Rings Roundup, Day 9: Holy Crap That Really Happened

Plus, the man who keeps getting 4th place, a skeet controversy, and apparently Olympic golf and tennis are good.

Well, you know what I’m leading off with. Let’s give out some Olympic rings:

100 Rings: The Photo Finish

The 100-meter dash is the shortest event in world sports, and yet sometimes it has a novel’s worth of material. I’ll never forget the rush of panic when Usain Bolt fell behind in 2016 before his long legs took over and powered him to a third straight gold medal. People in Saint Lucia will never forget the sheer euphoria of watching Julien Alfred pull farther and farther away.

And nobody will ever forget the 2024 100 meter final, when Team USA’s Noah Lyles spent half the race in last place and never led until the moment he crossed the finish line in a photo finish.

@nbcolympicsEvery angle of Noah Lyles becoming the FASTEST MAN IN THE WORLD! ⚡#ParisOlympics

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Lyles won by .005 seconds. (Many people learned for the first time that track and field events are decided by when the runners’ torsos cross the line, not their arms, heads, or feet. Weird rule, but that’s how it’s always worked.) It’s probably the closest finish ever—the 1980 final also came down to a photo finish, but they didn’t measure thousandths of seconds at the time.

This is the moment. You do not need context here. There have been plenty of spectacular moments in Paris, but this is the one. The most iconic event at the Olympics had its most incredible finish ever.

8 Rings: We Won The Swim War

At times, Team USA’s performance in Paris, especially in the pool, has been disappointing. Race after race ended with Team USA finishing second by couple of instants; in four separate events, Australia and Team USA took gold and silver, in that order. America’s men were almost entirely shut out. The swimming star of the game was France’s Leon Marchand, not an American. Team USA even lost the men’s 4x100 medley relay for the first time ever, ending a streak of 10 consecutive Olympic golds.

BUT GUESS WHAT.

TEAM USA STILL WON THE MOST GOLD MEDALS IN THE POOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!! FOR NINTH OLYMPICS IN A ROW!!!!!!!

The Americans sniped it at a buzzer with a pair of world records—the only two by Team USA in the Olympics. Team USA’s Bobby Finke ran away with his second straight gold in the 1500 meter freestyle, even though many expected Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen to pull the distance double after winning the 800 meter free.

@nbcolympicsBACK-TO-BACK BOBBY. 🇺🇸🥇Bobby Finke successfully defends gold and sets a new WORLD RECORD in the men's 1500m free! #ParisOlympics #olympics #swim #swimmer #swimming

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That tied Team USA with Australia. The last race of the Olympics was the women’s 4x100 medley—and while Team USA had a lot of frustrating silvers in the Olympics, when you put the second-best swimmers in the 100m free, the 100m back, and the 100m butterfly on the same routine, you’re gonna win the gold. Team USA beat Australia by 3.48 seconds, taking their eighth gold to edge Australia.

@nbcolympicsTEAM USA CLOSES IT OUT WITH A GOLD. 🇺🇸🥇 In the final swim of the Paris Olympics, the United States DOMINATES the women's 4x100m medley relay! #ParisOlympics #Olympics #SunmerOlympics #USAswim #USAswimming #Swimming #TorriHuske #GretchenWalsh #LillyKing #ReganSmith #Paris2024

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Team USA could’ve done so much better, and still got the W. THIS IS WHY YOU LOST A WAR TO EMUS. THIS IS WHY WE CREATED A AUSTRALIAN-THEMED CHAIN RESTAURANT WHICH DOESN’T ACTUALLY SERVE AUSTRALIAN FOOD. THIS IS WHY WE NEVER LET RUSSELL CROWE USE AN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT IN MOVIES. THIS IS WHY WE PRETEND FOSTER’S IS THE MOST POPULAR AUSTRALIAN BEER.

And thus ends our unserious swim war with Australia. I won’t think any bad thoughts about you guys for the next three years and 358 days.

7 Rings: “Non-Olympic” sports

Tennis and golf similarly seem out of place on the Olympic docket. Both country club sports have thriving non-Olympic pro tours which make their athletes famous and wealthy, and outside of the medals, it’s hard to see what differentiates Olympic golf and tennis tournaments from the ones we can watch every week.

