PARIS — Here’s a little window into why Danielle Collins has quickly become one of the more popular players in women’s tennis and why so many are disappointed that the 30-year old University of Virginia product is retiring at the end of this season.

At her warm-up session Sunday morning before beating Germany’s Laura Siegemund 6-3, 2-0 (retired) in her Paris Olympics debut, Collins noticed a group of fans from Ireland. This immediately struck Collins as unique: Because there are no WTA events in Ireland, and no Irish players ranked among the top 800 in the world, you just don’t see a lot of Irish fans around.

So she engaged with them. Come to find out, they wanted to watch her practice because of her last name – Collins. It’s been the same in the Olympic Village: Irish athletes coming up to her and commenting on her last name, which was passed down to her through an Irish grandfather.

‘How cool is that?’ Collins said. ‘So we got to talking and I made some new friends. And got the Irish pin – of course. It’s been really interesting to cross paths with athletes, Irish athletes, and to connect with them because I guess they’re really pumped that I’m also Irish.’

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

These kinds of little ‘Only at the Olympics’ moments have provided an uplifting antidote for Collins to the slog and loneliness of life on the tennis tour – something she has talked about in the past as contributing factors in her decision to call it a career despite being ranked No. 9 in the world.  

Of course, the most important reason is Collins’ ongoing battles with rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis, a condition that affects the uterus and can make it more difficult for women to get pregnant. Collins wants to start a family, and doctors have advised her to do it sooner rather than later, so she has had no second thoughts about retirement despite playing the best sustained tennis of her career.

And making the Olympic team was one of the biggest boxes she wanted to check before settling into so-called normal life.

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‘I think it’s even more special when you’re an American getting the opportunity to do this because you don’t get to be on the Olympic team unless you’re, like, in the top-15 in the world, right?’ said Collins, whose pride was on display with an Olympic ring pendant on the necklace she was wearing Sunday. ‘It’s incredibly special, and for me it’s special because I’ve known these women for so long. I’ve known Jess (Pegula) since we were teenagers, I’ve known Des (doubles player Desirae Krawczyk) since we were 10 years old playing national tournaments together and I’ve known Coco (Gauff) a good part of her life because I met her when she was very young. And then Emma Navarro, also being from UVA, is incredibly special.

‘I talk about it endlessly but the camaraderie we share is just something really special. It’s been so nice in my final year I’ll get to have these memories forever.’

She’ll also have pins. Lots and lots of pins.

Collins, who enjoys travel and new cultures, has been big on the pin-trading scene building ‘a network’ of collectors through her friends on the WTA Tour to get as many countries as she can. She’s currently hunting Somalia and Saudi Arabi, so if you’re in Paris and see Collins around town, maybe try to help her out.

‘It’s such a unique thing that I’ve never experienced and it’s gotten SO intense,’ she said. ‘I have about 40. My goal is to get to 100.’

Of course, there’s also a tennis tournament to play – and one that her powerful baseline game will give her a chance to make a run in. Though Poland’s Iga Swiatek is the overwhelming favorite here as a four-time French Open champion at this venue, an in-form Collins is the kind of player who could make her uncomfortable in a potential quarterfinal matchup.

That focus on making sure she’s giving this her best shot is why, for example, she didn’t get on Team USA’s boat during the opening ceremony because she wanted to make sure she was well-rested for her Saturday morning match (it ultimately got rained out and moved to Sunday). It reminded her of the disappointment of having to miss her college graduation because she was playing in the NCAA championships.

‘Ultimately, like, we’re here to try to get medals, right?’ she said. ‘There are tough decisions that you sometimes have to make as an athlete.’

After this, Collins is going to return to the U.S. and get ready for one final run in her home country before the season ends – and one that will highlight just how much tennis fans have gotten to know and appreciate her despite being kind of a late bloomer on the tour, breaking through to the Australian Open final in 2022 as a 28-year old. The two biggest titles of Collins’ career have come this year, winning the Miami Open and Charleston Open in the spring.

