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Posted: 2024-08-02 01:35:18

Australia had another golden day in the pool, while Simone Biles stole the spotlight in the gymnastics with another dominant victory.

But there was plenty of other weird, quirky, and interesting things happening around Paris overnight, from a daggy Turkish dad going viral to a gymnast's cheese sponsorship getting the socials talking.

Here are the quick hits from day six of the 2024 Games.

1. Murray waves goodbye to tennis on emotional night in Paris

Andy Murray's 20-year professional tennis career finally ended with a Paris Olympics doubles loss in the quarterfinals.

The 37-year-old Murray had said the 2024 Summer Games would be the final event of his career, and he and partner Dan Evans were beaten by the American duo of Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul 6-2, 6-4 at Court Suzanne Lenglen.

The British pair had managed to stave off a total of seven match points — well, in this case, let's call them "retirement points" — earlier in the tournament, five in the first round, and then two more in the second round, to extend Murray's career.

But Murray and Evans could not create that sort of magic again against the third-seeded Fritz and Paul.

The Olympic rings logo can be seen on a tennis net as Andy Murray waves goodbye to cheering fans at the end of the court.

There was plenty of love from fans for Andy Murray as a loss at the Olympics heralded his retirement after 20 years on tour.(AP: Andy Wong)

Murray is a three-time Grand Slam singles champion and the only tennis player with two Olympic singles golds — from London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. His first Wimbledon championship, in 2013, made Murray the first man from Britain to win that trophy in 77 years.

He also won the title at the All England Club in 2016; his first major championship came at the US Open in 2012.

Murray has dealt with a series of injuries in the latter stages of his career, including needing two hip operations, one for a metal implant in 2019. Most recently, he had surgery to remove a cyst from his spine last month.

That forced him to skip the singles events at Wimbledon and the Olympics.

In typical Murray style, he acknowledged his doubles' loss and its meaning on social media, changing his bio from "I play tennis" to "I played tennis".

He also had one last crack to make about the game that has been his life for 20 years:

2. Chalmers bewildered by snub accusation

Kyle Chalmers said it was "weird" to be accused of snubbing China's freestyle gold medallist Pan Zhanle at the Paris Olympics.

The Australian collected the silver medal behind Pan, who broke his own world record in the men's 100m freestyle final on Thursday morning.

The Chinese swimmer then claimed Chalmers had disrespected him.

"After we finished the 4x100m freestyle relay on the first day, I greeted Chalmers but he completely ignored me," Pan told Chinese media.

"This also included the US team's (Jack) Alexy. When we trained, our coach was on the deck, and someone did a flip turn and splashed water directly on the coach.

Kyle Chalmers

Kyle Chalmers, Pan Zhanle, and David Popovici on the podium after the men's 100m freestyle.(Getty Images: Christian Liewig/Corbis/Corbi)

"This behaviour seemed a bit disrespectful to us.

"But we beat all of them and broke the world record in such a difficult pool."

Chalmers was bemused by Pan's comments.

"I find it a bit weird, I gave him a fist pump before the relays," Chalmers said Thursday night.

"And then my focus went to my teammates and my own racing.

"We had a laugh together at warm down last night, but no issues from my end."

3. Aussies have mixed day on the golf course

Australian golfers Jason Day and Min Woo Lee have had contrasting days in the opening round of the men's golf at Le Golf National .

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