Bobbing for Medals: 2024
We spend most of the day watching the Olympics, so you don’t have to.
NBC ran a wonderful and moving featurette on the USA Network about Ukrainian athletes at the Olympics. I hope they run it again in primetime. What passage (of many) that stood out was a young man explaining why he and other athletes came back to Ukraine to train. It was because if they didn’t, then others would see that and think “Why should I stay?”, but if they did, then the others would see it and think, “Well, if they came back here and stayed, I should, too.”
In soccer, the USA men’s team had a pretty easy 4-1 win against New Zealand.
And speaking of soccer, there was an update on that odd story I wrote about where two people associated with the Canadian women’s soccer oddly used a drone to spy on New Zealand’s low-ranked team. (Cool, a double New Zealand soccer reference today!) Well, this morning, Olympic officials penalized Canada’s team with three “negative points,” making it possible, but extremely difficult to advance out of their group. Given that the women’s team is ranked eighth in the world, this is a big blow to them. They do have the opportunity to appeal the decision.
Now, if only the IOC put as much attention to the positive drug tests of the Chinese swimmers (which China says was just bad samples…) as they do about a drone spying on a practice, they might be on to something resembling credibility…
A lot of water sports in the morning. Swimming, water polo and whitewater canoe/kayak. I love whitewater (more on that in a moment), though the other two aren’t among my favorites.
Yes, I know swimming is hugely popular, and I do like it. Just not as much as some other top (and minor) events. The two issues for me are first, that the athletes are largely underwater and out of sight, and second, the TV coverage is not great. Unless they superimpose a flag graphic, I find it a little difficult knowing what swimmer is who in which lane. (I have other issues with the coverage, especially long-distance races, but we’ll leave it at that.) But I do like it – and like the relays the most, in part because, unlike track, there’s no risk and tension of passing a baton. While a baton pass is certainly exciting, and I understand the critical importance,, my preference is to focus on the race, who’s the fastest, not “Who practiced handing off a stick the best?” As for individual swimmers, I do like Katie Ledecky. Not just for her greatness as a swimmer, but also her grace, joy and enthusiasm being interviewed, even after 12 years on the scene.
Happily, two of the preliminary events this morning were the women’s 4x100 freestyle relay – both the USA and Australia won their heats easily, and the women’s 400m freestyle prelim which Katie Ledecky won. However, she only got the bronze in the final, finishing behind her top rival Ariarne Titmus of Australia. It should be noted, though, that Ledecky’s best events are the 800 and 1500 meter races, for which he holds something like the top 16 times in each.
My hurdle with water polo is that I find it difficult to watch. Not only are the athletes largely underwater, as well, and most that you see of them is their head, but as a team sport, everyone on a team is wearing the same swim cap, almost-completely covering their heads, so they all look pretty much the same. Anyway, Team USA handily beat Greece.
But the whitewater events are water sports I dearly love. In part for them being so odd and so different from most other Olympics sports, including that slalom courses are different from one another, venue to venue – but also, on a purely personal level, the slalom races in particular (more than the sprints) remind me of a canoe camping trip I took long ago in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area National Wilderness (within Superior National Forest, which is why it’s a National Wilderness, and not a National Park). These were the early heats for the slalom, which were great fun. If you’ve never seen whitewater slalom, here’s video of a kayak run (not from the Olympics, but this year’s World Cup), with Jessica Fox of Australia, one of the world’s best.
(By the way, the difference between a canoe and kayak is that you kneel in a canoe and use a paddle that has a blade on only one end. Kayakers sit and have a double-bladed paddle.)
Whitewater is also perhaps the only Olympic event which is not affected by the still-ongoing Paris rain. Swimming and water polo don’t count since they’re indoor. But the whitewater courses are outdoors, and even on a perfect sunny day it would be impossible for the athletes not to get drenched. So, the rain today was no bother…
Speaking of the rain, I think the most dangerous Olympic event for right now is the cycling races, which are outside on the boulevards of Paris. Today they held the time trials, and with the racers speeding along on the wet streets, I’m surprised that there was only one crash, almost into the crowd, saved only by the protective fence. By the way, though they call it the “time trials,” it was a medal race, and an exciting one, won by the final rider from Belgium.
Olympic cycling is another event I love, though much more the indoors events that take place in a velodrome. (I love it for the event, but also I love that something is competing in a structure that’s called a “velodrome”…) I do like outdoors road racing, which is more a team-ish sport – and I even watch a lot of the Tour de France every year – but the problem for me is that after all these years watching I still don’t fully understand all the rules that include things like the “peloton” and “chase group” and “chase group 2” and “breakaway” and yellow jersey and green jersey and overall leader and…
More to come.
Let the Games continue...!
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