1 August - Day 6 - Paris Summer Olympic Games

 Such a wonderful day of competition for Team USA!  Sorry I'm late in posting this but I was just too tired last night.  I'm watching Equestrian Team Jumping right now so I have time to write up the day. 

Equestrian Team Jumping:  Team USA has had a hard time in the Team competitions with being eliminated in Dressage and just too many faults in Eventing.  Today though, Teams USA had a great day and turned in some great rounds under time putting them in Second place with one more day of jumping to go.  Once again, Team GB, who has basically owned the Equestrian events, is in first place.  We will have to see what Friday does for us.

Men's Water polo:  Team USA faced off against Greece and the match was close for the first two periods but then Greece turned it on and bested our guys 13-11.  Our guys are out of the medals.

Women's Beach Volleyball:  Team USA's Kloth and Nuss faced a great Chinese team with both taking one set and then the thunder/lightning/rain came down and they halted competition 5 points into set 3.  They cleared the stands and everything!  See the picture at the top of this entry for an awesome Eiffel Tower lightning shot!  About 30 minutes later, they were allowed to complete the match and Team USA pulled out a win.  Kloth & Nuss aren't perfect but they are getting the job done!  Love watching these two!

20K Race Walk:  Both the Men and Women competed (separately) in this event of the funny walkers.  I'm not sure why they decided to make the course only 1 mile near the Eiffel Tower.  You would have thought that they would have shown off more of the city but then again, while I'd hate to walk my dog with these folks, they really aren't going very fast and this event has been know to have fans/world-even protesters to run out onto the course.  So it could have been a security concern.  

Anyway, Team USA didn't really have a good chance at a medal but they had a pretty good showing.  In the Men's, Gold was won by Ecuador; Silver won by Brazil; Bronze won by Spain.  In the Women's, Gold was won by China; Silver by Spain; Bronze by Australia.

Women's Boxing:  Morelle McCane, from Cleveland, ended her Olympic boxing stint today.  She fought well but lost in split decision by one point.  

BMX Cross:  So this is what I knew BMX to be when I was a kid.  Riders racing across a course of hills to a finish.  The Prelims were held at the end of the night and boy is this cool!  Team USA had two guys (Wood & Larson) qualify for the next round and two of our three girls (Willoughby & Vaughn) qualify for the next round.

Surfing:  Surfing was delayed for a few days due to weather but is back on track.  Team USA has one surfer still in the competion, Marks for the Women.  Carissa Moore went out in the last round.  These waves are soooo big!  Props to France for choosing to have surfing in Tahiti!  One the Men's side, Brazil has the favorite but a couple locals are still in the mix and never underestimate a home field advantage!

Sculls - Men's Four:  Wow....Team USA dominated this race!  Our rowers haven't done great this Olympics but these guys were phenomenal!  Team USA wins GOLD!  New Zealand wins Silver.  Team GB wins Bronze

Women's Single Archery:  Casey Kaufhold made it through her first round but was eliminated in the round of 32.  This is stunning since Casey is ranked 1st in the World.  I wonder who is doing the rankings since South Korea seems to aways win but is never ranked.  

Men's Singles Archery:  Brady Ellison made it through to the round of 16!  

Fencing - Team Foil:  Team USA is in the FINAL!  They faced off against a heavily favored Italian team but remember, two Americas faced off against each other in the Singles final!  They pulled out all the stops and bested the Italians winning the Gold!  Italy settled for Silver and Japan won Bronze.

Women's Basketball:  Team USA faced Team Belgium and had Belgium wake them up a bit with a VERY low score through the first period.  Then Team USA took over and won 87 - 74.  

3X3 Basketball:  We are awful at this event on both sides!  See why here:  Why the US sucks at 3x3 Basketball

Men's Beach Volleyball:  Team USA's Benesh & Partain faced off against a tought Brazilian Team but was able to pull out a win 2-1.  These guys are fighters!

