the UltraTrail du Mont Blanc is a unique challenge of endurance racing through the mountains of France on foot. It's made up of three races including the brutal 101 kilometre "Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix" or the 'CCC'.

Earlier this month, and fresh from returning from a serious knee injury, American Hayden Hawkes crossed the finish line to win. It was exactly seven years since he first tasted victory in the race, and he hasn't looked back since.

Photo: Hayden Hawkes of the United States celebrates as he wins the 50k race during the UTMB World Series Canyons Endurance Runs 2023(Credit: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images for Canyons UTMB)

Live from Paris with all the action and stories from the 2024 Paralympic Games.

PHOTO: Matt Stutzman of Team United States during the Men's Archery Individual Compound at Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (Credit: Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Live from Paris with all the action and stories from the 2024 Paralympic Games

Photo: Dong Lu of team China competes in the Women's 200m individual medley final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (CReditby Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

How does it feel winning the Tour de France Femmes? Poland's Kasia Niewiadoma will tell you directly – pain, suffering, excitement and euphoria. It was the rollercoaster of emotions the 2024 Tour de France Femmes winner experienced as she thought at one moment she had lost the yellow jersey, but Niewiadoma dug in to win the overall title by just four seconds.

As the Women's Open golf takes place at St Andrews we chart the progress of Women's golf. Katie Dawkins is one of few female PGA professionals in Golf Monthly’s Top 50 UK list of coaches as well as being an instructional and features writer for the publication. Her podcast “Birdies Banter” is part of “A Birdies View” magazine, a women’s online publication www.abirdiesview.com. Having been involved in the game for many years, Katie is able to identify the changes that have made the growth in the women's game possible, and what still needs to be done, including "on course facilities"

And staying with golf... Kind of! When you were young, did you and your friends or siblings make up your own games? Imagine if the games you played as a child went on to became a recognised sport, played across the world and who knows maybe even one day the Olympics!? Well that's where American Alex Van Alen finds himself. The sport he used to play as a youngster is called "FlingGolf". Played on a golf course, the aim is to get your ball in the hole, but you don't always hit the ball, you fling it... Alex Van Alen explains all

You might think that the Dutch Formula One Grand Prix taking place this weekend would be the most important sporting event in the country this month... but those in Franeker in the north of the Netherlands would beg to differ. Sport as we saw at the Olympics can bring people together from across the world, but it’s also a way of binding together a community with a shared passion – especially if the sport has a powerful local identity. Which is why we sent Sportshour’s Matthew Kenyon to check out one of the biggest days in the sporting calendar in the Dutch province of Friesland.

The opening ceremony for the Paralympics in Paris takes place on Wednesday. Thousands of competitors from all over the world will descend on the French capital in search of sporting glory... but they will also hope to once again showcase their skill, and in doing so change wrongly held stereotypes about disability. But for one group of athletes there's another goal, to lift the spirits of their nation. Sportshour's Andy Swiss has been to meet Ukraine's para athletes:

Photo: Canyon//SRAM Racing team's Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma celebrates after crossing the finish line and winning the third edition of the Women's Tour de France cycling race (CREDIT: JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)

You could say Sportshour's Premier League preview lacks a bit of emotion. There's no drama. No temper tantrums. No overheated opinions. Just facts. Cold hard facts. Ian Graham is a 'data architect' and if you don't really know what that is then you are not alone. But it turns out data architects are one of the secret ingredients you need to win the Premier League. Ian is the proof. He was Liverpool's Director of Research until 2023 and has just written a new book "How to win the Premier League"

It's not just the Premier League whose season starts this weekend. The inaugural Women's "USL Super League" launches in America. Aimed at providing younger footballers a stepping stone into the big leagues it's made up of eight teams, expanding to sixteen next season. One of stars of this new league is Laveni Vaka. Earlier this year she became the first female pro-footballer from the Pacific Island of Tonga. The defender tells us how thrilled she was to be turning out for her new team Fort Lauderdale United

