In high school, Ledecky’s team won the club championship, and also set the record for the high school girls medley relay. The person who swam breast stroke on that record setting relay team was Schuyler Bailar, who later became the first openly trans NCAA swimmer. He dropped 4 seconds on his 100 breast time after transitioning (testosterone works!), which strongly suggests that he was not on PEDs while competing very successfully as Ledecky’s teammate.
I predict Dana Rettke will become a breakout star and household name from this olympic games. The star middle blocker on the US Women’s volleyball team, she is tall, pretty, and a dominating player on a team that should be a gold medal favorite.
Aussie swim trials so far: Titmus put up a 3:55.44 in the 400m, 2nd fastest to her WR of 3:55.38. McKeown went 57.41 in the 100 back, 2nd fastest to her WR of 57.33. Reigning silver medalist Anderson from last year’s world championships set a PR in the 100 back and missed the team b/c O’Callaghan became the 4th woman ever under 58 seconds.
Last Sunday, on Last Week Tonight there was a story about how polluted the river Seine is in Paris - where olympic events will be held. It’s basically a sewer line, but the Paris mayor said she would swim in it on June 30th to show how “cleaned up” it has become. So there is a website dedicated to when and where people can “drop a duece” up river so that the floaters get down to Paris on June 30th.
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There is a new Netflix film called Under Paris that has sharks in the Seine during a triathlon. Haven’t seen it yet.
Mollie O’Callaghan’s race strategy in the 200m:
- Enter race as WR holder.
- Swim faster than previous WR (1:52.48 vs 1:52.85).
- Look up to see that Titmus won the race (1:52.23).
I think she may need to change step 3 in Paris.
Summer McIntosh is barely on anyone’s radar but she may clean up in the Women’s IM events. She is only 17 so will have many opportunities for gold.
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This was a surprise. I bet the tickets for Olympic doubles tennis just went up by a factor of three
mininum.
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16 year old Quincy Wilson finished 6th in the 400m at the US Track and Field Trials. May still get a relay spot, set the U18 WR. Said afterwards “I can’t go back and be disappointed because at the end of the day, I’m 16, running grown man times”
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The NBC broadcast mentioned her name a few times as one to watch out for in Pairs and beyond.
My brother in law made the screen 2-3 times during the trials. He was Allie Wilson’s college coach and was down at the finish line. She ran over to him after both the semi final and finals. It was a great race.
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I read that a few countries plan to bring in their own A/C equipment to the village for their athletes (as A/C is not very green so organizers are going without).
Biles has gotten so good at her crazy vault that her coach has agreed not to spot her (a 0.5 point automatic deduction). She landed it with a hop (-0.3 points) at the gymnastics trials, scoring 15.975, over a full point higher than anyone else’s score on the vault, and I believe higher than anyone else’s start value.
She leads by 2.5 points after day 1. By comparison, the gap between 2nd and 5th place is less than 1 point. Every article about the night talks about how bad her beam routine was (she stumbled). It was 3rd.
Talk about a GOAT. Still beating everyone in a sport where most athletes peak 10 years younger.
Can’t think of an equivalent feat. Nicklaus at The Masters comes to mind, but that was a one-shot.
Some old tennis player, maybe.
I look forward to watching Biles.
As for doping … 30 years ago friend had a cousin who was a serious enough weightlifter that he completed with the top ones in the US. He said all the top weight lifters used steroids, except for one, and everyone knew it. And they knew the one guy didn’t, because he did a little better in the top competitions, where he was presumably more excited, and every other weight lifter did a little worse, because they had gone off their drugs for a couple days to pass the drug test.
I can’t imagine that drug use is less prevalent today.
Guessing the drug use is a lot more legal, or a lot more untraceable.
WTF, seriously? 90s is common in the summer and 100 is not all that unusual any more. I can’t imagine most American athletes tolerating that.
Hezyl Rivera was 5 when Simone won her first Olympic gold.