Final Olympic Notes

Strap in for a good, old fashioned, mega post about the Olympics!

In a week filled with amazing events and results, it would be impossible for me to not start with Saturday’s men’s basketball gold medal game. The first quarter was nearly perfect, a breathless, back-and-forth, up-and-down, punch-and-counter punch 10 minutes. The US seized control early in the second quarter and never really lost it, although the French made several valiant runs.

LeBron James was, again, phenomenal. It is ridiculous that a nearly 40-year-old man can dominate a high level game like he does. Kevin Durant hit clutch shot after clutch shot in the Americans’ last two games.

But, come on, the story of the weekend was Steph Curry’s grandest statement of his career. Nine 3’s in the come-from-behind semifinal win over Serbia. Then eight 3-pointers, four in the final two and a half minutes, each more audacious and clutch than the last, in the gold medal game. His final one, the “Golden Dagger” according to Noah Eagle, was a shot that will live in basketball history forever. We’ve seen him do this before. But that shot felt like one he would throw up only in an All-Star game, when the stakes were not super high. He tossed a nearly vertical shot over two defenders that splashed through the hoop in the closing moments of an Olympic Gold Medal game. As Bill Raftery would say, onions!

It was a nearly perfect day here in Indy, so after splashing with the nephews in the pool for a couple hours I watched on our outdoor TV. A little reminiscent of the 2012 Midwest regional final between KU and UNC that I watched outside in Kansas City.

With that we begin to say goodbye to Steph’s generation, at least from international hoops. You never want to fully count out LeBron and KD, but if they come back in 2028 they surely won’t be the featured players. I’m not sure you can expect either Joel Embiid or Anthony Davis to be healthy in four years, and Jo seems like he’s aging in Nintendo time rather than real time anyway. So not only will the Americans have to replace three of the greatest players ever, they will likely have to replace their two best big men. At a moment when Victor Wembanyama will likely be turning into the best player in the world.

Good luck to the next US coach! Guarantee Coach K won’t be volunteering for that gig.

It’s crazy that this was Steph’s first Olympics. A combination of injuries, bad luck, and bad timing conspired to keep him off the 2012, 2016, and 2020(1) teams. I think he made up for those misses over the weekend.

Dwyane Wade was pretty good as the analyst. He was funny and insightful. He was excited in big moments. While a clear homer, he expressed enthusiasm for big plays by the teams the US was playing as well. He had some terrific observations that come with having recently played at the highest level. His delivery could use some polish, and I think if he wants to continue on NBC or another network he needs to tone down some of the fandom that he expressed in Paris. Those are minor quibbles, though.

Pacer Tyrese Haliburton barely played in the games. Which made sense even before USA Basketball announced Sunday that he had a minor knee injury. He was there for emergency depth and to get some first hand understanding of international ball ahead of the next World Cup/Olympics cycle. Ty had a terrific reaction to his PT after the games. (Apparently I can’t embed Tweets at the moment.)

Our house may have made a crack about that applying to a certain Big 10 basketball player who was “present” for some group projects with M in high school.

Can we just stop all the “Why isn’t Player X playing” nonsense during the games? We can’t have it both ways. We can’t have a roster loaded with the best players and complain about PT, or make a true team, with a top 5–7 then complimentary parts around them, and complain when we can’t don’t have a superstar to sub in when LeBron gets three fouls or Steph isn’t hitting shots.

Content machine always gotta crank, though.

We were moving M back to school Sunday so I missed the women’s gold medal game. Which, thank goodness! That seemed super stressful. It would have been to France what the Miracle on Ice was to the US had they pulled off the upset. Can you imagine the content machines spinning it that Caitlin Clark would have prevented the upset had the US lost? Lord have mercy…

Non-basketball highlight of the week: Indianapolis and Cathedral high school’s own Cole Hocker storming back to win the men’s 1500. Hocker is obviously a big deal here, and I’ve been able to follow his pro career pretty closely as the local media always highlights his big races. He often seems to come up just short in the biggest events. Not this time, in the biggest!

