Best of the Olympics (Part 1)
Summarizing the highlights of the first week of Olympic action
The Paris Olympics have delivered in all kinds of delightful ways because the Olympics always delivers in delightful ways. All it takes for me to become irrationally invested in an Olympic event is some little piece of trivia, like the fact that Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez was competing while 7 months pregnant, and I’m locked in.
Here’s some of the things I’ve most enjoyed from the first week of Olympic action.
(Disclaimer: In my mind, the first half of the Olympics concludes with the end of the swimming events and the second half begins when the track and field events start. Technically, the two disciplines overlap and there have already been some crazy track and field results, but I’ll be saving my thoughts on those for my recap of the second week. So I won’t be saying anything about Julien Alfred smoking the field in the women’s 100m and becoming the first medal winner from the tiny Caribbean nation of Saint Lucia and I definitely won’t be saying anything about the Netherlands stealing gold from the United States in the 4x400m mixed team relay thanks to an astonishing final kick from Femke Bol).
Vive la France:
One of my favorite storylines during any Olympics is seeing athletes triumph on their home soil. It’s pretty much a given that a host country will win more medals than they ever have and the French have been no different. At the time I’m writing this, the French are tied with Australia in third place with 12 gold medals (trailing China and USA) and second to the United States with 42 total medals. In the entire Tokyo Olympics, the French won 10 gold medals and 33 total medals.
French swimmer Leon Marchand won the 400m individual medley, my favorite individual swimming event because it requires a swimmer to master all four strokes. Later in the week, he won the 200m butterfly AND the 200m breaststroke on the same day. It’s worth noting that no swimmer from my lifetime, not even the likes of Michael Phelps or Mark Spitz, has won two individual gold medals on the same day. Marchand then finished off his Olympics with another gold in the 200m individual medley. In a single Olympics, Marchand won as many Olympic gold medals as all French swimmers earned from 1900-2008.
A surprising gold medal for the French came in rugby sevens where they dominated Fiji in the gold medal match. Since rugby sevens had debuted at the 2016 games, Fiji had won every single match they had competed in, and I absolutely would have been rooting for them to win a third consecutive gold medal if they had played anybody other than the host country….Ok, I’m not being totally honest. I was totally rooting for Fiji to three-peat, and it was the rare instance where I would have been thrilled to see the host country embarrassed on their own field. But if Fiji can’t win, I guess it’s ok that France did.
Another French hero is Teddy Riner, an 11-time world champion in judo, who won his third Olympic gold medal in the heavyweight class. After winning gold in 2012 and 2016, Riner took home the bronze medal in Tokyo after a shocking upset. By coming back and claiming another gold medal at age 35 to cement his GOAT status, one would think Riner is ready to hang it up. But considering LeBron James still looks like the best player on team USA’s basketball team at age 39, maybe Riner will make another run at gold in 2028.
As much as I love an athlete winning gold in front of a supportive home crowd, I especially love seeing a host country sweep the podium. That’s what happened in the always chaotic men’s BMX race, as a trio of Frenchmen swept gold, silver, and bronze in an event that the French had never previously medaled in (although the French women took gold in the same event in both 2008 and 2012).
How rare is sweeping the podium? This was the first time France had swept an Olympic podium since 1924, when the French took all three medals in the “sidehorse vault”, a gymnastics discipline that was removed from competition after the 1924 games, presumably because French gymnasts were the only ones who liked the event. This was also the first time a trio of cyclists had swept the podium since 1904 when Team USA swept the podium in all seven cycling events because Team USA was the only nation competing in the cycling events. So yeah, France sweeping the podium in a sport that other nations were actually competing in was a pretty big deal!
USA! USA! USA!
Nothing makes me more patriotic than a bunch of athletes I’ve never heard of competing in events that I only watch every four years. It’s been kind of a weird Olympics for Team USA. We haven’t had a single American male swimmer win an individual gold medal, but we’ve had an American male (Vincent Hancock) win a gold medal in skeet shooting.
