Friday, August 9, 2024

Baton twirling.

It's been 20 years. Why can't anyone figure this out?

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• We start the night at the track with the last lap of the women's 10,000m. Kenya's Beatrice Chebet wins, giving her the 5k and 10k double this year. Pretty good.
• Next up, the women's 4x400m relay heats. The US women have won this event seven times in a row. That probably makes them the favorite. They win the first heat by about 30 meters. The bigger news is that France makes a move with 20 meters left to get into third place and qualify automatically.
• The men's 4x400m is next. The US team features runner Quincy Wilson, who is the youngest ever track runner for the United States. He's only 16!
• Quincy got some time with Lewis Johnson taking tour around Paris. They go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe after taking pictures with lots of fans. Fluff, but the kid is only 16! 16!!
• Let's see how he races. He's in the first leg. Oof. Not too good. He was in last place. He hands it off to Vernon Norwood, a man twice his age. Norwood makes up the time, and now the US is top four. Chris Bailey makes up the gap in the final backstretch and puts Team USA in third, advancing to the final. In heat two, France wins and the crowd goes wild!
• Today in Paris! Women's golf! Men's soccer, where Spain beats France for gold. That has to sting for the home crowd. Breaking! They didn't show much. I was hoping for some electric boogaloo. Watch more on Gold Zone because NBC has bills to pay!
• To the pool for women's 3m springboard diving. One of the two Chinese divers actually missed a dive, so maybe they won't win gold here. Right? Yeah, sure. After three rounds, China's Chen Yiwen is still in first. And after four. And after five, so Yiwen wins gold.
• Medal ceremonies! Lots of Americans get them. Tara Davis-Woodhall for long jump. Grant Holloway for hurdles. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is the only one we actually get to watch, however. Will she sing? Nope. But Anna Cockrell does! And now Sydney is joining her! Peer pressure works!
• Back on the track for the women's 100m hurdles semifinals. Grace Stark is running in heat one for Team USA. She wins! In heat two, Alaysha Johnson wins. That's two-for-two for America. Masai Russell is in heat three trying to make it an American sweep. She doesn't win, but she did finish second, so she'll advance, giving Team USA three women in the final.
• The women's 400m final is next. The US only has Alexis Holmes in this race. She finishes way off the pace. Marileidy Polino of the Dominican Republic wins becomes the first woman from her country to ever win a gold medal.
• Anna Hall is back for the United States, competing in day two of the heptathlon. We skipped the first event, long jump, but got a brief highlight of her javelin throw, where she unfortunately took an extra step and fouled out.
• Anna gets some fluff time with an Olympic legend, Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Awww… they're, like, best buds! Jackie thinks Anna is awesome. Anna thinks Jackie is awesome. Awesome! But still fluff.
• Anna is in fifth going into the 800m run. Since she missed that javelin throw, she's going to have to make up a lot of time on this run to have a chance at a medal. Lewis Johnson says she'll have to win by about 8 seconds. That's a lot. Anna wins the race, but not by eight seconds. She finishes fifth. Leigh Diffey lets us know that even had the javelin throw counted, she still wouldn't have medaled. After the race, her family is proud of her, even though she herself is disappointed.
• Americans in Paris! In women's weightlifting, Olivia Reeves wins gold for America! Men's water polo loses to Serbia in the semifinal, so they'll have to play for bronze. Women's basketball advances to the gold medal game against France. Wouldn’t you like to see these sports? Too bad! NBC says no.
• Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson roast previous US relay teams and their inability to pass the baton. It seems easy to them. Hopefully they've passed on their knowledge to the actual team.
• Team USA women are back for the 4x100m relay. Sha'Carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas are on this team, so they should win. Let's gooooo! Whew! The last baton pass was a little shaky, but Richardson closed out the race well, and glanced to the side to check her position just before she crossed the finish line. U-S-A!
• Now it's the men's turn! Noah Lyles won't be one of the 4x100m members because he has COVID, so he'll be replaced by Kyree King. But the big question: can they pass the baton? It's been 20 years since they medaled in this event. Let's race! AAAAAAA!! A bad baton pass on the first leg dooms them. Even worse, not only did they finish seventh, but ultimately they get disqualified, because they were out of the exchange zone on that first pass. Canada ends up winning gold. After the race, Lewis is really grilling Chris Coleman about what happened. It looks like Fred Kerley left his spot too soon, meaning that Chris couldn't catch up to him in time. Lewis clearly wants him to say that, but Chris won't throw his teammate under the bus. I don't know exactly what to say here. Lewis was right for asking the question and Chris was right for answering it like he did. It's just a bad deal all the way around.
• Rai Benjamin gets to edit his own fluff! The producers ask him how he would make his own replay. Either he's doing a good job, or the editors are making him look like he's doing a good job. Put graphics here, music here, replays here… Rai makes a good editor!
• And now it's time for him to race! He's undefeated this year in the 400m hurdles. All that's stopping him is Karsten Warholm of Norway. Do it again, Rai! GO! Warholm nicks the second-to-last hurdle and Benjamin wins gold! Ring the bell, Rai! He gets to watch a video of his family cheering and he's as excited about that as he was about winning. Congratulations, Rai!
• How about some volleyball? We join in the middle of the third set, with the US men playing Italy for the bronze medal. The US leads 2 sets to 0. And they win! That's not too surprising. There were only 30 minutes left in the broadcast and we joined in the middle of one set with not enough time for another set. What did you think was going to happen? Anyway, congratulations USA!
• We're going to end the night with… fluff? No, even worse. It's just an ad for St. Denis Medical, a new NBC show coming out in the fall. It looks like The Office but set in a hospital. Anyway, since it's not events or fluff, it's just a seven-minute ad to close the show. Bleah.

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The US men have won a medal in almost every running event in the Olympics. In fact, they usually win some sort of medal in almost every running event in every Olympics. Why is it they can't find someone to practice for a few days on how to pass the baton? It's baffling. Carl Lewis says it's time to "blow up the system." That's fine, but someone says something like that every year. Why can't anyone figure it out? It's an Olympic-sized mystery.

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