The COVIDLympics, Day Nine

• Simone Biles has withdrawn from the floor exercise -- only the balance beam remains.
• Interesting decision at the end of the men's high jump.  Because of an absolute tie (both missed three times at the final height, and their misses matched each other, if any, at all previous attempted heights), Mutaz Esha Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy were offered a choice:  Share the gold medal, or jump off for it.  We have two high jump gold medalists.
• Qatar has now won their first TWO gold medals in the Olympics at these Games.  No further maiden-breaks today -- three gold maidens and two total maidens broken so far.
• And then Italy shocks everybody when Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Italy broke the European record at 9.80 seconds for the 100m and won the event!  The heavily favored Jamaicans won NOTHING in the event -- USA won silver, Canada bronze.  Andres de Grasses' bronze is the first male medal for Canada in these Games.
• The 9.80 is the same time Usain Bolt won the 2016 Games 100m with.
• International intrigue at Tokyo Airport -- a Belarussian sprinter, Krystsina Tsimanouskaya does not want to go home and has requested asylum.  She has been taken into protective custody by Japanese police.  Good luck, especially under these conditions.  
• The sprinter was tossed from the Games by her team for speaking out against her and the team's coaches.
• Lilly King is the latest American athlete who says the Illegal Russian Team should not be here.
• Fourteen additional athletes have forfeited their credentials for continuing COVID protocol violations.

Inside The Games material:

• An alcohol incident Saturday night at a park at the Olympic Village may subject a number of parties, athletes and others, to sanctions.
• The President of the Paris 2024 Games has expressed disappointment at the French total in the first half of the Games and urges lessons be learned so a similar result to Japan's gold medal haul can be effected when the Games come to Paris in four years.  Through nine days, France sits seventh on the table with five golds and a silver tiebreaker over South Korea.  In total, they stand eighth with 21.
• Olympic COVID rules indicate that if a racer of a team competed in heats, but was removed from the final for a positive COVID test and the team still is allowed to compete and medals, the removed athlete will receive the medal as well.  Bruno Rosetti of Italy's men's fours rowing team is the first such recipient, as the team won bronze.
• Anti-Olympic protestors attempted to audibly disrupt the men's singles tennis final, but they were unable to do so, as Russia's Alexander Zverev took gold.

And in the National Dick-Waving Contest:

• It appears that the gold medal race is about over and it is China's!!!  With 11 golds in the pool, not much in the track so far for the USA, and the swimming now concluded, the USA's deficit is now four -- China 24, USA 20, Japan 17, Australia 14, Illegal Russian Team 12.
• Total:  USA 59, China 51, Illegal Russian Team 44, Great Britain 32, Australia and Japan 31.
• Seventh in the total is Italy with 27 -- FIFTEEN OF THEM BRONZE.
• Day Nine five years ago for the USA:  26 and 69.  So six and ten short so far.  China was 15 and 45, so they are 9 and 6 to the good -- perhaps one of the speculations is that China, knowing gold tops the table and second place is the first loser on the official Olympic table, is racking up gold...
• 179 of the 339 events are now completed.
• 53 nations have struck gold.  There were 59 in Rio and 54 in London.
• 76 have medalled in total.  86 in Rio, 84 in London.

