Tag: Olympics (Page 1 of 2)

Another Summer Olympic Games have passed. These were…fine, I guess. OK, that’s harsh. They certainly weren’t terrible. But they also do not measure up to other recent games. And the constant reminders of how the Covid pandemic is getting worse rather than better was a huge bummer. I remain worried that over the next few weeks we will see spikes all over the world from athletes and the folks around them gathering in Tokyo. I hope I’m wrong.

Week two was not as interesting for me as week one was. There were some great individual moments. But that swimming week is just more exciting and has more of its excitement contained in a US prime time friendly window.

The highlight of the week, for me, was the excellently nicknamed A Team of April Ross and Alix Klineman winning the gold in the women’s beach volleyball tournament. Their knock-out matches were always, conveniently, in the prime time window, so it was easy to watch them march to the gold.

However, NBC totally botched the gold medal match. I appreciate that beach volleyball is a difficult sport to show live because it has few lengthy breaks to squeeze commercials into. And I know NBC has to sell/show ads. But the marque event of that night was constantly interrupted by ads. It didn’t help that the A Team was demolishing their Australian opponents rather quickly. It felt like somewhere between a quarter and a third of the match was shown in side-by-side coverage with commercials. These matches usually wrap up in under an hour. I don’t know why NBC couldn’t tweak their ad load for the night to ensure there were minimal commercial interruptions.

Speaking of volleyball, I had no idea the US women’s indoor team was so good. In fact, I only heard that they won their first-ever gold medal after the fact. Some of that is on me, as I’m sure NBC mentioned the team in the midst of other events and I just missed those comments. And it seems like they often played in our overnight hours. But we sure weren’t reminded of their run as much as the beach players’ run, or the basketball or soccer teams’ runs.

That made me realize I miss the big, fat Sports Illustrated preview that used to arrive before the games. It was always filled with features of athletes and profiles of the host country and new sports. There were predictions for every event, which always blew my mind a little bit, as I thought one person picked them all. It was great to keep next to you as you watched so you could know what Americans/American teams were expected to be good and when they would compete.

It also be cool if we still had good, daily newspapers that had extensive Olympic coverage with detailed results and schedules of what was to come.

Obviously I’m super old if I can’t keep up with things outside my immediate interests without some kind of physical, old-school media guiding me.

How about Karch Kiraly adding a gold medal as a coach to go with the three golds he earned as a player?

Good on the US women’s soccer team for shaking off their games-long doldrums and defeating Australia 4–3 for the bronze. That very much felt like a last moment of glory for a healthy chunk of that squad. Time for the next class of legends to roll into the roster.

Also props to the men’s and women’s basketball teams. I’m glad the men got over the shock of their meltdown against France in their opener quicker than us watching did. It’s always good to have Kevin Durant on your side. He’s amazing, in a lot of ways.

I watched the first half of the women’s gold medal game and was laughing constantly. The huge Americans were tossing away pretty much every inside shot by Japan, just as I do with L’s shots when we play. Congrats to the Japanese for sticking to their game plan, knocking down a bunch of threes, and staying reasonably close.

I know I’m not the only one who, each night, checks the Instagram accounts of multiple athletes who I just discovered moments earlier, right? It’s a very useful tool to get to know these people better.

I complained last week about NBC using a British announcer for track and field. One evening I watched the USA Network coverage of T&F and they also had a British announcer. This guy was a classic Brit in that he could not pronounce any Spanish language name properly. Seriously, there’s something in the genes of the British that prevents them from ever pronouncing a Spanish word properly.

He mangled several other foreign names horribly, but did not seem to care. I literally laughed out loud when he just skipped over Odile Ahouanwanou’s name, calling her by her first name, or “The athlete from Benin,” each time he referenced her. He wasn’t about to read a pronunciation guide and get tongue-tied on national TV. It was equally offensive and hilarious.

I mean, I get it, that’s a hard-ass name if you aren’t from Benin. But maybe practice it a few times if you know you’re going to cover her and give her the same respect you give her opponents.

Speaking of “the athlete from Benin,” I noticed a lot more African athletes contending for medals than I can ever recall. I would assume this is because training and support systems are getting stronger in those countries. Seemed like a lot of them are coming to the States for college, too. I’ve been complaining about Jamaica for 17 years. Might sub-Saharan Africa be a bigger long-term threat to our sprints dominance than Jamaica?

