Sun Devils in the Olympics: Marchand advances, Dort defends as Canada wins

Coming off his dominating victory in the men’s 400 individual medley, Léon Marchand of France took on a daunting double.

The Arizona State-trained swimmer was sixth-fastest in the preliminaries of the men’s 200 butterfly at 1:55.26 and returned about two hours later to post the third-best time in the 200 breaststroke at 2:09.55, setting another grueling double in the evening semifinals.

Marchand was spurred on again by a raucous crowd of some 15,000 at La Defense Arena.

“I’m very grateful for the French people just to show up and cheer like that. I think it’s amazing,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has seen that before, so it’s been great for me. I’m using all the energy from the stadium and trying to swim as fast as possible in every race. Tonight will be very exciting for me.”

The finals of both races are Wednesday night, also just two hours apart.

Kristóf Milák of Hungary, the defending gold medalist in the 200 fly, led the way in the heats for that event in 1:53.92. South Korea’s Cho Sung-jae set the pace in the 200 breast at 2:09.45.

Luguentz Dort and Canada eek by Australia

RJ Barrett had 24 points and seven rebounds and Canada stayed unbeaten in group play at the Paris Olympics with a 93-83 victory over Australia on Tuesday.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 16 points as Canada improved to 2-0 and remained on track to advance when the tournament field is trimmed from 12 to eight teams and shifts to Paris next week for the knockout stage.

Arizona State product Luguentz Dort scored 11 points to go with two assistant and three steals.

LU DORT IS STEALING YOUR SOUL#PARIS2024 pic.twitter.com/M09CAyPvgx

— Alex Adams (@AlexAdamsBTP) July 30, 2024

Canada coach Jordi Fernandez said he likes the position his team is in because it’s able to control its own destiny.

“We’ve got to keep growing because we’re a team that’s never played together,” Fernandez said. “I think in five or 10 years from now we want to be all the way to the top of the rankings. But we have to start at some point, and I like the direction that we’re taking it.”

Josh Giddey led Australia with 19 points. Dante Exum finished with 15.

Canada plays Spain in its final group-stage matchup. Australia faces Greece next.

“They’re hungry for a win and hungry to stay in the tournament,” Exum said of facing 0-2 Greece. “So we need to be ready and do as much.”

The game was tight throughout the first half. But Barrett kept finding seams in Australia’s defense, helping his team take its first double-digit lead on a 3-pointer with 5:13 remaining. Canada then pushed it up to 83-72 with about 4 1/2 minutes to play.

Fernandez said his team’s physicality was lacking in a first half in which it surrendered 30 points in the paint. The pressure was ratcheted up in the second half, though, with Canada deflecting 22 passes and limiting Australia to only 16 points in the paint.

“That ignited our offense,” Fernandez said.

Jon Rahm gets another big stage at the Paris Olympics

Jon Rahm loves the big stage, the big crowd, the big moment. The Olympics provide one extra opportunity in a year marked by his departure to Saudi-funded LIV Golf, and the Spaniard arrived at the Paris Games with a shot of much-needed confidence.

Rahm held on to win the LIV Golf event in England on Sunday, extending his streak to eight consecutive years of winning somewhere around the world since his first full year as a pro.

“It was important for many reasons,” he said Tuesday. “But having done it, when you put yourself in position the next time … I’ve been there, done it recently. So you have that nice memory of it being done, so it’s always a bit of an extra bonus.”

Trouble is, not many noticed.

LIV Golf United Kingdom was said to be a sellout and had one of its larger galleries of the year. But the breakaway league still doesn’t have a network television deal and coverage has been minimal compared with the PGA Tour. Rahm was one of the bigger stories because it had been since April 2023 since his last win at the Masters.

Now it’s a matter of extending those winning feelings to another short field — 60 players at the Olympics compared with 54 players at LIV — with a far stronger cast of characters.

He tied for seventh in the British Open two weeks ago, a bright moment in what otherwise was a dark year in the majors for Rahm. He narrowly made the cut at the Masters. He missed the cut in the PGA Championship. He had a foot infection knock him out of the U.S. Open.

And then he showed some life at Royal Troon before ending 15 months without a win.

The Olympics would get his attention because a positive COVID-19 test the day before he was set to leave for Japan knocked him out of the Tokyo Games in 2021.

There’s also that small matter of the big stage.

After this week, Rahm will have to wait 249 days until he tees it up against all the best players in April at Augusta National. For those who didn’t qualify for the Olympics, like Bryson DeChambeau, the wait was even longer.

Only the four majors bring together the world’s best. The Olympics is a bonus with a field that includes Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.

“I don’t know if that makes it more meaningful,” Rahm said. “Since I haven’t played the Olympics before, it means a lot to be there. It’s something special. You could say it’s a little bit more because we only get so many chances to play against each other.

“We all know it’s a pretty big stage,” he said. “As a competitor, you want to win the biggest tournaments. It’s nice that this year we get an extra week to enjoy that.”

Rahm is among seven players from LIV Golf in the Olympics, although he is the only one assured of being in any of the majors next year.

Rahm has nothing but the warmest memories from Le Golf National — the site of his Ryder Cup debut in 2018, which ended with him taking down Tiger Woods in singles.

He mostly remembers the first day, warming up next to a horseshoe-shaped grandstand that had 88 rows to the very top.

“You can hear the crowd singing early in the morning, in the dark, and just the atmosphere. All the 10,000 to 20,000 people around the hole, that was quite special,” Rahm said.

It’s different now, of course. There is only one grandstand on the course, plenty big, stationed behind the 18th green. International Golf Federation officials say golf sold all its tickets, and they expect some 20,000 spectators.

That remains to be seen until the opening round begins Thursday. But it’s the Olympics, and it’s a strong field, and it’s a big stage, just how Rahm likes it. And it will his last one of the year.

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