NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy, Monday! It’s mid august. We are getting closer to Back To School Season and the 2024 Olympics has been completed. This had to be the most enjoyable Olympics to watch in a long time for me. I think all of the extra ways to watch made it much better. With that in mind, here’s today’s menu: Mets Update, Olympic Gymnastics Scandal, Olympic Thoughts
Mets Update
This is why it is important that the Mets to beat the bad teams. The Amazins ran into one of the best teams in the league in Angry Ward’s Seattle Mariners, who apparently went back to the retro blue, gold and black kit this year. Anyway, the M’s of the West swept the M’s of the East. This is the first time in months the Metropolitans got swept in a 3-game series. It’s is why loses to the Marlins and Angels hurt their bid to make the wildcard. You can’t give up games to the bad teams cause in the tough fights, it will be hard to pick up wins. It is an old formula in sports. You dominate the teams you should beat and then split the ones that should beat you. That is how you win regular seasons and 75-85% of your games. Hopefully the Mets bats that went silent this weekend can find some form because the pitching will only get you so far and those arms were mediocre to begin with.
Olympic Gymnastics Scandal
So, here is the background.: American Gymnast Jordan Chiles performed her routine but her score had her in 5th. After her routine, her coaches filed an inquiry, (what we would call an appeal).They believed that the judge, incorrectly judged the difficulty of one of her moves. The inquiry judge ruled in her favor. However, the Romanians, whose athletes were in third and fourth and leapfrogged by the Chiles decision, filed a case to the International Court of Sport or whatever they are called. Romania argued that the Chiles inquiry was 4 seconds late. From there, according to NPR:
In addition to the incorrect difficulty score originally awarded to Chiles (which was fixed with her inquiry, then reversed Saturday) and the acceptance of an inquiry that had been filed too late, viewers online had pointed out a third potential error. Maneca-Voinea finished in fifth after judges deducted 0.1 from her score as a penalty for stepping out of bounds during her routine. But video replay appeared to show that she had stayed in bounds. Without the penalty, she would have scored 13.800 — which would have earned her the bronze over both Chiles and Barbosu.
In addition to the protest over Chiles’ inquiry, Romanian officials had asked the arbitration court to re-score Maneca-Voinea’s routine. And finally, Romania asked that the three gymnasts — Barbosu, Maneca-Voinea and Chiles — be ranked together in third place in order to each receive a bronze medal.
The court declined both requests. I don’t know what the IOC is thinking because now the USA has filed another appeal saying they submitted the paperwork in time and the delay was on the processor. At this point, I think Romania’s idea of giving 3 bronzes makes far more sense. Seems like they will likely do this in 2028 in the redemption ceremony.
Random Olympic Thoughts
With the 2024 Olympics is in the books, time to look at some of the stand out performances from discussions with friends.
- Leon Marchand winning the 200M Breaststroke vs the Hungarian WR holder
- Julien Alfred getting the 100 M gold medal in track and field. The first for St. Lucia
- Thea LaFond earned Dominica’s first ever Olympic medal by winning gold in the triple jump.
- Sydney McLaughlin-Lerone setting another WR in the 400m hurdles (with Anna Cockrell getting a surprise silver).
- Quincy Hall defying the odds and winning the men’s 400m.
- Men’s 1500m final with the three winners separated by .15 of a second
- Both basketball finals as USA had to dig deep to beat France twice.
- The epic victory by the US women in the 4×400.
- Femke Bol passing 2 in the final 50m of the 4×400 to get silver and her anchor leg in the medley to bring home gold for the Netherlands
- Raygun becoming memed to death for her break dancing attempt.
- Last but not least was the USA Womens Rugby team winning bronze and how they won it.
Thanks for reading and come tomorrow to hear from the Ben Whitney, who will tell why the Yankees don’t suck like we think they do.
