2024 Paris Olympics megathread

[HVC]

So no massive corruption spearheaded by the powerful American Olympic committee? Well, that's less exciting 

[crazy canuck]

Here is a heart warming story about a Canadian weightlifter who won Silver, with also adds some context to our weight class discussion.

Maude Charron didn't go to Paris to defend the gold medal she won in Tokyo because that wasn't possible.

In the interim, they'd eliminated her class in Olympic weightlifting. In order to continue competing, she had either to gain weight or lose it. The Canadian decided to lose it. That was difficult.

Then her knee went and wouldn't get better. That was difficult.

Competing in her new class – 59 kilograms – she wasn't making the same impression. That was difficult.

She went to Paris on Thursday and lost. That was easy.

It is hard to imagine a defending champion in any sport who's ever taken a loss better. When she realized she had secured a silver, Charron was standing in the ready room backstage. She immediately burst into tears of joy.

Later, she did a full circle of the podium and hugged a Taiwanese colleague like she'd recently been rescued from sea. She leaped up into her place and started crying again. At certain points, all three woman on the stage appeared to be shedding tears.

Backstage, Charron cried again. Several times.

"I didn't come here for a medal. I didn't come here for a podium," Charron said. "All I came here for was the experience."

These days Charron – who is compact person – trains six or seven pounds heavier than her competing weight, and then has to cut for every tournament.

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The other, bigger problem with changing weight classes – the people waiting to greet you. Charron was dropped into a class with a defending gold medalist, as well as a defending world champion. In essence, they'd created a sort of weightlifting all-star league.

The atmosphere inside the poetically named South Paris Arena 6 on Thursday was charged from the get-go because of those rivals. Many were here to root for one of Taiwan's biggest stars, Kuo Hsing-Chun. A competing section was there for China's Luo Shifang.

Along with hunger and injury, Charron would have to overcome geopolitics.

In the end, she lifted as well as she had at the higher weight class in Tokyo. She set an Olympic record in the snatch, quickly eclipsed again by Luo.

She tried for another in clean-and-jerk. Her last lift would have set all sorts of records and put her temporarily in a gold-medal spot. She managed to get the bar up on her shoulders. But her legs buckled as she tried to put it over her head.

Luo, the eventual gold medalist, was preparing to go to stratospheric weights to push Charron aside. But once she'd won it, the Chinese lifter came out, did a little lap of the stage and ran back inside again. Competition over.

It was the rare instance in which everyone standing on the podium appeared happy with their result. A really lovely Olympic feeling about it.

As she spoke with reporters, Charron was wandering around with her silver medal in a box. She was also carrying the gift box they give winners. She held both loosely at her side, waving them around occasionally to emphasize a point.

Charron has spoken many times about how she enjoyed winning in Tokyo, and little else. Especially the "anxiety" that suffused the athletes village. Athletes were tested for COVID daily. Anyone who came up positive would be eliminated. Weightlifters compete near the end of an Olympics. It must have been a long, lonely wait.

Charron won at 64 kg and looked pretty happy doing it. But she says she wasn't.

"It ended well, but I'm like, 'Where's my gang? Where's my support system?' It was happiness, but also ... not regret, but maybe a sour feeling? I thought, 'I did all of that. It's wonderful. But I'm alone.'

No one feels alone in Paris. The venues are rammed. The people in them are up for every event. There was only one French competitor in Charron's grouping, and she did not show well. So the crowd shifted seamlessly to everyone else. They cheered her as hard as they did the Nigerian, the Colombian, the Ukrainian and the Filipina. They cheered hardest for the competitors who were struggling. When the Ukrainian appeared to injure herself in her last lift and staggered away, the crowd roared with sympathy.

"We need that fire," Charron said. "We're lifting a crazy amount of weight. Sometimes, by yourself, it's not enough."

No wonder Charron enjoyed it so much, despite not winning. Weightlifters only get one big gig, and this is it. She has finally got to experience it to the fullest.

