Tigers In Paris

TigerBlog was walking near a golf course the other day when a ball rolled across the cart path and under a bush near his feet. 

So what do you do in that situation? Do you leave it where it lies? Or do you help out a bit and kick it back across the path into a better lie?

Ah, golf etiquette. TB doesn't know much about it, so he did what he thought was best — he knocked it back out of the bush and across the cart path. Now it was just a simple chip to the green.

It is TB's sincerest hope that whoever's ball that was, that little gesture resulted in holing out and leading to a completely better life all around. 

Does that count as a good deed? Or was there a downside? No good deed goes unpunished, as Elphaba sang in "Wicked."

Of course, had it been a serious tournament or something like that, TB wouldn't have done what he did. You know, if it was the Olympics or something? Then they'd be on their own.

Golf is one of the sports that will be held at the Olympics, which begin this week in Paris. The golf event is actually being held outside of Paris, near Versailles.

TB's good friend Sue Byrne, formerly of Harvard Athletics, is one of the 45,000 volunteers (out of 300,000 applicants) who will help the Games go smoothly; she has been assigned to the golf tournaments. 

In all, there are 32 different sports in these Olympics, including the debut of — wait for it — breakdancing. Yes, breakdancing is now an Olympic sport. How do you score that?

So is surfing, which will actually will be held in Tahiti, which isn't really all that close to Paris. There will also be basketball, handball and soccer games all over France, hundreds of miles from Paris. 

TigerBlog has two favorite websites between now and the Closing Ceremonies Aug. 11. 

First, there is the actual Olympic website, which you can see HERE. This website has the schedules and results for every Olympic event, and in fact the first of those events will be tomorrow, with preliminaries in rugby and soccer.

The other one, the site he'll get the most use of, is goprincetontigers.com/tigersinparis. You can see that one HERE.

As you might surmise, this is the complete listing of all things Princeton for these upcoming Games, and there are all kinds of things Princeton that will be there. 

First and foremost, there are capsules on all 26 Princetonians who are competing. In case you've forgotten, that's a record for Princeton.

The Opening Ceremonies are this coming Friday. The first Princetonians to compete will do so Saturday. 

The website has a day-by-day schedule for all 26 Princetonians, with all times Eastern. Here is the listing for Saturday:

Kathleen Noble (Uganda) - Women’s Single Sculls Heats (4:12 a.m.)
Jonas Juel (Norway) - Men’s Quadruple Sculls Heats (6:30 a.m.)
Hannah Scott (Great Britain) - Women’s Quadruple Sculls Heats (6:50 a.m.)
Hadley Husisian (USA) - Women’s Individual Epee - Round of 64 through medal round (4 a.m. start)
Ashleigh Johnson & Jovana Sekulic (USA) - Women’s Water Polo vs. Greece (9:35 a.m.)
Beth Yeager (USA) - Field Hockey vs. Argentina (1:45 p.m.)

The site will be updated with results each day. Of course, you'll be able to follow all of these athletes on Princeton's social media as well.

TigerBlog long ago began to enjoy the non-marquee sports in the Olympics much more than the so-called "major" ones. To that end, he'll be watching his favorite event, the dressage, or "horse-dancing," as he likes to call it. Who knows what other events will capture his attention.

He'll pay attention to sports like swimming and track and field, the ones that get the most attention. And basketball? He'd be much more likely to be interested in the women's games if Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were playing, like they were Saturday night when their WNBA all-star team beat the U.S. Olympians. 

Mostly, though, he's interested in the Princeton athletes.

Not all of the Princeton athletes there are in realistic position to win a medal, though some will. For all of them, this is the result of years and years of sacrifice and training.

It takes a lot to be an Olympian. Once you have that on your resume, it defines you forever.