10 August - Day 15 - Paris Summer Olympic Games

 

It's Saturday and lots of medals to be decided today!

Men's Marathon:  What a tour of Paris!  The men ran all the way out to Versailles and back!  Ethiopia finished with a new Olympic Record in first winning Gold!  Belgium was not far behind and takes Silver.  Kenya wins Bronze.  Team USA put in a great showing coming in 8th & 9th.

Men's Platform Diving:  The field turned up the heat and the younger of the Chinese divers definitely felt it!  Japan had a GREAT DAY!  Turning in the highest score of the meet!  The elder Chinese diver was unphased and won the Gold.  Japan won Silver. Team GB won the Bronze.  The men's field is getting closer and closer to dethroning China.  Perhaps in 2028, we will see someone knock China from the top.  As it is, China won all 8 gold medals in diving.

Flatwater: Women's 200M Sprint:  Team USA's phenom Nevin Harrison finished in a photo-finish with Canada, but the photo showed Canada just edged her out.  Canada wins Gold.  Team USA wins Silver.  Cuba wins Bronze.

Women's Water Polo:  Team USA was still in shock when they faced off against the Netherlands for the Bronze medal.  They just couldn't pull out of their funk and the Netherlands took the Bronze.  Spain dominated Australia winning the Gold.  Australia settles for Silver.

Women's Soccer:  Team USA wins GOLD!!!!  Nice to see these ladies on top again!  Brazil settles for Silver.  Germany wins over Spain to take the Bronze.

Artistic Swimming - Duets:  Can you believe that there are 4 sets of twins competing in this event!  Team USA had a pretty big error in the technical which set them in 12th but did better in the Free routine and finished in 10th place!  Way to go ladies!  

Best of the competition was Team China.  They were just cleaner than the other teams.  Team GB wins its first medal in Artistic Swimming with a Silver!  Team Netherlands had some wonderful routines but some technical issues and had to settle for Bronze.

Men's Basketball:  As expected by the world, Team USA wins Gold over Team France 98-87.  Serbia won the Bronze.

Women's Golf:  New Zealand proved to have the best tourney and won Gold.  Germany won the Silver.  China won the Bronze.  

Women's Climbing: Boulder & Lead:  Wow!  What a great ending to a wonderful competition!  Today was the lead final and Team USA's Rabatou was just 0.6 points behind the Slovenian Janja Garnbret.  Brook Rabatou was doing really well and nearly topped the climb, but fell about 4 holds from the top.  Janja fell 1 hold from the top!  Slovenia gets the Gold.  Team USA gets the Silver.  Australian just edged out Team GB for the Bronze.

Rhythmic Gymnastics: Team competition:  Beautiful chaos is the only explanation for this tourney!  So much is going on at once that it is sometimes hard to see everything!  The teams really turned out some great routines in hoop and in the ribbon/ball rounds!  Ultimately, Team China was most in-sync and won the Gold.  Team Israel won the Silver (my favorite routines!), and Team Italy won the Bronze.  Nice job ladies!

Men's Breaking:  Even more exciting than the women's competition due to the power moves the guys can really turn out.  Team USA made it to the semi-finals but couldn't make it to the Gold medal round.  The first Gold medal went to Phil Wizard of Team Canada!  France's Dany Dann won the Silver.  Team USA's Victor won the Bronze!  Well done Victor!

Men's Beach Volleyball:  Sweden dominated the Gold medal match against Germany and won in 2 straight sets.  Norway won over Qatar even though it took a while for them to warm up.  Sweden wins the Gold.  Germany gets the Silver.  Norway wins the Bronze.

Men's Indoor Volleyball:  France faced off against Poland for the Gold.  Both teams are pretty beat up but Team France had an advantage with the energy of the hometown crowd.  France wins in straight sets winning the Gold.  Poland wins Silver.  Team USA wins the Bronze.

Women's Indoor Volleyball:  Brazil faced off against Turkiye (That's how Turkey wants their name now).  Brazil won the first two sets but then Turkiye came back and won the third set.  Brazil wasn't having any of that and completely dominated the fourth set, winning the Bronze.

Track & Field

Men's 800M:  Kenya was able to hold onto the lead but runners from Canada and Algeria gave them quite the run for the money!  Kenya wins Gold.  Canada wins Silver.  Algeria wins Bronze.  Hoppel of Team USA came in fourth place.

Men's High Jump:  Team USA's McEwen had a great day ultimately forcing a jump off (we are not as nice as Team Italy and willing to share the gold) with Kerr from the Netherlands.  In the end, Kerr finally got the height and won the Gold.  Team USA takes Silver.  Qatar wins the Bronze.

Women's 100M Hurdles:  I couldn't tell who won this race!  It was just too close!  Russel from Team USA proved to be the winner and gets the Gold.  France won the Silver.  Puerto Rico won the Bronze.

Men's 5000M:  Norway was hungry after losing in the 10,000M and took the lead early with Kenya just behind through out the race.  In the last 200M, Team USA's Fisher, who had been hanging out near the back of the pack (well..middle back) sling-shotted out of that last turn and just ran all out passing others in a flash and stealing away the Bronze!  Nice tactics Fisher!

Women's 1500M:  Australia and Team GB must have been watching Fisher because they used similar tactics, sling-shotting out of that last turn to pass multiple runners and just about catch the Kenya leader.  Kenya wins Gold.  Australia wins Silver.  Team GB wins Bronze.

Women's 4 x 400 Relay:  You know how Katie Ledecky finishes races and no one else is in frame?  Well our women's relay team JUST DID THAT!  We were even up with the field after the first lap but them Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone took the stick and took off like a shot, opening up a 150 M lead!  We never lost that lead!  Team USA sets a new Olympic Record and wins Gold.  Botswana wins the Silver.  Team GB wins the Bronze.  Wow!  The Jamaicans just stopped running mid-way through leg 2 after they saw Sydney's lead!

Men's 4 x 400M Relay:  When I saw that Rai Benjamin was going to anchor for Team USA in this race, I knew we were going to be okay.  Team USA dominated this race thanks to Benjamin!  Team USA gets the Gold.  The Netherlands took the Silver.  Team GB took the Bronze.

Tomorrow we have the last finals and closing ceremonies.