‘I haven’t been on tour that long compared to a lot of other athletes,’ she said. ‘But the fan base that I feel is huge. And the amount of people that come out to my matches and support, and seeing those familiar faces over the years is one of the most special things that you’ll get to experience as a professional athlete, and something I feel like when I enter into kind of a more normal life will be very different. So I’m just trying to take it all in and enjoy it as much as I can while it lasts.’

A future Olympic gold medalist was once the slowest kid in the pool.

“I hated swimming,” Allison Schmitt tells USA TODAY Sports.

Schmitt wasn’t even 10, and she was ready to quit. Why she didn’t, why she continued on her path to set an American record at the 200-meter freestyle, came down to one simple reason: She met a friend at the end of her first season.

That friend, Monica Blaesser, became her best friend. You are never really alone if you have one.

“If I hadn’t gone to back to another season of swimming, I definitely would not be sitting here talking to you today,” says Schmitt, who went on to win 10 Olympic medals at the sport.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Girls are twice as likely to stop playing sports by age 14 as boys. Now retired from swimming, Schmitt is an honorary officer for SURGE, a BSN Sports initiative that empowers girls to stay with sports. She uses her life story as a model.

The American swimmer’s career, which spanned four Olympic Games, was a slow progression of building on failures and learning to rely on the support of her friends and loved ones during her darkest times.

Schmitt has experienced the invigorating highs of training with Michael Phelps and the sinking depths of depression. She has endured the suicide of her cousin, April Bocian, another promising young female athlete like herself.

“If she could have just seen how many people loved her,” Schmitt says.

Schmidt, 34, spoke with USA TODAY Sports about how she has found support throughout her athletic career and how she is helping younger female athletes discover they have it, too.

(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.)

You don’t have to be good at a sport right away. First find your connection to it.

Schmitt was the middle child sandwiched between an older brother and sister and two younger sisters. She tagged along to all of her siblings’ sporting event and began swimming as a matter of convenience.

She stayed in it because she found a reason to keep going back to the pool.

USA TODAY: When did you start swimming full time and how did you know it was the right time?

Allison Schmitt: I started swimming at 9. My oldest sister (Kirsten) didn’t like contact sports or ball sports so she decided to swim. I kind of followed her. My parents instilled in us that when we committed to a team or committed to a sport, we had to follow through with the whole season. Soccer was my No. 1 sport and I liked that communication and team camaraderie a lot. Swimming didn’t really have that for me, because I was splitting so much time between other sports and when you’re at practice, you’re the slowest person in the pool; you don’t really get much rest if your face is in the water and basically you’re just swimming to survive. (Laughs.)

I did finish out the season and at my last meet, I met Monica. She was my only friend the entire season. I got in the car and I told my sister, “I met a friend.” The whole reason I signed up for another season of swimming was so that I could find out what this girl’s name was and tell my sister.

USAT: So after that, swimming was more fun for you?

AS: I became more involved and I met friends in swimming. At 12 years old, I didn’t make the travel soccer team that I wanted to make and I decided to focus on swimming. It all started to come together in high school. And from then on, it was kind of like a ladder of success for me, leading into 2008 (the Beijing Olympics), at 18 years old.  I definitely was not an overnight success. I’ve had a lot of losses and a lot of participation awards. It was years of hard work and great coaching and sacrifices.

Coach Steve: When should your kids start to specialize in a sport?

‘Back and forth in a box’: Your family, and your teammates, can be your engines for success

‘Swimming doesn’t sound that fun,’ Schmitt says. ‘You’re swimming back and forth in a box following a black line for at least two hours out of the day. But what I really loved about it was the teammates that I made in it. And that’s kind of what kept me going through it all.’

So did her family. Gail and Ralph Schmitt let their kids try any sport they wanted as long as they went to church, got good grades and played a musical instrument.

Derek, Allison’s older brother, played high school lacrosse and ice hockey but went on to swim and coach at the Division I level. Her twin sisters, Kari and Sara, played high school basketball and reached Division I in hockey.

Allison found herself swimming alongside an Olympic legend. Phelps was from her home state of Michigan. The two began training together in 2005, and he opened her eyes to the mental side of sports.

USAT: Talk about your family and how supportive they’ve been.

