Olympic Word of the Day: Extradition - The official process under which one country transports a suspected criminal or convicted criminal to another country.
I could not make this up, but if I were to make this story up, it would obviously have included Ryan Lochte. So, the whole drama about Ryan being robbed at gunpoint is not only made up, but was said not to make him seem like a hero/tough guy, but because he and his cohorts did something they shouldn't have. Something that likely never would have come to light anyway, but, due to Lochte's made-up robbery story, now everyone knows about. The taxi carrying the four swimmers, including Lochte and Jimmy Feigen, stopped at a convenience store, at which time the athletes needed to use the restroom. When the door to the restroom wouldn't open up immediately, one kicked open the door. Thereafter, Lochte decided to go all wolfman on the restroom and mark the entire thing as his territory. A security guard, with gun drawn, did confront the swimmers and would not let them leave until they left money for the damages. And this was caught on video. Also caught on video was the swimmers entering the athlete's village a few minutes after the incident. Lochte is in the United States while Jimmy Feigen is still in Rio without his passport. Gunner Bentz and Jack Conger were already released b police after making additional statements. Yes, I started this whole Olympic posts trying to make fun of Ryan Lochte in each, and boy did he oblige in making it a much easier experience than I expected.
Let's get to some happier matters, and no event was more fulfilling for the home fans than Alison and Bruno winning gold in men's beach volleyball over the Italian team of Daniele Lupo and Paolo Nicolai. Although the Brazilian duo won in straight sets, they were down in both sets before storming back to victory in both. Alison, widely viewed as the best men's beach volleyball player, and Bruno were the number one ranked team entering the knockout round, and the overwhelming favorite enter the Olympics, however, Alison severely sprained his ankle on Day 5, and his mobility was obviously affected the remainder of the tournament. They prevailed in the quarterfinals over the American team of Dalhausser and Lucena in what was likely the match of these Olympics. Congratulations to all of Brazil for this one, as I am sure they celebrated well into the night.
Equally exciting for the fans was the duel on the track between Usain Bolt and history, as he clearly no longer duels with other athletes. Bolt had made it clear that he wants to be the first man under 19 seconds in the 200 meters, but that he didn't think he could go that fast here. Still, a world record was possible. Alas, history beat Usain Bolt in the race, as Bolt cruised to the gold medal in 19.78, easily outdistancing Andre ("Drake") de Grasse of Canada and France's Christophe Lemaitre.
Out on the golf course, American Stacy Lewis shot an -8 par 63 to put herself strongly in medal contention. Lewis finished at 8 under, despite a double bogey on her card, tied the course record set last week by Marc Fraser of Australia and Matt Kuchar of the U.S. The world's former number 1 is 1 shot behind the current number 1 Inbee Park halfway through the tournament.
The United States absolutely excelled on the track, and in no event did the U.S. fare better than in the men's shot put. Ryan Crouser set an Olympic record with a put of 22.52 meters, a full 1.36 meters ahead of New Zealand's Tomas Walsh, who captured the bronze, with the silver going to ..... fellow American Joe Kovacs, who wins silver with a throw of 21.78 meters. The 1-2 finish is the best shot put finish for the United States in Olympic history.
More expected, but no less impressive, Ashton Eaton defended his gold medal from London in the Decathlon, becoming only the third person ever to repeat in the event; with Bob Mathias winning in 1948 and 1952 (before becoming a US Congressman) and British great Daley Thompson winning in 1980 and 1984. Eaton set an Olympic record with 8893 points, finishing the 1500 meters in 4:23:33. He joins his wife Brianne Thiesen-Eaton in winning Olympic medals, as she earned the bronze in the heptathlon.
Crouser was great, and Eaton was impressive, but the most bizarre event on the track was the women's 4x100 meter relay preliminaries, in which the United States team, Allyson Felix, the U.S.'s second runner, was reaching to hand the baton to English Gardner, but was bumped by the arm of the Brazilian in the next lane. This caused Felix to have to toss the baton to Gardner, who could not grasp it. As the baton lay on the ground, Felix exclaimed to Gardner to pick it up to finish the race. This was important, because it is a pre-requisite in filing an appeal, which the U.S. did. The IAAF (the governing body of track), noticed that the Brazilian team went outside its lane and bumped Felix, and the U.S. was awarded another race - by themselves - to try to beat the time set by the then 8th ranked Chinese team. Not only did the U.S. beat China to bounce that country out of the finals, but the qualified first for tonight's finals.
As interesting as the women's track story is, it pales in comparison to one of the most compelling stories of all time, as it brings into the equation definition of race, geo-politics, intrigue and sports, all into one story. Luisito Pie of the Dominican Republic won the bronze medal in the 58kg weight class of taekwando, after falling to Thailand's Tawin Hanprab in the semi-finals, but recovering to defeat Spain's Jesus Tortosa Cabrera in the bronze medal match. This is the Dominican Republic's first - and likely only - medals in these games.
So what makes this interesting? Pie is of Haitian descent. Although Haiti and the Dominican Republic share an island, they share no culture except often hatred, usually with the Dominicans looking down upon the Haitians condescendingly. (Is there any other way?) This transcends even color, as black Dominicans often feel superior to the Haitians, and often express their superiority over the Haitians more than lighter-skinned Dominicans. In 2013 and 2014, this disgust and disdain for the Haitians came to the forefront when the Dominican Republic outlawed and rescinded citizenship for all those of Haitian descent - even those that were already Dominican citizens. This left an estimated 210,000 people without a country, many of whom may have never even been to Haiti. Now, there is a lot more details to the story, including the parallels to the current argument within the United States as a lot of the Dominican children of Haitian descent were children born in the DR to Haitian migrant worker parents. In 2014, the Dominican Senate allowed a "pathway to citizenship" for those children of migrant workers.
So, in short, a Dominican athlete, who is not necessarily welcome in his country because of his race and ethnicity because he is Haitian, who is involved in a political battle over what constitutes a Dominican "citizen", won the only medal of these games for the Dominican Republic. Isn't sport just grand?!
That was enough deep talk about they Olympics, so let's get to what we really like - UPSETS! Usually we celebrate the upsets because it is the underdog, upstart Americans that defeat the champion from fill-in-the-blank other country, but today, it was the young Serbian women's volleyball team that defeated the number 1 ranked US of A in a thrilling 5 setter. Serbia won 3-2 (20-25, 25-17, 25-21, 16-25, 15-13). After falling behind 2 sets to 1, the Americans rallied to win easily in the fourth set, and jumped out to a 3 point lead in the final short set, which only goes to 15. Serbia, led by deadly outside hitter Tijana Boskovic and middle blocker Brankica Mihajlovich rallied to send them to the gold-medal match against China. The United States will battle for the broze medal against the Netherlands.
But, that upset was not even close to being the biggest upset of the day. In an upset that sits in the pantheon of all-time upsets with the United States over the Soviet Union in hockey in Lake Placid in 1980, or Rulon Gardner defeating Russian legendary giant Alexander Karelin in Greco-Roman wrestling in Sydney in 2000, Helen Maroulis, an American freestyle wrestler that wrestled at the 53kg weight class, advanced to the finals where she faced Japan's Saori Yoshida, the defending three-time Olympic gold medalists who also has 13 world championships under her belt. It was an amazing run for Maroulis to win the silver medal and to perform well against Yoshida, only something else happened. Maroulis took control of the match to defeat Yoshida 4-1 to win gold; the first ever gold medal in wrestling for an American woman. Without hyperbole, this is one of the biggest upsets of all time, and for that, Helen Maroulis wins the story of the day!
No comments:
Post a Comment