Bobbing for Medals: 2024 Edition

Wow, what a incredibly exciting men’s semifinal basketball game between USA and Serbia, one of the best teams in the world, thought to be a major challenge for the United States.  I don't generally watch basketball much during the Olympics, just check it out from time to time.  But NBC cut to it after an even I was watching, the Team USA was down by nine points just before the half.  So, I kept watching.  In fact, Serbia had been ahead by as much as 17 points earlier – and they were leading by 13 points going into the final quarter.  But Team USA outscored Serbia in the nail-biting fourth quarter by 17 points and won 95-91, helped in large part by Stephen Curry’s 36 points.

What a tremendous run in the women’s 400m hurdle by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.  As I noted, the 400m is the one hurdle race I like the most (since the hurdles are spaced far enough apart for the race to have a flow).  I noted the other day that in her heat earlier, it was almost like she was jogging for the last half, she was that far ahead.  She wasn’t jogging in the finals – but she was almost the same distance ahead.  Coming around the final turn, she just exploded out of the pack.  And not only setting a world record, but became the first woman to win the Gold medal in the event twice.  And so that it’s not lost in the mix, the Silver medal went the Anna Cockrell, so the USA went 1-2.

Noah Lyles did not end up winning both the 100m and 200m races, finishing third in the latter.  Still, it was an impressive run, given that he had tested positive for COVID two days before and was wasn’t yet feeling good.  That said, for all the praise of how well he ran under those conditions – I have to wonder why he ran at all??  But I just don’t know Olympic rules.  I do know he was checked out by doctors, and I guess had no temperature for two days, and was cleared.  But he obviously still had symptoms, since he himself said he felt lousy.  Furthermore, the few people who knew all kept it from everyone else.  He also kept separate himself separate from other runners, which some runners said they noticed since that was so unlike him.  But unless he has eyes in the back of his head, he can’t tell if anyone was coming up to say something to him beforehand or, for that matter, he and the winner hugged.  All his comments were about how he did what was best for him, and how he didn’t want to tell others he wasn’t feeling great that would give them a competitive advantage.  But this isn’t about him, it’s an infectious disease.  He might not have been infectious anymore – but if I was one of the other runners, I’d be furious.  Actually, if I was any athlete, I’d be angry, since one infection can spread. 

We spend most of the day watching the Olympics, so you don’t have to.

And now, let’s go to…figure skating.  Yes, really!  You may recall that a few days ago I wrote about how the U.S. figure skating team – who had won the Silver medal at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics for the Team Figure Skating event -- was belatedly awarded the Gold medal as a result of a skater on the Russian squad was disqualified for using an illegal substance.  (She suggested it must have happened as a result of her grandfather’s heart medication – because, after all, who hasn’t accidentally taken some of their grandfather’s heart medication?)  And the ceremony to present them their Gold medal was scheduled for yesterday.  All the better, underneath the Eiffel Tower.  And all the better, their families were able to attend, which wasn’t the case at Beijing because of COVID.  I wish there was video available of the full ceremony, but happily NBC Primetime carried most of it, including the National Anthem.  And at least this is an acceptable look at it all from NBC News.

The Sport Climbing event has been going on for a few days.  It seems to fall in the “from the X-Games” category and is certainly bizarre.  But for all its strangeness, I think it’s not unreasonable to be a semi-legitimate Olympic sport.  I don’t fully follow how it works, but there seem to be three disciplines – Speed (which is like scrabbling up a rock-covered wall, where the race is over in about five seconds), Bouldering (where athletes have a specific amount of time to climb up an increasingly difficult wall with a set number of intruding boulders, getting points the higher one goes before time runs out) and Lead -- which I don’t understand yet, because I haven’t seen it.  But it seems to have something to do with climbing as high as possible over rocks in the wall.  There’s a limit to how long I enjoy continuing to watch at a time, but it’s sort of fun.  Made notable that climbers have a safety line attached in case they inevitably miss a rock and fall – from walls that look like they were designed by a committee of Mondrian, Klee and Matisse who couldn’t decide on one

I watched a bit of Taekwando.  It’s a perfectly standard Olympic sport.  What it also is, is kicking.  I don’t mean kick-boxing.  Kicking.  Pretty much that’s okay.  Each competitor kicking the other.  And that’s okay, that’s the sport.  It just doesn’t make for compelling watching.  So saying I watched  it “a bit” is the appropriate phrase.

If one thought that swimming in the Seine for the Triathlon was a questionable undertaking, well, that was only two miles of swimming in those waters – imagine the six miles Open Waters long-distance race.  Not just the likely pollution (whatever the claims of it being cleaned of e coli bacteria), but the brutal current forced the swimmers against the river’s wall.  You’ll remember that for the past 100 years, it has been illegal to swim in the Seine.  But, it’s hard not to acknowledge the race was beautiful and interesting watch it wind through Paris.

Rhythm Gymnastics started.  Nope, sorry.  (Hey, at least they didn’t rename it “Artistic Gymnastics”.  Or “Bouncy Ball and Ribbons Fun Time.”) 

Let the Games continue…