Jill Biden meets with US Olympic athletes in Paris — and even helps with a relay drill

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First lady Jill Biden, center, delivers remarks to family members of Team USA with U.S. Ambassador to France, Denise Campbell Bauer, left, and Gene Sykes, chairman of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, right, at the ambassador’s residence during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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First lady Jill Biden, right, hugs U.S. track and field athlete Melissa Jefferson at the team’s training facility during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Eaubonne, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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First lady Jill Biden, left, learns the proper technique to pass a baton from head women’s relay coach Mechelle Freeman, center, of USA track and field, during a visit to the team’s training facility during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Eaubonne, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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First lady Jill Biden, second from left, visits the U.S. Olympic training facility with Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., far left, Rocky Harris, second from right, and Brian Boitano, right, during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Eaubonne, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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First lady Jill Biden, left, speaks with Team USA women’s rugby player Sammy Sullivan, right, during a visit to the team’s training facility during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Eaubonne, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

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First lady Jill Biden delivers remarks to family members of the U.S. Olympic team at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence before the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

PARIS (AP) — U.S. first lady Jill Biden visited some American athletes at an Olympic training center in Paris on Thursday, wishing rugby and track and field competitors good luck and even taking part in a stationary relay drill with runners.

Biden arrived in Paris a day before the Summer Games’ opening ceremony on the Seine River. She will watch athletes parade on a flotilla of boats Friday after a reception with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Élysée Palace.

Biden, escaping a tumultuous political environment in Washington after President Joe Biden ended his campaign for a second term, spoke to the families of U.S. athletes before visiting the competitors themselves on their practice fields.

“As they leap and sprint and turn, America’s athletes aren’t only propelled by the years of sweat and sacrifice they’ve poured into their training,” she said in front of a giant USA cutout colored with the American flag. “Your love is also there, pushing them further, helping them go faster, lifting them higher as they reach for gold.”

After her speech at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to France, Denise Bauer, Biden headed to a training center in the northern Paris suburbs to visit with athletes on the U.S. women’s rugby team and the track and field team. She hugged some of them, took pictures and helped in a track drill where athletes hand off the baton.

The first lady started the relay drill, standing as she handed the baton to the runners positioned an arm’s length apart as they practiced handing it off in quick succession.

After the opening ceremony, Biden will speak at a brunch to commemorate the opening of the Games and celebrate the 2028 Olympics being held in Los Angeles. LA Mayor Karen Bass was among those accompanying Biden on the Paris trip.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Olympic Hightlights

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FILE - South Africa’s Jacques Freitag competes in the men’s high jump of the 2004 Olympic Games, in the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Friday Aug. 20, 2004. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

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FILE - Ilona Maher of USA is tackled by Sharni Williams of Australia in a semifinal of the Rugby World Cup 7’s championship held in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The main task for Maher, the breakout social media star on TikTok at the Tokyo Olympics, is winning a medal in Paris. (AP Photo/Halden Krog, File)

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FILE - Jacques Freitag of South Africa waves his national flag after he won the Men’s high jump event at the World Athletics Championships, at the Stade de France in Saint Denis, north of Paris, Monday, Aug. 25, 2003. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle, File)

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Sammy Sullivan of USA in action during HSBC rugby sevens series in Singapore, on May 4, 2024. The anthem played as Army officer Sammy Sullivan stood to attention and saluted beside her U.S. rugby teammates before a gold-medal game in Hong Kong against Olympic champion New Zealand. No prizes for guessing where her mind may have drifted to: Paris in July. (AP Photo/Suhaimi Abdullah)

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USA Water Polo Women’s Senior National Team attacker Ryann Neushul, left, trains at Long Beach City College Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024, in Long Beach, Calif. Following in the footsteps of two older sisters who won gold with the U.S. women’s water polo team, Ryann Neushul is making her Olympic debut in Paris this summer. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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Iranian wrestler Iman Mahdavi, 28, practices at the Lotta Club Seggiano gym, in Pioltello , northern Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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FILE - Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands competes during the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Vienna 2022 men’s semifinal game against Austria at the Red Bull Beach Arena in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. Van de Velde, convicted and imprisoned eight years ago for raping an underage girl in England has qualified for the Paris Olympics. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter, File)