As with the Olympic opening ceremony, my three-generation household will likely be watching Sunday’s closing ceremony. Like tens of millions of our fellow earthlings, we have been glued to our screens on all platforms for a lot of the Summer time Video games previously two weeks that I would not dream of lacking the finale.
My household will bear in mind the Paris Olympics for thus many viral moments, together with:
- The already most-decorated-gymnast Simone Biles, 27, successful 4 extra medals for Staff USA.
- How swimmer Katie Ledecky, 27, turned the most embellished American feminine Olympian of all time with 14 medals.
- Jerome Brouillet’s picture of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina, 30, and his board levitating above the ocean as he earned a near-perfect 10.
- French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati, 21, gaining followers as a result of, as he posted on TikTok after his crotch knocked down the crossbar, “You create extra buzz in your bundle than your performances.”
- Zeng Zhiying, a 58-year-old desk tennis participant who missed out on being chosen to characterize China in Los Angeles in 1984 however in Paris represented Chile. Her Olympic debut at our age was heavenly.
A way more down-to-earth feat, although, will likely be what sticks with me after the 2024 Summer time Video games. It is also what introduced a number of inquiries to thoughts.
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On opening ceremony night July 26, NBA worldwide celebrity Steph Curry swapped Olympic pins with as-yet-unknown Olympians like a giddy child at summer season camp. When he realized he had simply met the U.S. ladies’s desk tennis staff, Curry introduced the star-struck Asian People to the place his principally African American basketball teammates have been hanging out and goaded Anthony Edwards, who prides himself on excelling in lots of sports activities, that these seemingly demure girls might shut him up.
Pleasant trash speak adopted, with the 23-year-old Minnesota Timberwolves guard Edwards saying, “I do not consider it. I am scoring no less than as soon as,” and the 28-year-old Olympic veteran Lily Zhang smilingly responding, “There’s just one strategy to attempt it out.”
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I immediately adopted @usabasketball and @usatabletennis_ on Instagram, however to date, there’s been no phrase of this match that so many on social media have demanded. This sparked the primary of a number of questions I’ve for Olympians in addition to Olympic organizers:
When can we see Ant play Ping-Pong with Lily? It is heartwarming that Edwards confirmed as much as cheer Zhang on as she superior to the spherical of 16. And bravo that his staff invited her squad to basketball observe, the place they traded souvenirs and autographs. However the U.S. Main League Desk Tennis might use the assistance of NBA gods to realize assist. Take pity on us mere mortals and maintain an exhibition.
The place’s Russian determine skater Kamila Valieva? In February 2022, through the Beijing Winter Video games, I wrote a column saying, “I’ve by no means needed a 15-year-old to fail a lot in my life. However when (Valieva) executed her brief program … that is precisely what her staff’s dealing with of her constructive drug check had diminished me to – a spiteful fan who liked her through the pre-Olympics competitions however now feels betrayed. … Russia grabbed gold, the USA earned silver and Japan gained bronze.”
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As USA TODAY Sports activities columnist Christine Brennan wrote this previous week: “The Russian scandal … compelled the unique medal ceremony to be canceled and triggered an infuriating collection of worldwide delays and appeals, lastly ending with a Court docket of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling lower than two weeks in the past.” On Wednesday, the 2022 U.S. Olympic determine skating staff ‒ together with “Rocketman” Nathan Chen ‒ lastly bought their gold medals and the Japanese skaters bought their silver, all surrounded by their family members on the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
However what about Valieva? Now two years older however nonetheless a teen, did she watch the medal ceremony someplace? What’s she as much as? Who does she blame for shedding gold?
Olympics gender equality vs. gender-blind sports activities
How lengthy earlier than gender-parity Olympics result in gender-neutral Video games? Paris witnessed the first-ever Olympics to achieve gender parity. In 2016, because the Summer time Video games wrapped up in Rio de Janeiro, I co-wrote an editorial advocating, “Let women and men compete head-to-head in taking pictures.”
Josh Rivera and I reasoned: “For many years, women and men shooters competed in opposition to one another in worldwide occasions. On the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, American Margaret Thompson Murdock tied for first with teammate Lanny Bassham within the small-bore rifle competitors. After the judges examined the targets, they awarded the gold medal to the person and the silver to the girl. To Bassham’s credit score, he requested Murdock to share the highest podium with him because the nationwide anthem performed.
“After that, the Worldwide Olympic Committee phased out mixed-gender taking pictures and created occasions only for ladies. But within the twenty first century, taking pictures stays one of many few collegiate sports activities that’s gender blind ‒ and by which ladies are extremely aggressive. It’s time to take a contemporary have a look at which sports activities lend themselves to head-to-head competitors, no matter gender.”
Equestrian stays the one Olympic sport that is gender impartial. So our editorial query from eight years in the past nonetheless stands: “If the horse doesn’t care who’s dealing with it, why ought to a gun?”
How will Los Angeles beat the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony? I can not wait to see how Sunday’s closing ceremony will examine with the opening ceremony’s historic parade of countries on boats down the River Seine. However L.A. holds the following Summer time Video games. How do you prime the Eiffel Tower? Historically, at a closing ceremony, the following Olympic host additionally places on a present to tease coming points of interest. There are rumors that Tom Cruise, who’s been prominently attending quite a few Olympic occasions round Paris, will execute some wild stunt.
Hollywood, convey it.
Thuan Le Elston, a USA TODAY Opinion editor, is the creator of “Rendezvous on the Altar: From Vietnam to Virginia.”