Swimming
This was the last day of competition. Michael Phelps insists it was his last too. Which constrains me to reprise what I wrote in this regard on the last day of competition at London 2012:
He insists that he will now rest on his laurels, and who can blame him. But I fully expect him to tire of being a couch potato after a year or so and begin training to defend his titles in the 100m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley, 4x100m Medley Relay, and 4x200m Freestyle Relay at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Not to mention the competitive compulsion to avenge his two losses here – in the 200m Butterfly and 4x100m Freestyle Relay.
(“London Olympics: Day 8,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 4, 2012)
Well, vengeance was his – as he won gold in both the 200m Butterfly and 4×100 Freestyle relay. In fact, he ended these Games in vintage style; that is, on the gold medal podium for the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay.
- Team USA (with Ryan Murphy, Cody Miller, Michael Phelps, and Nathan Adrian) won gold in 3:27.95; Team Great Britain, silver; and Team Australia, bronze.
Except that Phelps failed to defend what is arguably his most prized title: Olympic Champion in the 100m Butterfly. And I suspect he’ll be haunted with thoughts about avenging it at Tokyo 2020.
But I fully expect him to retire for good this time. For he’s sensible enough to appreciate that no amount of training will enable him to avenge this loss. Besides, he probably takes mentoring pride in the fact that it was one of his own protégés, Joseph Schooling of Singapore, who handed him his only loss at these Games.
But, what a haul; and what a treat: 23 golds, 3 silvers, and 2 bronzes for a total of 28 Olympic medals. I doubt the world will ever see a phenom like him again.
There were two other races of note:
Pernille Blume of Denmark did in the Women’s 50m Freestyle tonight what Simone Manuel of the USA did in the Women’s 100m Freestyle on Thursday: she led a shutout of the heavily favored Bronte sisters of Australia. In doing so, Blume won her country’s first Olympic gold in this event.
- Pernille Blume of Denmark won gold in 24.07; Simone Manuel of the USA, silver; and Aliaksandra Herasimenia of Belarus, bronze.
And, speaking of Manuel, she followed up her historic win by anchoring the USA to gold in the Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay.
- Team USA (with Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer, and Simone Manuel) won gold in 3:33.13; Team Australia, silver; and Team Denmark, bronze.
Meanwhile, even though Phelps was the most decorated swimmer (with 5 golds and 1 silver), Katie Ledecky was easily the most dominant.
It’s one thing to hail her for winning more medals than any other female swimmer (4 golds, 1 silver). It’s quite another to have seen her utterly destroy the competition in her signature events: the Women’s 400m and 800m Freestyle. The latter she won by over 11 seconds last night, setting a new World Record.
Finally, at the outset of these Games, Katinka Hosszu of Hungary seemed a lock to become the most decorated female swimmer. But, as I hailed in my Day 7 commentary, Madeline Dirado of the USA disrupted her quest for 4 individual golds by defeating her in the Women’s 200m Backstroke. Hosszu ended up with 3 golds and 1 silver.
Therefore, given that Ledecky won 5 medals, including 3 individual golds, she is clearly more deserving of this title. Not to mention my abiding suspicions about Hosszu’s doping.
NOTE: Am I the only one who wonders why the Swimming pool remained crystal blue throughout but the Diving and Water Polo pools turned everything from cloudy blue to putrid green…? Of course, the importance of Swimming and the celebrity of Phelps are such that these Games would have been brought to screeching halt if any such concerns bubbled up in the Swimming pool, no?
Fencing
Sports is often war by other means. This was certainly the case with Ukraine vs. Russia for gold in the Women’s Sabre Team duel. Never mind that Ukraine and Russia mobilized this week to engage in the real thing, pursuant to their ongoing conflict over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursions into Eastern Ukraine.
But if this fencing duel was any indication of things to come, East Ukrainians might be hearing this from marauding Russians very soon:
You killed my people, prepare to die.
- Russia annihilated Ukraine 45-30 for gold.
Meanwhile, I remarked on Day 3 that the team duels would give celebrated fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad of the USA a chance to redeem herself. After all, she not only failed to honor a presidential challenge to bring home the gold, but got parried out of the medal rounds in the individual duels.
- The USA annihilated Italy 45-30 for bronze.
Not quite what President Obama had in mind, but surely, in the spirit of the Olympics, leading her team to a bronze medal is worthy of presidential commendation.
Track and Field
Competition began yesterday in this feature sport of every Summer Olympics. And the Women’s Heptathlon was center stage; never mind that the stadium was practically empty for most of the day. (See “Day 5” for my lament about empty venues.)
In Gymnastics, the winner of the All-Around is considered the best in the sport; in Swimming, that title goes to the winner of the Individual Medley. In Track and Field, it goes to winner of the Decathlon for men and Heptathlon for women.