Sailing:  So I guess some of the events were rescheduled due to weather.  I've only seen one of the races:  Windsurfing slalom.  Team USA won the race but I don't know if this event has multiple rounds or not.  The annoucer was very laid back for it to have been for a medal.  Team USA seemed to be the only racer who stayed near the start line and then was able to keep the lead from there.  Windsurfing has really changed with the invention/addition of a foil (or fin) to the Windsurfing boards.  Man!  Do they go fast!

Swimming:  The morning Heats went really well for Team USA with everyone getting through except Guilliano in the 50M Free.  The Women's 4 x 200M Relay looks to be the big race for tonight.  Team USA qualified easily.  I wonder if Ledecky will swim a leg in the Relay?

In the Semifinals, Dressel made it through in Men's 50M.  Foster made it through in the Men's 200M IM but Casas did not.Both Bacon & Smith made it through in the Women's 200M Backstroke.

In the Women's 200M Breaststroke, Team USA's Douglass was so awesome!  She just out-touched Smith from South Africa winning Gold!  South Aftrica takes Silver and Schouten from the Netherlands took the Bronze.

In the Women's 200 Butterfly Final, Canada's McIntosh just held off Team USAs Regan Smith and took the Gold.  Regan gets the Silver, and China takes Bronze.

In the Men's 200 Backstroke, Team USA finished 5th.  Hungary was wicked quick and won Gold, Greece surprised everyone and took the Silver and Switzerland took the Bronze!

In the Women's 4x200 Relay:  Team USA set their order with Weinstein taking leg 1; Madden leg 2; LEDECKY leg 3; Gemmell leg 4.  Australia was heavily favored for this race and they proved that from the start leading by quite a lot through the first two legs with China following and Team USA in a distant third but then Ledecky dove in and made up the time passing the Chinese and nearly catching Australia giving Gemmell a great position to start in.  The Aussies pulled away again and finished ahead of everyone.  Gemmell held onto seconds and brought home Silver and China took the Bronze.  Wow...what a race!

Women's Gymnastics All-Around: OMG!  This was the event of the day!  The Gymnastics were soooooooooooooo good!  China fell off bars, beam, and crumbled on floor opening up the way for other countries to medal!  The big news was Simone Biles!  That hype that we had going into Tokyo proved to be true, even if it was delayed by 3 years.  Simone's Vault was great, with only a small hop.  She had a small mistake on Bars where she went down to the low bar from the high bar with WAY too much power and had to bend her legs and take an extra rotational swing to complete her routine but she stuck her landing and put it behind her.  

Suni had a respectable vault and a really nice Bars routine!  I think that "fall off the bars in warm-up" has become her good luck charm since she did it again today (third time now in this competition) and then put in a great routine.  Brazil's Andrade had a fantastic vault and bars routine!

On Beam, all three ladies shined.  I knew that Simone was fine as soon as she didn't wobble on her mount.  She had a good routine but a few bobbles.  Suni and Andrade put in very nice routines!  On Floor, Suni had fun and it was nice to see her smile.  Andrade had a great routine and was very artistic.  The Brazilian who fell off Bars the day before had a fantastic routine to the Can-can and I think it was the most fun!  Simone...NAILED IT!  She didn't go out of bounds at all!  She had fun and as soon as she was done the fans just exploded!  Simone won Gold, Andrade from Brazil took the Silver and Suni Lee took Bronze.

Honorable mentions go to Algeria and Team Italy for putting in some great routines!  I can't wait to see them again in the Event finals that will be spaced out from Saturday - Monday (for men and women)

Team USA brought it tonight!

Tomorrow will be the start of Track & Field with the qualifiers for many of the races.  One change in the rules will be adding a repechage for the 200m-1500m events.  Repechage is a second chance race.  They do it in the sculls all the time.  Usually in track races though you have the top 3 finishers and then the rest go through on time.  This guarantees that everyone will get to run at least twice at the Olympic Games.  We will have to see how it goes.  Decathlon will begin as well.  Elsewhere we will have the Equestrian Team Jumping final where Team USA has a chance at a medal.  Archery finals will also be contested.  We will have more volleyball, basketball, and soccer.  Trampoline will have its time as well.