Most changes to the Olympic games because of COVID are necessary but unfortunate and really take away from the athlete and viewer experience. Take the small or nonexistent live audience for example, it’s odd for us watching on TV but it has to be downright eerie and disappointing for the competitors. Watching a high jumper try to get the 50 socially distanced coaches in the stadium to do a slow clap is the same awkward level as when you are waiting for a subway on the platform with 2 other people and realize the guy playing a guitar finished a song and you are the only one without headphones so are going to have to give a golf clap and hope the next train arrives soon.

And I don’t think I even have to go into the number of unused condoms because of COVID….they have about 48 hours from the time their event ends and the time they have to leave the country. I’m sure some will still be used, and I really hope there are the “band kids” of the Olympics like Archery or Trampoline who just go for it, but all of these athletes are being deprived of a very well earned chance to celebrate and party together.

BUT, one thing that has changed that I think is better than before are the medal ceremonies for any team events. Watching the athletes put the medals on each other is so much more touching and meaningful and often funny than it could ever be by some stuffy official. I’m not sure who started it, I saw it first during a rowing medal ceremony, but I think they should be allowed to continue that well into the future.

Also, there have got to be some gold medal athletes that are grateful for the mask during their national anthem. I feel like all of them have had this type of conversation in their head in the past:

am I supposed to sing along, will I look unpatriotic if I don’t sing?

but what if I mess up a word, the internet would notice so fast and I don’t feel like defending myself on Twitter

maybe I’ll just move my mouth along to the last line and hope the other medalists don’t notice I’m not saying any words

shit, people are clapping, it’s already over? well, hopefully I looked like I was holding back tears of joy and not trying to remember the lyrics

now that I’ve got my medal, where are those free condoms again?

You need to watch a full, un-edited weightlifting final. The 2 minute replays during primetime coverage don’t do it justice. I’m currently watching the Women’s 76kg final. USA’s Katherine Nye is going for a medal.

What makes watching the full competition exciting is the fact the format is similar to high jump and pole vault where the athletes pick what height/weight they want to enter the competition. They only get 3 lifts total in the Snatch and 3 in the Clean & Jerk so there is a surprising amount of math, tactics and drama involved. Especially when someone enters at a higher weight and they miss their first 2 lifts and have to decide to try that weight again or buy themselves some more recovery time and go for the next highest weight all while worrying about not making any lifts and being eliminated from the competition all together!! Gets your heart going.

Obviously not as much as the athletes themselves who seem to be in constant danger of blacking out and blowing out their knees and elbows and then in danger of dropping hundreds of pounds of metal on their heads. Pretty casual sport overall….

Back to the current competition, Kate Nye wins Silver!!! She is only the fourth American woman to win a weightlifting medal. She did great and just looked so proud after the competition ended.

Also, the gold medal winner Neisi Dajomes from Ecuador bringing some style to weightlifting and the first ever medal for Ecuador in the sport.

What you should watch

You should cheer on USA’s Wesley Kitts in the 109kg category on Tuesday morning starting at 6:50am. It will be a couple of hours but just put it on the background as you start your day.

Or just watch the replay of USA’s Harrison Maurus getting fourth last week since he kind of looks like Aquaman.

My sincere apologies for ghosting this blog during the first week of the Olympic Games. I was on family vacation and while we watched a lot of Olympics the lake house had a lot of rules. You can see from the signs below that there was absolutely no time left over for updates after all of the other things I had to be doing. I had to chill, I had to laugh often, I had to make sure there were always wet towels, I had camp fires to make and I had to constantly be on the look out for Wimpy’s Hamburger Stand (never found it).

And worst of all? What happened at the Lake had to stay at the lake. So if I blogged at the Lake it would have disappeared when I left anyway.

But do you know something that isn’t going to stay at the lake that I’m incredibly proud of and is more important than blog updates? Getting my nephews into the Olympics. I answered HUNDREDS of questions from them about all the sports, all the countries, all the medals and all the athletes. We watched the traditional sports like swimming, gymnastics, soccer and softball but also the unique ones like badminton, handball and archery. And they LOVED IT.

There is also still time for the youngest nephew to pick a niche sport in America like Modern Pentathlon and get me in one of those amazing family reaction videos.

So, I’m back in Boston and will be playing some catchup. I’ll do my best. Just like all our athletes.

when the preworkout kicks in #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/xkU7zyF0gG

— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) July 26, 2021

But will fully admit I’m doing nothing on this blog right now since I’m on family vacation and I don’t have 8 hours of “work” to do “business things” like writing blog posts. I’m going to try to get back into it this week but it might have to be a lot of recaps from week 1 followed by intense coverage of week 2. Sorry in advance.

Before I write anything…..big congrats to 20 year old Jagger Eaton from Meza, Arizona for getting the bronze medal in this inaugural competition.

But to summarize my thoughts:

There has always been disparity in the perceived athleticism between competitors of different events in the Olympics. If you watched….let’s say…..archery or shooting and then the 145 mile bike race from day 1 you will know what I mean. This event was definitely in the former category for me.