AS: When my little sisters were born, my oldest sister was a month and a half shy of 6. There were five of us 5 and under. I honestly don’t know how my parents did it. They were driving 40,000 miles a year around to practices, games, whatever that was, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on food, fees, travel equipment and such. But besides giving us those opportunities, they provided a stable and loving environment: sitting in the stands and being that biggest cheerleaders, driving us back and forth from practice, leaving the coaching to the coaches. I think that those behaviors that we watched growing up I have naturally brought into my adult life.

We ate as a family and there were nights where we’d be eating at 9 or 10 p.m. Or I’d come back for practice and have a plate waiting for me. I don’t really recall stopping at fast food restaurants on the way home. I feel like I always had a nutritious meal at home. And I knew my family was there to eat and laugh with and have story time with at dinnertime.

USAT: What have you learned about sports and competition training with Phelps?

AS: He’s five years older than me. I’ve seen him swimming in Michigan as a high school athlete and just watching that, I saw the power of the mind and visualization and really driving toward a dream and a goal. I never really looked at him as that greatest Olympian of all time but just as another human being. And I think that I was able to see both the superhuman part and everyone else sees on TV and but I was also, I saw the human in him as well and the sacrifice that he put into every day.

Coach Steve: Some parents need to rethink how they talk to their child athletes

‘Being vulnerable is a superpower’: Be open about your mental health issues

Schmitt won a bronze medal as part of the American 4×200-meter relay team in Beijing. She medaled five times, winning three golds, at the 2012 London Games, setting a then-Olympic record at the women’s 200-meter freestyle.

Then she began to feel the weight of expectations. When she didn’t qualify for the 2013 world championships, she began to question herself. She felt she had disappointed her coaches, her teammates, her university (Georgia) and her country. She spiraled into depression.

But she returned to win four more medals over the next two Olympics and earn a master’s degree in social work from Arizona State. It’s a lesson she wants to leave with young female athletes.

USAT: Talk about the importance of mental health.

AS: I think athletes so often lose their voice in sport, especially female athletes, because our bodies are different, or we’re not relating to someone. I think it’s very important to show that vulnerability because being vulnerable is a superpower. If you’re able to be vulnerable, you’re able to learn more, you’re able to get more tools for your own toolbox. One of my biggest messages is even with experiencing mental health issues, you are still able to be successful. It is OK to not be OK. But it is not OK to isolate. The hardest step in a mental health journey is reaching out and getting help and then staying in help.

USAT: How have you learned to manage your mental health issues?

AS: I continue to go to therapy and that doesn’t mean that I don’t experience hard days, it doesn’t mean that my depression doesn’t come back up, my anxiety. I definitely have those days but on those days, instead of isolating because I’m embarrassed about it or because I recognize that this isn’t me, (I recognize) that it’s OK to be like that and we’re human and we can have all these different emotions. Instead of isolating, reach out and lean on the support of your support system. I think that when I realized that I was probably 25 years old at my cousin’s funeral; she committed suicide a week after her 17th birthday and a few days before prom, right before she was going on to play Division I basketball in college.

I saw all the people that showed up at her funeral, from friends, from family, from school (in Pennsylvania), from basketball, from neighboring teams from Ohio, Michigan that came to the funeral. And if she could have just felt the love from all of that, I think things could have been different.

‘A happy swimmer is a fast swimmer’: Understand the unique issues that can confront a female athlete

Susan Riley, senior director of brand marketing for BSN Sports, says research indicates the motivating factors for coaching girls and boys are distinctly different.

“Boys tend to strive to perform well in order to receive encouragement or praise,” she says. “Girls need encouragement and praise from the get-go to perform at their best.”

To coach a female athlete, and to understand a female athlete, you also need to be prepared to talk about the female-specific issues that may confront her.

SURGE, which was launched in March and has reached more than 250,000 girls who play sports in the USA, offers free online resources (including webinars from Schmitt) to help coaches navigate those issues and build self-esteem in girls.

USAT: Why do you think female athletes are quitting at twice the rate of boys?