Having some guy from Florida who is good at skeet shooting isn’t especially surprising, I guess. More surprising is the American success in women’s fencing. First, Lee Kiefer beat fellow American Lauren Scruggs for the gold medal in the individual foil event, then the two teamed up to lead the Americans to the gold medal in the team foil event.
Less surprising was the dominance of the the US women’s gymnastics team, who put together a sensational performance to win gold in the all-around team competition. Simone Biles followed that up by winning gold in the individual all-around while teammate Suni Lee took home the bronze. By now I’m assuming that everyone knows the story of Biles pulling out of the Tokyo Olympics due to an intense case of “the twisties” and facing a ton of unwarranted criticism from clowns who shouldn’t ever be put in front of a microphone. Her comeback story is a remarkable one as she became the sixth consecutive American to win the women’s all-around:
2004: Carly Patterson
2008: Nastia Liukin
2012: Gabby Douglas
2016: Simone Biles
2020: Suni Lee
2024: Simone Biles
In addition to keeping that American streak intact, Biles became just the third woman to win two all-around gold medals, and the first since Vera Caslavska in 1968. Since Biles is 27 years old, which makes her ancient in the sport of gymnastics, I’m expecting her to hang it up after this. But after seeing the reception that French athletes like Leon Marchand and Teddy Riner received, a part of me still wonders whether we’ll see Biles show up in Los Angeles in 2028.
One of my favorite moments in the Olympic pool this past week came during the women’s 1500-meter freestyle when Katie Ledecky was so far ahead of the field that none of her competitors was even visible on the screen. It looked like Katie was doing a training run in a private pool. When the other competitors finally came into view, it was because Katie had to turn around at the wall, so she passed everyone going in the opposite direction.
It was the most predictable event of this Olympics as Ledecky now holds the 20 fastest times in the history of the women’s 1500m. She then went on to add a gold medal in the 800m freestyle (another event she holds the world record in) and she took home a silver as part of the 4x200m relay and a bronze in the 400m freestyle. She’s now won 9 Olympic gold medals and 14 medals overall, making her the most decorated female athlete in Olympic history.
As fun as it has been watching dominant American performances in Olympic staples such as gymnastics and swimming, there have actually been a couple bronze medal performances that were every bit as satisfying. In women’s rugby sevens, Team USA pulled out a dramatic win over Australia in the bronze medal match on what was essentially a walk-off 90-yard touchdown run by Alex Sedrick. I realize that is not at all the proper terminology for describing what happened but there is literally one person in my life who fully understands rugby and if he happens to be reading this, he’ll just be thrilled to see rugby being mentioned.
Another inspiring bronze medal performance came from pommel horse specialist Stephen Nederoscik. Nederoscik helped the US men clinch a medal in the team competition (their first medal in the men’s team competition since 2008) and became a bit of an internet sensation in the process. Since Nederoscik’s only job on the team was to compete in the pommel horse and since the pommel horse was the last discipline of the night, Nederoscik basically spent three hours waiting around while his teammates competed in floor exercise, rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar, and vault. Multiple times the NBC cameras found Nederoscik either napping or meditating before doing his best Clark Kent impersonation by ditching his glasses and his warm-up suit and turning into a gymnastics superhero.
Olympic Trick Questions
Let’s have some fun with some Olympics related questions that don’t have straightforward answers.
Q: Who is the table tennis competitor that is old enough to be a grandmother?
A: That was a trick question! There are two answers.
You could be talking about 58-year-old Zeng Zhiying, who represented Chile, or you could be talking about 61-year-old Ni Xialian, who represented Luxembourg. Zhiying and Xialian used to be teammates on the Chinese national team before table tennis was even recognized as an Olympic event. Xialian actually won the 1983 world championship for mixed doubles. After moving to Germany in 1989 and later settling in Luxembourg, Xialian has qualified for the last five Olympics.
Meanwhile, Zhiying was making her Olympic debut this year. After failing to qualify for the ‘88 Olympics, she moved to Chile and took an extended break from the sport, only picking up a paddle again because it gave her something to do during the pandemic. When I was looking for something to do during the pandemic, I just watched Ted Lasso.