I was shocked to learn that Dan O’Brien didn’t still hold the world record in the decathlon. To be fair I don’t think I’ve paid attention to the decathlon since 1996.

One of the great images of the games was after the heptathlon and decathlon athletes had run their final races and joined together to walk down the length of the track, waving to the cameras and the few people in the stands. It was cool to see the women hang around to congratulate the men on their successes, and then the two groups exit as one, savoring their final moments in the Olympic stadium.

I assume there was probably some big, world-class-athlete orgy immediately after, right?

Another favorite image from track and field: the robotic truck that returned the hammer, discus, and shot put back to the competitors. That was awesome. I loved seeing it zip around the infield while there was a race on the track.

Another frustrating aspect of track coverage was how NBC would combine live coverage with events that had been recorded over 12 hours earlier. It was generally obvious what was what – the prerecorded material often took place under stadium lights while the live stuff was in the Tokyo morning sun – but still abrupt and awkward. It was weird to watch a live heat in an event, a prerecorded final that I already knew the result of, then another live heat. Oh well, it’s tough to broadcast with a 13-hour time difference.

Big time props to Allyson Felix on an amazing career. Wrapping it up with a gold in a truly staggering 4×400 relay win was a terrific topper. That relay was siiiiiick. Felix was the slowest woman on the American squad by far, and she’s won more track medals than anyone ever! Watching Athing Mu blow out the anchor leg was awe-inspiring. I wonder if Mu or Sydney McGlaughlin will be blog material as long as Felix was?

It was great to see the Geico Tag Team commercial reappear!

On the other hand, I know I wasn’t the only person completely sick of the Toyota ad with the Paralympian who was adopted from Siberia. I swear that was in every single prime time commercial break. And it’s not even new, it has been bumming me out for awhile. Even S looked up from her charting one night and said, “Not this ad again!”

Saturday evening L and I were watching the women’s basketball pregame show, and when the announcer mentioned that the games were coming to an end, she said that made her sad. I kind of laughed at her, because she didn’t watch a ton of the games. She more popped in-and-out the way she does with all sports. But I was glad a little of her dad’s love of the Olympics is in her.

Tweets of the games

I’ve never tried to embed Tweets before. I probably should learn how to do that. We’ll see if this works. Regardless, here are some of my favorite Olympics-related Tweets of the past two weeks.

How is it possible that NBC has all these channels and streaming options and not one of them is like "Olympics RedZone" jumping around to key moments across all the sports

— Emma Baccellieri (@emmabaccellieri) July 26, 2021

Million-dollar idea I can’t believe NBC has thought of on their own, unless they’ve thought of it and shot it down for some dumb reason.

Totally agree.

Events should just be

Fight that guy
Run to that stick
Swim to the other side
Throw this thing as far as you can
Do some flips over this thing
Can you lift this https://t.co/LHEEVr5DAN

— kang🚎 (@jaycaspiankang) July 24, 2021

This is awesome.

Simone Biles won nationals w/broken toes in both feet, worlds w/a kidney stone, and has carried the burden of being a face of sexual assault survivors as a national institution failed to support them

Half of y'all yelling about "toughness" can't handle wearing a mask in Wegman's

— Kavitha A. Davidson (@kavithadavidson) July 27, 2021

Damn, shit just got real! And a-fucking-men.

I don't know who the lady doing the analysis on the synchronized diving is but she's a hell of a lot, I tell you what.

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) July 29, 2021

Evergreen Summer Olympics Tweet.

Peacock has Snoop & Kevin Hart doing uncensored Olympic highlights and the equestrian bit "oh, the horse crip walking cuh… you see that?" 💀 pic.twitter.com/beCaJhAIpI

— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) July 31, 2021

Just brilliant analysis from Snoop.

Let’s do it again in six months in, checks notes, China. Fuck. Third-straight games in Asia, in the country where the Covid pandemic started, and during what could be that absolute worst time of the Delta (or whatever the strongest variant at that point is) winter. I’m sure everything will be just fine.

The first, and best, week of the Olympics is in the books. I say best because the swimming week tends to be better than the track week, which has fewer glamor events. And it also appears the US might suck at track. Puerto Rican medals are technically ours, right?

