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?

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

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

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I need that croissant real bad.

Women’s Gymnastics All Around

Don’t have much to add here from what you’ve probably already seen or read. So happy to see Simone complete the redemption tour from Tokyo. I really enjoyed watching Rebecca Andrade and happy to see her get silver. And of course Suni Lee, so exciting she came back after all her health challenges to win another medal in the all around competition. They showed so many pictures of her sitting on the sidelines at Auburn with her feet elevated that I’m hoping pictures like the one below will wipe out all the other ones.

Men’s 20km Race Walk

Race Walk continues to be such a fascinating sport. If you watched the full broadcast you probably also saw a lot of close-up, slow motion thigh action which was a very interesting choice. And I feel like it actively showed everyone have a little bit of airtime. But I wanted to celebrate the gold medalist, Brian Daniel Pintado Álvarez of Ecuador, for his fashionable finish line lewk. Bringing back ascots to the Olympic games, love it.

Here is the next viral Olympic star of the games. A raw-dogging (hehe) shooter from Turkey who won silver in the mixed team competition. I was alerted to him by my Olympic correspondents from Gettysburg College, shout-out Professor Bloy’s freshman year seminar.

I found his Instagram and before we all assume he’s an assassin I want to show some other sides to Mr. Dikec.

He’s a world traveler!

He’s a craftsman!

He’s an animal lover!

And if you ever see him lurking in the shadows at night after you questioned his silver medalist partner’s honor within the past week, I’m sorry, but it’s probably already too late.

If you need a little morning pick me up/danger of crying yourself moment head over to Men’s Rowing. The US Men won the first gold medal in the 4-man boat in over 60 years.

It was a close race with a moment in the second half where it felt like New Zealand was gaining momentum but our guys found another gear and surged ahead and won in dominant fashion. They will probably show this during primetime tonight but if you go to the full replay below and head to the very end for the medal ceremony. One of the guys got a little emotional when he received his medal and then I almost got a little emotional on the train right when the conductor was asking for my ticket and I’m pretty sure he was worried about me.

https://stream.nbcolympics.com/rowing-four-finals-and-more

Have you watched a ceremony and thought, what are the extras from Legend of Bagger Vance carrying? I wonder what super cool and rare thing is in the box they give out to winners after the medal.

It’s a poster with a diver on it. You can buy it for $37 online. I’m not saying I’m not going to buy it after the Olympics are over and everything goes on sale but really France? You didn’t want to spend more than $40 on the medalists? I know you are all about sustainability and green Olympics but maybe we didn’t need that mechanical horse running the Seine and you could have used that budget line to get the athletes something a little more unique?

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The E. Coli levels went down so while it could have been fun to watch the first ever Duathlon, I’m happy the athletes got to compete in a full triathlon since that’s what they trained for and all. I didn’t wake up at 1 am to watch the women’s but saw that Cassandra Beaugrand of France won. I feel like France is having a great games. Home soil and bacteria advantage really is a thing.

I did watch the men’s race at 4:00am because I’ve adjusted my sleep schedule to French time because I’m slightly unhinged. One of my favorite parts is how after the swim they made them run up a bunch of historic stairs to get to their bikes. And not normal stairs, the awkward height and length ones that you never know how to do best.

The headlines are that Yee from the UK “dropped the hammer” to surge past Wilde from New Zealand in the very end of the run. The announcers were making it sound like Wilde winning was a done deal and what Yee did was unbelievable. But I’m going to say the announcers got distracted or they also watching the same footage as spectators could see that did make it seem like he was alone. But I’m pretty sure Yee and the third place guy both were steadily gaining ground and no one noticed. Dangers of working remote.

And in other Triathlon stories, a US athlete is making news because of his interesting approach to preparing for the dirty river swim.

He ended up 29 out of 50 but was the first American across the line so I feel like results are inconclusive if that was an effective preparation technique. Hope he gave his Olympic roommate Morgan Pearson a heads up about not washing his hands. This People Magazine article about them says there is a lot of reading going on in their room, including an adult fantasy series about dragon riding!!! Hand washing should be mandatory for sharing that book at least.

Ok, we are cleaning up on Silver and Bronze, which is great, but can we start getting some more gold medals? I am going full-on lazy spectator judging elite athletes from their couch mode here, but seriously, can some folks start winning some golds to bump us up a bit? Looking at the swimmers especially.

But I would also like to celebrate someone who is the only athlete from their country to have a medal so far. USA always has an abundance of medals with many of the individual athletes getting lost in the shuffle, but do you know who isn’t lost in the shuffle in Slovakia? Matej Beňuš. He won bronze in the Canoe Slalom. Nice work Matej.

Also, don’t mess with his Olympic squad. Can’t decide if I like their shirts or not but they definitely mean business…or party? The longer I stare the more confused I get. Maybe that’s the point, confuse the competition.