But on Sunday, both men’s had memorable gold medal moments featuring the sports’ best active players. First Novak Djokovic faced Carlos Alcaraz for gold at Roland-Garros, a matchup we’ve never actually gotten to see before. Djokovic won in two tight tiebreaker sets:

@nbcolympicsThe moment Novak Djokovic won his first Olympic medal and completed the Golden Slam. 💪🥇 #ParisOlympics

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Djokovic had underwhelmed at past Olympics, with a bronze and two fourth place finishes. Clearly, this nagged at him—he was visibly upset during his semifinal loss at the Tokyo games. But now he’s completed the Golden Slam, winning just the eighth gold medal in Serbia’s history. He’s calling it one of the greatest successes of his career, even though he’s the all-time leader in Grand Slam victories.

Then came the men’s golf final round at Le Golf National, which I genuinely cannot believe is the actual name of the Paris golf course. It seemed like Jon Rahm would win the tournament easily after taking a four-stroke lead into Le Back Nine, but melted down spectacularly with four bogeys and a double on the final eight holes. But World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler shot Le Course Record 62, birdieing each of the last four holes to win by one stroke. He cried on the podium, filled with emotion and possibly enduring physical pain after exposing his forehead to the sun for the first time ever:

@nbcgolfPure bliss from Scottie Scheffler and his family after winning the Olympic gold medal. 🇺🇸💙 #ParisOlympics #Olympics #SunmerOlympics #Golf #GolfTok #GolfTikTok #Scottie #Scheffler #ScottieScheffler #OlympicGolf #Emotional #Emotions #Family #DadLife

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I think golf would be well-served by proposals to switch to a team or match play format, and am boldly forwarding my own proposal for an Oops! All Doubles! Olympic tennis event. But as is, the best players in the world came to Paris and put forth heroic performances before telling the world how much a gold medal meant to them. You can’t really improve on that!

5 Rings: Alaskan

Kristin Faulkner’s life and career have been full of surprise moves—but none bigger than the one she made with a few kilometers left in the Olympic road race.

Faulkner wasn’t supposed to win the women’s road race in cycling—she wasn’t even supposed to be on the American team. And the American team hadn’t won a road race medal of any color, men’s or women’s since 1984. She only got a spot in the road race when American Taylor Knibb backed out to focus on her specialty, the triathlon. (Don’t worry—there’s a happy ending for her as well, and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.)

Kristin lives up to the Faulkner name in that her path to Olympic gold is winding, abstruse, brilliant, and I’ve read it at least 13 times and I’m still not sure I really understand it. She was born and raised in Homer, Alaska, the halibut fishing capital of the world and home to Jewel. (THEEEESE OLYMPIC GAAAAAAMES ARE TEARIN’ ME, TEARIN’ ME APAAAAART.) Then Faulkner left Alaska to go to Philips Exeter and Harvard—booooooo—but started rowing—wooooooo!—and then graduated and began a career in venture capital—BOOOOOOOOOOO—and then began cycling recreationally. There’s a pretty solid rowing-to-cycling pipeline, since both depend on leg strength, stamina, and a high personal tolerance for waking up really early and inflicting pain upon yourself.

Most of the third act of the race was led by Marianne Vos and Blanka Vas, but Faulkner and Lotte Kopecky chased them down with a few kilometers to go.

That made her the 4th member of a leading pack with three accomplished cyclists and medal favorites. But after catching up to the lead group, Faulkner did something strange: She kept going. Perhaps the other three weren’t expecting the fourth wheel to bike away with the gold, but by the time they realized the American was really going for it, Faulkner was too far ahead to be caught. She ended up winning by 58 seconds giving her plenty of time to admire the Eiffel Tower:

And now, our Alaskan Harvard rower is a gold medal cyclist. I think she’s got a solid two or three more career shifts in her. Open a restaurant! Get a master’s degree in a field with no professional future! Do a 60-game college football road trip!

1 Ring: A Skeet Controversy

There’s nothing better than getting caught up in a controversy in a sport you don’t understand. In the women’s skeet shooting final, Chile’s Francisca Crovetto and Great Britain’s Amber Rutter each hit 55 of 60 targets, forcing a shootoff. (A lot of shootoffs at the Olympics!) Crovetto hit one more target than Rutter—but Rutter argued she’d actually hit both. Slow-mo replays revealed that Rutter’s shot hit the target, but the target, for whatever reason, failed to explode. And while video replays are typically used at shooting events, they weren’t set up at the Olympics.

