Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Great, kid! Don't get cocky!

There's a fine line between confidence and over-confidence. Who went over it tonight?

---

• We start with women's soccer, where the US beats Germany to advance to the gold medal game against Brazil on Saturday. Yay!
• Right to the track we go for the semifinals of the men's 400m. Quincy Hall will be racing for Team USA. The Beligian racer is Alexander Doom. DOOM! That's not how you pronounce it. It's pronounced "dome," but that's not how I'm going to say it. Hall wins, but it was doom for Doom. He pulled up with what looked like a groin pull as he entered the backstretch. Lewis interviews Hall. What percentage was he running? About 80 percent. And what are his plans for the final? He doesn't know, but it's going to be something special. Nice.
• Chris Bailey is the American in semifinal number two. Kirani James, the defending gold medalist from Grenada, is also in this heat. James advances automatically, but Bailey is going to have to wait and see if his time is fast enough.
• In the last semifinal, Team USA is running Michael Norman. He finishes second, so he qualifies for the final, but Leigh Diffey thought he looked a little off. Ato Bolden said he races like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Run, Michael, run! What about Bailey? Will his time qualify him? Yes! We'll see all the Americans tomorrow.
• It's time for the women's 10-meter platform diving. China's Quan Hongchan will win this event. She's the defending gold medalist and she gets all 10's in her first dive. Everyone else is just diving for second. Well, maybe Hongchan isn't a lock. After three rounds, Hongchan is 30 points ahead of everyone else, but only one point ahead of her Chinese teammate Chen Yuxi. So these two are diving for first and second and everyone else is diving for third.
• Why isn't NBC using the dive cam here? There's a tower right next to the 10-meter platform that holds a camera on a track that they can drop at the exact same time as the diver. So far they haven't used it once. I always thought that was an interesting angle.
• As predicted, Quan gets gold, Yuxi gets silver, and the diver who won the competition for bronze was North Korea's Kim Mi Rae.
• Americans in Paris! Amit Elor wins wrestling gold! Artistic swimming. The US is in second place right now. Women's volleyball, Team USA will face Brazil in the semifinal. Women's beach volleyball, Team USA is out! Boo. Women's water polo: the US wins and will play in the semifinals. Want to actually see some of these events? Gold Zone, not NBC.
• Back to the track for the women's 400m hurdles semifinals. Jasmine Jones is running the first heat for Team USA. I like hurdles races because even in a staggered start you can tell who's in the lead just by who jumps the hurdle first. Anyway, Jasmine finishes second, so she advances.
• Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone trains with her husband, Andre Levrone. They love each other and she's glad that God put them together. They both seem very well-adjusted. Is that allowed in fluff? Shouldn't there be some kind of trauma here?
• Sydney's race is next. She's by far the favorite. She holds six of the top-ten times all-time in this event. The NBC graphics team puts together a comparison of Sydney running her last 400m over hurdles versus the women running a 400m with no hurdles. Her over-hurdles time would have gotten her seventh place against the no-hurdles runners. Wow. Anyway, she blows away the other runners in her heat, winning by a second-and-a-half in the fastest semifinal in Olympic history.
• It's hammer time! The women's hammer final featured American Annette Echikunwoke, who got silver behind Camryn Rogers from Canada. It's the United States' first-ever women's hammer medal.
• For the last 400m hurdles semifinal, Femke Bol from the Netherlands is the favorite and Anna Cockrell is representing America. Cockrell puts her hand up before the race, which is supposed to keep it from starting. They shoot the gun anyway and they had to go to a replay to confirm that she did indeed have her hand up. That has to be a little unsettling. Anyway, they start as planned moments later. Bol and Cockrell finish one-two. Why did she raise her hand, asks Lewis? She wasn't set, says Cockrell. Fortunately everything worked out okay.
• Ugh. Another Saturday Night Live tie-in, this time with Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. They were watching men's basketball earlier, and now they're at the restaurant studio set looking at the view of the Eiffel Tower. Their favorite event so far? Ego liked the swimming. Heidi liked gymnastics. And what do they think about the upcoming SNL season? They're excited. I guess it's good someone is. Fluff!
