Black Catholics shine in wild week at 2024 Paris Olympics

A whirlwind week of Olympics action at the 2024 Paris Games has brought a number of Black Catholics to the ultimate podium, including a slew of elite athletes from the United States, which leads all countries in the medal count as of Friday morning.

Team USA’s Simone Biles garnered perhaps the most centralized attention during her contention on the individual gymnastics apparatuses, wowing a star-studded crowd at Bercy Arena on Aug. 3 with her signature Yurchenko Double Pike (“Biles II”) vault, which easily won her third gold medal this year and set the record for the most all-time for an American gymnast at the Olympics.

A fall on the balance beam cost her a medal on Monday, though she quickly bounced back with a stellar floor exercise routine. Even so, her two out-of-bounds penalties allowed rival Rebeca Andrade of Brazil to take gold, with Biles settling for silver. 

With America’s Jordan Chiles netting a last-minute bronze in the event after a controversial score change, the three women combined for the first all-Black podium in Olympic gymnastics history—allowing for a historic photo-op.

Another Brazilian athlete, teenage skateboarder Rayssa Leal, made headlines on July 28 when she used sign language to point to Jesus after her bronze-medal finish in the women’s street final (her second medal in the event, after winning silver in Tokyo when she was just 13 years old). Her message to the world in Paris? “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”

Across town at Stade de France, a number of upsets colored the track and field events, beginning with the women’s sprints on Aug. 3. American 100m finalist Sha'Carri Richardson, who like Biles was on a redemption tour—having missed the Tokyo Olympics due to a substance use violation—was shocked by Saint Lucian runner Julien Alfred, who clocked a 10.72 finish to win the first-ever gold for her country: population ~180,000.

The Catholic islander, reportedly congratulated by her bishop after the victory, spoke out in spiritual terms on her historic triumph.

“The journey has been long, winding, and demanding, but every sacrifice, every tear, and every early morning was worth it,” she wrote on Instagram. “I’m humbled and grateful for God’s grace and mercy.”

Alfred returned to the track on Tuesday for the 200m final, where she again finished on the podium with a second-place finish behind American Gabby Thomas. Her two medals in Paris are the first in Saint Lucia’s 28-year history at the Games.

Thea LaFond, a parishioner at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, represented her home country of Dominica in the long jump on Aug. 3. She followed up her 2024 world indoor championship with that Caribbean island's first Olympic medal as well: a gold.

The men’s sprints also featured a number of Black Catholics, including Kenny Bednarek of the United States, who aimed to defeat his fellow countryman Noah Lyles, the runaway favorite in both the 100m and 200m. Though he did not medal in the former, Bednarek surged over an ailing Lyles on Thursday to repeat as a silver medalist in the latter, where Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo became the first African to win gold in the event.

“He's a young talent. He's already shown us that he's had something like that in him and he brought it out today. No surprise,” Bednarek said of Tebogo after the finish. “Anybody that's in the finals can throw a hot time at any moment and you just gotta make sure to be ready.”

Andre De Grasse, a Canadian Black Catholic who failed to reach this year’s 200m finals to defend his Tokyo Olympics gold, capitalized on a final chance to medal on Friday morning when he anchored his team’s first-place finish in the 4x100m relay. Team USA—which featured Bednarek on the back stretch—met disaster with a series of fumbled baton passes leading to a finish outside of the top three.

The U.S. men’s basketball team was anything but off the mark on Thursday, though facing a strong Serbian national team led by reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokić. The Americans, looking to defend their gold-medal finish in Japan, seemed to have met their match through three quarters, down by as many as 17 despite a strong showing from Stephen Curry, who nearly tied a national team scoring record with 36 points. 

In the final quarter, however, a surge on both ends of the floor led to a cinematic comeback for the Americans, led by Curry, LeBron James, and a Black Catholic in Joel Embiid. The Cameroonian-American former MVP anchored a strong defensive effort and made several pivotal shots inside to help send his team to the gold medal match against France. 

That matchup will take place on Saturday at 12:30pm PT, airing live on NBC and streaming online on Peacock.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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