Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

It’s moments like this that I realize my five-year-old is going to be very different than me as a child. He was delighted. Video games made me too nervous to play. He giggles at headless Marie Antoinette.

 

Amy Van dyken and NBC have had zero success in trying to explain what the (world feed) video showed with the first two swimmers who were dq'd.

 

The hosts were horrific but I blame the producers. Why weren’t the hosts fed info about what we were seeing? Did they have any pre-pro sessions? Once they saw Kelly was a cliche fountain, why weren’t they in her ear with anecdotes or fact nuggets?

 

Italy-Brazil volleyball is one hell of a match to start the morning.

EDIT: Twins Annie and Kerry Xu are playing women's badminton for the US. I believe that's pronounced Chew or maybe Shoe. That'd be some serious Scrabble points.

 

The cycling women's time trial is a skating rink. Lot of falls ... combination of rain, slick course and time-trial bikes built for speed and not maneuverability. Cyclists need to sharpen their blades.

 

Put another round of wedge in the right rear.

 

Maybe a little more texture in the tread, or massage some tire compound into the rubber.

 

Man, Armco sucks for any form of racing. They showed the replay of Chloe Dygert's wreck in 2020 where she went over the guardrail and suffered a severe laceration to her left leg. Winced just seeing all the stitches.

 

Yeah ... I thought guardrails saved lives.

And, just as I say that, another cyclist down in Paris. Not as severe as Dygart's crash years ago, but clearly more than just bike trouble.

 

And now Dygart hits the pavement in Paris (on the bright side, not flying over a road guardrail with her bicycle).

 

Dygert wiped out right where the road changed from asphalt to brick. Brutal.

 

Gotta wonder the setup should be questioned. It's one thing to make sure riders can't just attack the turns like catnip. But they're approaching them like muscle cars should with worn-out - if not non-existent - drum brakes.