Sunday, August 21, 2016

2016 Rio Olympics

Now that all the events are officially over, it's time to look back at the just completed 2016 Summer Olympics.

What was your favorite event(s)? Could be non Track and Field sport.
What was the biggest surprise for you?
What athlete or team did you cheer the hardest for from home (or wherever you watched the event)?
Who was most impressive?
What Olympian would you like to sit down and have a beer (or non-alcoholic beverage) with?
What was most disappointing about these Olympics?
Anything else you would want to add.

16 comments:

Murr said...

Love the fact that US distance running took a huge step up. Can't wait to see what happens in 4 years.

Anonymous said...

Clayton Murphy. Enough Said

Anonymous said...

Air Rifle, that was cool!

Steve Palladino said...

What was your favorite event(s)? Could be non Track and Field sport.
- men's and women's shot put, and women's and men's marathon
What was the biggest surprise for you?
- Centro gold!
What athlete or team did you cheer the hardest for from home (or wherever you watched the event)?
- Maya DiRado (what with being associated with Maria Cariilo HS)
Who was most impressive?
- International - Wayde Van Niekerk, US - Clayton Murphy
What Olympian would you like to sit down and have a beer (or non-alcoholic beverage) with?
- ashton eaton
What was most disappointing about these Olympics?
- Ryan Lockte

Anonymous said...

Biggest highlight was Brazil soccer winning at home.

Biggest disappointment was the PED and gender talk. Hard to get excited when you just feel everyone is dirty.

Best track race was the men's 5000. For once they took the race out hard. Too bad they backed off between 2k-4K but top 12 were 13:02-13:09. Unreal.

Anonymous said...

Favorite event: Handball!
Biggest highlight was the Neymar PSO goal for sure.
Most impressive: Wayde Van Niekerk's WR 400. Can't believe someone is that close to sub 43.

The Women's 1500 was fantastic. I cheered for Jenny so much and am so happy and proud of her to get the first US medal in the event.

Rob Collins said...

Watching a old High school Teammate (Dean and Mitch Crouser)kids perform in the Olympics and taking home a Gold Ryan Crouser! Next would be the Womens 1500m, Jenny Simpson and local CCS athlete Shannon Rowbury!

Albert Caruana said...

For myself, I was yelling at my iPad when Centro was in his last 100m.

Brazil winning the men's gold medal in soccer had to be the biggest highlight for the host country. That made their Olympics.

Biggest surprise to me was the medal count for the Track and Field team. This was for the most part a young team and they performed outstanding in so many events. More specifically, Michelle Carter winning the gold in the shot put. That was a huge upset.

Dan said...

Centrowitz winning the gold, Rupp hanging with the best in the world in the marathon, Jenny Simpson, Emma Coburn, Michelle Carter, Allyson Felix, and outside of track and field, seeing Neymar, with the whole country on his shoulders, bury the final penalty kick to send Brazil to the gold in soccer. Within that soccer mad country, the pressure had to be unbelievable. Also seeing the refugee team members (Syrian swimmer comes to mind), the gymnasts, Mo Farah falling down and coming back to win gold. And if you haven't seen the Irish brothers that won the two man rowing, internet gold those two!
Outside of the obvious Lochte situation, seeing the mens 4x100 fail to produce....again was a downer.

Anonymous said...

Katie Ledecky- settles the argument as to who is the world's greatest athlete.

CoachTri said...

I enjoyed it all when I could actually track down the times- biggest pain - Trying to find the online feed and /or avoiding the internet, so I could avoid spoilers. The British announcers continue to outshine the American announcers.

CoachTri said...

Oh- Sevens Rugby was awesome to watch, Team Handball- why isn't that popular in the US?, the final leg of the women's triathlon, team archery was riveting, the comeback by the American fencer winning 6 straight points to win the match-wow!



Albert Caruana said...

Kate Ledecky is the best mid-long distance swimmer perhaps in history. Calling her the world's greatest athlete is a bit of a stretch.

Anonymous said...

I loved Wayde NieKerk's 400m.
Flanagan and Rupp hanging in the Marathon.

"Women's" 800m? Come on, really? The IOC and IAAF need to get their gender/hyperandrogeny rules together asap.

Anonymous said...

Ledecky is far more than a middle-long distance swimmer. At the Olympics she anchored the 4x100 and 4x200, won the 200 free, 400 free, and 800 free, breaking her own world records in the latter two. At the 2016 World Championships she won the 200, 400, 800 and 1500 frees (setting the world record in this event), which is comparable to winning the 400m, 800m, 1500m and 5k in track at the same meet. That's hardly a stretch. There is no perhaps about her being the best in history.

Albert Caruana said...

There is no question that Kate Ladecky is an amazing swimmer with great range. However, you can't really compare swimmers to runners as swimmers will always have a bigger range than runners. You will never see a track and field athlete win the same amount of medals as Michael Phelps and Kate Ladecky since they are usually limited to sprints and possibly jumps, distance, throws etc. I think Ladecky is still considered a mid-long distance swimmer who is still quite competitive in the 200/400 and yes she did participate on a couple of the short relays.

I think you can make a case for her as being one of the all-time greats in swimming but we will have to see her repeat these same performances in one or two Olympics before she is deemed the best of all-time.

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