Q: Which cyclist won gold despite getting a flat tire during their race?
A: That was a trick question! Again, there are two answers.
You could be talking about Tom Pidcock of Great Britain who won the cross-country mountain biking event despite puncturing his tire while leading the race. After pulling off to address the puncture, Pidcock was in 9th place, 39 seconds behind the leader, but somehow managed to chase down Victor Koretzky of France and pulled ahead of him about 400 meters before the finish.
You could also be talking about Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel who blew a tire with about four kilometers remaining in the men’s road race. The circumstances regarding Evvenepoel’s flat tire were a little less dramatic. He was leading the field by such a wide margin that he was able to change tires without even losing his lead.
Q: Which swimmer came out of nowhere to win the gold, surprising announcers Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines?
A: That was a trick question! Again, there are two answers.
You could be talking about Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, who won gold in the 100m breaststroke. Martinenghi didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Because Rowdy Gaines is the best color commentator on the planet, he mentioned that all eight competitors could be separated by half a second and that any of them could win a medal. Yet during the homestretch, Dan Hicks never mentioned Martinenghi because all of his attention was focused on the duel in the middle of the pool between Adam Peaty of Great Britain (who had won the last two gold medals in this event) and Nic Fink of the United States. This is how Hicks described the last 25 meters:
“Peaty is still in it up there in lane four. He’s trying for the three-peat. Peaty, trying to hold them off. And then you’ve got Nic Fink a couple lanes below him. He’s also battling for the top spot. But Peaty is tough..and he reaches.. and it’s a tie for sliver, while Martinenghi down there in lane seven out-touched everybody!”
You could also be talking about Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjoestrom, who won gold in the 100m freestyle. Sjostrom really did come out of nowhere. The world-record holder in the 50m, Sjoestrom considered dropping out of the 100m to save her energy for the race she was expected to medal in.
As with Martinenghi’s race, all of the focus was elsewhere. Here is how Hicks described the last 25 meters between Tori Huske of the United States, Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong, and Mollie O’Callaghan of Australia.
“There is O’Callaghan in lane three looking for that finish home. Huske is hanging tough up there in lane one. Haughey is looking good in lane four. O’Callaghan looks to battle Huske,up there in lane one. Tori Huske is coming to the wall…and gets the silver. SJOESTROM, down there in lane seven pulled off the improbable!
Rowdy Gaines then followed up by pointing to Sjoestrom’s world record in the 50m by saying “You know what, she’s the record holder and not a person on the planet picked her to win this. You can say you did but you’re lying. 30 years of age! In the twilight of her career!”
From Tragedy to Triumph
If you’re still reading this, then I’d love to share my single favorite story from this year’s Olympics. Adriana Ruano Oliva won Guatemala’s first gold medal of any kind when she won the women’s trap shooting competition. That alone makes for a cool story. I always love seeing a country win gold for the first time. But in the case of Adriana Ruano Oliva, you’ve really got to know the backstory.
Ruano Oliva had originally trained to be a gymnast, but her gymnastics career was cut short by a spinal injury just weeks before competing in the 2011 World Championships. In 2016, the Olympics came to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Figuring that was likely the closest she’d ever get to the Olympics in terms of geography, Ruano Oliva signed up to volunteer and happened to be assigned to the shooting competitions. In watching some of the competitions, Ruano Oliva determined that was one of the few Olympic events she could still compete in despite her physical limitations.
Olympic shooting isn’t exactly prioritized in Guatemala where there is one shooting range in the entire country. Yet Ruano Oliva took a liking to the new sport and earned a spot in the Tokyo Olympics, only to finish in last place. Having lost her father one month prior to the Tokyo games, Ruano Oliva wasn’t in a great headspace for that competition and didn’t feel like she had properly honored him with her performance. Fast forward to 2024 where Ruano Oliva not only returned to the Olympics, but brought home the first gold medal in her nation’s history.
The Olympics are the best.