We are nearing the end of what so far has been a fantastic Summer Olympics! But first, some leftover business from the 2022 WINTER Olympics was taken care of: After an exhaustive investigation concluded that Russia was guilty of doping with its ice skating team, in Paris on Wednesday the USA ice-skating team and the China team were FINALLY awarded their gold and silver medals at Champions Park in Paris. USA skater Nathan Chen joked in the 80 degree Paris heat that this was "the warmest medal event he has ever attended!" Better late than never, and a belated congrats to the 2022 Winter Olympics gold medal champions, Team USA! Now back to our regularly scheduled Summer Olympics 2024 programming!
Wednesday's action: Run fast, get wet! Win!
Women's basketball: Team USA reached the semifinals with a strong win over Nigeria, 88-74, with Aj'a Wilson and Breanna Stewart once again leading the scoring for the US. Next up is Australia on Friday! Diving: Oy, if you are a betting person, its a good chance that if you put money on China sweeping ALL eight diving competitions, you are looking very good to cash in right now, as after the women's diving took home the gold and silver on the 10M platform. Men's springboard is next up for the final, and China has two strong divers competing there.
Volleyball: All beach volleyball US teams are out, and the men's indoor team fell against Poland. All that is left is the women's indoor team playing for the gold against Italy on Friday.
Men's Water polo: The USA had to fight hard against Australia (who else?) and the match came down to a best-of-five shootout, and with goalie blocking two goals, and Marko Vivic scoring on the last shootout to advance Team USA to the semis against Serbia on Friday!
USA Goalie Adrain Weinberg having the same reaction to the volleyball as I do when a plate of broccoli approaches me!
Women's Pole Vault: No sharing this time! In the 2023 World Championships, Australia's Nina Kennedy and USA's Katie Moon tied for the gold, and instead of doing a pole-off, decided to share the gold medal. In these 2024 Olympics, it was Kennedy who vaulted to the gold, with Moon, who was defending her gold medal, took the silver.
Men's Steeplechase: Odd name, its basically track with hurdles and and stuff along the way in this 3000m race, and Kenneth Rook of Team USA came surging out of the middle of the pack to snag a rather shocking 2nd place finish to earn the silver!
Upsets lead to found medals and a podium- Rook with the silver!
Track and Field: Lot's of semi races to reach the final track meets, but the one final was in the men's 400m where American Quincy Hall came from the middle of the pack to capture the gold medal! Oh, just learned the the women's artistic swimming team won the silver, the first medal in this category since 2004! They even performed a "moonwalk" move in the pool!
Thursday's Action: Lots of surprises here, and not just of the athletic kind!
Women's Indoor Volleyball: In a hard fought match against a formidable Brazilian team, The USA won over Brazil and move on to face the winner of the Turkey/Italy match on Sunday!
Women's Water Polo: Team USA fell to Australia (them again!) 14-13; they will have a chance to play for the bronze on Sunday against the Netherlands.
Women's Track and Field: America's Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman in Olympic history to repeat back to back gold medals in the 400M hurdles, and she made it look easy. breaking the world record! American Anna-Cockrell took home the silver (and Anna wasn't done yet!!
Herstory for Sydney! Now the GOAT in women's 400M hurdles!
Men's Track and Field: Well, that wasn't what anyone was expecting in the Men's 200M as the upset of this race had Leslie Tebogo of Botswana won the gold, with heavy favorite Noah Lyles finishing third for the bronze and fellow American Kenny Bedarek taking the silver. Later on, Lyles, who had to leave the track in a wheelchair, revealed that he had tested positive for Covid! There will be probably more on this story as it unfolds. Noah is an asthmatic, which with Covid, did him no favors. Later on, he wrote that this race was the last race he is competing in at these Olympics. He still has the fastest man alive gold in the 100M race though!
In the 110M hurdles, American Grant Holloway ran and flew and hurdled his way to the gold in this event, with fellow American Daniel Roberts taking the silver. In the women's long jump, USA's Anna Davis-Woodall won the gold, and showed such delight in doing so! Instant fan favorite! Anna had a great Olympics night! Javelin: Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem won his country's first ever gold medal! His town raised money to buy him his own javelin for these Olympics, and it paid off as Nadeem set a new record in the javelin throw at over 92 feet! Definitely one of the feel good stories of these Olympics.
It really took a village to get Arshad to the Olympics and break the javelin throw record!
Diving: Men's 3M Springboard, and yes China won again, with Mexico's Osmar Olvera-Ibarra taking home the bronze, Ibarra has medaled twice in these Olympics! Carson Tyler of Team USA, in his first Olympics, took 4th, and will also be competing in the men's platform next- First American to do so since Mark Ruiz did in the 1980's!
Love when I can post Osmar's breakdown of his near perfect dive!
Men's Basketball: I have been so waiting for Golden State Warriors superstar and Best Person in the World Steph Curry to have a break-out game at this Summer Olympics, and thank goodness he did, as he and the US team had to come from behind against Serbia to win their game by a score of 95-91. Curry finally had a big Olympics game, his first Olympics , leading the team with 36 points! Next up is the last game, for the gold, against....France! The arena will be rocking on Saturday!!
Curry saves the day for team USA!
A group eye candy snap. I will miss these guys: The Mens Indoor Volleyball team:
These guys are still in it! The USA mens water polo team!
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