#98: Spoiler alerts
On the ground in Paris.
issue #98: Aug. 1, 2024
All-sporters, this is our post-Olympics newsletter from Paris. A little off schedule because it was long day of watching tri yesterday and then we had to put out a podcast & a bunch of other stuff. If you want the daily Olympics updates, sign up here for the Women’s Sports Fan Club. If you want the daily pod, subscribe here.
We’ll have another Triathlonish newsletter out to all of you on Monday after the mixed relay. And then it’ll be quasi-back to the normal schedule
That means we’ll actually wait until next week to talk about T100 London, along with some other tri-ish non-Olympics news. Right now: It’s all about the Games.
- Kelly
Just because it’s predictable doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome
I’m going to assume you all know at this point how the Olympic triathlon races played out.
In the women’s race: Some savvy current swimming broke things up and it seemed like Flora Duffy was going to make a solo breakaway stick, but ultimately (especially with how wet the roads still were after the huge storms at 5/6 a.m. and how many crashes happened — so so so many crashes right in front of us) it was just too hard to get away. The front 10-woman group of nearly all the big names came together and it turned into the predicted running race: with Cassandre Beaugrand eventually pulling ahead in the final mile.
Cassandre Beaugrand
Julie Derron
Beth Potter
Emma Lombardi
Flora Duffy
The men’s: It took some time (and an effort by New Zealand’s Dylan McCullough to help drag the chase group up), but the men’s race still turned into the massive (32-person) bike group that we knew it would be. And then it’s really just a Hayden Wilde-Alex Yee-French men run battle.
The thing was, though, holy shit, on course we thought it was over, done, finished, after Hayden went by us with a huge gap still in the final lap.
After Alex pulled immediately ahead out of T2 and then was caught on the second lap and went 15 seconds backwards, he didn’t look good. Not out there on the ground. Like Alex Yee always looks smooth and in the scheme of athletes he still looked smooth, but for Alex he looked as if he might just pass out on the side of the course.
To hold the gap and to then claw back time, and re-pass with just 500m or so to go is insane. And, yes, I know that technically he didn’t speed up, everyone else just slowed down more — but you have to understand how hot and humid it was getting out there (so sweaty). Every other athlete near the front didn’t close any gaps in that final lap, and I legit thought I might pass out just standing at the barricade in the six-deep crowds. Alex made a move early, got counter-attacked, had a tough patch, and came back on Hayden in EPIC fashion. That’s so unbelievably hard to do.
Alex Yee
Hayden Wilde
Leo Bergere
Pierre Le Corre
Vasco Vilaca
Full results here.
Someone asked me if those podiums and results were what I expected and the answer is: yeah, pretty much. But that doesn’t mean the races weren’t still awesome.
The U.S. women’s gymnastics team winning the team all-around was also expected and also awesome.
The only big surprise (to me) was Julie Derron in silver. Which doesn’t mean she came out of nowhere or that there weren’t indications (she has plenty of super fast 70.3 run splits to her name) but it was still a surprise to see her putting together the swim-bike combo at that level to be in the front into T2.
A special shoutout to Flora Duffy, too. Her swimming in the currents was a masterclass in smart racing and choices, and set her up to try and make a break stick. It didn’t work out for a medal. But holy hell, five Olympics and to come back from that level of injury last year and really be in the mix to end up 5th is something.
It was also hard to tell, standing on the sidelines, as they went by: Are the front athletes running really really fast or are the other athletes, who are getting dropped, running slow? The answer was the front athletes were running really really fast. It was one of those situations where a women goes by and looks rough and it turns out ‘oh she *only* ran a 34-minute 10K.’ 🤯
For the TV shots
I think, though, overall — despite the Seine and the water quality and whatever: The event did what the French wanted it to do.