Considering all the complications and the level of competition, this is one of the most unlikely silver medals at these Games.

Charron, a charming 31-year-old who plans to become a police officer, has the unusual wherewithal to understand winning really isn't everything. It does help when you have a gold tucked in a closet somewhere at home.

Long after the Chinese and Taiwanese had left the mixed zone, Charron was still milling around in there. She was happily chatting with anyone who held out a microphone and hugging anyone who came at her with arms outstretched. She took a phone call. She did some selfies. She cried some more.

It was the longest mixed-zone winning lap I think I've ever seen. In the end, the press attachés were near weeping themselves, begging for her to leave so that they could do a winners' news conference. A men's competition was beginning in 90 minutes. At this rate, they were never going to make it.

Charron kept gabbing.

"Now all I want to do is celebrate with my family," she said. "I saw them in the crowd. I heard them. That's why I came here."

[Josquius]

I was at the Olympics HQ last week and noticed on the stones outside they have a carved list of past hosts.
The 1956 Olympics was hosted by Melbourne... But alongside this they also have Stockholm carved in as a host since they hosted the equestrian events due to Australian quarantine laws.

This is the only time this has seemed to have happened for some reason despite it being very common some events are handled elsewhere. No mention of taihiti and marseille as co hosts this time.


Also noticed something I've never realised before. Doubtless old news to most- Olympics cancelled due to the world wars still kept their number. The 6th games just never happened.

Also odd that the would-be hosts on every occasion this happened were beligerants in the ongoing wars. So... Keep an eye on America in the coming years.

[HVC]

The Australian break dancer is my spirit animal.

The best part of only watching olympic clips is you only get the good stuff

[Admiral Yi]

The Australian break dancer is my spirit animal.

The best part of only watching olympic clips is you only get the good stuff

Amen.  Grabbing some breaky the other day they had men's field hockey on.  Hoo haw.

[Norgy]

We won the women's handball final!
Suck it, frog eaters!   

The womens' team has always been the flagship in Norway in that sport. But we've been close and no cigar (no pun intended) the past few championships. I was expect France to beat us comfortably. But, they didn't. Handball, unlike my sport, football, is a tense affair with like 20-30 goals per team. It was the sport all the hot girls at school played.
So keeping the number of goals scored per game in mind, it makes for rather good TV. And today it was spectacular. A hostile French crowd and a bunch of plucky Norwegian women beating the favourites. With a goalkeeper almost my own age who had an absolute stormer of a game.

Sports. As a spectator, it is about feelings. And I am feeling rather damned good now.

[Jacob]

Well done

Danmark's Radio has a piece on Stine Bredal Oftedal adding the Olympic Gold to her achievements, saying it was the only thing she missed. A storybook final match.

[garbon]

US vs Brazil football (soccer) game was fun to see though boiling in the stadium.

[Josquius]

The break dancing is very weird.
Big hello fellow kids vibes. The judges all in white but otherwise trying to dress cool. Like hood heaven.
And the contestants having nicknames of variable silliness

[Norgy]

The state broadcaster here (and I did not bother fact-checking) has a piece saying Norway hasn't won so many medals in 104 years. 

It certainly has been an eventful Olympic games for us.

[Grey Fox]

It is Canada's most successful Olympics. The absence of the cheating Russians does help in some sports. Canada's medals count is mainly, I'd say all the pressure, on the shoulders of our women athletes.

[Josquius]

The bbc mentioned it's Irelands best iirc ever too.
Events bloat?
Or else... Who is doing much worse than normal?

[HVC]

I had read it was the highest non boycotted Summer Olympics. Did we end up beating our 1984 record?

[Zanza]

The bbc mentioned it's Irelands best iirc ever too.
Events bloat?
Or else... Who is doing much worse than normal?

Germany did maybe not worse than "normal", but definitely worse than historically.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The bbc mentioned it's Irelands best iirc ever too.
Events bloat?
Or else... Who is doing much worse than normal?

Maybe they'll give medals for attending in the future