Author: adroyer

What is Repechage?

The hottest new word in the Olympics is repechage. It is pronounced rep-eh-shazh and it loosely translates in French to “to fish out” or “second chance.” I tried to say it at a brewery and I think the bartender was concerned I lost the ability to speak after a single beer.

From Wikipedia: allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. The Wild Card system in MLB playoffs is a repechage system even though it’s not called that. It’s already been part of Olympic rowing and other sports for years and now track and field is jumping on the bandwagon.

I like it in theory. If you end up with 4 amazing athletes in a prelim race but only the top 3 advance it gives that 4th person a second chance to win an additional race to advance to the next round. It seems like a good compromise because they are penalized for not outright qualifying by having to do that extra race. They won’t be as fresh for the eventual next round while the people who immediately qualified get some time to recover.

But now we have the Freddie Crittenden approach. He is making headlines for jogging his preliminary round in the 110M Hurdles because everyone makes it to the repechage round. He aggravated a muscle in practice and said I’m going to give it a rest for a day and go hard in the repechage.

He did nothing wrong but I think it’s just dramatically different from what we are used to seeing in the prelim rounds that I’m personally having trouble not judging him. And I know I’m a hypocrite because I’m excited for weightlifting to begin where they can skip a weight to give themselves a rest and whenever I see that I think they are being strategic and even mysterious.

But I do think Track should adjust the rules a smidge here in the future. This isn’t 2nd grade gym class where everyone is a winner. This is the Olympics with the motto faster, higher, stronger so I think you should have to earn your second chance. Maybe just two people from each heat make it to the repechage round? And again, not saying Freddie did anything wrong, he made a smart choice within the rules for his situation. But let’s keep at least 1 sport simple and not reinvent the wheel…looking at you 3×3 Basketball.

And adding this that I just saw online and it’s perfect

Swimming Finale

What a way to end the swimming competition at the 2024 Olympics. I did not pay as much attention to swimming as I usually do, giving myself a C- on aquatic coverage but I can celebrate the finale.

I am kind of curious who would win in a Kangaroo VS Bald Eagle battle

What I did pay attention to along the way was the US getting a lot of medals but not a lot of Golds, and the female athletes bringing home the individual gold bacon. I didn’t realize until yesterday that we were in danger of letting Australia win more gold medals than America in swimming for the first time since 1956. But thank goodness for the folks below, who helped us pull ahead with 8 gold medals over Australia’s 7 keeping the streak alive!

BOBBY FINKE

Gold Medal and World Record in the 1,500 meter freestyle. I was trying to find a fun fact about him and only found that he likes Marvel superheroes, pizza, video games and table tennis which can be said for most. But I did find this interesting fact.

Did he invent raw-dogging plane rides? It sounds like he would excel at that, in addition to swimming a Metric Mile the fastest ever in history.

WOMEN’S 4×100 MEDLEY

The women finished out the swimming with a Gold Medal and a world record in the ultimate event!

Regan Smith – Backstroke

Also was looking for fun facts and found something similar to Bobby: “Before the races themselves, I don’t like to listen to anything. I really enjoy feeding off of the crowd instead, but I do love music. I’m all over the place with my music. I think it definitely depends on what I’m feeling. For example, Stranger Things has helped me form an appreciation for 80s music.” What’s up this younger generation of swimmers not using music to hype up? But Stranger Things is still on my watch list so I appreciate that part.

Lilly King – Breaststroke

I’m loving her personal facts on the US Swimming website. Biscuits & Gravy, Pre-Race McDonalds and the X-Files!? Loving it.

Gretchen Walsh – Butterfly

Gretchen had a great games and it was nice that she was physically there for her sister after her difficult disqualification. But watch out, the phenom sisters did an interview earlier this year and showed no mercy for their mother, pushing her into the pool in what I can imagine was a complete sneak attack and not a staged funny photo at all.

we have fun here

Torri Huske – Freestyle

Torri also anchored the mixed 4×100 medley relay that got a world record so she’s been crushing it. I’ve also felt a smidge bad both times because her teammates had time to recover and she kind of rolls out of the pool and needs a well deserved sec and everyone else wants to jump up and down. She also visited Australia at some point and befriended a kangaroo, probably bribed it with snacks to learn the Australian secrets. I’m ok with it since it clearly worked!

Ok swimmers, it’s been fun. I hope you all are partying and sleeping and eating giant croissants or whatever you want to be doing. Turning back into a dolphin and returning to Atlantis? You do you. We’ll see you in the slightly deeper pool in LA2028.

Archery Final

Another post where I wish I was writing about a gold medal instead of a silver, this one for Brady Ellison in Men’s Individual Archery. Brady has the honor of being in one of the physical Olympic scrapbooks from 2008. That year I picked an athlete or team from every sport to follow. See that newspaper cut out of his results? Dedication to crafting.

But here’s Brady today in his 5th Olympics!! He already has 4 Olympic Silver and Bronze medals, won bronze in the mixed team these games and then made it to the gold medal match against Kim Woojin.

would….

They tied after 6 regular rounds and in one of the most amazing finale formats in sports, they go to a single arrow shoot-off. Robin Hood style of whoever gets closest to the middle wins, and I’m assuming gets a parcel of land in the English countryside to lord over. I wish they shot at the same target and could split the other person’s arrow, just like our underappreciated girl Merida from Brave.