Day 506

• Released for Getting Over Without Permission:  Bray Wyatt got the boot today from WWE.
• Current camp COVID news:  Arizona has nine players on the COVID Reserve List -- Washington has six.  The Football Team's coach, Ron Rivera, has warned his players that the NFL will not look kindly on COVID positives this season.  Washington is second-lowest in vaccination rate, at just over 70%, according to ESPN.  Rivera warned that even a contract-tracing placement on the day before Week 1 would cost the player both Week 1 and Week 2, because Washington has the Thursday night slot in that week.
• In fact, it now appears as if three of the four Football Team quarterbacks have all tested positive for COVID!
• Two aces are off the mound foreseeably:  Tyler Glasnow of the Rays, Tommy John -- looking at a 2023 return!  Jake DeGrom, who was going to win the NL Cy Young in a historic season before elbow inflammation, now probably won't pitch again this year because of it -- September is a best case scenario right now!
• As someone noted, three of the most active teams in the trade deadline market -- The Giants, Padres, and Dodgers -- all lost last night.
• The is now RUMOR that the WWE was involved in getting AEW in trouble with Domino's Pizza -- a major Turner sponsor -- with that incident Wednesday night.
• And THIS is interesting:  A rumored report that the wife of Evander Kane of the San Jose Sharks is not only accusing her husband of being cheap with her while he's partying in Europe, but is also claiming he's taken money to throw games??  Am I reading this right?
• The NHL has launched an investigation -- they are aware of the comments and have nothing further at this point and time.
  

The COVIDLympics, Day Eight, End of Day News Dump: Halfway Done...

Just looking through some of the normal news avenues for some Olympics news this morning...

• Add Qatar to the list of gold maidens broken.  Fares Ibrahim, the only Qatari weightlifter on the Tokyo team, won gold in the 96kg Weightlifting class.  An Olympic record in both clean and jerk and the total.  Qatar is the third nation, with Bermuda and the Philippines, to get their first gold in these Games.  Two nations -- Turkmenistan and San Marino (which now has two shooting medals after a team silver today) -- got their first medals.
• Two athletes from the country of Georgia were expelled from Japan and sent home for breaking COVID protocols.  Both had completed their events and went sightseeing illegally.  Coaches and athletes CAN attend events (that's about the extent of the audiences you are seeing)-- they CANNOT break outside the Olympic compound.
• Novak Djokovic, after being denied his Golden Slam, lost any chance of any medal after he lost the bronze-medal singles match as well -- then withdrew from the doubles final (tweaked his shoulder), then threw his racquet into the empty stands after several Code of Conduct violations in the match -- only one of which was called.  He, as many of the tennis professionals, is quite angry at the conditions the tournament was allowed to be held in.
• Djokovic now has some question as to whether his Golden Slam attempt may have compromised his attempt at the Grand Slam itself, with the US Open later next month.
• Piers Morgan has joined his conservative colleagues in slamming Simone Biles and admitting mental abuse is part of being a top level athlete -- going so far as to say Biles' mental-health withdrawl and the rise of the belief that athletes should take care of their mental health means "RIP sport".
• Gracenote STILL believes the United States will pip 42 golds and 106 total medals (2 golds and 10 total more than their final pre-Olympic numbers), in numbers released on their social media at about 11 AM Eastern this morning.  HOW???????????????????????  Right now, I have them, just on a mental thought, having trouble seeing more than 30 and 90!   
• It appears that "inclusion" is beyond the pale for the IOC -- the number of transgender athletes in Tokyo will be pushed back by the IOC with new guidelines for the individual sporting federations to create their rules by.
• Make it five days in a row now for record COVID cases in Tokyo during the Games.
• Inside the Games notes that, with a seventh-place finish in women's rugby sevens, China is making strides in events they have little tradition in.  I told people before these Games started that China was winning the table.  A lot of American arrogance is still believing the track will bring it home...  They won't believe me til the men's marathon is done, I guess...   
• NBCUniversal is actually opening up a THEME PARK in China to cash in on tourism before the Beijing Winter Games.

The COVIDLympics, Day Eight: No, NBCUniversal... Some of us view them as the drums of REALITY...

