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Best, Worst and Funniest of the Olympics so far
The Olympics are well underway and there has been plenty of action including the kick off which featured controversy when the opening ceremony included a pretty weird recreation of Leonardo DaVinici’s ‘The Last Supper.’ In the live show and the American rebroadcast, The Last Supper recreation was very unclear and it looked more like a weird fashion show than anything else. But in stills, fans felt like Jesus being depicted by a woman and the disciples largely depicted by drag queens was disrespectful to the Christian faith. The ordeal was made even more bizarre by the addition of a blue man with sort of exposed genitals.
But the opening ceremony was only a small moment in a long week of sporting mastery and weird fun. Here are the best, worst and funniest moments from the first weekend of the 2024 Olympics:
Best: Team USA and Simone Biles take Gymnastics gold plus Suni Lee bronze
Team USA’s Women took home the team gold and Simone Biles clinched her second ‘All-Around’ gold with Suni Lee right behind her with an ‘All-Around’ bronze. Team USA’s gymnasts have shown total dominance throughout the entire contest winning their medals by huge margins. Simone Biles in particular was unbeatable and became the first US woman to ever win two ‘All-Around’ gold medals. Suni Lee is the first to win back-to-back ‘All-Around’ medals of any kind (she won the gold in Tokyo). Team USA has won six consecutive ‘All-Around’ gold medals.
Worst: Canada was caught cheating at soccer
The Canadian women’s soccer team coach, Bev Priestman, admitted to illegally using a drone to spy on other team’s practice sessions at the Olympics. The coach agreed to sit out their first match but ultimately was banned from the games and for one competitive year by FIFA. The Canadian team is being penalized ‘6 points’ which somehow did not disqualify them and against all odds and fairness, Canada has advanced to the quarter finals.
Funniest: Bob the cap catcher
There is a guy, allegedly named ‘Bob’ (unclear if this is true), at the Olympics whose job is to jump into the pool and retrieve caps that have been lost in a previous race. This man who had the rare occasion to retrieve a cap in one of the races has won the hearts of us all.
Best: Team USA faced off in the women’s fencing finals, guaranteeing silver and gold
Team USA fencing could not be FOILED (heyo). The women’s team also took home gold in fencing.
Worst: Devastating fall from Jade Carey in USA Gymnastics
Jade Carey was the favorite for the floor apparatus and suffered a catastrophic fall during her routine. She is physically okay and qualified for finals in vault anyway but it was a blow to team USA to see her go down.
Best: Caleb Dressel’s emotional win in front of his baby son
Caleb Dressel and team USA won Gold in the four man 100m relay and if that wasn’t enough, Caleb Dressel did it in front of his new born baby boy and united with him after the victory in a tearfilled moment that left not a dry eye at home on the couch.
Funniest: Snoop Dog was everywhere
Caleb Dressel’s son was actually fast asleep in headphones but mom and Team USA escort/mascot/biggest fan, Snoop Sog, was there the entire time to cheer him on. Snoop was everywhere for team USA including carrying the torch, watching tennis with Billie Jean King, and doing interviews with Hoda Kotb.
Funniest: Colin Jost was the correspondent for surfing
Surfing is taking place thousands of miles away from Paris in Tahiti which is French Polynesia. For reasons we as viewers can only be grateful for, NBC decided to take a mirthful approach to surfing coverage by sending SNL alum, Colin Jost who clad in a tropical shirt did nothing but make jokes and hang loose. Phenomenal programming truly as Team USA dominated with Caroline Marks and John John Florence leading going into the finals.
Best: First Team USA Women’s Rugby medal in history
Team USA’s Rugby Sevens women (including the incomparable Ilona Maher) took home bronze for the first ever Team USA medal in the sport. The winning play was an incredible run as the clock ran out on play. Following their victory, a major investor has endowed $4 million to invest and improve the program.
Funniest: There is apparently a thriving pin exchange occurring in the Olympic village
Ilona Maher posted on social media that she was excited to exchange custom pins with Simone Biles which lead to the discovery that the pin trade at the Olympic Village is alive and well as it is at many conventions and popular destinations like Disney World. Snoop Dog has his own pin, as did others. This practice of athletes, fans and nations trading pins has been going on for decades.
Best: Novac Djokovich is advancing tennis
The serbian tennis champion, Novac Djokovich, is well known for his opposition to vaccine mandates and to his victory over them during the COVID-19 global meltdown. Much to the chagrin of the leftist hegemony, refusing the vaccine has done nothing to hurt Djokovich’s career and he is cruising through the Olympic tennis match ups and he’s on to the quarterfinals. He made a show of his cross necklace after winning a tough set. Love to see it be Djokovich if not Team USA.
Worst: Team USA isn’t winning in gold medals, YET
Early this week, Team USA was winning the overall medal count but losing pretty badly in the gold tally. Finally on Thursday as the Women’s gymnasts started dominating and the swimming program hit their stride, Team USA surged up to second in the gold medal standings (from fifth). China is still in the lead with their 11 golds but Team USA is expected to achieve several more golds before all is said and done so the race to the tippy top best of best is still on.
Funniest: One of the elite women gymnasts looked exactly like a Disney character
Italy’s top gymnast, Manila Esposito, had a striking resemblance to Louisa Madrigal from Disney’s Encanto. Louisa was known in her family for being strong which makes a perfect parallel with elite athlete, Manila.
Best: Amazing goalie goal from Team USA Water Polo
Team USA Water Polo goalie, Adrian Weinberg, made an extremely rare goal from the goalie box across the entire pool. Despite his incredible score, Team USA did not win their game and is not advancing in competition. But what an amazing moment for Adrian and Team USA.
Worst: Women’s boxing may have featured unfair advantages and safety concerns due to allowance of contestants who are not fully female
Algerian competitor, Imane Khelif, has been banned from other international boxing competition due to failing gender qualifying tests from the presence of male chromosomes. Khelif is not transgendered that anyone is aware of (and being so would be illegal in Algeria) but may have a condition where she was born with male chromosomes but other female body parts. Her status as a woman is unclear except for that international bodies have said she has male chromosomes. Another boxer, Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, failed the same test due to chromosomes and is also banned from other international competition but will be appearing in the Olympics.
The information about the failed gender testing is still pretty unclear because the International Olympic Committee and the International Boxing Association (who previously banned Khelif and Yu-Ting) severed ties a few years ago and have massive beef. So there is very little transparency from either organization about what is true. Which is definitely a big part of the problem.
While the issue of trans athletes is perhaps more egregious due to the choice of transition, the protection of fairness and safety in women’s sports requires that athletes who are biologically male and have an unfair advantage do not compete.
Funniest: Cayman Island Crooks
The Cayman Island team only had two swimmers, siblings named Crooks. Considering the Cayman Islands reputation for harboring financial criminals and hiding money, the pair seem particularly aptly named, all though, they are likely quite nice people.
Those are the big highlights so far! Let’s see what else Team USA can do this week.
