Three Sports You Missed, a weekly roundup: Vol. 2

This week's roundup includes the greatest Spanish heartbreak not depicted on La Isla de la Tentaciones, plus curling and an American trampoline W.

It’s Monday, and that means I am successfully delivering on my promise to bring you Three Sports You Missed every Monday. You’re going to be getting a lot of college basketball from me in the coming weeks, because March Madness has already begun.

But like I said, every Monday: Three Sports You Missed.

Here are this week’s Three Sports You Missed!

¡España por favor!

Repeated Spanish heartbreak has gone viral recently, but even Montoya from La Isla De La Tentaciones cannot compete with the serial sports tragedy that befell the Spanish national baseball team in Taiwan at the World Baseball Classic qualifiers.

Spain is not exactly a baseball powerhouse—there have been just four Spanish MLB players in history, and none in the 21st century. Luckily, the WBC has lax eligibility rules (basically, you don’t have to actually be a citizen of the team you play for, you just have to be eligible to receive their citizenship), allowing Spain to field a roster full of players who don’t use the vosotros conjugation. Their 26-man squad had 10 guys from the Dominican Republic, nine from Venezuela, six from Cuba, and one honest-to-dios Spaniard. And the semi-Spanish shocked the international baseball world by thumping Taiwan, typically one of the strongest teams in the sport, in the round robin, 12-5.

That set them up in position to qualify for the WBC with a win over Nicaragua. But they blew a bases-loaded opportunity in the eighth inning, then blew another bases-loaded opportunity in the ninth inning, and lost 2-1 in extras.

But they still had a chance to qualify by beating hosts Taiwan. Apparently, the packed, raucous crowd in the Taipei Dome got to third baseman Wander Encarnacion. In the sixth inning, Taiwan decided to play small ball, dropping back-to-back bunts to Encarnacion. But Wander’s aim wandered. He whipped both balls past first base and allowed two runs to score.

Encarnacion, the MVP of the 2023 European Baseball Championships, broke down in tears on the field after his errors, and Spain went on to lose 6-3.

Believe it or not, this is pretty much exactly what happened to Spain three years ago in the qualis for the 2023 WBC. (Besides the crying.) In 2022, Spain powered their way to the final of a WBC qualification tournament in Germany, and just needed to win one of their final two games. But they blew a 4-0 lead to Great Britain, gave up a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth, then lost in extra innings. That set up a win-and-in consolation bracket game with the Czech Republic, a team they’d mercy-ruled days earlier 21-7, a football score in baseball between soccer countries. But they lost the clincher 3-1—proportionally the same score as 21-7, but this one counted more. The Czechs went to play in the big tournament and became the darlings of the baseball world; the Spanish stayed at home.

So in two straight qualifying tournaments, they’ve had two chances to win, and both times, they’ve lost the first game in extra innings after having multiple chances to win, then lost a rematch with a team they’d handily routed earlier in the tournament. It’s enough to make any man run shirtless across the beach while yelling ¡NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sport You Didn’t Know About Of The Week: SynchroTramp

This entry is thanks to Jessie Oehrlein, who brought it to my attention in the comments—and also, just a heads up that if you mention a sport in the comments, I might end up writing about it!

The United States is a Trampoline powerhouse. How could any nation compete with our spectacular array of SkyZones? This gives us a big bouncing advantage over the rest of the world, and also surely makes us the international leaders in 8 Year Olds With Sprained Ankles.

And now, there is a new trampoline frontier for Team USA. The mixed synchronized trampoline event made its debut at a gymnastics World Cup event in Azerbaijan, and Team USA’s Alexandra Mytnik and Trevor Harder won gold. A full video of their performance is here, but I can’t embed it—it’s kinda mesmerizing to watch.

You can briefly see our flipping heroes at the 1:22 mark of this highlight package produced by the international gymnastics federation, but I think you should watch the whole thing because it has quite literally the worst music I have ever heard in any highlight package produced by an international sporting body ever. I honestly think that when I arrive in Jewish Hell after dying (watching football on Saturdays my whole life instead of observing shabbat, constant mixing of meats and cheeses, marrying a Gentile), this is the music that will be playing. There are three minutes of whirs and screeches and then around 2:55 there is an actual “glass breaking” sound effect. I am bringing it to you like someone who smells something awful and says “you gotta smell this.” Please watch:

Dear international gymnastics federation: Please, find a better stock music provider. Please. I am begging you.

Anyway. Team USA has won 207 all-time medals at the Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships, 46 more than any other country, and won the all-around team medal at the most recent world champs in 2023. The problem: Most of those medals are in events like “tumbling” and “synchronized trampolining,” which aren’t Olympic events. We’ve never medaled in the Olympic trampoline event, which is just one person on a big tramp.

But it feels like mixed synchro could have a chance of joining the big time, because IOC has added a ton of mixed events to the Olympics in recent years—like curling! And because men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics are so different, synchronized trampoline would be one of the easiest ways for the gymnastics federation could throw in a mixed event. Right now this is just a thing for World Cup events in Azerbaijan, but Team USA is in great shape if it hits the big time.

Korey/Cory Curling Corps Scores Core W

We have our first Team USA for next year’s Winter Olympics. Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse won the American mixed doubles curling Olympic trials in Colorado, which means they’ll be the team which represents the United States at this year’s World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. If they perform well there, they’ll be able to play their way into the 2026 Olympics.

Which is great, because the Coreys might be the best mixed doubles team in the world. (Calling them “the Coreys” out loud is acceptable, but raises obvious spelling concerns. I’m considering “Corey” a safe neutral ground between “Korey” and “Cory,” which doesn’t imply either player’s preferred spelling defines their team.)

Cory and Korey won the 2023 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, the first-ever gold for an American pair at the event. And to be honest, they kinda dominated. Dropkin graded out as the best player in the tournament, and they crushed Canada 6-2 and Japan 8-2 in the semis and championship. It’s easy to picture them winning an Olympic medal… if they can qualify, which is an open question because of what happened at last year’s national championships.

After going 7-0 in the round robin last year, the Fighting Homonyms lost the title game, giving up two points in the last end to lose 8-7 to the sibling pairing of Becca and Matt Hamilton. (A “big win for sharing a last name with your teammate” vs. “sharing a first name with your teammate.”) While I enjoy the Hamiltons’ general vibes—come on, just look at these guys—Cory and Korey probably deserved the spot at the world championships, and the Hamiltons underwhelmed with a 10th place finish at Worlds. That performance counted for half of the qualifying points for next year’s Olympics, with this year’s Worlds providing the other half.

So there’s work to be done. The mixed doubles World Championships are in late April in New Brunswick (the Canadian province, not the city in New Jersey) but there’s a lot of curling before then. Cory will play at the women’s world championships in South Korea in about two weeks, and Korey will skip Team USA at the men’s world championships in Moose Jaw at the end of March.