• NBCUniversal has shunted off all criticism of the ratings and the attitudes surrounding Team USA in the Olympic Games and their coverage.  They basically state that the Games WILL be profitable to NBC (I'd ask "How??", but the advertising is so prevalent on the stream coverage that they probably just jam every ad they can find and do it that way!!!), in spite of the shit ratings and what they call "the drums of negativity"...  I am reminded of a very wise woman I look up to once demanding of me that I become an optimist.  (She's kinda loopy that way...  ;) )  Of course, the one time I decide to try to take that optimism and test it...   
• As such, another 40% drop from Rio last night, but 19 million saw primetime action last night, one of the best numbers so far for Tokyo. (Sports Media Watch)
• Two tracksters and one coach from Trinidad and Tobago are done at the Games with COVID positives...
• So is a South African golfer, before the second round was called off due to weather partway through.
• The total, as of yesterday's report, is now over 200 COVID positives from the Olympic community.
• Protests continue regarding the COVIDLympics, one Japanese professor certain that there is no way the Games are prepared to deal with "the worst-case scenario"...
• US men's volleyball team is at least doing some internal chirping, but more at itself.  It now has a must-win vs. Argentina to not become the first men's volleyball US team to not make the playoff since Sydney, when they went 0-5!
• Gracenote has not released their numbers yet for today -- but, as of yesterday, their Twitter account was noting the USA projected to win 46 golds and 109 total.  WHAT???  They admit their lack of Chinese data, but...   
• Benefits of being the host:  Japan has already broken it's national record for gold medals in just seven days.
• Sports Illustrated article on continuing lies from USA Gymnastics.  Easy answer to the title of "Can Gymnastics Be Saved?"  NO.
• And we have our first drug disqualification of the track meet:  Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria continues the Nigerian story of their track team in these Games.  Busted for HGH and never should've been allowed in Tokyo.  It was an out-of-competition test on the 19th which has her provisionally suspended.  She was 9th fastest in Round 1 of the 100m.
• Simone Biles has, as expected, withdrawn from Sunday's individual apparatus events.
• Mixed relays did not go well for Team USA last night -- swimming took 5th.  And after being reinstated, almost the story of the Games for the USA, track took bronze.
• And, as I all but predicted to people who are trying to say the USA has tracksters to make up the difference...  Jamaica:  CLEAN SWEEP 1-2-3 in the 100 meter women's final.
• Only two golds in the pool.  China leads the golds, now, by FOUR with 21.  Japan, after a shock loss in the team Judo to finish the Judo program, has 17 (9 in Judo).  USA has 16.
• China and the USA are tied with 46 total medals.  Illegal Russian Team has 37.  Japan has 30.
• Just about half the medals are now gone:  159 of the 339 events have been completed.
• Four years ago:  24 golds (16 in the pool), 61 (33 in the pool) total for the USA.  They're 14 (8 in the pool) and 46 (26 total in the pool) right now.  China was 13 and 41 last Olympics through eight days -- now 21 and 46.
• 49 nations have gold medals so far in the Tokyo Games.
• 76 have medaled in total.
• Only five Swimming finals left.  USA might be remotely favored in two.

The COVIDLympics, Day Seven, Part Three: The Rest of the Day Seven Stories

• In another admission and crybabying by United States interests that the medal numbers are not what they should be:  A Wall Street Journal editorial has actually called for all adult athletes, under the supervision of doctors, to be allowed to take Performance Enhancing Drugs.  WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...  WE AREN'T DOMINATING!!!  *kick* *scream*  *pout*  WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!  
• Jessica Fox of Australia found an interesting use for Olympic condoms in a Games where sexual relations are being discouraged in the name of COVID:  She actually repaired a small hole in her canoe with one -- then won the gold medal in the canoeing event with it!
• Laurel Hubbard, the transgender New Zealand weightlifter, has been speaking out as a beacon of hope for similar people around the world -- but she has also been the victim of numerous online trolls, according to the NZOC.
• Alan Hazdic was roundly denounced by his teammates in the team fencing competition - his three teammates all wear pink masks to condemn the sexual predator's presence in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
• Add another event to the growing list of Team USA gold-medal crash-outs:  They were the favorites to win the inaugural 4x400 mixed team relay at the track events.  They didn't even get out of the first round of qualifying -- disqualified!!!  Apparently, a successful appeal has been made.

And from Inside the Games...