Saturday night I went back and read some of my Olympic posts from 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. They’re pretty good! You should dig through the archives and read them too! A recurring them in most of those entries is how we need to invade Jamaica to stop them embarrassing us in track. Still true.

Speaking of travesties, can we not find an American to do the track play-by-play and analysis?

I was glad Caeleb Dressel lived up to all the hype he entered the games with. That’s a lot of weight for one person to carry, especially when you’re expected to fill the role of Michael Phelps. Good on him for not cracking. He was fun to watch.

It was mega-awkward, though, when NBC brought up the feed of his family after he won the 100 free. There was clearly some glitchy-ness in the feed, Dressel was super-emotional, and there were lots of uncomfortable pauses. It nearly ruined a wonderful moment.

Finally, it’s freaking 2021. How can NBC, Microsoft, and whoever else is responsible not get better connections when they show athletes’ families watching them back home? They always look like terrible, grainy feeds we could have gotten back in 2008.

I did get a little bored with all the features on Dressel NBC kept rolling out. I get how they need to get the viewing public, which does not pay attention to any of the non-NBA athletes between Olympics, invested in these swimmers, gymnasts, runners, etc. But their fluffing of Dressel was a little much.

I believe it was Dan Hicks who called Michael Andrew the Bryson DeChambeau of swimming. I don’t know if he meant that as a compliment or putdown. I was pulling for him since he grew up swimming in a backyard pool in Lawrence, KS. I also felt sorry for him that his parents don’t have enough faith in the way that they raised him to think he couldn’t resist the “temptations” of college, as they put it, and did not allow him to go to Texas or Cal or some other college swimming power.

I haven’t seen them all but the videos of Rowdy Gaines while he broadcasts a close race are awesome. He’s kind of the perfect announcer. He knows his sport intimately and has gold medals of his own. He a little wacky. He’s a huge homer but loves a great performance from non-Americans. He’s just a joy to listen to.

The swimming relays were almost uniformly awesome. So many close finishes. It was weird for the US to be an underdog so often.

On August 31, 2004 I wrote that Australia was my biggest concern for slicing into the American medal numbers. That was kind of a great jinx because while still good, the Aussies have fallen off in swimming a bit since then. Until this year, that is. Their women sure roared back, led by Emma McKeon, who is a badass.

The US-Netherlands women’s soccer game Friday kind of messed up my entire day. The game had just started when I turned the TV on and then I couldn’t move until it was over, with the US winning 4–2 on penalties.

What a game! The Netherlands looked better the entire game, aside from a four minute stretch when they gave up two goals. The US, on the other hand, looked old, slow, and disjointed. They couldn’t string passes together. They couldn’t maintain possession. They made bad turnovers. For all their legendary firepower up front, none of their attacking players could find good looks.

Then Alyssa Naeher saved a Dutch penalty kick deep into the second half and that seemed to give her teammates new life. They were the better team in extra time, having two goals disallowed because of offsides calls. Naeher saved two of the first three Dutch PKs and the US was perfect, going through to the semis. Terrific drama!

I guess all that magic was gone early Monday morning (In the US), as the Americans lost to Canada 1–0. Not sure why a US-Canada semifinal was played at 4:00 AM Eastern time.

NBC has made a lot of strange programming choices. I don’t know if there was a stranger one that how they covered the US-Israel baseball game Friday. I just happened to leave it on as I was doing other things, not really paying attention. The game was recorded earlier, so you would expect some “jumping ahead for time purposes,” right?

So they showed the first two innings, which were scoreless, then went to commercial.

When they came back from the break, instead of starting the third inning, they showed highlights of what happened in the next four innings, including five runs being scored, before picking up action in the 7th inning.

How on earth do you show 30–40 minutes of a 0–0 game and then just throw highlights of all the good shit? Makes no sense.

ROC is dumb. Just call them Russia. That’s where they’re from. Everyone assumes they’re cheaters, it’s not like that is being hidden. We can dispense with the semantical theater.

“You serve too many lollipops, you’re going to get licked.” So says volleyball analyst Kevin Wong. S gave me a look after he said that and asked, “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Speaking of looks, she was getting frustrated by the shots of the male runners in their tight shorts before their heats. “Do we really need to see all their man junk?” NBC must think we do, my dear. I do agree perhaps some padding could be useful so we don’t see quite so many details of these runner’s privates.

