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Today’s List: Ten Thoughts on Rio 2016

August 21st, 2016 · No Comments · Lists, Olympics, Rio Olympics

The Rio 2016 Summer Olympics wrapped up today. The final few medals handed out, the typical Closing Ceremonies chaos the great migration to the airport in the morning …

Here are 10 topics about these Games, the future Games, and the people involved in it all.

1. We have to concede Rio did a pretty good job, if we credit TV coverage and what was being written onsite. So many things could have gone wrong, in terms of crime, terror, logistics, and very little of it did go wrong.

2. Biggest surprise of Rio 2016? I perhaps have been unduly influenced by watching BBC coverage for 17 days, but Team Great Britain finishing second in the medals standings has to rank pretty high. The Brits won one gold and 15 medals total, in 1996. We thought they had peaked with 29 and 65 (third place) when they hosted, at London 2012, but they pushed right on past that in Rio, winning 27 and 67 (finishing second, to the U.S.); Team GB has not won that many medals since 1908. A soccer country? Not anymore. A British Olympic official said: “We are now an Olympics superpower.” Rule, Brittania!

3. Star of the Games? Have to go with Usain Bolt winning, for the third successive Olympiad, perhaps the most basic of human endeavors — the 100-meter dash. As well as the 200 and anchoring the 4×100 relay for the third time.

4. Breakout star of the Games? Very few people pay attention to gymnastics, except during the Olympics, and seeing Simone Biles do what she does … Let’s make up a stat and say she’s 20 times more famous today than she was three weeks ago.

5. Wouldn’t it be great if … someone won a medal and didn’t immediately go looking for a flag?

6. We didn’t get enough positive drug tests to make me feel as if the issue is being adequately addressed. Not yet, anyway.

7. Who is the “black hat” of Rio 2016? On the national scale, we could cite Vladimir Putin and Russia’s government-backed cheating. On a individual level, might have to go with U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte, who got drunk and disorderly and lied repeatedly about his story of being held up at gunpoint.

8. The Summer Games are too big. Reducing the number of sports and/or events would make it more appealing to potential host cities. We should start by getting rid of most of the sports that do not consider the Olympics their biggest event — starting with golf, rugby sevens, tennis and men’s soccer. And maybe (no!) men’s basketball, too.

9. We could also streamline the Games by trimming sports that require a big and essentially unusable (a week later) venue — such as mountain biking and BMX. Though we concede that both sports look good on TV. As well as going after equestrian, every bit of which includes a living being who is not a human. And would anyone really miss taekwondo? The Games already have three other combat sports, in boxing, judo and wrestling.

10. The great conundrum of the Olympics is this: We wish it was held more often than once every four years (We have to wait until 2020? Really?) … but if it happened more often it would not be as special as it is.

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