Olympics 2024 has been and gone in the blink of an eye, and we’re back to the beautiful game, as Europe’s top football leagues are about to kick off.
But not everybody in sport is football mad (really), and there were some spectacular successes over two weeks of action in France.
So let’s take a SBOTOP look at four of the stars who made some amazing Olympics 2024 highlights and ask what happens next for the successful gold diggers.
Noah Lyles, USA
Team USA won 40 gold medals in France and men’s 100m champion Noah Lyles is one of the rock stars who, at 27 years of age has plenty more to offer.
“I hope you guys like Noah because I’ve got a lot more coming!” he announced after he won the flagship athletics event by five hundredths of a second, and that after sitting in seventh at the 50m stage. “You couldn’t ask for a bigger moment,” he said, and it’s hard to disagree.
Lyles powered in to beat Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in a tantalising photo finish, recording a personal best time of 9.79 seconds. And in a truly incredible race, Jamaica’s Oblique Seville finished last in 9.91 seconds as all eight athletes flew over the line in sync.
Lyles also won a 200m bronze medal despite suffering a virus, and his star is sure to continue shining on the world stage.
Beatrice Chebet, Kenya
5,000m and 10,000mwomen’s gold medallist Beatrice Chebet was Kenya’s brightest star in Paris as she became the third woman in history to win both races at the same Olympic event.
She picked up the 5,000m gold and then dominated the longer distance, winning in an impressive time of 30 minutes 43.25 seconds, and the 24-year-old was clearly delighted, saying: “To do the 5,000m and 10,000m is not something easy. But just focus and know that you can achieve. Just believe in yourself. I believed that I can do it.”
Belief was clearly coursing through Chebet’s veins as she did plenty of the early pace-making and clicked through the gears as the race progressed, sprinting throughout the last 400m as she won by a distance, winning Kenya’s first 10,000m women’s gold medal.
Having already won golds in 5,000m at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and African Championships and a silver in the 2023 World Champions, Chebet is now ready to succeed at the longer distance too for years to come.
Scottie Scheffler, USA
Golf star Scottie Scheffler showed all his poise and a supremely cool head to come through for the USA with the best closing round of his sparkling career.
The world number one and current Masters champion entered the final round four shots off the lead, but he birdied five of six holes down the back nine and matched the course record with a stunning score of 62 to edge out England’s Tommy Fleetwood by a single shot.
Scheffler was clearly emotional when he stood on the podium listening to the USA national anthem, and his patriotic nature should play well as the Stars and Stripes try to recover the Ryder Cup in 2025.
Still only 28 years of age, Texas-based Scheffler has won the Masters twice, and he will be hoping that 2025 is the year he can add at least one other major.
Novak Djokovic, Serbia
The Olympic 2024 betting odds may well have backed reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcarez to win in Paris, but the man he beat in Southwest London for the second year in succession got his revenge at Roland Garros.
Novak Djokovic won Olympic gold at the fifth time of asking, and he hasn’t ruled out competing in a record sixth Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 when he will be 41 years of age.
The ebullient Serb has been ranked No. 1 in men’s world tennis for a record of 428 weeks in 13 different years, and he is the most decorated player of all time, winning 24 slam titles and 99 singles titles in total.
He is the only man to be the reigning champion in all four Grand Slams at once, and Djokovic has joined the esteemed company of Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi by completing the Golden Slam of all four majors and the Olympics.
Djokovic is clearly not done yet, as he has more Slams in his sights. He has undergone surgery this year, but he has still made the Wimbledon final and won Olympic gold, so what price he makes another splash at the US Open in September?
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