Paris Olympics 2024 LIVE updates: Day 6 - Gone in 46 seconds, drama at the boxing; Panic at the pool; Opals face do-or-die clash; Montag’s emotional bronze

Good evening Australia from Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, east of Paris, where all the Olympic rowing and canoe-kayak events are taking place. Let’s call it the Jess Fox Stadium from now on.

Biggest story for Australia out here today will be the Australian rowers Fergus Hamilton, Alex Hill, Tim Masters and Jack Robertson, who are out to defend the men’s four gold won in Tokyo later in the morning.

They’re already out on the water for the morning and some good news, Tara Rigney has continued her strong early form, finishing second in her semi-final of the women’s single sculls as she chases a maiden Olympic medal.

Rigney was edged out the Netherland’s Karolien Florijn in a terrific race.

Australian Tara Rigney has continued her strong form in Paris and finished second in the women’s single sculls semi-final A/B1, just behind Dutch rower Karolien Florijn. That means she’s through to the final.

On the water in the Olympic regatta at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, 25-year-old Rigney is chasing a maiden Olympic medal.

The Sydneysider has a good shot at making it on the podium too. She’s a two-time world championship bronze medallist and has previously said she’s inspired by Jess Fox, so has the encouragement there in Paris.

Simone Biles’ self-described “redemption tour” will continue overnight when she competes in the women’s all-around final. Biles and the US won gold in the team competition earlier this week in front of A-list celebrities in the gym.

It was the American superstar’s much-anticipated return to the Olympic stage after her withdrawal from the Tokyo competition in 2021 when she suffered from the “twisties”.

Her teammate Sunisa Lee took gold in Tokyo, but Biles is favourite to get the win this time around. However, she did suffer calf pain during team qualification (you wouldn’t know it watching her performances in the team final though), so keep an eye out for anything that develops there.

For three-quarters of the 20-kilometre race walk, Australian Declan Tingay kept a sneaky medal hope alive.

He sat in the lead pack for 15 of the 20 one-kilometre laps, rubber hips keeping him in the cluster of a dozen walkers that couldn’t be separated by more than a second.

It was always a matter of how long before the group broke. The answer for Tingay was about 15.5km, the point he was dropped from the lead group which, in the space of the next kilometre, fractured and spread out.

Countryman Rhydian Cowley continued to push but by the 18km mark he had fallen back to be 28 seconds off the lead pack and in 10th place. He finished 11th, one minute and nine seconds behind the winner, Ecuador’s Brian Daniel Pintado (love an Ecuadorian called Brian) who won in 1:18.55.

Cowley, who was 16th after 15km, pushed hard in the final five kilometres to finish 12th, eight seconds behind Tingay. Fellow Australian Kyle Swan was 35th in 1:23.32.

In conditions that felt more Brisbane than Paris – rolling thunder and lightning – the race walk was delayed half an hour. Safety first seemed appropriate, but the course also took the walkers under the world’s biggest lightning rod.

The women’s race is up next and Australia’s great hope Jemima Montag, who won silver at the world championships in Budapest last year and the last two Commonwealth golds, is set to push to go one better than last year.

Australia’s 3x3 women’s team have taken another step towards the knockout rounds with a 21-15 win over China.

The Gangurrus were smaller than their Chinese opponents but used some sharp cutting and the outside shooting of Alex Wilson, whose last long ball took the team to the winning score of 21 before the 10-minute game was over.

That score could be helpful in the quest to make the knockouts as total points are one of the main tie-breakers.

Australia are in third place after three games, and they have four games remaining including one later today when they face the strong USA side at 9pm AEST.

The USA includes several WNBA stars, such as Kelsey Plum who played in the USA women’s team for five-on-five basketball which won the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Sydney in 2022.

Funnily enough, Australian 3x3 star Anneli Maley was also in that tournament as a member of the Opals’ side that won bronze.

The final athletes of the men’s 20-kilometre race walk are crossing the finish line as we speak, after Ecuador’s Brian Daniel Pintado claimed the gold with a time of one hour, 18 minutes and 55 seconds. Brazil’s Caio Bonfim took silver and Spain’s Alvaro Martin the bronze.

Aussies Declan Tingay and Rhydian Cowley finished 11th and 12th respectively.

Cowley told Nine after the race it was a challenging course with some messy turns and the cobblestones making it hard in patches.

Tingay added:“It started off deceptively cool and calm … but second half of that race, [a] completely different tone, really hard, quite fast, sun has a bit of a sting to it.”

There will no doubt be plenty of Australians watching the race walking this evening who remember a particularly agonising moment in our Olympic history. That’s including this blogger, who was just four years old at the time and in the stands when it happened.

At Sydney 2000, Jane Saville was on track for gold when she was disqualified just a few hundred metres from the finish line. But a name keen watchers of the Olympics may not recognise is Lamberto Vacchi – though you will have seen him.

He’s the man who broke Saville’s – and Australia’s – hearts when, dressed in fawn pants and a white hat, he jumped out and showed Saville the red paddle about 200m shy of a gold medal, ripping away her Olympic dream.

In 2020, our reporter Iain Payten spoke to the Italian judge, who recalled the moment in this piece.

Judges are being very generous in the men’s walk now. Could have seen a lot of cards.

Judges watch the walkers to make sure they always have one foot in contact with the ground. If not, they get two yellow warning cards (Australia’s Declan Tingay just got a yellow), as otherwise you are jogging.

Now TV and freeze-frame photos are never kind to walkers so they get some latitude by judges assessing it with the naked eye, but they seem to be especially generous in calling out a bit of jogging.