• A fourth straight day of record COVID cases in Tokyo on Thursday, and the first day in history that the nation's new-case total passed 10,000.
• Japan has won nine gold medals in Judo -- the bad news for the hosts:  Day Eight is the final day of the Judo competition.
• A proposed major portion of the Paris 2024 bid -- a rail line connecting many major sites -- has been admitted that it has no chance of being completed, even this far out, in time for the Paris 2024 Games.
• Indian media is attempting to propagate what appears to be false news regarding doping in the weightlifting competition.
• At least one US Senator believes the Kendricks positive COVID test is a false positive.

Day 505

• The good news for All Elite Wrestling:  1.1 million for "Fight For The Fallen", even against the Olympic Games, Wednesday night.  Top five in the almost two-year existence of AEW Dynamite.
• The bad news was that a gamble they made has apparently cost them a major sponsor:  The main event, as part of an overreaching story involving the #1 heel in the company, Maxwell Jacob Friedman and his "Five Labors of Jericho" (trying to show Chris Jericho that MJF is better than him, MJF is forcing Jericho to go through four massive challenges before facing him), was that Jericho had to go into a no-rules deathmatch situation with the wildly-independent-popular "King of All This Shit/MDK Gang" Nick Gage, the former GCW World Champion.  Gage is the most violent deathmatch wrestler in the United States, and is just as willing to kill himself than his opponent.  Gage is so popular that, when he lost the GCW Championship over the weekend in a similar match to the former Zack Ryder, the fans littered the ring with debris and damn near rioted!
• Gage, during the match with Jericho, cut Jericho's forehead with a pizza cutter.  While this was going on, TNT was in picture-in-picture commercial -- of Domino's Pizza...
• ... who will NO LONGER BE ADVERTISING ON THE PROGRAM AS A RESULT.
• Starlin Castro has been fired from the Washington Nationals after drawing a 30-day suspension for domestic violence.  Under league rules, the suspension comes first.
• The regents of both the University of Texas and Oklahoma University have accepted the move to the Southeastern Conference.  Tick tock...   
• Two of the biggest fire sales at the MLB trade deadline, the Cubs and the Nationals, play this weekend.  Between them, they traded 17 players and fired another.

The COVIDLympics, Day Seven, Part Two: And the mouths are beginning to flap...

And if you understand why, you know it's not a good sign if you are a fan of Team USA.

Two major points of contention today, both USA swimmers.

Lilly King has formally condemned people (such as myself) who are calling out Team USA for falling short (and dare I say, WELL SHORT) of medal and especially gold medal expectations in these Games so far.

Lilly:

• Team Women's Gymnastics
• Rowing Women's Eights, where the USA has dominated until now (and that doesn't even take into account the ABSOLUTE ZERO the USA got in Rowing in these Games, with the regatta now completed)
• Softball
• Male BMX Racing (though that was the result of a horrific crash to take out the World Champion)

That's four right there.  And that doesn't account for the fact you're probably AT LEAST FIVE gold short in the pool, with only six with two days to go.

And what does this mean in the overall?

Golds:  China 19, Japan 18, USA 14, Illegal Russian Team 10

Total:  USA 41, China 40, Illegal Russian Team 34

It is becoming increasingly unlikely that, at best, the USA won't have to split the title, winning the total but losing the gold.

And that's if China doesn't win the total as well.

And then there's the other USA swimmer who's shooting his mouth off.

Ryan Murphy basically said he believes at least the Russians are doping, and no one cares.

Russia's response:  "You need to be able to lose."

This is getting salty and fast.

A British rower, after taking silver to the Russians, blasted the IOC, saying the Russians didn't even deserve to be here.

(Forgetting, of course, this is the THIRD Olympics of their ban.)

An inquest has already been called by Great Britain into a disappointing performance by THEIR rowing team in the regatta.

I would have to think similar is eventually going to have to be called against the entire Olympic movement in the United States.

There are at least four major issues at play:

1) The American White Right leaving sports entirely.  Ratings and viewership of even the Olympics are half, if not less, than Rio.  To give an idea:  All Elite Wrestling, on a night they should've taken a bath in the numbers, drew nearly 1.2 million viewers for their "Fight For the Fallen" special -- this year, benefitting sexual assault victims.  This on primetime Night Five of the Games.

