dramatically kicked out of the Paris Games.Canada Soccer chief executive Kevin Blue said Canadian players had not seen any footage produced by the drone used to spy on a New Zealand training session and should not be punished by global governing body FIFA.Reigning Olympic champions Canada defeated New Zealand 2-1 in their opening match of the women’s football tournament on Thursday despite the turmoil around the squad. Canada Soccer announced early on Friday that English coach Priestman had been suspended with immediate effect after initial investigations into the scandal revealed drone-spying that pre-dated the Paris Olympics.Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive David Shoemaker said separately on Friday that Canada’s victory at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics might also have been stained by spying tactics.Priestman’s departure came a day after assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joey Lombardi were also sent home for their roles in the scandal.Blue told reporters there had been “frankly unacceptable shortcomings of ethical incidents” by members of the Canadian coaching team.However, he pleaded with FIFA not to slap Canada with a points deduction, which could potentially blow a hole in the defence of their Olympic crown.“The players themselves have not been involved in any unethical behaviour,” Blue said. “And frankly we ask FIFA to take that into consideration if contemplating any further sanctions.“Specifically we do not feel that a deduction of points in this tournament would be fair to our players.”Blue said preliminary investigations had unearthed indications of what appeared to be “systemic ethical shortcomings” but was unable to clarify how long Canada’s coaching staff had been using drones to spy on rival training sessions.“I received new internal information from internal sources that gave me reason to think further about the potential that this type of behaviour was systemic,” Blue said. “Concrete information I received on Friday made me consider the possibility that this matter is much more extensive.”Asked if the tactic had been used at last year’s Women’s World Cup, at which Canada failed to progress from the group stage, Blue said he was unable to say at this stage.“This is all happening in real time,” he said. But Canada Olympic chief Shoemaker said “there now appears to be information” that suggested illegal drone spying may have been used in Canada’s upset gold medal in Tokyo three years ago. “It makes me ill,” Shoemaker said. “It makes me sick to my stomach to think that there could be something that calls into question one of my favourite Olympic moments in history - that women’s team winning that gold medal against all odds in those Covid restrictions.”Canada Soccer chief Blue was adamant that none of Canada’s players had access to the footage obtained in France.“I am stating right now that the team has not seen any of that footage,” he said.Canada’s players had insisted they were innocent of wrongdoing after their opening victory over the New Zealanders.“There was a lot of emotion, frustration and humiliation because as a player, it doesn’t reflect our values and what we want to represent as competitors at the Olympics,” defender Vanessa Gilles said.“The Games represent fair play. As Canadians, these are not our values or those of our country. We are not cheats. It was very hard but we knew how to be united.”

Being the child of swimming Olympians and dubbed the “French Michael Phelps”, living up to the hype may be the biggest test for Leon Marchand when the home hero dives into the Paris pool.Marchand has been hot property since destroying Phelps’s 400 metres individual medley (IM) world record last year at a stunning World Championships in Fukuoka where he scooped three individual world titles to add to his two from Budapest in 2022.A teenage Ian Thorpe generated a similar mania in swimming-mad Australia before the 2000 Sydney Games - and duly delivered by winning the 400 metres freestyle gold and two relay titles at them. The Marchand madness may be at another level.As the Fukuoka world champion in the 200m, 400m IM and 200m butterfly - and also a contender for the 200m breaststroke title - Marchand could emerge from Paris with four individual gold medals.Such a feat would put the Toulouse-born 22-year-old in rare company, with only Phelps, Mark Spitz and Kristin Otto having won four or more at a single Games.Phelps, of course, won a record five at the 2008 Olympics and his career total of 13 individual titles may never be bested.But Marchand’s similarities with Phelps are enough to get French fans excited.He has been coached by Bob Bowman, who turned Phelps into a gold medal machine, for years in US college swimming and competes in the same events as the American great.The converted La Defense Arena can hold 15,000 spectators and Marchand’s events, which start with the 400m IM tomorrow, may be the Games’ hottest tickets.Little wonder the 22-year-old Marchand feels pressure to perform.“It’s not easy at all,” he told reporters. “I’ve adapted pretty well to this craze for two years. It’s a disproportionate scale, for swimming at least. But I get used to it, it will be OK.”He may have the best support team of any of the swimmers to cope with it all. Despite also preparing American swimmers, Bowman will be close at hand throughout the Olympic meet as an assistant coach on the French Olympic swim team. Both Marchand’s parents were medley swimmers, with father Xavier having won a world championship silver in the 200m medley and mother Celine Bonnet representing France at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.“My parents play a great role in all of this,” said Marchand. “They have experienced the Olympics...and help me to handle the pressure.”Marchand is comfortable with being the gold medal favourite in most of his events and said he pays no heed to the “billions of scenarios” that could unfold for him over the next week-and-a half. “I can’t predict what will happen next week. It’s a present and I will open it Sunday and the days after.”

When Carlos Alcaraz was winning $3.5mn for lifting the Wimbledon trophy, Hady Habib was more than 5,000km away, collecting a meagre $1,350 at a low-level tournament in Canada.Two weeks on, the 25-year-old from Lebanon now finds himself taking on the world number three in the first round at the Olympics.“I was in shock when I heard,” the Texas-born player told AFP yesterday.“Hopefully I can inspire lots of people in Lebanon.”Habib, ranked a lowly 275 in the world, was only scheduled to play doubles at the Olympics alongside Benjamin Hassan.However, following a series of injury pullouts, he moved into the singles draw as an alternate.“The day after that, I’m drawn to be playing Carlos Alcaraz. So this has been an interesting five days for me.”He added: “I was at the practice courts when I got the email. All happened so fast. Life can just change in an instant. You could say it’s a fairytale.”Habib’s career has been spent on the second-tier circuit since he turned pro in 2021 after studying at a university in Texas.Now he will be the first man from Lebanon to represent his country in tennis at the Olympic Games.The whole experience has left him starstruck.“The first day I arrived, I was walking around a little bit lost just opening a door and going in somewhere.“When I walked in the gym the first day, I saw Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and I was just, ‘Wow, this has to be a dream. Someone wake me up’.”Australia’s Matthew Ebden, who hasn’t played a singles match for two years, was another to benefit from being granted an alternate spot when a gap in the draw opened up.His reward? A clash with top seed and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic who has enjoyed plenty of success at Roland Garros with three French Open titles.“They asked if I would be keen, and I thought, ‘Hey, I would love the opportunity to play singles at the Olympics and officially retire my singles career’,” said the 36-year-old who no longer has a singles ranking. “I’ve played Andy Murray many times, Rafa Nadal a few times, Roger Federer as well, but I never got to play Novak in singles, which I regretted a bit,” added Ebden. “But now this is magically coming about to play him in singles on Court Philippe Chatrier, as my last singles match. It’ll be fun.”Ebden, who won the doubles with India’s Rohan Bopanna at the Australian Open in January, is also entered in men’s doubles with John Peers in Paris and Ellen Perez in mixed.

Six South Korean swimmers competing at the Paris Games have left the Olympic village and moved into a hotel near the swimming arena to avoid the long commute in hot buses. The men’s 4x200m freestyle relay team moved into a hotel that is a five-minute walk from Paris La Defense Arena, where the swimming events will be held. Chong received complaints that the buses the swimmers used to travel to the arena had no air-conditioning while the windows were taped shut.