The Paris 2024 stars who've won our hearts

Are you suffering from a severe case of Olympic fever? Maddy Mussen is here with a list of 12 athletes everyone has got a crush on

- Maddy Mussen

OLYMPIANS are hot. It's a simple fact. They're incredibly motivated, inconceivably healthy and literally at the top of their game. If we're throwing it back to the very beginning of this beloved competition, they're essentially the modern version of Greek gods. But these Olympians come and they go. Every four years there are a new crop to get excited about.

So who is the next Sir Chris Hoy? Or Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill? For the Paris Olympics, here are 12 athletes we can't get enough of.

Gabriel Medina

It would be a little ridiculous to go through a list of hot Olympians and not include a surfer, wouldn't it? Well, Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina is your man on the board for this Olympics - or off the board, it seems, as Medina's gone viral for a "perfect" image of him levitating above the water, a metre away from his also-airborne board. Moreover, Medina's performance was near-perfect too, with the 30-year-old successfully taking on Kanoa Igarashi, the 26-year-old Japanese surfer who beat him at Tokyo 2020.

And that wave he was levitating over? That landed him a 9.90, the highest scoring wave in Olympic history.

Sunisa Lee

This US gymnast may have been slightly overshadowed by the return of Simone Biles, but Sunisa "Suni" Lee is very much a star in her own right. Lee is the 10th most-decorated American female gymnast with multiple world championships and four Olympic medals under her belt.

The 21-year-old is thriving at the Paris Olympics, despite being recently diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease.

And to top it all off, she recently became a campaign star for Kim Kardashian's Skims.

Ashleigh Johnson

Another US stand-out is Ashleigh Johnson, the first black woman to ever play on the country's women's water polo team.