Column: My storylines for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games

Bonjour, Snohomish County.

The Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games begin this week, and like many other households, mine will be watching Team USA and the thousands of other incredible athletes from various countries competing on one of the world’s biggest stages.

Forty-five sports will be featured during the next two weeks in the City of Lights, beginning July 26 and concluding August 11.

The opening ceremony, for the first time in Olympic Summer Games history, will be held in the host nation’s city rather than inside a stadium. More than 200 countries and 10,000 athletes will be announced as they travel down the iconic Seine River.

This summer global event occurs every four years, and I’m excited to see who will take gold, silver and bronze and stand on the podium with their country’s flag raised and anthem played.

NBC Sports published a comprehensive list of all the athletes for Team USA. The article can be accessed here.

Below are a couple of storylines I’ll be following. I’m interested in what countries and athletes you’ll be watching. Email me at taras.mccurdie@heraldnet.com.

Basketball

Coached by Steve Kerr, Mark Few, Tyronn Lue and Erik Spoelstra, and with Golden State Warriors 3-point sniper Stephen Curry, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and the recent NBA champions Boston Celtics’ trio of Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Jason Tatum, I’m excited to see how the U.S. men’s team will perform. However, I’m disappointed to not see six-time NBA All-Star Kawhi Leonard on the roster.

According to an article from Sports Illustrated, the U.S. has five of its 12 players making their Olympic debuts: Curry, Anthony Edwards, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Haliburton and White. Olympic veterans James and Kevin Durant are making their fourth appearances.

France has Rudy Gobert, who played in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, and Victor Wembanyama, who’s playing in his first Olympics. The Greek Antetokounmpo brothers, Giannis and Kostas, will also be competing in their first Olympics. The 2023-24 NBA Most Valuable Player, Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic, will be playing for Serbia in his second Olympics debut.

I’m also curious to see the U.S. women’s team’s results with Brittney Griner, Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart and Diana Taurasi to name a few. The U.S. women’s team has won gold at the past seven summer Olympic Games, dating back to Atlanta 1996. I hoped to see Caitlin Clark on the roster after her successful college career and professional rookie season, but I’m sure her name will be called very soon in the coming years.

Basketball became a medal sport for men at Berlin 1936 and Montreal 1976 for women, and the U.S. has collectively won 25 gold medals: 16 for the men and nine for the women.

Golf

Probably my most-watched and most-played sport, golf, will be in full swing at Paris. Le Golf National, a two 18-hole course and site of the 2018 Ryder Cup, is where 60 men and 60 women will tee off.

Qualification was determined through the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR).

“The top 15 players on the OWGR are eligible for the Olympic Games, up to a maximum of four golfers from a single country,” an Olympic.com article states. “After the top 15, the Olympic Golf Rankings (OGR) consist of up to the top two eligible players per country, as long as that country does not already have at least two players in the top 15.”

Who is the men’s OWGR’s No. 1? If you’re thinking it’s Tiger Woods, that’s incorrect. Maybe about five years ago that would have been a good answer.

But if you turned on the TV and watched the Golf Channel nearly every Sunday this year, you would have seen a man by the name of Scottie Scheffler associated with several of the major trophies.

Scheffler for the U.S. is ranked first, Xander Schauffele for the U.S. second, Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy third, Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg fourth and Wyndham Clark for the U.S. fifth. Collin Morikawa for the U.S. is sixth, Norway’s Victor Hovland seventh, Patrick Cantlay for the U.S. eighth, Bryson DeChambeau for the U.S. ninth and Spain’s Jon Rahm 10th.

Scheffler’s 2024 season has been outstanding, and that’s a severe understatement. He’s already tripled the number of wins this year compared to the 2022-23 season, claiming trophies at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Players Championship, the Masters, RBC Heritage, the Memorial Tournament and the Travelers Championship. He’s also finished runner-up twice and hasn’t missed a cut yet this season. Imagine if he had won the PGA Championship where he finished tied for eighth, the U.S. Open where he finished tied for 41st or just recently The Open Championship where he finished tied for seventh? A gold medal in August, I believe, will be the icing on the cake.

Schauffele, who won the 2024 PGA Championship and The Open Championship, has 12 top-10 finishes and been in contention for first place the majority of this season. Since he not only made the cut but finished 9-under at Royal Troon and survived its grueling pot bunkers, he should be just fine in Paris.

Even though he didn’t finish in the top 10 at The Players, Masters and PGA Championship, I wouldn’t be surprised to see McIlroy, the 2024 Wells Fargo champion and U.S. Open runner-up, on the podium. He finished tied for fourth at the Genesis Scottish Open but failed to make the cut at The Open Championship.

One advantage Schauffele and McIlroy have over Scheffler is Olympic experience. Schauffele won gold and McIlroy finished tied for fourth with Morikawa and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama at Tokyo 2020.

Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu represent the top U.S competitors in the women’s draw.

Korda, 25, and Vu, 26, have both tallied wins on the LPGA this season. From late-January to mid-May, Korda earned six, first-place finishes, including the LPGA Drive On Championship, Ford Championship, Chevron Championship and Mizhuo Americas Open to name a few. Vu won the Meijer LPGA Classic and finished tied for second at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, two tournaments Korda failed to make the cut.

Korda, however, won gold at Tokyo 2020.