Not much has been going on the past few days. M turned 17 over the weekend. I read a terrific book in a single day. We went out on a boat with some friends. Ted Lasso returned. The Big 12 may be kaput.

Oh, and the Olympics started.

Thus it is time to bring back a time-honored recurring feature here on the blog: the Olympics Notebook!

Before we get to my observations and thoughts, a confession: I did not begin these games with my traditional strong interest. I’ve been loving the Olympics since 1980, and always get excited for them, especially the summer games. But with everything that’s going on in the world at the moment, I’m not convinced that having these games is the best idea. It feels like a super spreader event waiting to happen, a moment when the Delta and maybe the next variant will be shared over two weeks then taken back to all corners of the globe. No matter what athletic triumphs occur, might we look back in a year or two and think, “Yeah, that was a total disaster,”?

Hosting also seems like a lot to ask of the Japanese public, who will have to deal with whatever viral soup is left in their country when the athletes depart.

And the events, which are so often emotional and boisterous, come across as sterile without the stands filled with crowds of fans. Especially when a Japanese team or athlete does well and can only celebrate with their coaches/teammates. Those moments need stands filled with Japanese partisans roaring down their joyous approval.

Because of that, I totally skipped the opening ceremonies. That was the night I was reading a very good book which seemed like a better use of my time.

Fortunately I found my Olympic Spirit and have been watching a lot of coverage in the hours when we’ve been home and haven’t had guests over.

The Shocker

There was a clear A1 story for us US viewers…until Tuesday morning when the Simone Biles stuff hit. I’m never into gymnastics and doubted I would have watched much even if Biles had not dropped out. So no real change there, other than me trying to avoid what instantly became a political/value argument between people who likely have very little interest in gymnastics. Because it’s America in 2021 and that’s what we do: rush to diametrically opposed positions on any subject that comes up for debate.

Since I don’t follow gymnastics I wasn’t aware of the signs of strain she had been showing recently. I didn’t know when asked, just before the pandemic began, where she saw herself in 2021 she responded, “Retired.” I didn’t know about the physical injuries she had competed with. I didn’t remember she had taken an active role in the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal. I just assumed because I heard she won another national/world title every year or so that she was invincible and would roll to a bevy of golds in Tokyo. Even trying to dodge gymnastics coverage Tuesday, I still caught her vault runs that looked nothing like what the greatest gymnast ever should be doing. Something was clearly very wrong. I hope she’s ok.

The Other Shocker

OK, before that the clear story of the games for Americans was Lydia Jacoby’s upset win in the 100 breaststroke Monday night. Rowdy Gaines and Dan Hicks barely gave her any attention at the beginning of the race, instead focusing on defending Olympic champion Lilly King and the woman who had edged King out in the semifinal heat, South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker. Which made sense since the race was all about those two for the first 75 meters or so, until Jacoby eased by them and held on to win Gold.

It was a fabulous moment, made apparent by the utter shock from Gaines. He is never at a loss for words and was momentarily speechless. Jacoby’s reaction matched, as there was a flicker of disbelief when she saw the results before it registered.

That alone would have made it a great moment, one worth repeating. Then came the shot of students watching at Jacoby’s high school in Seward, Alaska. Kids jumping up and down in nervous excitement as she neared the finish, then losing their minds when she touched the wall. This was a genuine, in-the-moment reaction that felt even better because so few events are authentic anymore. I don’t think any of us who witnessed it live will ever forget.

Hoops

Jeez, the US men kind of suck. We couldn’t get a 3×3 team qualified, and now our regular team, filled with NBA superstars, gives up a 14–0 run late and loses to France in their opening game. It’s almost like you can’t just throw a bunch of dudes together for a couple weeks and expect to win anymore. Thank goodness Iran was next on the schedule so we could pummel them appropriately and give the impression that all is well.

The world has definitely caught up with us, and when those other national teams stick together over time, there is no margin for error for Team USA. I say we need a clear alpha and build around him, instead of putting a Super Team out there and hoping talent carries the day.

It is a huge bummer we don’t have a men’s 3×3 team, because that sport is awesome! Fast-paced, you have to be able to play both ways, and you can never relax because a made layup can turn into a 2-pointer for your opponent if you don’t immediately pick up someone on D. Love the dueling end points of both score and clock. I’ve mostly watched the women’s side, and it seems to be a better game. The men’s game seems dominated by brutes who beat each other up physically where the women’s game, while certainly physical, is more free-flowing.

