Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Another Day In Paris

The Argentine women's field hockey team went into the fourth quarter of its Olympic Group B game against South Africa down a goal yesterday.

If that score stood, it would have been a huge upset. TigerBlog was watching — and rooting hard for a comeback. 

And that's exactly what he got. Argentina scored three times in the final 15 minutes to pull out a 4-2 win.

Whew.

Why did TigerBlog care so much? Well, the United States probably needed Argentina to win that game. At the very least, that was the outcome that would most likely help the Americans as they pursue a spot in the quarterfinals.

The Argentina-South Africa game was the third Olympic field hockey game TB watched yesterday. The second was Australia-Great Britain, which ended 4-0 in favor of the Aussies.

The first game was the U.S. and Spain, which ended in a 1-1 tie. The U.S. goal was a thing of beauty:

Princeton's Beth Yeager is on the United States team, who last played in the Olympics without a Tiger on the team in 2008. Yeager has started both games in the Olympics so far, which began Saturday with a 4-1 loss to powerful Argentina.

The Group B standings after two games have the U.S. in fourth with one point, ahead of pointless Great Britain and South Africa. Well, they're not pointless per se. They just don't have any points in Olympic field hockey.

Australia and Argentina are both 2-0-0, for six points. Spain is 1-0-1, with four points.

The United States plays Australia Wednesday and then Great Britain and South Africa to finish the group stage. The math is obvious.

That was a lot of Olympic field hockey for one day. The U.S.-Spain game started at 7:15 am, but that wasn't TB's first game. 

He'd actually been watching other events even earlier, including the equestrian show jumping, which followed the dressage and cross country. It was early, but TB is pretty sure he heard the commentator say that "the horse looks tired."

In between the field hockey games, TB also watched the United States-Spain women's water polo game. This was a big upset, as the Spanish knocked off the U.S. team 13-11. 

The teams met in the 2021 Olympic final in Tokyo, where the U.S. won 14-5. They could very well meet again in this year's final.

The United States has won the last three gold medals in women's water polo. Princeton alum Ashleigh Johnson has been the goalie for the most recent two. 

In addition to Johnson, Princeton is also represented on the U.S. team by Jovana Seculic, who now has three goals in two games. As TB watched the game yesterday, he was a bit confused because the announcer kept referring to No. 12 on the Spanish team as "Jovana Seculic," when she is No. 12 on the U.S. team.

The loss doesn't do that much to hurt the Americans' chances of reaching the quarterfinals. There are 10 teams in the tournament, and eight advance, with the top four in each group to move on.

Next up for the U.S., who hammered Greece 15-6 in its first game, will be Italy Wednesday, followed by France in the last group game.

By the way, win or lose (and she hardly ever loses), it's always amazing to see Johnson play water polo. She is extraordinary in the way she can launch herself from treading water to deflecting shots near the top of the cage. Against Spain, she also added a goal at the end when she came all the way up from her position.

The whole sport takes insane amounts of strength, fitness and toughness. It's almost anything goes in the water. 

And with that, here is today's #PrincetonInParis schedule:

Adell Sabovic (Kosovo) - 100m Freestyle Swimming Heats (5 a.m. session start)
Emily Kallfelz & Kelsey Reelick (USA) - Women’s Four Repechages (5:30 a.m.)
Kat Holmes & Hadley Husisian - Women’s Team Epee, Round of 8 through medal round (7:30 a.m. start)
Adell Sabovic (Kosovo) - 100m Freestyle Swimming Semifinals (3:30 p.m.)
Kareem Maddox (USA) - 3x3 Basketball vs. Serbia (4:35pm)

 



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