• Jacob Ingebrigtsen of the Norway is the best, he says of himself. Josh Kerr of Great Britain thinks he’s the best. These guys can't stand each other. Jacob predicts he'll have "a walk in the park." What's beyond cocky? That's what Jacob is. But he is the defending Olympic champion, so I guess if Kerr wants to shut him up, he needs to win. Anyway, two minutes of fluff.
• To the 1,500m race itself. Ingebrigtsen comes out. Then Kerr. Team USA is Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, and Hobbs Kessler. And we're off! It's four laps and Ingebrigtsen goes straight to the front of the pack. Kerr is third at the beginning. Leigh Diffey says the world record is 3:26 and he hints that he thinks it might fall tonight. The three Americans are in the middle of the pack. Two laps to go and Ingebrigtsen and Kerr are still in the same place. So are the Americans. It's going to get crazy on the last lap. Final lap! Same positions! Oh! Cole Hocker is moving up! O! M! G! On the last turn, Hocker started making his move, but Ingebrigtsen in first and Kerr in second blocked his move, almost shoving him back. It looked like it was over, but then Hocker kicked it into another gear and blew past Kerr and a fading Jacob on the inside. Hocker won gold in an Olympic record time! All that talk by Jacob and he didn't even medal. Yared Nuguse passed him for the bronze, and almost made it past Kerr for silver. That was amazing! It was the first time the US has had two medalists in the 1,500m in 112 years. The replay of Hocker's and Nuguse's families celebrating is fantastic.
• Here's Lewis with Hocker. What did he see? Hocker knew that Kerr and Ingebrigtsen were focused on each other, so he thought "let's medal now" and then he "let God carry me to the finish line." Good job, Hocker and God!
• Let's chill a little bit with the women's steeplechase final. Val Constien is the American in the race. She's not expected to medal. This is a fun event to watch, mainly because it always looks like it was started as a dare. "How about we have some people run around the track. And jump some big hurdles. And land in a pool." Bahrain's Winfred Yavi beats out defending gold medalist Peruth Chemutai of Uganda in Olympic record time.
• The light show starts at Stade de France stadium for the women's 200m final. McKenzie Long! Brittany Brown! And, of course, favorite Gabby Thomas! Three Americans in the final. But Julien Alfred is also in this race, trying to get another medal for Saint Lucia. Let's race! Wow! Gabby Thomas blasts through the first 100 meters and wins going away over Alfred. Brittany Brown gets bronze, so two medals for Team USA! Family reactions! Gabby's mom is crying. Her boyfriend is cheering. So good. In the meantime, Saint Lucia now has two medals in its history, and Alfred has both of them.
• Gabby and Lewis! You can tell she's overwhelmed by the moment. It's nice!
• Men's basketball! Serbia versus Australia in the quarterfinal. Serbia wins. Canada versus France? The French win. US versus Brazil? Duh. It's kind of amazing that NBC is showing us as much of this game as they are. The US is up by 28 points, and there's no question who's going to win. But it’s good to finally see something other than highlights. They win by 35.
• Today in Paris! Leon Marchand was honored at the Trocadero. He looks happy. Women's soccer! Brazil beats Spain, so they'll play USA in the final. Men's wrestling! Mijain Lopez of Cuba is the first Olympian ever to win five gold medals in the same event. Skateboarding! All won by kids.
• Cole Hocker fluff! Both he and Yared Nuguse are in the restaurant studio with Mike. Both are still in disbelief. Both also think this is good for distance running in the United States. They’re probably right, there.
• Medal ceremony time! Will Cole Hocker sing? Nope. How about Nuguse? Also no. They're both smiling while watching it back, though. I guess that’s something.
• Mike is waxing poetic again. Are we going to do this every night? I guess so. Oh well.
• Wait. What's this? A Marvel-like post-credits scene! Colin Jost is walking the beach in Tahiti, looking for things in the sand. He casts aside a seashell, but then finds an Olympic gold medal. Cute.

---

So it turns out shooting your mouth off isn't good if you can't back it up. Jacob Ingebrigtsen went from the star of tonight's show to a nobody in just under four minutes. Sometimes it pays to not provide bulletin board material for your opponents. Jacob won't be the last person to find that out.

Back to home