Per PA: British Equestrian has confirmed Sir Lee Pearson – Great Britain’s third most successful Paralympian – is suspended amid an ongoing investigation into his conduct following his non-selection for Paris 2024. The 50-year-old won 14 golds between 2000 and 2021, a total bettered only by cyclist Dame Sarah Storey and swimmer Mike Kenny. Pearson – GB’s flag bearer for Rio 2016 – has not competed since March 2023. He declined to comment on his suspension but has, on social media, expressed ambitions of returning at Los Angeles in 2028. A British Equestrian statement read:

“British Equestrian and British Dressage are aware of concerns and allegations that have arisen around an individual within the dressage community. In accordance with our own procedures, the matter is under active investigation and the individual is suspended from both organisations while that investigation takes place. No further comment will be made at this time.”

Equestrian events are scheduled to begin on Tuesday at the Château de Versailles.

What a start! First up in athletics on the smart, fast purple track at the Stade de France was the T11 (vision impairment) 5,000m … and Brazil’s Júlio César Agripino took over five seconds off the world record with a superb time of 14:48.85 as he stormed to gold. It surpassed the mark set at May’s world championships by his compatriot and the defending champion, Yeltsin Jacques – who, yep, is named after Boris Yeltsin.

Kenya Karasawa of Japan took silver in an area record of 14:51.48 ahead of Yeltsin, who completed a podium sweep of runners who all went below the previous world record of 14:53.97. The world champion took well over a second from his own PB, finishing in 14:52.61. The result means the same podium peeps but different medals all-round from the worlds in Kobe, where the order was Yeltsin, Agripino, Karasawa.

Kudos as always to the guide runners in the visually-impaired track events – sharing Agripino’s glory were Romario Santos Viana, Micael Batista and Guilherme Ademilson. The winner collapsed to the track in a mixture of exhaustion and elation at the finish, but was soon helped up to a raucous reception from the crowd.

Elsewhere, gold for Tunisia! Raoua Tlili took gold in the F41 (short stature) shot put with a season’s best of 10.40m. That effort pipped Uzbekistan’s Kubaro Khakimova by just four centimetres, but her 10.36m was an area record. Antonella Ruiz Diaz of Argentina took bronze with 9.58m.

Good day. In fact a cracking one already in Paris, as the athletics action got off the best kind of start with an outstanding world-record performance in the very first track event of these Games at the Stade de France (of which more shortly).

Coming up there’s plenty more track and field, 14 gold medals to be decided in a loaded swimming programme, track cycling finals, taekwondo finals, archery, badminton, sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, tennis, table tennis, goalball and boccia.

We’ll be pointing you to the pick of the action as it arises. But there’s plenty to catch you up on from this morning …