Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

In fact, Rooks' strategy seemed to be to stay with the guys who knew would be at the front in the end: El Bakkali and Girma. If you noticed, he made his initial move when they did.

 

Saw my first kayak cross highlights yesterday. Who’s down for a 2028 meetup in OKC?

 

Being a weightlifter, she probably just clean and jerked it back into place.

 

Speaking of weightlifting, the 20-year-old American who took bronze in the men's event today looks like he's about 13. And a nerdy 13-year-old, at that.

 

Same here. We had the race on in the newsroom — as mentioned, there’s a quasi local connection with Rooks — and I was at least hoping someone would address if the fallen runner was OK.

 

Freddy Atlas! Dynamic tension!!

 

They went to six in each men's division (down from eight each) when they bumped women from four to six in 2016. In the process they managed to go from 20 total medals to 18.

What they really need to do for wrestling is kill Greco-Roman and give three weight classes each to men's and women's freestyle. But the Eastern Europeans and traditionalists won't stand for it because 1) It's a lot of medals for former Soviet republics and 2) Greco-Roman was what they wrestled at the 1896 Olympics and is one of the few events from that era still in the games. Freestyle as we know it today, didn't start at the games until the 40s.

I love Greco-Roman. It was the style I excelled at the most way back when. But it doesn't produce exciting matches most of the time and is hard for the casual viewer to understand. The sport is growing exponentially right now thanks to women's wrestling finally taking off and yet Greco-Roman remains a big drag.

I've heard people suggest adding a mixed team dual like Judo has and I think that could be incredibly fun, but don't see any realistic way of it happening.

 

And, hey, free condoms!

 

DAVE WOTTLE - THE HAT - BREAKS DOWN HIS EPIC 1972 GOLD MEDAL RACE! (youtube.com)

Dave Wottle - The Greatest Comeback In Athletics History? | Throwback Thursday (youtube.com)

Amazing win, not quite as unlikely as Billy Mills', but close. Bowling Green State University.

 

U.S. women snooze to an 88-74 win over Nigeria that should have been about 40.

 

Remember, the competitive experience for the vast majority of Olympic athletes in all disciplines is getting beat like a rented mule. All those track and field heats, all those gymnasts you never see on TV, all those swimming heats, it's basically like 90 percent of all the athletes have no shot at winning anything, and most of 'em know it. They're there the way amateur qualifiers at the two Opens are there, for the thrill of competing against the world's best. After that, well, it's party time.

 

As someone noted in the comments to that video, that was not a comeback. It was his race strategy from the beginning.