Thursday, August 1, 2024

Return of the GOAT.

The Force is strong in this one.

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• Hey! It's a different event! Team USA wins a gold rowing in the Men's 4-person row. The winning time was 5:48. Don't you think NBC could have showed us the whole race? Nahhh. On to women's fencing, where Team USA wins gold! Did we get to see more than 20 seconds of that? Nahhhh. At least they acknowledged it. Do you think they'll acknowledge it enough to get some medal ceremonies? Seems doubtful.
• Back to more swimming with the women's 200-meter butterfly final. Summer McIntosh of Canada will be facing off against Regan Smith of the US. All the other swimmers could just as well be fencers for all that NBC cares. McIntosh and Smith finish gold-silver, so I guess NBC is right on this one. Summer gets an Olympic record and Regan gets an American record.
• Keaton Jones of the US will be swimming in the 200-meter backstroke final, but he's not the favorite. That would be Hubert Kos of Hungary. Rowdy is right again as Kos gets Hungary's first gold medal in Paris in any sport. Jones finishes fifth.
• It's time to pay some bills! Welcome to the Women's Individual All-Around gymnastics where favorite American Simone Biles will take on defending champion American Suni Lee. First we're going to spend a few minutes watching them warm up. Hey! You know what we could have watched instead of athletes warming up? Rowers or fencers competing!
• It's time for some Simone Biles fluff, narrated by Beyonce. Way back when fluff was called "Up Close and Personal" segments, the interviewers at least tried to find out something we didn't know about the athletes. Now it's just three minutes of Beyonce saying, "Wow, isn't Simone awesome?" She is, but I don't need Beyonce to tell me that. That was a complete waste of time.
• After the first rotation, Simone leads Brazil's Rebeca Andrade while Suni is in seventh place.
• Rebeca Andrade gets some fluff! She grew up in a favela in Sao Paulo. She sometimes had to walk two hours to get to the gym. At nine years old she moved away from home to Brazil to train, and is still there today. That was two minutes and I learned far more about her life than I did from Beyonce rambling about Simone. It's still fluff, but at least it was informational.
• On the uneven bars, Andrade does well, but Biles was just average. Suni also does well, but now the Americans are third and fifth halfway through the rotations.
• Poolside for the men's 50-meter freestyle semifinals, and Caeleb Dressel is in lane one. He was the slowest? These guys must be fast. He finishes second. The second semifinal lacked Americans so NBC gave it the fencing treatment and just showed a highlight.
• Swimming fluff, Kate Douglass used to try to win races to win rubber ducks, the grand prize at the swim meets she was in as a kid. The pool she trains at has five or six kids record a video on how Kate inspired them. So they give her a backpack as a gift. And the backpack is full of… rubber ducks. Cute. That's even what she said.
• Now it's time for the 200-meter breaststroke final, where Douglass will try to win a golden duck. And she does! Melissa Stark interviews her and gives her… a golden duck! And we go straight to her medal ceremony. Will she sing? Nope. Maybe next time she should bring the duck.
• Gold Zone time! Here are all the things you don't get to see. Judo! Men's tennis! Women's tennis! Women's basketball! All are events that got pushed aside so we could listen to Beyonce spew platitudes about Simone Biles.
• Back to gymnastics, it's time for the balance beam. Simone goes first, and has a little bobble, but otherwise is excellent. That should put some pressure on Andrade.
• Suni fluff! She had two kidney diseases. She had to relearn everything about gymnastics. She's proud of herself and so is her family. Yawn. Nothing new here.
• How does Suni do on the balance beam? Good, but not Simone good. How does Andrade do on balance beam? She does good, but not Simone good. After three rotations, Simone moves into first, Andrade is second, and Suni is tied for fourth. Andrade might have blown her best chance there. When you come at the queen, you best not miss.
• The final rotation! Simone, Suni, and Andrade are the last three on the floor exercise. Suni is up first and she puts the pressure on the other two by acing her routine. She's probably too far behind to beat Biles for gold, but Andrade might be worried. Her score comes in and she's in first place. For now.
• Andrade is next. She steps out of bounds on her first tumbling run but hits everything else. I'm guessing that will put her ahead of Suni. It does.
• Simone is the final competitor. Can she beat Andrade? She's not the GOAT for nothing. The only way she could lose this is if she gets an unjust bad score from the East German judge. She needed a 13.86 to win. She got over 15. So, Biles gets gold and Suni gets bronze. A pretty good night for the Americans.
• In the post-medal-cermony interview, Simone is wearing a necklace. What is on it? It's a goat. Of course.
• How about something new? It's track fluff! Team USA gets to dance to Bryan Adams' "Run to You." That's a great song, but he's Canadian! Isn't there an American singer who has a song about running? How about "Born to Run" by Springsteen?
• Isn't it time for Katie Ledecky to get another gold medal? She'll try as part of a team in the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay, but the Australians are favored. Halfway through Australia is ahead, but not Ledecky-ahead. And now Katie is in the water and making up distance. REALLY making up distance. Only a third of a second back as the last leg starts! I have to think that Team USA considers that a good sign. But Australia has Titmus on the last leg. No one is going to catch her. At least the US is two seconds ahead of the Chinese team and looks like they're going to lock up silver. That means Katie Ledecky now has 13 Olympic medals, most ever by an American woman. Not too shabby.
• Snooping around the Louvre! Here's where it pays off to be a celebrity. Snoop gets a guided tour through an empty Louvre. He stands next to the Mona Lisa all by himself. That' s not the way you commoners get to see her. For us it looks more like this picture I took. He heads to Winged Victory, and tries to figure out which wing is original and which is fixed. Again, no crowds.  They look at Liberty Leading the People. Hmmm… that looks familiar.
• How about some more Leon Marchand? Tonight he's swimming in the 200-meter Individual medley semifinal, but first we get a minute of fluff about how everyone in France was celebrating his wins from last night. He wins tonight, but no one celebrates a semifinal. We'll do that tomorrow.
• After the medal count (USA number one!), Mike points out that US women have now won the last six gymnastics all-around gold medals. That's quite a streak. And now the medal ceremony. Will the GOAT sing? Will Suni? Again, no and no. WAIT! Right at the end Simone sings a little bit. That's better than nothing!

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I'm glad Biles got her gold, but I'm ready for swimming and gymnastics to wrap up. I watched some fencing in the afternoon the other day and was thrilled to watch something different. It's coming soon!

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