Tasha’s Epic Quadrennial Olympics Analysis
Day 13
Wednesday was Wednesday-ing just a little too much, so I spent most of my Olympics time over at my happy place—the Aquatics Centre.
- Okay, so I get that y’all are not following me over to rhythmic gymnastics, but how about giving artistic swimming (the sport formally known as synchronized swimming) a try?
- This year, the Olympics introduced an acrobatics part to team competition. Holy cow! Imagine doing an artistic gymnastics level element but instead of a mat, you’re launching yourself six feet in the air from a platform made up of your teammates who are underwater holding their breaths and are not allowed to touch the pool floor. Now that’s athleticism.
- Incidentally, Team USA won its first medal in artistic swimming in 20 years. Team USA came in second to Team China, who won its first Olympic gold medal in this event. For the last 24 years, Team Russia has won the gold medal in this event but couldn’t this year because they were banned from competition by the IOC.
- Just an aside, right now, artistic swimming is entirely made-up women. It’s not that men can’t compete; there just isn’t enough men to form teams.
- Just another aside, and at the risk of sounding like a fuddy duddy (although I do realize that using the term “fuddy duddy” does in fact make me sound like a fuddy duddy) if there was one complaint I have about artistic swimming, it’s that the swimsuits are a bit less than modest. Actually, a lot less than modest.
- One last aside, the gel the artistic swimmers use in their hair frighteningly reminds me of the Gorilla Glue that was used mistakenly and couldn’t be removed. But the artistic swimmers are using Knox gel, which is made up of unflavored gelatin.
- I also hung out a bit over at La Concorde watching park skateboarding. This might be the most age inclusive sport. In the men’s division, the competitors range from 11 to 51 years of age.
- Another interesting ritual spotting. Team Brazil’s Augusto Akio juggles plastic bowling pins before and in between his attempts. Apparently, it works because he took the bronze medal in men’s park skateboarding.
- My fuddy duddy-ness was very happy to see that park skateboarders wear more protective gear than street skateboarders, including helmets and knee pads.
- I didn’t spend too much time over at the Stade de France, but I was able to catch the men’s 400m final. I will say that if hauling ass was a person, it would be Quincy Hall from Team USA. The way he went from fourth to first place in the last 10 seconds of the race was mind-blowing. Although my favorite is when he made snow angels on the track.