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Saturday, August 10, 2024

Gooooooooooooooooooold!

The US women just won a soccer gold for the first time since 2012. How else should you say it?
  • It's time for the gold medal game for men's basketball, US vs. France or, as I like to call it, NBA All-Stars vs. Victor Wembenyama. We get to watch the last three minutes, and the last three minutes are the Steph Curry show. "Can we say this is the best basketball we've ever seen," says Dwayne Wade? Well, the Dream Team might have something to say about that. Curry scores 12 points in the last three minutes and the US gets gold again.
  • At the pool, for the last Chinese gold in diving in the men's 10m platform. Mayyyyybe. Right now, Tamai Rikuto, the diver from Japan is in the lead. The only Chinese diver who can catch him is Cao Yuan. He does at the end of round three. Yuan in first, Rikuto in second. China's gold is to sweep all seven diving events and this is the last one they need to do that. Japan has never won any Olympic diving medal, so it would be extra bitter for China if Japan was the country that kept them from their sweep. After four rounds, Yuan is only three points ahead.
  • Hey! Dive cam is back! I've been waiting all week for it, and now I've seen it once.
  • Oof. Rikuto makes a giant splash on his fifth dive, so Yuan is now in control. Basically, as long he doesn't belly flop in round six, he's going to win gold and China will get their sweep. Rikuto does well on his last dive, so Japan will get their first diving medal. Only Yuan is left. If he misses it, he needs to immediately ask for asylum. He doesn't. China sweeps.
  • Men's marathon! Through the streets of Paris they go, finishing in front of the Hotel de Ville. Very pretty! Afterwards, the city of Paris kept the marathon route open and let anyone who wanted to run the course. Cool idea!
  • Medal ceremony time! Rai Benjamin gets his gold for the 400m hurdles he won last night. Will he sing? He started to, then stopped. Usually it's the other way around. Wait! He started again! He's finishing strong, just like he did in his race. Fitting.
  • To the track, where hopefully both men's and women's runners on Team USA know how to hold on to batons. But first we start with the men's 800m final. Bryce Hoppel is running for the US. The president of France is here tonight to watch Gabriel Tual, Let's race! Tual is close to the front after the first lap. The crowd is going wild! Bryce needs a kick at the end. I don't think he has it. Neither does Tual. Hoppel finishes fourth. Emmanuel Wanyonyi wins, marking the fifth gold medal in a row in this event for Kenya.
  • To the field for the men's high jump, where American Shelby McEwen jumps. He's in fourth, but still in contention.
  • The men's 5000m is next, and our favorite trash talker, Jacob Ingebrigtsen of Norway is back. There are two Americans in this race with Grant Fisher being the one most likely to get a medal. At 12 laps, this race will take a while. Will NBC show us the whole thing? Nope! Right as I type that there's a commercial break and when we come back we only have five laps to go. Fisher and Ingebrigtsen are right next to each other in the from part of the pack. Now with four laps to go, I'll note that my spellchecker really doesn't like the name Ingebrigtsen. I have red squiggles all over the page. Two laps to go! Fisher in third, Ingebrigtsen in fifth, and two Ethiopians in the lead. Now three Ethiopians in the lead and Ingebrigtsen makes his move! One lap to go! Fisher is gassed and dropping back. Half a lap left and Ingebrigtsen moves into first and opens up a giant gap on the pack. He's going to win gold. But look! Fisher comes out of nowhere and passes three people in the home stretch and ekes out a bronze. Kenya's xx xx wins silver, and the three Ethiopians who led just one lap ago all finish out of the medals. That was a crazy ending. Lewis asks Grant about the ending. He said he didn't have a kick on the back stretch when he was in eighth, but he was concentrating on being patient and then something opened up. Mike lets us know that the 5k and 10k have been run in the Olympics since 1912 but the US only has 10 medals in those two events. Grant now has two of those 10. Impressive.
  • Today in Paris! America's Nelly Korda finished tied for 22nd in golf. What kind of medal do you get for 22nd? Women's water polo lost the bronze medal match to the Netherlands. In men's volleyball France beat Poland for the gold. In gymnastics, Jordan Chiles might have lost her bronze medal. Remember that official challenge she made in her floor exercise that resulted in Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu getting knocked off the podium? Wellllll… that challenge might have been made four seconds too late. Seems like that should have been resolved then before it deprived someone of the medal ceremony, but maybe that’s just me.
  • Fluff for… Faith Kipyegon of Kenya? That's different. She has a daughter who she wants to work for to make a bright future. She wants to be the first person to win three golds in the women's 1500m. She trains with Eliud Kipchoge, the famous Kenya marathoner who withdrew earlier today from the men's marathon. They're a training family! Awwww. Fluff.