WHY DON’T THE OLYMPICS HAVE VIDEO REVIEW? WHY AM I MAD ON BEHALF OF THIS BRITISH WOMAN IN A SPORT I DON’T FOLLOW? HOW OFTEN DO THE THINGIES NOT EXPLODE?

.21 Rings: The Prospector Misses Gold

My no. 1 takeaway from these Olympics—even before Lyles’ photo finish—is that I am absolutely flabbergasted by the minuscule margins in so many of these sports. In Sunday’s archery gold medal match, Team USA’s Brady Ellison missed out on the gold medal he deserves after an incredibly decorated career by thismuch:

Ellison has won just about everything in the world of archery—the official Olympic website says his nickname is “The Prospector,” due to the large number of gold medals he has won. He’s won six Archery World Cups, two World Championships, two World Indoor Championships, and a slew of other archery events. He also holds the world record for highest score in the qualification round.

But no Olympic golds. In Rio, he lost a semifinal to Korea’s Ku Bon-chan in a one-shot shoot-off, and Ku went go on to win the gold medal. And he won silver in the team event in 2012 and 2016, and won bronze earlier in Paris in the mixed team event. Nickname still fits! Prospectors also find other precious metals!

Sunday, he arched his way into the gold medal matchup with Korea’s Kim Woo-Jin. Kim and Ellison split the first two sets, and the winner of the fifth would get the gold medal. Kim shot three tens on his three shots—a perfect score of 30. Ellison would need to be perfect on his three shots to force a shootoff—and then he did!

In the shoot-off, the closest arrow to the center wins. Kim shot another 10. Ellison shot an arrow that seemed to hit the outside of the 10-line, but it was farther than Kim’s—by 5.4 millimeters. That’s .21 inches—a teensy-tiny margin separating Ellison from the achievement he’s been shooting for his whole life.

.01 rings: Akani Simbine

The 100-meter dash wasn’t just close in the battle for gold—it was tight all the way down. The top seven finishers all crossed the line within .09 seconds.

But you’ve gotta feel particularly bad for South Africa’s Akani Simbine, who finished in fourth place behind Team USA’s Fred Kerley by .01 seconds. He’s the man in green in the middle of the pack leaning forward in all the pictures of the photo finish.

Simbine has been an elite sprinter for over a decade—and has no major medals to show for it. At the 2016 Olympics, he finished in fifth place, behind bronze medalist Andre de Grasse by .03 seconds. At the 2017 world champs, he finished fifth again. In 2019, he bumped it up to fourth place, again finishing behind de Grasse, this time by .02 seconds. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, he was fourth again, again behind de Grasse, this time by .04 seconds.

But he kept grinding. He kept pushing. He kept getting better. He was named South Africa’s flagbearer in Paris and he ran a 9.82, his personal best after over a decade on the international sprinting scene. That time would’ve been good enough to win silver in Rio and Tokyo, and gold at three world championships where Simbine finished off the podium…

… and it got him fourth. Again. He’s probably the best sprinter of all time never to win a major medal of any color. I’m happy for

0 Rings: French gymnastics

In an Olympics where France has hit on just about everything, from rugby to canoe to BMX racing—they even won a bronze medal in ping-pong!—France ended the Olympics without any medals in any gymnastics events. And they could’ve had one, but screwed it up.

Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour won gold on the uneven bars after an absolutely stunning routine: She had the highest difficulty score and the highest execution score of any competitor, nailing elements the rest of the world was too scared to attempt. It’s the first medal—gold, silver, or bronze—by a gymnast representing any African nation in Olympic history.

@nbcolympicsWhat a stellar uneven bars routine from Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour! #ParisOlympics #algeria🇩🇿 #kaylianemour #gymnastics 📺 NBC and Peacock

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But it could’ve been a gold for France. Nemour was born in France, raised in France, and lives in France, but switched her competitive allegiance to Algeria, the home of her paternal grandparents after a protracted dispute with the French gymnastics federation. Normally, these things go the other way around, where athletes from less wealthy countries switch allegiances to compete for federations with more resources, so you’ve gotta give a hearty hell yeah when it results in a continent getting its first medal ever.