Good on the US women for taking the gold medal contest Wednesday morning (US time).

Also dope for Latvia to win the men’s gold medal on a 2-pointer.

Random Notes

Hey, Phil Dalhausser is still around!

Isn’t it crazy how even though it’s the first Olympics without Michael Phelps in 25 years, he’s still everywhere? Doing coverage for NBC. Central and part of at least two ad campaigns. Tough luck for people who were sick of the greatest Olympian of all time.

I always laugh when local NBC stations suddenly take great interest in the weather in the host Olympic city. Our affiliate often leads off the weather segments with the current conditions and forecast for Tokyo before they get to our weather. It helps that it’s been hot and boring here for a couple weeks.

They couldn’t find a softball diamond to play softball on? Surely somewhere in Tokyo there’s a decent one. The Japanese won the gold medal, for crying out loud! Looked both odd and disrespectful to play it on a baseball field where you had to slide on turf if there was a close play at second.

How the fuck is Great Britain beating the US and Australia in men’s swimming? In freestyle, no less. Madness.

Katie Ledecky seems like a pretty great person. She looked genuinely happy for Ariarne Titmus after losing to her in the 400 free. She seemed as excited for teammate Erica Sullivan winning the silver as she was for her own gold in the 1500.

Titmus. T-I-T-M-U-S. Titmus, honest to God. If you know, you know.[1]

Not a fan of bringing in Steve Kornacki to crunch Olympics numbers. It’s just not as weighty as figuring out how much of the vote is still out in suburban Philadelphia.

I feel bad. As a loyal Olympics viewer and long-time blogger, I’ve shirked my responsibilities waiting until after this year’s Winter Olympics wrapped up to share any thoughts. Yeah, we were watching the games pretty much every evening. But with the oddness of this year’s time difference, there was usually one thing on a night that I was interested in.

I think this could be a problem going forward, as this is the first of three-straight Olympics to be hosted in Asia. The 2020 summer games in Japan will manage, because there are a lot more sports involved and NBC can stack events up much better for prime time. But the 2022 winter games in Beijing will suffer from the same issues this year’s games suffered from. Especially if bad weather pushes events out of the prime viewing hours in the US. If NBC has three sports to fill prime time, and one or more get delayed/postponed because of weather, folks start switching over to the Food Network or ESPN. I think it was a massive mistake to hold three consecutive games in Asia. That continent might have a bigger potential TV audience, but the American market still rules for TV revenue. Putting three-straight games in the absolute worst part of the world for live TV in US prime time is just dumb.

But no one ever accused the International Olympic Committee of making rational decisions.

Just another reason to limit the games to a handful of sites they rotate through on a regular basis so only every third or fourth games is opposite of the US, the biggest revenue producing TV audience.

The time difference caused another annoyance for me. The middle weekend of the games, when they are at their busiest point, is always a great time to be a casual viewer. You can usually count on spending parts of your Saturday and Sunday glued to the couch watching sports you won’t watch for another four years. But afternoons in the US are early mornings in Korea, so NBC either showed nothing or events that were over 12 hours old and you already knew the results for. There was no compelling reason for me to stay in front of the TV once I had logged my college basketball time for the day.

OK, enough complaints. Here are some half-assed bullet points I jotted down over the course of the last two weeks.