Kim shot first and was at the edge of 10 close to 9 leaving a window but Brady landed his in 9. It was close but not enough for the gold. Kim did not let Brady leave without raising their hands together in a delightful show of sportsmanship. That had to be so exciting for both of them, a single arrow shoot-off in a gold medal final.

I also love how the coaches are such a part of the match. The South Korean coach looks like he would be amazing at telling grandchildren funny stories, but always a little bit of magic in it and the kids go “oh grandpa, there weren’t dragons when you were a kid.” The US coach seems a little more quiet, more of an uncle who always does the grilling at family functions to avoid small talk and has a lady friend named Tina who makes a great hot dish.

I hope this isn’t the last time we see Brady Ellison, he’s been such a big part of my Olympic watching journey. So I hope he also has LA2028 circled on his calendar. Archery is a sport where athletes can stay in the game longer than others so fingers crossed!

And with this Silver medal Brady Ellison now has 2 posters in a box, you go Brady Ellison. I bet he could trade one of them for some interesting and rare pins in the Village.

Thoughts on the 100M Final

This one is tough. I think we all wanted Sha’Carri to win. She’s come so far since Tokyo and had some amazing races leading up to the Olympics. But she didn’t look great in the semifinals and she seemed to have a slow start in the finals and couldn’t recover.

It’s also hard to not be happy for Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred. The US currently has 2,629 medals in the history of the Summer Olympics, with 1,061 gold. Saint Lucia now has 1 medal ever and it’s gold. As much as I want us to win every gold ever, this gold medal is going to mean so much to that small, beautiful-looking island and change Julien’s life forever.

And can we talk about Melissa Jefferson for a second? She was also overcome with emotion and so frickin excited to win the Bronze which is a nice reminder that just getting to the podium is such an accomplishment.

So, it wasn’t Sha-Carri’s gold medal day, but it was still a great day and I’m going to ignore the chatter that is already happening on the garbage pit that is the internet. She’s still got the 4×100 relay and I’m sure she’s got LA2028 100M final circled on her calendar already.

Also, love how Adele stopped her concert to show the race in Munich. She’s the best.

Beware the Peloton

I watched an unnecessary amount of the six-hour men’s cycling road race yesterday morning. But that’s the beauty of the Olympics, you turn something on thinking you’ll watch a few minutes, and then suddenly you are two hours in and they still have 87 KM to go and you’re in it to win it. Just like Remco Evenepoel.

The race coverage was split between 3 things:

  • The leader out there doing his thang and maybe a few guys trying to chase him down
  • Beautiful French countryside ariel shots of historic villas, rolling hills and French patriots cheering on the racers
  • THE PELOTON TRYING TO CONSUME ALL

The way the announcers were talking about the Peloton it sounded like an alien blob rolling over the countryside trying to catch the leaders so it could continue to grow and take over the world. Here are some of the more terrifying updates I saw online:

And there were so many spectators! Were they taken by the peloton? Or is it a T-Rex situation and the Peloton only sees people when they are a on bike and moving so people cheering with their feet on the ground are safe?

But we know one person who successfully escaped the Peloton, Remco Evenepoel of Belgium. He almost didn’t escape when his tire went flat with less than 5k to go in front of the Louvre. My favorite part was the announcers saying “he’s probably going to be the only person from the Olympics who doesn’t have fond memories of the Louvre.” Can you imagine announcing a six hour race? I can’t imagine what weird things would come out of my mouth after hour 4.

Paris – France – cycling – cyclisme – radsport – wielrennen – Remco Evenepoel (BEL) pictured during Olympic Games ME – Roadrace Paris – Paris (272.1km) on 03-082024 – Photo: Vincent Kalut/PN/Cor Vos © 2024

But back to Remco, he celebrated escaping the Peloton with a badass picture on the finish line with the Eiffel Tower in the background. I wonder what part of the 6 hours he thought of that idea, did he workshop it for an entire hour in the middle or did it come to him at the very end.

I’m sure either way he was thinking “not today Peloton, not today.”

(but the women’s road race is soon so the female peloton is about to start its rampage, watch out everyone!)

Social Media Dump

Here are some of my favorite social media things I’ve seen recently. Like this video of a football player for Navy finding out his sister won a gold medal!

Have you seen videos about the all the houses the different countries have and all the cool things you can do in them!?

Some hometown humor for Stephen with the glasses.

DOG

And because how could I not….

Yes, his Olympic dreams have ended, but he’s the hottest meme at the moment with what appears to be the largest baguette so….go get em tiger.

Power of the Crystal

So I got a crystal in a mystery bag at an art/antiques barn in Asheville during a brewery canoe tour while wearing a bucket hat, which also sums up my life perfectly. I tried to use it for Sha’Carri and it didn’t fully work but it did work for Katie Ledecky. So maybe it’s a water based crystal?

Jumping on a trend

I’m sad to report I was not selected for the 2024 Olympics.

That’s my sister saying “you made it” immediately before not actually making it

But would like to submit this even older video for consideration because I do feel like this could have been turned into something athletic.

Could I have been the king of Parallel Bars? We’ll never know.