“That was kinda cool, I guess, but why are so many people falling?” was a frequent thought in my head watching this competition and I wish I left thinking “wow, that’s awesome, great addition to the Olympics”. That might happen more with the other skateboarding event in the abandoned pool (park) but why were their runs only 45 seconds long, why did so many people end up with “0”s on individual tricks and should any summer Olympic event involve so many airpods and cargo pants?

Maybe the announcers needed to explain things more along the way, like what makes certain tricks hard to do. Maybe 45 seconds is an incredibly long time in the world of street skateboarding, but it sure makes it hard for a casual viewer to get into it and appreciate it. Maybe they should just make the park smaller so it doesn’t look like they should be using more of it when they all seemed to stay in the middle?

Convince me otherwise but I’m going to say just watch the 5 minute recap of this event and call it a day.

But to end on a positive note…10/10 in style points for Jagger Eaton’s outfit.

Live blog. I watched 2 hours of rowing instead of the live coverage of the opening ceremonies this morning so here we go!

Overall Thoughts

It seems the media consensus is the Olympic Ceremonies were muted and dull. I’m going to take a slightly different take. They were definitely simpler than what we’ve seen from the last 2 decades and I think we need to make that ok. Fewer countries are even considering hosting the games as costs skyrocket and expectations become unrealistic. For the sake of the future of the Olympics let’s make this the standard instead of Beijing’s opening ceremonies. Got to start cutting costs somewhere.

That being said, I do think Japan got a little too in their heads for this one. I bet everything had meaning and significance but maybe make it a little more accessible to the rest of the world so we can leave the ceremonies more appreciative of your culture and approach to the games? Most of it felt like a contemporary art gallery….you kind of nod along to not look “uncultured” but immediately forget all about it because you had no idea what it was.

Cauldron Lighting

I did know about Naomi Osaka getting to light the cauldron in advance but it was still awesome to see. She is an amazing athlete while also trying to start much-needed conversations about mental health so it’s great that Japan is celebrating her for everything that she is doing right now.

Drones

This was probably the most impressive part of the ceremonies in terms of being something new and a “wow”. It took me a little while to figure out what was happening but I am excited to see the future of drone sky formations….when will we have the first proposal or the first giant middle finger ruining a day at the beach? Only time will tell.

Pictogram Dudes

This was fun and a highlight for me. Really cool concept….execution was only an 8/10 but it’s like an Ok Go video for the Olympics!

Team USA Olympic Outfits

I like them from the standpoint that I’m pretty sure I could put together that outfit from things currently in my closet. But is this the best we can do to represent USA as a country? I would like to say no, we aren’t all permanently trying to sneak aboard a yacht. Needs some pieces of flare at least.

Sue Bird & Eddy Alvarez as Flagbearers

Sue Bird is just an icon so perfect as the veteran flagbearer. I am embarrassed to say I didn’t know about Eddy until now. Short Track Speed Skating medalist and then just casually goes to an MLB career. Definitely deserves to carry that flag as well.

Now 2 Shirtless Flag Bearers

Just because….and big day for Mac from It’s Always Sunny and greasing up dudes.

Random Thoughts While I Watched Live:

• These people don’t know how to use exercise equipment properly
• This is the largest DDR game I’ve ever seen
• Is this rope portion of the ceremony a team building exercise for the staff?
• From J & L about the Japanese singer in the white rainbow dress: This is some hunger games sh*t, she looks like she is from the capital
• These ceremonies are spookier than I expected overall so far
• Carpentry has never been as exciting as this….so hot right now
• Tap dance is definitely a surprise that I would not have guessed in advance
• I feel like the song playing while the lanterns are being brought out would be good for a movie soundtrack as a character decides to chose love over career and get on the train
• Argentina is here to PARTY
• I totally get having 2 flagbearers but they should really just take turns and not try to hold it together….
• Italy’s outfits kind of look like they came from a giant twister board
• UKRAINE HAS NEON YELLOW FANNYPACKS!!!!
• Even with reduced participants in the Parade of Nations this is taking forever
• BUT I still have a life goal of being one of the people that claps for 3 hours straight along the parade of nations route

Every Olympics has a unique slate of sports where medals are given. Changes are made as different sports become more or less popular around the world (I guess Modern Pentathlon is thriving somewhere…). And in recent years, there has also been a much needed equalization of events for women to match the number available for men.

I think the brand new sports for the Tokyo Olympics are an X-TREME attempt to get younger and hip fans. And the 2 returning sports as the complete opposite. Below you will find some tidbits of info about the new sports, my takes accompanied by a classic 90s-ish movie gif & a personal excitement level.

SKATEBOARDING

Tony Hawk approves, he’s not competing but he is bringing the hype and did some tricks in the skatepark with the competitors. They will be doing ollies and flipkicks in Street and Park events and be given scores based on difficulty and execution. The Street course has more stairs and railings like a city park and the Park course is more like a funky empty pool. I get they are trying to get a younger audience but I’m just not sure this is going to achieve those goals like the Winter Games has been able to do. It does validate a sport that has a history of being seen as a menace to railings everywhere so I’m fine with it joining but just not sure this is the future of the summer games.