Would you be surprised that we got a fundraising email from CHS referencing his win just minutes after the prime time replay of his win? Of course not. Catholic schools gonna Catholic school.

Then a day later Quincy Hall, from KCMO and Raytown South high school, wins gold as well. A friend asked if everyone from Raytown has gold grills. I told him of course we do, along with our RYT tattoos.[1] Hall was one of the most outrageous and delightful interviews of the games.

I had some friends making fun of me for claiming Hall despite going to my rival high school. So then I claimed the women’s 100 meter champ, since she’s from St. Lucia and that’s where we went on our honeymoon. And the women’s hammer throw silver medalist, since she went to UC. And Lewis Johnson, since he went to UC. And all the other medalists with Indiana roots. Two Jayhawks just missed making the podium, in the men’s 800 and women’s marathon, both finishing fourth. If you cast your net wide enough, you can find an angle for just about every sport!

The crowds at any event where the French were doing well were fantastic. The men’s volleyball game might have been the best, as it was probably 95% Frenchies. The men’s basketball gold medal game felt like a great high school playoff game. The French clearly had the most fans, but there was a sizable American contingent to counter them. Shame the Eiffel Tower shooter wasn’t there to snipe Jimmy Fallon and get him off the screen.

Every four years I chuckle that the US focuses on total medals while most of the rest of the world focuses on golds. So the US, the land where individual rights are paramount (well, not always), where if you try to give a kid a free school lunch you’re called an anti-American socialist, concentrates on the comprehensive medal count. And the rest of the world, where individual rights often come second to the needs of the collective, cares most about winning. Wild.

The Gold Medal Bell at the track stadium was a fantastic addition. LA better carry it over to 2028. Although they’ll probably add some cheesy, Hollywood angle that ruins it.

Rowdy Gaines is retiring after the 2028 games?!?! Say it ain’t so, Rowdy! They should just broadcast swimming without an analyst; he is irreplaceable.

Shout out to Chris Marlowe. Like Gaines, he was in the ’84 games as an athlete. And, like Gaines, he began calling Olympic volleyball in 1992. Always one of the best announcers.

Boo for the US not winning a single gold medal in any of the volleyball competitions. A silver for the indoor women, bronze for indoor men, and a giant turd for our collective beach players. Definitely need to fix this for LA. We invented the damn sport.

Another highlight of the games was in the women’s beach gold medal match, when the Canadians and Brazilians were arguing rather heatedly at the net over a misunderstanding. The DJ spun John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the crowd sang along. Three of the four players either cracked smiles or started laughing. That one Brazilian wouldn’t let it go, though, until the match was over. She was fired up!

“Artistic swimming.” Horseshit. It will always be synchronized swimming to me.

Not sure why but it surprises me that Norway has so many excellent runners. I know there is a tremendous culture of sports in that country. To a dumb American it seems like that should be confined to winter sports, though. They sure punch above their weight, per capita-wise.

Man, what a time to be a Spanish soccer fan. The women won the World Cup last year, and reached the semi-finals of the Olympics. The men won the European championship last month then captured the gold in an outrageously entertaining 5–3, extra time added win over France. I remember when the Spanish (and the French) were considered perennial underachievers in soccer.

Stupid Covid. Likely cost Noah Lyles the elusive 100–200 double. And, who knows, maybe the men’s 4×100 relay doesn’t get DQed if Lyles is running. Silly me, of course they would have gotten DQed. That’s what they do, now in five straight Olympics. In 2028 we need a baton pass bootcamp run by Dennis Mitchell and Carl Lewis.

Meanwhile the women’s 4×100 squad was thoroughly delightful, and managed to pass the baton safely three times to win the gold.

I told a few friends that it seems weird that the men’s 100–200 double is actually pretty rare. We came of age watching Carl Lewis do it. Then Usain Bolt did it three times. Even knowing those two runners were the two best ever, it seemed like something that was a stretch but still possible.

I won’t identify him so he doesn’t get into trouble, but one of my Brothers in Olympic Love suggested a buddy comedy that features Gabby Thomas, Anna Hall, and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. I would watch! Throw in Sha’carri Richardson as their wacky neighbor and you’re working with comedy gold. Maybe Dutch sprinter Lieke Klaver could play their European nemesis.