In the Heptathlon, athletes compete over two consecutive days for the most points in seven events: the 100m Hurdles, High Jump, Shot Put, and the 200m on the first day; and the Long Jump, Javelin, and the 800m on the second.
Each event at these Games showed an upstart 21-year-old Belgian athlete outperforming the defending champion Jessica Ennis-Hill. But Ennis-Hill would have retained her crown if she had beaten the young Belgian in the 800m, the final event, by 10 seconds. I was rooting for the “old lady” (who is only 30, mind you) to do so, but she did not.
- Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium won gold; Jessica Ennis-Hill of Great Britain, silver; Brianne Theisen Eaton of Canada, bronze.
From the sublime to the surreal, I never thought one could be riveted during every second of the Men’s 10,000m. But I was thusly riveted watching a London 2012 rematch between Mo Farah of Great Britain and Galen Rupp of the USA. Farah outfoxed and outkicked Rupp to win gold back then.
Therefore, imagine the collective gasp when none other than Rupp caused Farah to trip and fall mid race…. But Farah would not be denied. He bounced back to his feet, with feline alacrity, and joined the pack as if he never missed a stride.
I knew then the race was his. What I did not know was that Rupp would be more affected by Farah’s fall than Farah himself.
- Mo Farah of Great Britain won gold in 27:05.17; Paul Kipngetich Tanui of Kenya, silver; Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia, bronze. (Rupp ended up 5th.)
It’s too bad Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford failed to defend titles in the Heptathlon and Long Jump, respectively. This denied Team Great Britain the gold trifecta that got it off to such a galvanizing start at London 2012.
Finally:
Who would’ve thought this tiny island nation would outperform the mighty United States in the premier events of these Olympic Games? Yet Jamaica has done just that by winning gold now in the Men’s 100m, gold, silver and bronze in the Women’s 100m, gold in the Men’s 200m and is poised to win at least silver in the Women’s 200m.
(“2008 Beijing Olympics: Day 12,” The iPINIONS journal, August 21, 2008)
Talk about having a bull’s eye on your back. This is the enviable reputation that made Jamaica the most feared team, as well as the one with the most to lose, entering every international Track and Field championship since Beijing 2008. And, in almost every case, they lived up to that reputation.
No surprise then that the only question coming into the Women’s 100m was whether Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce would make history by winning gold for the third consecutive Olympics. She did not.
But such is the breeding and training of Jamaican sprinters that she merely ceded her crown to a younger compatriot.
- Elaine Thompson of Jamaica won gold in 10.71; Torie Bowie of the USA, silver; and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica, bronze.
That said, I always feel obliged to put times for the Women’s 100m into perspective. Florence Griffith-Joyner set the World Record of 10.49 in 1988. But it seems unfair to hold today’s sprinters to that standard. Because, if the sophisticated tests we have today were available back then, I suspect they would have revealed that Flo-jo fueled her way to that record on performance-enhancing drugs. Moreover, no matter the autopsy report, it strains credulity to think that such drugs did not contribute to her early death at the very young age of 38.
Apropo of which:
Doping Scandal Continues
I have written a fair amount on the doping scandal that led the IAAF to ban every Russian Track and Field athlete, except one, from competing at these Games.
Therefore, I would be remiss not to acknowledge this about that one athlete:
The only Russian Track and Field athlete due to compete at the Rio Olympics has been banned by the sport’s governing body on the eve of competition…
The IAAF had said that any athletes who could prove they were untainted by the Russian system could be cleared to compete, with only the US-based [long jumper Darya] Klishina passing the test out of a possible team of 68 athletes…
However, on the eve of competition the IAAF received new information that has led to her exceptional-eligibility status being revoked.
(London Guardian, August 13, 2016)
I suppose you can take the doping Russian out of Russia but you can take the doping out of the Russian.
Actually, I feel obliged to clarify that I’ve been as critical of dopers from the United States and Jamaica as I’ve been of those from Russia. This is why I think it reeks of hypocrisy as much as rudeness that spectators and fellow athletes alike have been raining bullying boos down on members of Team Russia at every venue.
Most notorious in this respect was teenager Lilly King of Team USA denouncing Yulia Efimova, her chief rival in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke, as a “drug cheat.” Even more disappointing, though, was that no less a person than Michael Phelps joined the near-universal chorus of those hailing King for doing so.
But I wish he had used his celebrity and influence to admonish all athletes to let each sport’s governing body sanction the cheaters and let their performances in competition convey their contempt. If he had, I suspect everyone would have begun treating Russian athletes at every venue with due respect.
MEDAL COUNT: USA – 61; China – 41; Great Britain – 30
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