Finalists

Like pretty much everyone who watched the men's 100 meter final at the Paris Olympics Sunday, TigerBlog had no idea who won the race.

In fact, TB had no idea what the rules were in terms of who won the race. He was convinced that the first part of the first runner to cross the line was an orange shoe, and yet, as it turns out, it's not your foot that makes the difference. 

According to the official rules: "A runner finishes the race only after his//her trunk crosses the finish line." TigerBlog does love the official rules of things.  

So for as much as TB was certain the orange shoe was the winner, clearly he wasn't. The official time was a dead heat, which means that Lyles won by somewhere around a thousandth of a second, something the human eye and mind cannot process.

Lizzie Bird's margin of victory in her 3,000 meter steeplechase semifinal was 10 times greater than that, a relatively comfortable six one hundredth of a second, also something the human mind can't compute. The final, by the way, will be held today at 9:10 Paris time, which is 3:10 Princeton time.

That would be pm, by the way. 

It was Sunday am when she ran in the semifinal round, 10 am in Paris, which meant 4 am in New Jersey. Bird's Princeton coach, Peter Farrell, texted TB at 4:42 am with the result. His text had a lot of exclamation points in it.

Bird ran in the second semifinal, in which she finished fourth in 9:16.46. Her time was six-thousandths of a second ahead of the fifth place finisher, Norah Jeruto of Kazakhstan, who also reached the final, and one one-hundredth of a second ahead of the sixth place finisher, Olivia Guerth of Germany, who did not reach the final. 

That's not even a blink.

Bird now joins Donn Cabral as Princeton athletes who have made it to consecutive steeplechase finals, something that Cabral did in 2012 and 2016. Bird finished ninth in the event in Tokyo.

Also today in Paris will be the women's water polo quarterfinals. The United States team, with Princetonians Ashleigh Johnson and Jovana Sekulic, plays at 2:35 against Hungary.

Speaking of Princeton alums in track and field finals, Sondre Guttormsen completed his second Olympic Games for Norway with the final of the pole vault yesterday afernoon. Guttormsen made his initial appearance on TV before the event, when the announcers spoke of "nervous energy." Yes, that seems to be fairly obvious in this case, with 12 competitors who are about to compete in the Olympic final.

During his athlete intro, he ducked his head around the corner before making his appearance. 

Sondre's brother Simen, who also competed for Norway in the event but did not reach the final, was shown in the stands every time Sondre came to jump. It wasn't even necessary to see the actual vaults that Sondre took, since Simen's reactions told the entire story.

TB watched the entire pole vault, which meant he also was able to see some of the 200 meter heats. Why? Because that's how it works in a track and field meet, even in the Olympics. It's a busy place, the track. As the pole vaulters were waiting their turns, every now and then you'd hear the crowd roar and then see a blur of sprinters as they sailed right on by.

Sondre was the first vaulter in the rotations, and he easily cleared 5.50 meters to get the day started. He then missed his first two at 5.70 before clearing it while facing elimination, and he then went over 5.80. 

Next up was 5.85, which he missed — and then passed on, giving him two cracks at 5.90. He came oh-so-close on both, but the bar did not cooperate.

Still, it added up to an eighth place finish in the Olympic Games, which is ridiculously impressive, of course. 

Guttormsen won three NCAA titles in the pole vault while at Princeton. Will he be back in 2028 in Los Angeles? He's only 25 now. 

By the way, the gold medal went to Sweden's Armand Duplantis, whose dominant performance ended when he broke his own world record.

And if you want to see something really cool, go find the ending of the men's 3x3 basketball gold medal game between the Netherlands and France.