The crowds were nuts. The fact that the men’s race was rescheduled to after the women’s race actually meant that crowds got even more nuts than they probably would have been with just one race early on different days, because as the day went on more and more people who were just walking by stopped to watch. By the men’s run, there were people who had climbed trees, people standing on top of a bus shelter with a boom box (that I really thought might bring the whole thing crashing down), French coordinated chanting. It was a lot.
We also know that a home win at a home Games in an event designed for its marquee-ness can fundamentally inspire a nation and change the sport in that country. It has a cascading rippling effect. Yes, triathlon was already popular in France, but Cassandre winning on that historic bridge with that backdrop is going to catapult her and the sport into another level of fame here.
We also know that these kinds of events (ie. the Olympics) are less about the intricacies of the weeds of our specific sport and more about presenting an image, a vibe, a package to the world.
So, yeah, look, I get it: If they couldn’t pull off a swim it would have been ridiculous. And I get that from a strictly triathlon standpoint it feels like ‘why can’t they just pick some lake in the suburbs and make sure there’s a race.’ I get that, I do. But. That’s just not the goal. The goal was TV seen around the world. The goal was iconic. Suburban lake doesn’t give iconic.
How are the athletes feeling?
I dunno, tired? Tired of being asked about water quality?
Everyone keeps asking about this, about the stress of the rescheduling (which has to be stressful, for sure, and annoying af) and about the international media attention on triathlon, but all I keep thinking is: From a triathlon perspective, aren’t we all a little used to this kind of thing happening. How many races have all of these pros been to that were rescheduled or delayed or modified? Tokyo had a boat blocking the men’s start and they had to be recalled! The women’s race was delayed there too, remember.
I think, to a degree, the athletes weren’t so much upset they might get sick (which sucks) as they were upset that everyone decided to get worried about this now, when all they want to do is race. We’re actually sorta used to these things. It’s the rest of the world that isn’t.
I also think, to a degree, the longterm health consequences that most of these athletes have inflicted on their bodies are far worse than the levels of bacteria they’d have had to deal with here. I’m not saying that’s good; I’m just saying if you want to worry about athlete well-being there are other places to start.
A few other Olympics tidbits
Do I think mixed team relay will happen on Monday? Yeah, probably. But given that they got their TV shots there’s some chance they’ll be less concerned about it now.
Of course, per usual, these Olympics have been marked by my ongoing hatred of the random ineffective intensity of French security. It took us an hour to get on a train after the races yesterday — and was the closest I’ve come to full-on lay-down-on-the-ground meltdown — because we tried to walk back to the station we had come from and were stopped in multiple places by newly erected barricades and police, who had no answers or suggestions about how to get to the train station instead — and certainly no reasoning as to why we were all being stopped when there were other tourists very clearly walking around behind the barricades. (It’s not just me. This is not a bug of the Paris Olympics, it’s a feature.)
We did go to swimming Monday night and got to see Summer McIntosh’s 400 IM in-person. The 400 free was also nutty (which I didn’t see in-person), with both her and Ariane Titmus beating out Katie Ledecky (though of course Ledecky was dominant later in her key events). A French swimmer also took two golds in a matter of an hour last night — so even though the U.S. isn’t killing it as much as usual there’s still a lot happening. (Youtube/New York Times/Twitter/Daily Mail)
Overall, I’d say going off vibes and stats: Rugby Sevens is the breakout event of these Games. We were at the women’s medal matches and it’s hard to describe how crazy it was for the U.S. to be down as time ran out and get a full field run to come back for the surprise bronze medal. (Youtube)
Also, if you’re not following Ilona Maher on Tiktok or IG you should be. (LA Times/Tiktok/Instagram)
I went to table tennis last night, too, and it turns out there’s always some crazy story in even the most obscure sports. (Wall Street Journal)
And I am all about Simone Biles changing the face of gymnastics and having fun doing it. (New York Times)
And, yes, I am 100% going to Team USA House. (SF Gate)
One last thing
It’s hard not to like these two.