Royer’s Excitement for Skateboarding: 6/10

Karate

I honestly don’t know why this wasn’t a sport until now when Taekwondo and Judo seem to be going strong. Karate originated on islands that eventually became part of Japan so it is very fitting they debut at the Tokyo Games. They have a traditional 1:1 match format but then also a demonstration of skills versus a virtual opponent….kind of like the training they do in Hunger Games perhaps? I have no clue, we can find out together.

Royer’s Excitement for Karate: 6/10

Surfing

Disclosure: I just finished a memoir about a surfer so I’m possible biased at the moment but I’m pretty jazzed for this. And yes, I know everything I wrote about skateboarding could be said about surfing, and more considering they are relying on the ocean to behave. They better hope the heart of the Tafiti isn’t missing making the ocean extra sassy.

Royer’s Excitement for Surfing: 7/10

Sport Climbing

Another Disclosure: I just went rock climbing for the first time ever (thanks Jesse) so I’m jazzed for this as well. But have you watched this yet? The speed climbing event is WILD, it’s like Spiderman in real life. And there is some DRAMA with the format. In most competitions climbers compete separately in Speed, Bouldering and Lead because they are very different events requiring different skills. But for the Olympics they have to do all 3 and overall results decide a single gold, silver and bronze medal. It will be interesting to see what happens with this competition, how the sport climbing community responds and if they make it back to another Olympics based on what happens here.

Royer’s Excitement for Sport Climbing: 8/10

Softball/Baseball

This is actually a return to the games for Softball and Baseball. Their entry and exit and re-entry is a fascinating slice of Olympic history. For softball, America was one of the primary reasons it got into the Olympics in 1996….and then the primary reason it took a quick exit after 2008. We were too good and created a competitive imbalance that was bad for the Olympics. Baseball is challenged by timing, it’s in the middle of the MLB season, so the IOC has cited the lack of the best players as a reason to remove it along with softball. This is a big moment for softball as one of the only opportunities to get true global coverage and attention. My mom also loves softball so I’m hoping for a competitive and exciting tournament to give it a chance of staying in the games in the future.

Royer’s Excitement for Softball/Baseball: 9/10

In Conclusion

It’s a very interesting slate of new sports for the Olympics that I think matches the spirit and culture of Japan. Is this the start of the X-Games-ification of the Summer Olympics? Is this going to inspire me to take up skateboarding? Will Cobra Kai get 12 more seasons because of the Olympics? Only time will tell.

It’s 6:21 a.m. and I’m watching Côte d’Ivoire defeat Saudi Arabia in a soccer game. That can only mean 1 thing…..OLYMPICS TIME.

I know I’m very behind but it was hard to finally sit down and start the blog up again. The news surrounding the games hasn’t been great. There are already athletes with COVID, athletes being denied the games for stupid reasons (burritos and bongs), a Paralympic athlete being denied a personal care assistant and threats of the games being cancelled all together at any moment. I didn’t want to let myself get excited and then disappointed but duty calls. And by duty I mean the 1 person that asked me if I had moved my blog to another location because there was no 2021 coverage yet. You know who you are…thank you.

SO….here I am, suddenly caring about soccer (even though I completely ignored EURO and Copa) yelling at Aboubacar Doumbia for getting a red card in the 5th minute of stoppage time when his team have basically won.

Join me on this upcoming wild ride that will be the 2020 TOKYO OLYMPICS.

My last live blog of the games. I’m excited because I’ve got stronger chances of staying awake for these ceremonies. No promises. I’m going to let everything digest a few days and come back later this week for a wrap-up and favorite moments but solid games. I’ve had a blast but I’m beat. I need to go back to sleeping more than 5 hours a night and waking up at 5:00 to start watching live coverage.

Does anyone else get a little emotional/motivated to do more with your life when the Toyota Super Bowl ad comes on?

It begins!

-Intro had a lot of colors, was kinda fun. Took me a little while to figure out they were all on roller skates but I’m picking up on things.

-I’m really digging these Geomungos. And the light pagoda. And this 13 year old shredding the guitar. Great start.

 

I also really like this turtle surrounded by colorful confetti. I want a turtle to carry my memories into the sky.

 

The games are technically over now because the closing ceremonies are finishing up. I’ll blog those later but wanted to throw out a couple random things that you need to see that have happened in the last 48 hours or so that luckily don’t need much explanation.

A squirrel tried to make snowboarding even more exciting by incorporating daredevil feats into downhill runs. He luckily did survive but it begs the question of what would have happened if there was impact? Do they start the race over for outside interference? Would it start a squirrel war against the Olympics?

Javier Fernandez crushed his Olympic “fun skate” hamming it up and winning over the audience. Just watch it, he’s wearing short shorts and does pushups, it’s worth it.

Wacky and weird moments from the games. NBC put together a delightful little video of all the random moments they caught on film. I also found what I would probably look like on the jumbotron if I ever went to the Olympic games…