The End Of The Tokyo Games

Today starts with two corrections from yesterday.

They were both bad mistakes, in hindsight. Thanks to a pair of loyal readers for catching them. 

The first one came from Tad La Fountain, who has written several highly entertaining blogs in the past here. Tad pointed this out about a Princeton double gold medalist whom TB said won in shooting, not sailing:

Herman "Swede" Whiton '26 won the Gold Medal in 1948 and again in 1952 sailing his 6-meter sloop. No firearms were involved.  

Then there was this from Mike Knorr, when TB mentioned Princeton women alums who had won more than one Olympic medal:

Ummm...didn't you forget a certain soccer player who also won multiple medals at the Olympics? Or does she not count because she did it for Canada? 

Yes indeed. TB somehow forgot to mention Diana Matheson, who won a pair of bronze medals for Canada. Luckily TB didn't forget her for the upcoming women's history book; there's an entire chapter devoted to Matheson's soccer career.

So with those two corrections out of the way, here are a few more Olympic thoughts now that the Games have ended:

 * Bruce Springsteen's daughter Jessica ended up winning a silver medal in equestrian team jumping. TB has two things on this. First, he didn't read any story about her accomplishment that didn't include badly forced puns that reference Springsteen songs. You know, something like "she may have been born to run, but she ended up being born to ride as well." To be fair, TB actually wrote a sentence like that last week and then deleted it because of how trite it was. Second, TB appreciates what goes into the equestrian events and really enjoys watching them. It makes him wonder what sort of all-around athlete an equestrian rider is. Maybe they're great athletes. TB just doesn't know.

* Princeton's contingent in Tokyo ended up producing three medals, one gold (Ashleigh Johnson's in water polo) and two bronze (Tom George and Fred Vystavel in rowing). TB finds something very extraordinary about the fact that George (heavyweight 8s) and Vystavel (lightweight pairs) won their medals in two different events while representing two different countries (George is from Great Britain and Vystavel is from Denmark). That makes their common denominator being Princeton Tigers. The rowing program is like the University itself, drawing in students from all over the world who can pursue excellence in all of their passions, and the results are often incredible. Winning Olympic medals is no different. To do so as former Princeton teammates with that similar foundation for their experience and mindset speaks a great deal about the Tiger rowing program, especially the coaching, as well as the University.

* For all of the great Olympic moments TB saw, maybe the most impressive was in synchronized swimming, er, making that artistic swimming, as it's now known. Did you happen to see the Russian Olympic Committee women in the team competition? There were eight swimmers, and their performance cannot even begin to be described. And then there's Svetlana Romashina, who has now competed in four Olympic Games and between the pairs and team categories has competed in eight separate medal competitions. Her Olympic tally? Eight medals, all eight of which are gold. That's pretty good.

* Two athletes who didn't go home with medals were Princeton's Julia Ratcliffe and Lizzie Bird, women's track and field teammates in the Class of 2017. As was the case with George and Vystavel, the two track athletes were also from different countries. Ratcliffe is a New Zealander. Bird is from Great Britain. They both reached the final of their events (Ratcliffe in the hammer, Bird in the 3,000-meter steeplechase), and then they both finished in ninth place. They were both remarkable performances for the two, who both hold their country's national record in their events. Not every athlete is in a position to win a medal, and success can't only be measured that way. In the case of Ratcliffe and Bird, they seem like big-time winners in Tokyo.

* If you followed the Games on the Olympic app or Olympics.com and clicked onto the bio of an athlete, you saw an incredible amount of information. There were 10,300 athletes there. Maybe some of them didn't have in-depth information about them, but all of the ones that TB clicked onto had one. That's a lot of work. TB wonders how many people contributed to that effort.

* The next Olympics are only a few months away, as the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing are scheduled to begin Feb. 4. The next Summer Games are three years away, in 2024 in Paris. There's also a World Cup coming up at the end of next year.

* You can watch Princeton athletes compete in Orange and Black after their Olympic experience. Mohamed Hamza will be back to fence. Ed Trippas will be running cross country and track and field (cross country starts soon). Sondre Guttormsen will pole vault.