It has to be made clear that, because of BLM and other political considerations central to sports are finally getting Conservative America to turn off sports entirely and forever, without recourse until sports are basically no longer "Too Black"/"Too Woke".

2) I said it and will continue to take heat for it.  I think a lot of Americans, even on Team USA, are not as committed to performing for their country -- and many should not be.  How you can be Black or LGBT and actually have your full heart into performing for Team USA in these Games, given the Divided States of America, is beyond any semblance of my comprehension.

3) The massive continued coverup of the United Sexual-Assault Olympic Committee and it's rampant use of sexual assault and rape as probable filters for who gets the opportunity to represent Team USA.

4) And the massive financial and corporate pressure on "certain" Team USA athletes.

Keep an eye on these numbers -- and on the behavior of Team USA as the Games continue.

The COVIDLympics, Day Seven

This will probably eventually be a Part One, but there's an early report that needs to be made:

• Tokyo, on Day Six, has reported 3,865 new COVID cases.  That's a new record for the prefecture, breaking the record of Day Five, which broke the record of Day Four.

Here we go with the normal stuff:

• The Mexican Olympic Committee wants words -- NOW! -- with the Mexican Olympic softball team.  They not only decided to take Olympic-branded bedding home as souvenirs -- but, to make room, they threw away their national team uniforms in so doing!
• First day of track and field -- men's 10000m one of the few finals today.
• A study has been performed on social-media reactions to Simone Biles' withdrawls, and has found that, at least on a 51-49 level, 16 states, based on geotagged Twitter data, have had the strongest negative response.  Only two did not vote for Trump in 2020:  New Hampshire and Maine (and Maine had a Congressional district going for Trump -- while Nebraska, which also have gone negative, had a Congressional district for Biden).  
• Day 5 Ratings are in (Sports Media Watch), and the beat goes on:  Only 15 million watched across all platforms, down 48% from Rio.  The ratings NBC is getting for primetime Olympic coverage hasn't even reached Sunday Night Football levels!!  They've already lost one network, as of the end of the year, to this.  More coming?   
• USA wins zero medals of any kind in the rowing regatta.
• No golds tonight in the pool either, probably meaning Japan and China will top the golds table after a week.
• Connor Fields has been eliminated from the BMX Racing men's title chase with a horrific crash in his heat -- it looked like he crashed, folded over, and then got completely run over by another racer in the heat.  Word is a helicopter is taking Fields to the hospital.
• And now it looks like a contender from Australia has similarly been eliminated in the women's, except she sounds like she, at least, was spared being run over.
• More row in the pool -- after the disappointing US swimming meet continues (great total, golds is far short of where it's wanted to be), USA's Ryan Murphy all but said publicly that the Illegal Russian Team's Evgeny Rylov and others are doping to surpass the United States.
• Novak Djokovic's dream of a Golden Slam is over -- defeated in the tennis tournament by Alexandr Zverev.  He's already won the first three majors on the tennis tour -- a Golden Slam, only performed once by Steffi Graf, is all four in an Olympic year, plus the gold medal.
• The Dick-Waving Contest is getting it's own post.

The COVIDLympics, Day Six, Part Three: The Numbers Are NOT GOOD...

Sports Media Watch:

Primetime ratings are NOT GOOD...

• Saturday night:  15.3 million viewers across all platforms -- down 35% from the 23.5 million five years ago.  First night since 2004 that any night of coverage on NBC had not gotten 20 million.
• Sunday night:  19.2 million TV, another 660,000 streaming -- but still down nearly 40% from 31.8 million in Rio, and that was about 11% down from 36 million in London!
• Monday night:  16.8 million, including streaming.  Rio was 31.5 million -- 47% drop.
• Tuesday night:  16.2 million, and a 55% drop.