  • Nikki Hiltz and Elle St. Pierre will be the Americans trying to keep Faith from winning the 1500m tonight. They're off! The first three laps are uneventful, just like every endurance race. Last lap! Kipyegon moves to first!. St. Pierre in third. On the final turn, Elle is out, fading fast. But Faith is breaking away from the pack and gets her third gold medal in Olympic record time.
  • Back to high jump! Shelby McEwen jumps his personal best and takes the lead. But Hamish Kerr of New Zealand matches him. Shelby misses three times at 7 feet, 9 3/4 inches, so if Hamish makes it, the Kiwi wins gold. He misses, not even attempting to jump. So now they'll go to a jump off. Sounds dangerous.
  • But first we race the women's 100m hurdles final. Masai Russell, Alaysha Johnson, and Grace Stark are running for Team USA. This is a fast race. Let's go! Oh no! Johnson hits the third hurdle so she's out. Photo finish! Masai Russell wins gold! France's Cyrena Samba-Mayela for silver! Lewis is talking to Masai afterwards. She's very excited. She should be! She just won a gold medal!
  • It's Event of the Night time, and we're all about relays. First up, the men's 4x400m. Let's hope Team USA has been practicing baton passes all day. Rai Benjamin is the anchor leg, so we know they'll finish fast. Let's go! Good first pass for the US and the Americans are in third place. Good second pass by Vernon Norwood and Bryce Frederich takes off! He passes to Rai Benjamin at the same time Botswana passes to Letsile Tebogo. Wow! What a race! Benjamin and Tebogo are neck and neck all the way around the track, but every time Tebogo tried to make a move, Rai fought him off. Olympic record for the US as they win gold.
  • Are you hyped yet? Let's bring you down with the last jump of the high jump. Shelby missed all of his jumps and Hamish made the only one we saw. Why couldn't NBC have shown both? That would have been better.
  • Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old speedster who ran the slow first leg in the 4x400m relay yesterday, is still officially part of the team, so even though he watched tonight, he still gets a gold medal. That will be cool on his first day of school in two weeks.
  • Now it's the women's turn for relay gold in the 4x400m. Team USA should be the favorite, but Femke Bol of Netherlands is in this race, so you never know what will happen. This is the last race of the Olympics. Let's make it a good one! Go! Team USA makes the first baton pass perfectly to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. She's destroying the competition. She hands it to Gabby Thomas and she has… I'm guessing… a 20 meter lead? Alexis Holmes gets the final baton and is so far ahead i could probably win it. Team USA wins by… not a mile, since that's how long this race is… but figuratively a mile. They set an American record. Femke Bol does indeed race fast for the Netherlands and they get silver. There was more difference between the US and second place (4 seconds) than there was between 2nd and 8th place (3 seconds).
  • How about some women's soccer? The US faces Brazil for the gold medal. We watch the last few minutes of extra time. The US leads 1-0. The American goalie makes a great save. Brazil elbows an American in the head. Classy. Now the US is just stalling, running out the clock. And it works! US wins gold! Tom Cruise applauds! US Coach Emma Hayes is teary.
  • Finally! Breaking! Haven't you been waiting anxiously for this moment? It's the bronze medal battle between America's Victor and Japan's Shigekix. I like that all of the judges are wearing hats and shades. Of course they are. I guess this isn't any sillier than floor exercise. I take that back. It totally is. But whatever. The announcers are into it, and the way the robotic camera moves around the circular stage makes it look cool. But c'mon. Is this really an Olympic-level sport? I think that's dubious. Regardless, Victor wins bronze. The medals winners are Phil Wizard (gold, Canada), Dany Dann (silver, France) and Victor (bronze, USA). Are these even their real names? It's just odd.
  • Postgame interviews for Team USA basketball. Steph is happy. So is Steve Kerr. So is LeBron. They all get a medal ceremony! Will they sing? Yes! Well, Steph does, anyway. Not LeBron or Kevin Durant or anyone else I see. So yay for Stephen Curry!
  • What's in the box? If you've been watching, when the athletes get their medals they also get a box. The box holds an official poster of the Paris Olympics. Then Mike tells us about the rewards that other medalists get from their home countries. Among the odder things, Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo will get free colonoscopies for life. I mean, I guess it’s a practical gift.
  • One more medal ceremony, this time for the US women's soccer team. Do they sing? Yes! All of them! Way to go ladies! Teach the basketball team how to do it!

There were fewer ads and less fluff tonight than in any Olympic broadcast... maybe ever? At least this year, and maybe since I've been documenting. That plus all the American gold made it a lot of fun to watch tonight. NBC should keep doing that! Oh yeah, it all ends tomorrow. Oh well. See you tomorrow for the end, the Closing Ceremonies, and all the weirdness that entails.

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