The Paris Olympics

The 2024 Summer Olympics, or to be technical, the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad of the Modern Era, came to a close in Paris yesterday, and you can most certainly say that they were one terrific show.  

First of all, can any city in the world top Paris for sheer breathtaking beauty?  Credit the Paris Organizers for taking full advantage of the amazing backdrop that is Paris.

Secondly, NBC and it's various platforms did one tremendous job in covering the Games, and in Mike Tirico, they had a great host for the show.  Having the Peacock streaming app made it possible to see just about every event that you wanted to see, and see it LIVE as it was happening.  It made the five-hours-ahead time zone difference nonexistent.  Of course, being retired and being able to stay home all day and watch, helps out, too.

And while on the subject of NBC, I got a huge kick out of swimming announcer Rowdy Gaines and track announcers Leigh Diffey and Ato Boldon. Let's face it. swimming and track and field are pretty much niche sports that appear on most peoples' radar once every four years and to hear these guys get so excited and geeked out about this swimmer's split times or that runner's best race since the Worlds in Copenhagen three years ago was joyous to listen to.

And who would have thought that the absolute breakout star of NBC's coverage would have been this guy?

Snoop goes mainstream.  

Who saw that coming twenty years ago?

Snoop Doggy Dogg himself was pure entertainment.  In the pool with Michael Phelps.  Running a 200m sprint.  Covering equestrian events with Martha Stewart. Commenting on artistic swimming with Tirico.  Sitting on the sidelines and cheering at gymnastics and basketball.  It was great.  One story I enjoyed was some athlete telling of getting a text from his mother about how she was enjoying Snoop's coverage of the games, and the athlete reminding her that twenty years ago, she grounded him for buying one of his CD's.  Word is that NBC paid Snoop $500 thousand a day for his services in Paris, and it was worth every penny.

Now, to the games themselves and what stood out to me over these last sixteen days.....

Discovering the sport of Rugby 7s.  I'm still not sure of the intricacies of the deep-in-the-weeds rules of the game (like, how can you be offsides?), but for sheer non-stop action and entertainment, it couldn't be beat.  And the games are fast.  They consist of two seven minute halves with a short intermission and are over in less than half an hour.  Add to the fact that the USA Women won their first ever medal in the event, a bronze, and that they did on an Immaculate Reception-like score by Alex Sedrick (see photo below) with no time left on the clock only added to the fun.  Can't wait to see it again in 2028.  Unless, of course, some American entrepreneurs want to start up Major League Rugby 7's.

The performances of the USA Women's Gymnastics squad, led by Simone Biles.  The overall Gold won by the team and the All Around Gold won by Biles herself was great story given the back story of Biles' difficulties and subsequent struggles at  and after the Tokyo Olympics.  Although did you, like me, get a bit tired of the announcers playing up the "Redemption Tour" angle?

French swimmer Leon Marchand winning four gold medals in the pool and the home crowds going crazy each time he swam.

American Katie Ledecky, in her third Olympics, showing once again that when it comes to distance swimming, she is still Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes.

Where are the other swimmers?

On the track, there was Noah Lyles' photo finish Gold medal in the 100m, Cole Hocker's stretch drive for Gold in the 1500m, and American Men and Women winning Gold in the 4x400 relays.

Speaking of Secretariat at the Belmont, 

this is the number that the USA Women

 put on the field at the 4 x $00m relay.

And in team sports, Gold medals were won by the USA in women's soccer and in men's and women's basketball.  All three of the gold medal games were memorable, with the USA defeating Brazil 1-0 in soccer and both the men and women hoopsters beating France in tooth and nail battles, the women winning by one point and the men going right to the wire before Steph Curry took over and buried three - or was it four? - three pointers in the final minutes to secure the gold medal.   Oh, and let's not forget the men overcoming a 17 point halftime deficit and defeating Serbia in the semi-final game. The rest of the world is catching up to the USA in basketball, so winning these events will no longer be the sure thing that it has always been, so it makes this victories even more enjoyable.

A'Ja Wilson leads the ladies

Steph over Wembanyama

Talking about back stories, nothing can top the image of Brittany Griner on the Gold Medal podium, less than two years removed from a Russian prison.

It was indeed a most entertaining and enjoyable two weeks of sports viewing/entertainment.   After I turned 70 three years ago, the thought occurred to me of "how many more of these quadrennial events do I have left in me?"  My dad lived into his nineties with a sound mind and a reasonably sound body, so, God willing, I am hoping that there will many more Olympiads, World Cups, World Baseball Classics, and even, believe it or not, Presidential elections in store for me in the years ahead.  Any one of them, though, is going to have a tough time topping Paris 2024.  Good luck with that, Los Angeles.