• I’m sure I wonder this every four years, but why isn’t the US better at biathlon? Who loves guns more than us? The NRA should be embarrassed it can’t produce some bullseye hittin’ ‘Mericans who can keep those godless socialists from Scandinavia and other pussy European countries from always winning all the biathlon medals.
• I never checked his name, but that freaking cross country analyst was the best announcer of the game. He screamed at the top of his lungs on every close finish. He had the call of the games on Jessie Diggins’ final push on her gold medal clinching leg of the team sprint: “HERE COMES DIGGINS!!!! YES!!!! YES!!!! YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!” Her performance was awesome, but was also enhanced by that screaming.
• The rather unfortunate counter to that dude was Bode Miller. I don’t want to pile on too much, because the piling on has been endless for the past two weeks. And I actually found some of Miller’s insights to be very good. But there’s no doubt both his monotone delivery and his dismissal of so much of what he saw was troublesome. Skiing is always my favorite part of the winter games, and my enjoyment of it was impacted a ton by Miller, by the odd scheduling, and by NBC’s decision to cut away when the results were still in doubt in order to get figure skating in front of the prime time audience.
• Ya’ll know I’m not really down with figure skating. But I did watch some here and there, mostly just to get my dose of Tara and Johnny. They’re good stuff. On an early night of the games I pointed out Johnny to the girls and said, “Do you remember him? You weren’t sure about him four years ago.” L responded, “I’m still not sure about him!”
• I’m not sure who the snow boarding announcer was, but I enjoyed how he had zero fear of dropping standard announcing cliches on that event: “Look up the word clutch and you’ll find a picture of David Wise!” Really? I wonder if there’s a sabermetric side of snowboarding where people are working hard to prove that clutch-ness does not exist.
• So PyeongChang was supposedly the coldest location to ever host the Winter Olympics. Shame there was no snow. It was jarring to see the ski slopes, snowboard courses, and cross country trails covered in synthetic snow while the hills around them were all brown. I never heard whether this was normal for that area, whether they normally have plenty of snow but this year has been dry, or if this was part of what so many mountain recreation areas are seeing as the new normal as the climate changes. It was jarring to see footage from past Olympics, especially in Europe, where there was heavy snow falling during events and the countryside was always blanketed in white.
• I understand why NHL players aren’t in the games anymore. But it seems weird that players from some of the other best pro leagues in the world where there. Much like I’ve argued that Olympic basketball should go to a U24 or U21 format, it may be time to do the same for men’s hockey.
• But keep women’s hockey exactly as it is. The US and Canada remain the only two teams that really matter, and as long as we get them in the gold medal game every four years, we’re guaranteed a thrilling game. I had forgotten how the gold medal game ended four years ago, with Canada scoring twice in the final four minutes of regulation to tie it – and the US hitting the post on an open-goal chance that would have clinched it – before winning in overtime. This year’s gold medal match was even more exciting and sweet retribution for the Americans.
• The Olympics didn’t feel right without either Bob Costas or Al Michaels managing most of the hosting duties. Mike Tirico has been boring me for 20 years, so I guess he’s the ideal safe choice to slide in as prime time host.
• Norway! What the fuck, man? They just destroyed everybody. That’s one of the things I love about the winter games, small nations who are otherwise somewhat anonymous dominating the nations that sweep up all the medals in the summer games. All the Norwegian athletes I saw interviewed were awesome. And I loved all the immediate columns trying to figure out what about Norwegian society allowed them to win so many medals. Maybe it’s just a fluke, that a nation that is focused on winter sports and always has great skiers of all disciplines, cranked out a bunch of epic athletes at the same time, while other countries that also do well in skiing had one or two fewer elite athletes than normal. Maybe it was dumb luck. Or maybe it is because they don’t keep score in youth leagues over there.
• Two favorite press conferences of the games were by Ester Ledecka, the shock winner of the women’s Super G, and Sofia Goggia, who won the downhill. Ledecka refused to remove her helmet and goggles for her mandatory press conference. Asked why, she responded, “I didn’t think I would win, so I don’t got no makeup on.” And Goggia, when asked about her feelings as she watched Norway’s Ragnhid Mowinckel come down the hill with splits near her times said, “Oh, I shit my pants!” Honesty is fun.
• Ragnhid Mowinckel is a dope-ass name.
• At the risk of being called a dirty old man, yes, I did image searches for many of the female snowboarders and skiers. I’m not proud.

That’s all for these games. Looking forward to 2026 when, maybe, the games will be in North America or Europe again and I can see a bigger chunk of the events live. I vote for Stockholm or Calgary.

What up, fools?!?! It’s that time! Time for an epic Olympic notebook unloading!

Not the most timely first edition this year, as I’m waiting nine full days into the games to get to this. So we’ll race through some of the things I jotted down 6–9 days ago that aren’t exactly fresh.

• Opening Ceremonies. Watching these things with kids is kind of the best. Because Olympics opening ceremonies are always wacky, and lend themselves to tons of questions. Suffice it to say that our girls were pretty flummoxed by the Rio opening. Wasn’t a damn thing wrong with Gisele’s appearance, though. And whatever song she was bouncing along to when she was in the crowd might be the greatest song ever.