You might as well start the discussion about the American political ramifications on sports.  It's clear where this is coming from.  If even the Olympics are now halving their viewership due to "Get woke, go broke..."....

Day 504

• Interesting "Bold Prediction" from SB Nation's Ohio State blog:  Ohio State will join what will become the sole superconference in college football, the SEC.  I've long wondered when the day would come when the SEC would be the extent of college football -- it may well happen in four years.   
  
• The new reality of college football:  Bryce Young, quarterback of national-champion-presumptive Alabama, will be paid over $800,000 in Name, Image, and Likeness deals.  And you wonder if the NCAA survives this...  
• The Big XII has actually issued a Cease and Desist order in court to ESPN to stop taking actions that would destabilize the conference.  Horse is out of the barn, people.  And you just ensured that Texas and Oklahoma are probably going to be staring buyouts in the face to get relevant again...   
• ESPN, and I can't believe I'm defending them, denies the claims.  They have already been talking about the impact NIL will have on college football, and one Power 5 AD said the remaining teams in the Big XII had zero value as a conference.  Another anonymous Power 5 AD has said this will be the end of the NCAA, part and parcel.
• The Baseball Hall of Fame will retain Curt Schilling on the writer's ballot, against his request.
• The official invitation has been extended.  Oklahoma and Texas are SEC bound.  Only question is when.
• It appears Aaron Rodgers has signed and remanipulated his contract to reduce the end by one year with the Packers (2022, meaning he would have two more years with the team), with some financial guarantees added in.

The COVIDLympics, Day Six, Part Two: UH OH....

• Sam Kendricks, a USA pole vaulter and medal contender.  Out of the Games, COVID positive.
• At least two other COVID positives in athletes reported as of early Day Six in the Athletes Village.
• As a domino effect, a later report that the entire Australian track and field team has been placed under precautionary quarantine due to at least one of their pole vaulters training with Kendricks.
• A Greek commentator has been expelled from the Games and fired for racist comments about South Koreans -- saying their table tennis players' eyes are so narrow, they can't see the ball.  Wow.  This has got the potential to go so far south...   
• As has a German cycling coach -- ordered to go home after calling some competitors "camel riders" (I think you can guess the general area they are from).
• So six hours into Day Six, and, for the first time, the United States (on a silver-medal tiebreaker) heads the official medal table after tonight's swimming haul.
• NBC now has to hard-pivot to Suni (or Sunisa, I've seen both representations of her first name) Lee, who rose up to take the women's all-around tonight.
• National Dick-Waving Contest:  China tops the medal table, and Japan is second on a silver tiebreaker, as both have 15 golds to the USA's 14.   Illegal Russian Team and Australia 8 apiece.  Total:  USA leads with 38, China 31, Illegal Russian Team 28, Japan 25, Australia 20.  USA is down two golds, but even on total, with Rio through 6 days.  China is up four golds and one total.
• Of the 15 gold medals for Japan, EIGHT have been won in judo.  There are just two more days left in the judo competition.
• I don't know if this is the latest in some time we've had a three-way golds race and a four-way total race in the Summer Olympic table, but it's gotta be close.
• Another full medal maiden on the table:  The tiny European island nation of San Marino won it's first Olympic medal in history today, a bronze for Alessandra Perrili in Women's Trap Shooting.  That's the second full medal maiden of these games, to go with two gold maidens broken.  (PS:  Before anyone asks, "maiden" is a horse-racing term regarding a horse which has not won a sanctioned race yet -- and "breaking maiden" is what happens when a horse does.)
  
• 66 nations have now won medals in Tokyo.  Four more today.  I didn't put on the blog the Day 6 total from Rio.
• 39 nations have now won gold.  And that's an increase of four in Day 6.
• We are now about 1/3 of the way through the medal count.  112 of the 339 sets of medals have been given.
• Controversy as Haitian taekwondo athlete Aliyah Shipman alleges that the USOC wanted to force her to compete for the USA, rather than Haiti, threatening to pull aid to the Caribbean nation if Haiti doesn't (and they eventually did) drop Shipman.

