We watch the Olympics all day so you don't have to. Sorry to see Katie Ledecky not win the Gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle, taking the silver. But it was the second-best time she’s ever had in the race, only behind her own world record. She is swimming in all four individual freestyle events, so she has three more to go, but her best races are the 800 meter (a race she hasn’t lost in nine years and has the top 24 best times ever in the world) and 1500 meter races. So, I look forward to those. As I’m sure, so is she. One of the treats of vegetating in front of the TV all day watching even the obscure or lesser-profile sports is that you occasionally get to see some wonderful moments. And the good news is that not only can I wax poetic about them (or just at length) , I decided to track down as many videos as I can, and so can show you at least some of those moments In the Triathlon, the surprise winner was Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway. But it’s worth mentioning especially because of his weirdly wonderful reaction the last couple hundred yards of the race. The triathlete who’s considered the best runner in the world is Alex Yee of Great Britain. And he was in second place. As Blummenfelt neared the finish line, he clearly was expecting Yee to accelerate and close the gap, if not overtake him – yet it was Blummenfelt who was increasing the gap…and he clearly was stunned by that and couldn’t believe it. Continually checking back behind him and then shaking his head, and grabbing his forehead in disbelief. Before finally letting out a “Viking yell” (as the announcer rightly described it) and flopping to the ground at the finish line, stunned that he won and by so much. Happily, we have the video. It’s only about 4-1/2 minutes, but if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, jump to the 2:30 mark. The most joyous celebration I saw came in Taekwondo, an event I wouldn’t have come across or likely watched if not for vegetating in front of the TV. That’s when 18-year-old Anastasia Zolotic became the first-ever American to win a women’s gold medal Her reaction was explosively joyous and endearing to see. I have a partial video, but unfortunately it only has about three seconds of her reaction before cutting to the medal ceremony. However, even those few seconds will give you an idea what I’m referring to, just from her face. What also stood out was the NBC announcer’s response to it all. As I’ve said here often, I don’t like it when analysts act as PR cheerleaders, which usually happens because they’re part of the sport and know each other. In this case, NBC seems to have only assigned one person to Taekwando, and that being the case it had to someone who knew the sport – and clearly knew the people and was a PR cheerleader. But his joy was so palpable, I can only accept it in this case, at least for his call of the victory. I don’t know his name, but he went totally out of his mind, and his call was -- “We’re under 10 seconds. I’m losing it slowly -- and surely because in two seconds…we have the FIRST…woman…gold…medal…in…Olympic…history!!! Anastasia Zolotic did the thing! This is what we’ve been waiting for, working for, dreaming about!!!. This is a moment in time! I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I can’t take it.” Here’s the video. You’ll get to hear some of the beginning of that call, and as I said a couple seconds of Anastasia Zolotic’s disbelieving, joy-filled face. But – if you’re interested in taking a small amount of effort and seeing the whole minute-and-a-half of Anastasia Zolotic’s exuberant celebration, I found a link to it on the NBC Olympics site. It’s a different announcer for their online service, for some reason – the fellow is a Scotsman wi’ a fine brogue – but the footage is the same. It’s the full Taekwondo event, so you have to jump to the 167:00 mark. But it’s easy, and just click here. And another wonderful reaction in an less-popular event I wouldn’t have seen otherwise was when a member of the women’s fencing team, Lee Kiefer, was the first-ever Gold medal by an American man or woman to win in induvial foil. Happily, I do have the moment on video. Her winning point starts around the 3:00 mark, and the look of joyous disbelief is a treat, along with the reaction of her coach. And I would be bereft if I didn’t mention American Will Shaner winning the first Gold medal for an American in Men’s Air Rifle. I mention this though for an odd reason: when I was a summer camp counselor at Camp Nebagamon, I ran the air riflery program for around four years. A few things – first, it wasn’t a program I especially liked or wanted, but I got placed in it, did a good job, and I’m guessing no one else wanted to ever run it, I got stuck there every year. And also, unlike this profoundly high-end Olympic Air Riflery, at our end these were really more what you’d think of as BB guns, that you filled will pellets. The sort of thing that ‘Ralphie’ got as a Christmas gift in A Christmas Story. And they were not remotely the most powerful at that. (As a test, I once put an air rifle’s muzzle up against a blown-up balloon, shot the gun…and it didn’t pop the balloon! To be fair, I’m sure if there was more distance between the air rifle and balloon, it most definitely would have popped it, and could cause damage to someone. But this still showed how little power it had upfront before it could build up enough force. Indeed, there was so little power that on a windy day, their accuracy level plummeted.) But then, these air rifles were notoriously inaccurate on their own, even without wind, and it tended to require adjusting your aim until you figured out which way the sights were off. What’s also memorable during that time I headed up the program is a story much too long to tell properly in full, but the very short version is that I always felt it a bit weird that I had a fairly low air riflery “rank” as the head of the program, while some of the young campers were higher than me, a few much higher. So, one day during Rest Period, it happened that all my campers were gone – half were out on canoe trips and coming back in, and the other half had left for canoe trips. So, I had about 90 minutes all to myself – and I went out to the air riflery range, lined up lots of targets and started shooting at them almost like an assembly line, going through each position (prone, sitting, kneeling, standing) and then putting out more and more and more targets until finally – I passed through every rank up to Expert, which is the second highest other than Distinguished, which was incredibly difficult. So, congrats to Will Shaner. And we therefore honor a fellow air rifleman with a video of his Gold medal victory. And boy howdy, is his air rifle a WHOLE LOT more sophisticated and powerful than what we had at Camp Nebagamon. Balloons would not be safe around him… More to come.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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