AS: You can go from the biological aspects of your menstrual cycle and just not having had education or the resources to really control that, especially in the sport of swimming. I mean, period anxiety is real in all sports, in all females. It comes from sitting on a white couch to wearing white shorts to playing a sport where you’re in a bathing suit. Period anxiety is just very real and so how can we talk about these sensitive topics, especially if it’s a male coach to a female athlete, as well as body image. We can’t deny the fact that social media is huge and there’s a lot that’s posted out there, and it can’t be really controlled of what’s real or what’s not real. There’s a lot of editing. People look at that as a reality when it’s really photoshopped, or it could be their reality when there’s a whole bunch of different people. So those are the two biggest things: body image and just mental health in general.

I often say a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer, which can really be applied to any sport. And so as coaches we need to foster that environment.

Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for a high schooler and middle schooler. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here.

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PARIS — Because it’s her sixth Olympics, Diana Taurasi has a lot of wisdom to share about, well, everything. Her teammates are eager to listen, too.

And yet it’s a couple other Olympic veterans, Breanna Stewart and A’ja Wilson, who know they need to speak up more this time around – because now, Taurasi has told them, this is their team.

Stewart, 29, and Wilson, 27, are playing in their third and second Olympics, respectively. They are widely considered the two top players in the world: Between the two of them they’ve won four of the past six WNBA MVP awards, with Wilson heavily favored to win her third this season, and they’re expected to be the foundation of USA Basketball in the coming years.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

Before she traveled to Paris, Wilson told USA TODAY Sports that these Games felt different from the second the team was named, partially because of the anticipated atmosphere – fans are back after not being allowed in Tokyo – and because it feels like ‘the whole world is tuned in us (women’s basketball).’

But there are other differences, too.

‘When I think about me and Stewie, we grew up as the young guns in this,’ Wilson said. ‘We were the ones looking at people talking in the huddles. And now, of course, we have DT but even she is like, ‘No you guys, I’m trusting y’all.’ I think that’s the biggest difference, is understanding that now we’re the leaders and we’re the ones who have to go out there and say, ‘This is the standard and we’re going to uphold it every single possession.’

‘To go from being a young girl who was just kind of happy to be here to now being the one who’s like, no, you’re here for a reason. I’m excited to take on that role.’

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The Americans are going for their eighth consecutive gold, which would be an Olympic record in a team sport. They open pool play Monday vs. Japan at 3 p.m. ET.

While Wilson is known for being a passionate, outspoken leader – her tearful postgame news conference where she talked about wanting to be known as a great leader even more so than a great player went viral after a Las Vegas Aces loss to the New York Liberty on June 15 — Stewart is considerably more reserved and stoic. But even if she’s not demonstrative on the court, she knows when it’s time to speak up. 

‘I think it’s a mixture of both,’ Stewart said. ‘It’s leading by my play but also feeling comfortable to say something to my teammates.’

‘In Rio, I was the rookie, I was the young one just taking it all in,’ Stewart recalled. ‘My second one (in Tokyo), I had more national experience than probably most the players on the team, and now with his one, it’s an honor and pleasure share the court with Dee … but A’ja and I know what’s at stake, and we have to take ownership of that.’

In terms of Taurasi’s longevity in the sport, the 42-year-old admitted Saturday that ‘it’s hard to let go’ of something she still loves deeply and excels at; her 16.1 points per game through 21 WNBA games this season ranks 17th best in the league.

Still, she knows her role has changed, and she’s OK with that, saying it’s ‘exciting when you get to play on these teams with the two best players in the world.’

Sometimes she can’t help but slip back to her old ways. After Team USA lost to the WNBA All-Stars on 117-109 on July 21, it was Taurasi who galvanized the huddle, telling the Americans they have to come out ready for every single game. Her message has been the same, to her teammates, the media and fans: Winning the last seven doesn’t guarantee anything this go-round.

And that’s been heard by everyone. Because even if it’s time for Stewart and Wilson to speak up more, they’re always going to respect their elders first.

‘If Dee’s talking,’ Stewart said, ‘we’re all going to listen.’

PARIS − The first swimming training session for triathletes competing at the Paris Olympics was cancelled Sunday because of pollution in the river Seine.