Some material from Inside The Games:

• New York Times reporting today that the IOC may actually drop weightlifting from the program if widespread doping in the sport isn't dealt with.  *waves bye-bye by Los Angeles -- maybe even Paris!*  It's gone.   
• An Iranian human-rights group (set up after the execution of an Iranian wrestler) is calling for the IOC to strip the Olympic championship from shooter Jarad Foroughi for being a member of the Revolutionary Guard, a deemed-terrorist organization.
• It appears as if a scaled-down Opening and Closing Ceremony will be the temporary norm, as Beijing 2022, in just about seven months, pledges "safe and simple" events for the Winter Games.
• Another example of how a small nation's medal sets someone up for life:  Thailand's Olympic champion in taekwondo, Panipak Wongpattanakit received a hero's welcome upon his return (remember, COVID protocols are that an athlete completing all events needs to leave the Village within two days), and a promise of over the equivalent of US$600,000 for his championship.
• Ten Nigerian tracksters were tossed from the Games by the Athletics Integrity Unit due to insufficient drug testing.  Over 40% of the Nigerian track team has been tossed because Nigeria is believed to be a country where doping is...  I can't even do that one with a straight face, given the USA's record on doping in track and field.  ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS, IAAF???   

The COVIDLympics, Day Six, Part One: This is a setup. Simone Biles is being fed as red meat to the red hats, IMODO...

I've been suspicious about this from about the moment I found out about this about 30 hours ago.

I do believe this whole Simone Biles situation is either a coverup, a fix, or both.

I'm now certain of the coverup.  A fix has a plausible explanation:  NBC needs to start satisfying it's advertisers -- and it has only two avenues to do so.  Since the USA isn't getting enough medals, manipulate the first real medals race since Beijing and the second since Montreal!

But back to a certain coverup.

There are more and more articles saying that this was coming for a very long time.  Why did this not get exposed sooner, so that not only could Biles be properly treated, but probably have America far more supportive of her (in normal circumstances) and cheering her on.

And then I thought of something:  My anonymous friend has remarked about NBC making Donald Trump and exalting him with The Apprentice and that sick scowl of his.

And then, today, I realized:  NBC has actually made the orange cocksucker TWICE.  While Trump was a real-estate magnate and building a casino empire, NBC had a game show called "Trump Card", which used Trump branding and the like.

I hope I'm wrong.  I really do.  But my opinion is stated in the title:  I think Simone Biles is being sacrificed to the American Right, as red meat, by NBC because she will not serve their purposes and hand-deliver them America's DOMINANCE (caps intended) at these Games.

I don't remember a time, even five days in, where there's been a material four-way medals race in the total and three-way medals race in the gold.

Several Team USA entities (swimming, gymnastics, women's soccer, softball, men's basketball) have fallen short in early Olympic play -- and NBC is eating it not only in the ratings, but, according to Forbes, advertisers are getting antsy.

Simone Biles, said all due respect to her because this is about her physical injuries, had NO BUSINESS going to Tokyo.  NONE.

But there was so much money and so much economic leverage on her back -- a great amount from NBC -- that the moment it got to the point that she should've withdrawn, she was pressured by NBC.

And now you have two simultaneous issues here:  One, it's beginning to put up a "new age of taking mental health seriously" spin on the matter.

Puh-fucking-leeze!!!  I speak as a person who is known to have "mental health issues".  The chance that is actually going to bring a meaningful change, even at the big-money athlete level, to mental health issues, is ABSOLUTE ZERO.

If anything, you might see this as cover for more inopportune "withdrawls"/"injuries" to key athletes -- and at far more than just the Olympic Games.

Mental health issues are real -- and, yes, the athletes suffer from them.  And they will continue to do so.  I am in recognition of those who know gymnastics and find that, sometimes, gymnasts will fully lose track of their tricks -- called a "twisties" effect.

But this is something which is so obviously "off", it's not even funny.  The words are all wrong.  The actions on the part of the media, even worse.

