August 10: PARIS 2024
The Summer Olympics are back and literally bigger than ever before!
This is Olympic GAMES. Everyone’s favorite daily digest for all-things Olympics.
Grab bag of facts and trivia
Athlete spotlights
Medal count updates
Events to watch
Schedule for the day
The big stories from August 9:
A quieter medal day for Team USA.
US men’s volleyball beat Italy decisively to claim bronze.
Similarly, US Women’s basketball cruised to the gold medal match, 85-64 against Australia.
In non-USA news, Spain and France had a bitterly contested gold medal soccer match. Ultimately, Les Bleus lost in extra time 3-5 to Spain.
Team USA picked up more wrestling medals. Spencer Richard Lee took silver in Men’s Freestyle 57kg. Aaron Marquel Brooks won bronze in Men’s Freestyle 86kg and Helen Louise Maroulis took bronze in Women’s Freestyle 57kg.
Olivia Reeves got gold in women’s 71kg weightlifting.
As for athletics, the men’s 4x100 relay team was disqualified after a bungled baton pass. Luckily, team USA women’s 4x100 relay team crushed it and won gold. Similarly, Rai Benjamin ensured USA men also stood on top of the podium in the 400m hurdles.
Paris is the City of Love. So let’s talk about all the love at the Olympic Games. Specifically, athletes in love. There are multiple dual Olympian couples in Paris and one Olympic/Paralympic couple.
Lee Kiefer 🇺🇸 🥇🥇& Gerek Meinhardt 🇺🇸 are both fencers met at the Olympics in 2012 and now go to med school together!
Olga Kharlan 🇺🇦 🥇🥉& Luigi Samele 🇮🇹 🥉 are also dual fencers. Or should I say duel? (I’ll see myself out)
Apparently fencing in the sport for Olympic couples as Manon Apithy-Brunet 🇫🇷 🥇& Bolade Apithy 🇫🇷 🥉prove those who fence together, stay together.
Rossella Fiamingo 🇮🇹 (fencing)🥇 & Gregorio Paltrinieri 🇮🇹 (swimming) 🥈🥉met at the Tokyo Olympics and are now engaged. Guessing they weren’t deterred by the cardboard beds that first debuted in Tokyo.
Jasmine Moore 🇺🇸 🥉🥉& Joseph Fahnbulleh 🇱🇷 also met in Tokyo and bonded as Jasmine was going to run track at the University of Florida (where Joseph was on the team). Bet they make each other’s hearts race.
Lisa Barbelin 🇫🇷 🥉& Thomas Chirault 🇫🇷 🥈are French archers who met at the shooting range and now live together.
Elina Svitolina 🇺🇦 & Gael Monfils 🇫🇷 are tennis stars and new parents.
Abbadini Yumin 🇮🇹 & Elisa Iorio 🇮🇹 🥈hit the gym together as they’re both gymnasts for Team Italy!
Noah Lyles 🇺🇸 🥇🥉& Junelle Bromfield 🇯🇲 run together and push each other faster.
Joao Chianca 🇧🇷 & Luana Silva 🇧🇷 are surfers who just started dating a year ago.
Gabriella Willems 🇧🇪 🥉& Christian Parlati 🇮🇹 are judokas who bonded over their sport.
Anneli Maley 🇦🇺 & Marena Whittle 🇦🇺 are teammates on and off the basketball court as they’re both representing Team Australia in Paris.
Ana Carolina Da Silva 🇧🇷 & Anne Buijs 🇳🇱 are married volleyball players, but they each play for their home countries.
Huang Ya Qiong 🇨🇳🥇 & Li Yuchen 🇨🇳 🥇are doubles badminton players. Shortly after they won gold, Li Yuchen proposed to Huang Ya Qiong. Diamonds and gold go well together!
Katie Boulter 🇬🇧 & Alex De Minaur 🇦🇺 had a meet cute over a 6AM cup of coffee. Game, set, match made in heaven for these tennis players.
Pablo Simonet 🇦🇷 & Maria Campoy 🇦🇷 🥉 were posing for a mixed team photo in Paris with their respective handball and field hockey teams with Pablo proposed!
Lara Vadlau 🇦🇹 (sailing)🥇 & Lea Schuller 🇩🇪 (soccer) 🥉 had to navigate different teams and sports at this Olympics.
Dominik Cerny 🇸🇰 & Hana Burzalova 🇸🇰 are engaged Slovakians. Guess they’re walking, not running, to the altar.
Tara Davis-Woodhall 🇺🇸 🥇 & Hunter Woodhall 🇺🇸 are representing Team USA in track & field at the Olympics and Paralympics and have been liked each other since high school.
Honorable mention- Tomas Machac 🇨🇿 🥇 & Katerina Siniakova 🇨🇿 🥇 are a former Czech couple who broke up before the Olympics, but continued to compete together in the mixed doubles tennis tournament. After they won gold, they shared a kiss that has us all questioning if they’re back together.
This spotlight is going to shine on some of the women of the US water polo team. The US water polo team won gold in 2012, 2016, and 2021. They recently suffered a heartbreaking overtime penalty shootout loss to Australia to miss out on their fourth consecutive gold medal match. Given the adversity some of these stars have faced in their personal lives, I’m amazed they have been able to fight so hard to get to this point. Team captain Maggie Steffens’s 26 year old sister-in-law, Lulu Conner, was in Paris to cheer on the team and suffered a medical emergency and died just days after the opening ceremony. Maggie was attempting to become the first person to win four golds for water polo. Meanwhile, attacker Madeline Musselman recently shared that her husband was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and given only months to live. Maddie was MVP in Tokyo and is one of the leading scorers.
This is a tight-knit squad with a mix of returning Olympians and newcomers, some of whom are young enough to have once posed for photos with Steffens as children rooting for the team in Rio. Of the returners, Ashleigh Johnson was the first Black woman to make the US Olympic water polo team in 2016 and is currently one of the best goalkeepers in the world. She’s been partnering with Flavor Flav this year to increase visibility of water polo for people of color. These women have fought battles in and out of the pool and I’ll root for them no matter what happens in the bronze medal match.
Rachel Fattal, Madeline Musselman, Ashleigh Johnson, Maggie Steffens
As of the end of August 9th Olympic Day:
Events I find interesting, not necessarily all medal events or even medal events at all. If the event has already occurred, expect a potential reference during tonight’s prime time coverage.
Golf: 2AM Women’s Round 4 🏅
Sport Climbing: 5:35AM Women’s Boulder & Lead 🏅
Rhythmic Gymnastics: 7:00AM Group AA 🏅
Water Polo: 3:35AM Women’s Bronze match USA vs Netherlands 🏅
Breaking: 9:00AM B-Boys Round Robin, 2:19PM B-Boys final 🏅
Soccer: 10:00AM Women’s Finals USA vs Brazil 🏅
Pentathlon: 10:30AM Men’s Finals 🏅
High Jump: 12:00PM Men’s Final 🏅
800M: 12:15PM Men’s Final 🏅
Javelin: 12:30PM Women’s Final 🏅
100M Hurdles: 12:35 Women’s Final 🏅
5KM: 12:50PM Men’s Final 🏅
1500M: 1:15PM Women’s final 🏅
4x400M: 2:00PM Men’s final 🏅, 2:14PM Women’s Final 🏅
Basketball: 2:30PM Men’s final USA vs France 🏅
The full schedule with event times can be found here. This gets a little complicated with time zone changes, so I’m leaving this as a full schedule and will focus on fun to watch favorites in the Events section with times listed in CDT.