Opening Weekend

TigerBlog considers "Point Break" one of his all-time favorite movies.

He's serious. If you've never seen it, watch it. You'll agree.

It's easily the best action movie TB has ever seen. An a big part of it would be the surfing scenes. 

"Point Break" wasn't on yesterday afternoon. Surfing was though. 

Most of these 2024 Summer Olympics are being held in Paris and its suburbs. Some of them are being held in other parts of France. 

The surfing competition? That's being held in Tahiti, which is nowhere near France.

Imagine being in the Olympics but your event is 10,000 miles away from everyone else? To the competitors, it might not matter. This is only the second Olympics where it has been included. 

Why not? TB did a little research and found this:

One of the biggest obstacles to surfing being included in the Olympics for many years was a landlocked country hosting the games which would make surfing events difficult to stage, and another one was that drowning is one of the big risks in surfing.

Yikes. For the record, TB had no idea what was going as he watched. After reading what he saw, he's just glad that nobody drowned.

TB has never been a huge fan of golf and tennis in the Games, because they have much bigger events each year and this makes it seem like it's just another stop on the tour. At the same time, he was hoping to see Rafael Nadal win his first round match, so he could take on Novak Djokovic in Round 2, which will be this morning at 7:30. TB think Djokovic will wipe out Nadal, since he has an extra day off and was hardly challenged in his first match, but hey, you never know.

The Olympics rolled into high gear this past weekend. There have been all kinds of events, the obscure and the well-known.

And, most importantly, the Princetonian.

The first two days of the Paris Games saw 13 of Princeton's 26 Olympians open their competitions. Among the highlights: 

* Ashleigh Johnson made 10 saves in three quarters as she chases her third gold medal and Jovana Seculic had a pair of goals in her Olympic debut as the U.S. women's water polo team rolled past Greece 15-6 in its opener. The Americans will take on Spain this morning at 9:35 Eastern time.

TigerBlog doesn't really know all that much about the history of women's water polo, but he has to think that Johnson has to be making her way onto the list of the greatest players of all time.

* Princeton had eight rowers who raced for the first time. Of that group, four are still in contention for medals.

For the women, Hannah Scott was part of Great Britain's quadruple sculls team that won its heat, advancing directly to the final, which will be held Wednesday.

On the men's side, the men's fours saw two Princeton rowers finish 1-2 in the heats, as Nick Mead and his American teammates won and Tim Masters and his Australian boat finished second. They'll both row in the final, to be held Thursday.

Tom George, who won bronze in Tokyo for Great Britain, moved into the semifinals in the men's pair, and he will race in Wednesday's next round.

* Rising sophomore Hadley Husisian reached the Round of 16 in the women's epee. She and Olympic veteran Kat Holmes will compete in the team epee tomorrow.

* If you're reading this past 9 in the East, then the U.S. field hockey team has already played its second game, which was to be a 7:15 am start against Spain. The U.S., which features Princeton junior-to-be Beth Yeager, lost to powerhouse Argentina 4-1 in its opener Saturday.

Here is today's PrincetonInParis schedule:

July 29
Kathleen Noble (Uganda) - Women’s Single Sculls E/F Semifinals (3:54 a.m., 4:06 a.m.)
Tatiana Nazlymov (USA) - Women’s Individual Saber, Round of 32 through medal round (5:15 a.m. start)
Jonas Juel (Norway) - Men’s Quadruple Sculls Repechages (5:20 a.m.)
Claire Collins (USA) - Women’s Eight Heats (6 a.m.)
Mohamed Hamza (Egypt) - Men’s Individual Foil, Round of 32 through medal round (6:05 a.m. start)
Beth Yeager (USA) - Field Hockey vs. Spain (7:15 a.m.)
Ashleigh Johnson & Jovana Sekulic (USA) - Women’s Water Polo vs. Spain (9:35 a.m.)