It's been a shocking week in the world of chess with news that Russian chess star Amina Abakarova, was caught on CCTV allegedly trying to poison her opponent who was taken ill and hospitalised after her chess board was smeared with mercury! Abakarova has been detained and faces a prison sentence of up to three years if convicted. Chess has been the subject of a number of bad headlines over the years from extra ordinary accusations of cheating to this latest life threatening incident. Grand Master, five time World champion and deputy president of the International Chess Federation Viswanathan Anand joins us

The English Channel is not only the world's busiest shipping lane, it is an iconic challenge to cross for swimmers and now windsurfers too! Dodge the enormous ships and you could find yourself in a small elite club of people to have faced down that challenge... Windsurfer, Bob van de Burgt is hoping to do just that this coming week, but not content with simply landing in the UK from his home in Netherlands, he's going to return across the channel immediately! and you can follow Bob's progress at www.surfingformuscles.com

Photo: Erling Haaland of Manchester City celebrates with his Premier League winners medal (Credit: Michael Regan/Getty Images)

To the Paris pool next where The Chinese divers have again dominated the medals at the Paris Games, but they still have some way to overshadow Greg Louganis of the United States... widely regarded as the greatest diver of all time. Louganuis won DOUBLE gold at his home games in Los Angeles in 1984 and repeated that feat in Seoul four years later. But it's for a dive that went spectacularly wrong for which he is best remembered. At the '88 games he cracked his head open on the springboard. falling unceremoniously into the water... Remarkably, he brushed himself off and STILL went on to win gold. Greg has been speaking to Sportshour's Olympic reporter Joel Hammer, starting with the silver he won as a 16 year old in Montreal back in 1976:

One man with a keen eye on the boxing later will be Maurice Hope. A former world champion, he fought at the 1972 Olympics in Munich for Great Britain. Those Munich Olympics will always be overshadowed by The Munich massacre, one of the darkest chapters in Olympic history... when eleven members of the Israeli team were taken hostage and killed... inside the Olympic village, by Palestinian gunmen from the Black September group. For Maurice those dark nights will live with him forever. Maurice Hope MBE has written a book about his life called "Land of Hope and Glory: The Windrush Kid Who Conquered The World". He talks about his journey from Antigua aged just nine... and moving with his family as part of the Windrush generation to the U.K when Caribbean people were invited to help rebuild the British economy after World War II.

Plus, a true pioneer of the Olympic spirit and in particular women's sport. The Olympics of 2024 are the first with equal representation of male and female athletes, and the journey to equality, in part, is thanks to Alice Milliat's lobbying in the early 1900s. But who was Alice? A statue of Alice stands outside the headquarters of the French Olympic Committe and a book about her life has just been released called " La Vie Jamais Racontée: Alice Milliat, a French Heroine and Sporting Suffragette'. Its author is Nancy Gillen

Throughout the Olympics we've been hearing from Dr Lindsay Krasnoff, expert in sport diplomacy specialising in France and in particular basketball. So what better way to end her Sportshour postcards from the Games than by previewing both Men's and women's upcoming basketball gold medal matches between the mighty USA and the hosts France. It's the hottest ticket in town!

Photo: Greg Louganis of the United States prepares to dive in the Men's 10-metre Platform diving competition during the XXIV Olympic Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea. (CREDIT: Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images)

Meet a sport's icon making his mark at the Olympics in Paris. After the biggest grind, Andy MacDonald will represent Team GB at the grand old age of 50. This is a man who holds the record for the most X Games medals in a skateboarding discipline - the pinnacle championships of extreme sports - and he has also been named World Champions skateboarder nine times. He has even invented tricks that will feature in the Games but even for him, going to Paris is something special.

(Photo: Andrew Macdonald of Great Britain competes during the Skateboarding during the Olympic Qualifier Series. Credit: Fred Lee/Getty Images)

We're live in the French capital as the Games begin!

One of the most popular Olympic disciplines is gymnastics. It requires artistic flair alongside core strength and amazing flexibility. So imagine having to compete with scoliosis, a condition that curves the back into unnatural positions. That's precisely the challenge Italian Marta Pagnini had to overcome in order to achieve her dream of competing at the Olympics, winning bronze in the Group All Around in 2012. Now retired Marta has been telling Sportshour's Caroline Barker about her gymnastics career and her continued battle with scoliosis.