Whether the Seine will be clean enough to host Olympic triathlon and open-water swimming events has been a much debated topic at the Games. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a highly publicized dip in the Seine last week in a bid to ease fears. Organizers have spent more than $1.5 billion trying to overcome the river’s high levels of E.coli bacteria.

The river was deemed clean enough for the swimming competitions following a series of tests in earlier this month but heavy rainfall in France’s capital over the past 48 hours appears to have set that back.

In a joint statement Paris 2024 and World Triathlon said they were ‘confident that water quality will return to below limits before the start of the triathlon competitions,’ which get underway Tuesday.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

The bike and running training sessions will go ahead as planned Sunday.

In a briefing with reporters on Saturday, Scott Schnitzspahn, the U.S. Olympic triathlon team’s ‘high performance’ general manager, said he was getting updates on the Seine’s water quality each day at 4 a.m. He said there is a Plan B if the river tests results don’t improve. Plan B is delaying the triathlon by one day.

Plan C is the swim part of the event gets dropped altogether.

‘We actually raced here last year in the test event,’ he said. ‘I don’t think anyone got sick after that, which can’t be said about all the races we do. In preparation for this race, I knew there was going to be some E.coli exposure. So I’ve been trying to increase my E.coli threshold by exposing myself to a bit of E.coli in day-to-day life.’

One of the ways Rider claimed he’s been doing that is not washing his hands after he goes to the bathroom.

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Follow Kim Hjelmgaard on social media @khjelmgaard

PARIS – The stars were out to see Simone Biles on Sunday morning.

On the northern side of Bercy Arena, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen took their seats near a luxury box with their children, who held up a white flag adorned with the American flag and Olympic rings. A few rows away, Tom Cruise shook hands with a fellow spectator and smiled. Snoop Dogg, who is in Paris as a contributor with NBC, leaned back in a seat in the front row.

Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain and USA snowboarder Shaun White and his girlfriend, Nina Dobrev, were among the other notable figures in attendance Sunday. Businessman David Lauren, the son of eponymous clothing designer Ralph Lauren was also seated nearby.

Sunday’s team qualifying drew such high interest because it will be the first time that Biles competes at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she is expected to add to her gold medal haul. 

It’s been nearly three years since Biles, 27, withdrew from the team final at Tokyo Olympics with a case of the ‘twisties,’ which caused her to lose a sense of where she was in the air during twisting elements.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

After a hiatus of more than a year, she returned to competition last fall and has since reclaimed her place as the world’s most dominant gymnast, inspiring fellow athletes and people around the world with both her talent and her outspokenness on mental health.

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Carissa Moore, the defending Olympic women’s surfing champion, and her four American teammates each won their first-round heats as the competition in Tahiti got underway at the Paris Games.

All five U.S. surfers advanced directly to Round 3 — featuring the top 16 surfers — this weekend as a result of winning the first-round heats. Each featured three surfers.

Moore, 27, competed in only two events on the World Surf League tour this season while spending two months in Tahiti preparing for the Paris Games.

So far, so good.

She took gold at Tokyo in the surfing’s Olympic debut and on Sunday looked to be in good form during her first-round heat on the legendary surf site in Teahupo’o. She had a combined, two-wave score of 16.5 as the American surged.

2024 Olympic medals: Who is leading the medal count? Follow along as we track the medals for every sport.

“I can’t wait to go back and relish in today and the success that everybody had, because it was truly pretty special,” Moore said after the first round. “I feel like we’ve been the good vibe tribe. Everybody’s just been really supportive and encouraging of each other.”

American Caroline Marks had the top combined score of the first round with a 17.93 in her first-round heat and posted the best single-wave score, 9.43.

Caitlin Simmers, and 18-year-year-old phenom from the United States, won her first-round heat with a combined score of 12.93.

On the men’s side, American John John Florence emerged victorious on Saturday from his first-round heat with a combined score of 17.33 and fellow American Griffin Colapinto won his opening heat with a score of 17.03. Griffin turned in the best top-wave score of the round with a 9.53 and Florence had the second-best, top-wave score with a 9.33.

Florence, who entered the Olympics ranked No. 1 in the world, said, ‘the waves were fun. I feel like I’m in a really good place right now.”