• How many of you had “The Girl From Ipanema” stuck in your head for the first 3–4 days of the games? I did.

• I approve of countries hosting the Olympics where the local spelling of United States puts our team in the first fifth of the alphabet for the parade of nations.

• We missed a good chunk of the first weekend of the games when we were down in Bloomington. On Sunday, we took a walk along Lake Monroe and spent some time skipping rocks with the kids. Well, one thing lead to another, and soon my buddy and I were contemplating the possibility of rock skipping being an Olympic sport. Would you arrive with a sack of rocks and throw in rounds? Or skip as many as you could in a given time? Or would you have to search for good skippers before you could throw them? Could there be a two-man competition where one person searched out the skippers while another did the actual skipping? Would there be different competitions for different sizes of rocks? Are you scored on number of skips, distance, aesthetic quality of the overall skip, or a combination of all? As you can imagine we did a lot of mock announcing as we tried to blow our elbows out by attempting to skip to the opposite shore. Good times.

• Lilly King! What a badass! If you’re going to talk the talk, you best be able to back it up. And she did so in spades. At only 19! I looked back at my notes and I covered King when she was a high school junior. She finished second in the breaststroke finals. She still managed to break the state record. When she was a senior, she famously was the only swimmer not from Carmel high school to win an individual event. That Carmel team was later named the greatest girls high school swim team of all time by a national swimming magazine. A couple girls from that team were expected to be on this year’s Olympic team. One narrowly missed out – by hundredths of seconds in two races – while another broke her hand a week before the US trials and didn’t even make finals in her events. But it was King from that Indiana high school class of 2015 who made it to Rio, and stamped her name all over the swim meet.

• Russia is a wounded, unpredictable country right now. The world is a more dangerous place because of the way Vladimir Putin has steered his nation. But I’ll give him this: he’s made rooting against the Russians in sporting events fun again! When the Russians are drug-cheating, warmongers we all win! It’s like the 80s all over! I enjoyed the Russian swimmers getting soundly booed by the Brazilian fans.

• How did Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten not die, or end up paralyzed, in her horrific accident?

• Each Olympics I get sucked into watching a sport I’ve not watched often before. This games it’s been rugby. I’ve tried to watch rugby a few times in the past but could never figure the game out. Rugby 7s makes the game a lot easier to comprehend. Seven vs. seven, seven minute halves, one minute for halftime. The game flies. And the announcers did a great job explaining the rules. Loved every match I watched. Shame they crammed the tournament into the first week and it’s already over.

• I also watched a lot of field hockey, too. It’s a good sport as well. But I must admit I prefer the women’s game. I’ll leave it at that.

• “Ragazzi! Si, io sono Marco Polo. Sono qui!”

• Beach volleyball never, ever sucks. Men or women, I will always watch if a match is on. I miss my rec volleyball days. I wish I still had my t-shirt from when my team won a 4-on–4 tournament back in 2001 or so. I think if I tried to play today, my back, glutes, and hamstrings would all explode the first time I tried to block someone. Getting old sucks, kids.

• Every time Ryan Seacrest appears on my screen I get pissed off. He almost ruined the Rogue One trailer by introducing it. I accidentally came across the replay of his late night show one morning. He was wearing suede boots that I swear my wife has, too. Come on, man.

• The Michael Phelps experience has been pretty solid. I had to kind of laugh at how much the expectations were being managed for him this year. “Well, he didn’t swim for a couple years. He’s 31. I don’t know if he’s still got it.” And then he ends up being the same dominant force he’s always been. What else can you say at this point? He’s clearly the greatest swimmer ever, by any measure, and a top five Olympian of all time. He’s been a lot of fun to watch over the past 16 years.

• At least we’ll have Katie Ledecky for a few more games. Phelps did incredible things, and was way more versatile than Ledecky is. But he never destroyed a field the way she did in the 800 free final.

• The whole swim meet was a lot of fun. Since our girls have done three summers of swim team, they took a much bigger interest in it compared to the London games. M especially wanted to watch every race and asked me about the history of certain swimmers or races. They picked a good year to get interested. There didn’t seem to be as many tight, heart-stopping races as in past Olympics, but the US still dominated. That’s a good lesson for them: the US should always win.