Kayla Harrison has always been a fighter, both inside and out of the sporting arena. The double Olympic gold medal winning judoka now completes in mixed martial arts in the UFC. Twelve years on from her first gold in London and just months after her debut in the UFC, Kayla has been reflecting on her career and the challenges she has had to face outside sport. She's been telling Sportshour's Joel Hammer how she now splits her time between training and competing and spending time with her children on the farm they live on.

From life in the Olympic village to the secrets of the Opening ceremony, and what essentials you need to pack that no one tells you about. Speaking to Sportshour's Caroline Barker, Team GB's Olympic cycling silver medallist from Tokyo Neah Evans busts some myths ahead of setting off for Paris.

Photo: Olympic Rings displayed at the Eiffel Tower Stadium at the Paris Games. (CREDIT: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)

This documentary contains discriminatory and homophobic language that some listeners may find offensive.

In 1993 the legislators in Cobb County, Georgia passed a resolution stating that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes".

Cobb County was due to welcome the Olympics in 1996 hosting the volleyball competition as part of the Atlanta Games. Narrated by Wanda Guenette, a member of the 1996 Canadian volleyball team who identifies as gay, and who faced the prospect of having her Olympic dream turned into a nightmare, forced to compete in a place that had made it clear she and other gay athletes were not welcome.

In Episode 4 it's early 1996 and preparations for the Games are nearly complete. Just the torch relay, the symbolic journey the Olympic flame makes to the host city, carried by the great and good across the host nation. Despite everything, the flame was still set to pass through Cobb County. But Jon-Ivan Weaver and Pat Hussain weren't going to allow that to happen. Plus, we also discuss how far gay rights have come in the last thirty years, and how much further they still need to go.

This is the inspiring story of a small campaign group who took on one of the most powerful organisations in the world and forced change. With the help of an Olympic legend and after months of high-profile peaceful protests, the Atlanta Organising Committee finally stripped Cobb County as a host venue and diverted the torch relay away from its streets

Photo Credit: Carol Brown/Georgia State University Library

This documentary contains discriminatory and homophobic language that some listeners may find offensive.

In 1993 the legislators in Cobb County, Georgia passed a resolution stating that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes".

Cobb County was due to welcome the Olympics in 1996 hosting the volleyball competition as part of the Atlanta Games. Narrated by Wanda Guenette, a member of the 1996 Canadian volleyball team who identifies as gay, and who faced the prospect of having her Olympic dream turned into a nightmare, forced to compete in a place that had made it clear she and other gay athletes were not welcome.

In Episode 3 we hear from Olympic legend Greg Louganis. In the early 1990’s there were few openly gay athletes, retired or active. Having only recently come out the Olympic movement wanted to recognise his bravery with an award. Louganis used his acceptance speech to condemn the decision to have the Games in Cobb County and added to the pressure to have them removed.

This is the inspiring story of a small campaign group who took on one of the most powerful organisations in the world and forced change. With the help of an Olympic legend and after months of high-profile peaceful protests, the Atlanta Organising Committee finally stripped Cobb County as a host venue and diverted the torch relay away from its streets.

Photo Credit: Carol Brown/Georgia State University Library

This documentary contains discriminatory and homophobic language that some listeners may find offensive.

In 1993 the legislators in Cobb County, Georgia passed a resolution stating that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes". Cobb County was due to welcome the Olympics in 1996 hosting the volleyball competition as part of the Atlanta Games.

Narrated by Wanda Guenette, a member of the 1996 Canadian volleyball team who identifies as gay, and who faced the prospect of having her Olympic dream turned into a nightmare, forced to compete in a place that had made it clear she and other gay athletes were not welcome.

In Episode 2 we meet the driving forces behind the “Olympics out of Cobb” movement, Jon-Ivan Weaver and Pat Hussain and their life partners Diego and Cherry. They explain the lengths they had to go to, to have their voices heard.

This is the inspiring story of a small campaign group who took on one of the most powerful organisations in the world and forced change. With the help of an Olympic legend and after months of high-profile peaceful protests, the Atlanta Organising Committee finally stripped Cobb County as a host venue and diverted the torch relay away from its streets.

Photo Credit: Carol Brown/Georgia State University Library