McLaughlin-Levrone dominated the 400 hurdles again. There are calls for her to attempt the mega-rare hurdle-sprint double in LA. Which seems like a no brainer. As I get older, though, I appreciate the toll these races take on athletes’ bodies a lot more. If she is running full-tilt basically every day for a week, will her body hold up? I know she trains every day, but she doesn’t run at full Olympic effort every day. I’d love to see her try it as long as it doesn’t endanger her dominance of the hurdles.

McLaughlin-Levrone and Thomas were half of the US’s insanely dominant 4×400 relay. That was like a Katie Ledecky 1500 race they were so far ahead.

Also big props to Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo. He became the first African-born athlete to win a sprint gold medal with his win in the 200. He was also 6th in the 100. And he ran a brilliant leg in Botswana’s 4×400 relay. One runner, all four sprint distances. Talk about versatility!

Quincy Wilson running in the Olympics as a 16-year-old seems crazy. Dude almost put the US in too deep of a hole in the 4×400 semis, but you’re going to run a little tight in that situation.

Sadly I was busy Friday afternoon when breaking finally got its moment, and thus missed the outrageous performance by the Aussie breaker. The whole breaking thing made me think of a comment I believe Ice-T made about Eminem when he first got famous. Something along the lines of “He’s a decent rapper, but I could go to a dozen corners in Detroit and find Black rappers just as good as him.” I’m sure all these international breakers were perfectly fine. But I’m pretty sure I could go to a dozen corners in the Bronx and find better breakers. The bracket should have been like the Little League World Series with the international competitors battling to take on the American champion in the gold medal final.

Flag football, for both men and women, in the 2028 games? Interesting.

Makes me laugh that diving commentators are still so harsh. “This is really hard to watch” as an athlete makes a tiny splash that moves him into 4th place.

Some complaints.

My quadrennial local news ad bitch. While we were in Florida there was a freak storm in Indy during rush hour that caused part of a major interstate to flood, stopping traffic. Naturally our NBC station decided to turn that into a commercial touting their weather team. As if no other station in Indy was aware of the storm or the flooding. It was only their crack team that discovered the deluge and let viewers know about it. Local news is so dumb.

OK, Snoop was great. But it was a little disappointing to see that he’s joining The Voice this fall, and have to watch 800 ads for it. It made his appearance in France seem a little less organic and more calculated by NBC.

“Event of the night. With limited commercial interruptions.” Very bold of NBC to show a race that lasts somewhere between 10 seconds and two minutes without inserting any commercials. Lord knows they loved rolling ads in the middle of live action in team sports, so I guess I should be thankful.

That said, I thought NBC did a pretty solid job. They’ve finally discovered that they can show events live in non-prime time hours and then repackage them for the evening show and still get great ratings. After decades of trying to figure out how to leverage multiple channels to show as many sports as possible, they finally got it right. Now increasing the price of Peacock during the games was a dick move. But, honestly, it was to be expected based on how every streaming platform treats its customers.

My European sports summer is now over. It started with Euro ’24, rolled into the Tour de France, and then the Olympics. For two months I’ve had constant sports during the day, sometimes already in progress when I turned on the TV at 7:00 AM. Not sure how I’m going to adjust. The Premier League starts in a week, but that’s just on weekends, so not the same.

I’ve long argued that the Olympics should always be in the western hemisphere. NBC pays more for the games than any other broadcast outlet, Americans watch them in higher numbers than anyone else. Play the sports at times that work best for our TV schedule.

I take that back. Games in Europe, or Europe-equivalent time zones, might be the perfect setting. You can watch sports literally all day, catching important events live during the daytime then catching up or reliving stuff in prime time.

A pretty good Olympics. Some legendary moments. The US dominated the medal count. There wasn’t too much nonsense or controversy. Let’s hope our climate hasn’t collapsed or our country hasn’t devolved into civil war or an asteroid doesn’t hit us and we’re all still around in four years so we can do it again at home.