• The only downside of the swimming coverage the girls did not appreciate Rowdy Gaines nearly as much as I do. C would make fun of him, "He was literally yelling ‘WATCH HOW SHE STRETCHES OUT AT THE FINISH HERE’. Why does he have to yell like that?” Because he’s awesome, that’s why.

• With the girls starting school on Thursday, we bumped bedtimes back last week. So the girls missed both Simone Manuel winning the first gold medal for an African-American, woman swimmer in the 100 free, and then her emotional reaction. I loved both her surprise in the pool, and then the moment when her teammates greeted her back in the staging room. That was the best, and most emotional, moment of the games for me.

• I think Nathan Adrian was my favorite US swimmer other than King. That dude just looks like he’s out there having a great time, is thrilled to be a part of every race, appreciates the guys he’s swimming with and against, and enjoys talking to Michelle Tafoya after each race.

• Speaking of Michelle Tafoya, I’m generally a fan. But she asked a lot of lazy questions. I know it’s hard to grab a bunch of gassed swimmers, who aren’t always excited to talk to you, for a week straight. But the “How does it feel…”, “What does it mean…” and, “I mean…” constructions she used so often to launch her queries drove me nuts.

• Big fan of gymnastics being in the afternoon in Brazil. Which means NBC chops it up to lead its prime time coverage, and then close it out. Live swimming was generally from 8:30–10:00 last week, with gymnastics bookending it. I assume live track in that same slot this week. One night the second gymnastics slot didn’t start until 10:52 eastern. I’m totally down with that.

• Not that I’m hating on gymnastics. At least not this year’s US women’s team, who are obviously all badasses. Especially Simone Biles and Aly Raisman. But I just don’t dig on gymnastics, that’s all.

• I’ve watched parts of three of the US men’s basketball team’s games. These games have sucked to watch. I don’t know if it’s just a bad mix of players, not enough time together before the games, or an indictment of the current NBA game. But it’s just not fun to watch. A lot of standing around while Kyrie Irving pounds the ball. Way too many chucked 3’s. Almost no ball or player movement. Terrible defense. They are so much more talented than every other team, but those other teams are truly teams. They move the ball beautifully. They hustle. They try to play D. If/when the US loses, how quickly will Coach K fake some kind of illness so he doesn’t get blamed for the loss?

• I love the irony of Walmart using Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” for a back to school commercial. Ironic because, as many of you know, it was only 20-some years ago that Walmart took t-shirts that said someday a woman might be president off their shelves because they didn’t fit the family image Walmart believed in. Which is utterly ridiculous no matter what your political perspective is. But in the ’20-teens, they’re down with using a song that makes everyone over 40 immediately think of Tawny Kitaen frolicking on a Jaguar.

• I keep saying we need to freaking invade Jamaica since they’re kicking our asses on the track. Despite that, I love pretty much every Jamaican sprinter. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is just a delight to watch. She has the best smile. A little shy, slightly disbelieving of what she’s accomplished, but as warm and friendly as you could ever find.

• I watched the mixed doubles tennis final Sunday because A) it was a dreary, rainy day here and B) the two men on the American teams were from Kansas City and Carmel, IN. I had some interest. Rajeev Ram, from Carmel, was playing with Venus Williams. During the match they flashed the comparative career highlights from Venus’ career vs. Serena’s. The one that blew me away was Venus was only ranked #1 in the world for 19 weeks in her entire career. Sure, Serena was always a little better than her. And there was Maria Sharapova, among others, who were good when Serena wasn’t on top. But just 19 weeks?!?! I figured she was #1 a lot long than that.

• Ans Botha doesn’t get the gas face.

  Say what? Ans Botha is the 74-year-old, great-grandma who coaches South Africa’s Wayde Van Niekerk, who destroyed Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record in the 400 Sunday. That was an absolute stunner of a result. And for you late 80s hip-hop fans, you should remember 3rd Base’s legendary track “The Gas Face,” in which the group threw shade at all the folks they did not like. Including then prime minister and president of Apartheid era South Africa P.W. Botha. Late ‘80s hip-hop videos were the best.

• Speaking of the best, Usain Bolt is just the best. In every way. Why couldn’t he be American?

That was week one. Hopefully week two is as interesting, fun, and entertaining.