And the right-wingers are all but dancing in the streets that the "Weak Black Woman" "CHOKED" and "couldn't handle it".

I think she was set up to fail, and I would not be surprised if she's the only athlete in these Games to be placed in that position.

Day 503

• The NCAA will not give Reggie Bush back his Heisman.
• For the second time in less than a year, Lamar Jackson has (apparently) tested positive for the coronavirus, just before the start of Ravens camp.
• COVID outbreak on the Nationals -- four players, eight staff.  Tonight's game postponed, probably more to follow.
• The Big XII Conference is accusing ESPN of destabilizing the conference so the remaining schools can be picked off.

The COVIDLympics, Day Five: Storm Clouds On The Horizon

• Doesn't sound like it's just some USA viewers getting miffed.  Italy has fallen well short of expectations in the first five days, and some kvetching is happening.
• Simone Biles is out of the all-around.  No surprise.  Really thinking coverup or fix here -- and, right now, I think NBC setting her up to fail may be part of this.   
• US Women's Water Polo was defeated in pool play 10-9 by Hungary -- their first loss in four Olympics.
• Continuing the trend of Team USA hitting the wall in these Olympics:  This is setting up, by some estimates, to be the worst Olympic swim meet for the USA since 1960!!!  They had 16 gold and 33 medals in the pool in Rio.  They have 17 medals in Swimming so far, but only 4 gold in 17 events.  There are 18 swimming finals remaining.
• On the other hand, the Netherlands had their best day in their Summer history.  Eight medals today across three sports.
• Hidilyn Diaz is another of those stories of how an unexpected gold medal sets someone up for life in a smaller country.  After winning her gold medal, the first for the Philippines, the country has given her the equivalent of $600,000 and also two new houses...
• At least one Norwegian canoe capsized during competition today.
• Tokyo has just recorded a new record today -- a record number of COVID-19 cases.
• Former track coach and predator Alberto Salazar has been life-banned from sports by the American SafeSport for sexual and emotional abuse.  If you don't think some of THOSE chickens are also coming home to roost in these Games for Team USA so far (speaking generally)... 
• Another inappropriate captioning in the South Korean coverage.  OK, what the fuck is going on over there?   
• A Congressional committee on human-rights abuses in China has brought US Olympic sponsors over the fire for supporting the Beijing Winter Games.  Would I 100% rule out a boycott here for next winter?   
• Japan has won their sixth gold medal in judo in these Games - leading to probably topping the medal table for most golds through five days of medal competition.
• A Swiss sprinter has been banned from the competition for drugs.
• There has been increasing concern of the heat in the tennis events -- not only was today's competition pushed back into the afternoon to try to compensate, but Daniil Medvedev said it wasn't close to what was needed to be done, claiming the heat could be lethal to himself or another competitor.  Medvedev almost passed out -- another player had to withdraw due to heatstroke.  88 degrees but felt like 99 with the humidity.
• USA has won the inaugural women's 3x3 basketball gold medal.  Kinda gives you an idea of the difference between women in this country, who actually play basketball, and men, who play jordon Ballhogball.   
• And, as midnight falls in Japan:  The gold medal race, at least for now, appears to be a four-sided affair:  Japan with 13, China with 12, USA 11, and don't look now, the Russians have 7.
• Total:  USA 31, China 27, Russia 23, Japan 22.
• 95 of the scheduled 339 events have been completed.
• No new maidens today, either gold or total medal.  Still only two gold maidens and a total maiden so far in these Games.
• Thirty-five nations have a gold medal.
• Sixty-two have medaled.
• As much as the USA has disappointed, their medal total has largely completely matched the first five days in Rio.  Only one fewer medal in the total, 32 vs. 31.  11 golds in both Games.
• Eleven more nations have medaled in the first five days in Tokyo than did the first five days in Rio.

The COVIDLympics, Day 4 Part 2: She does not need to answer these questions at all, but something's bugging me about the timing of all this...

I guess I am going to give this Simone Biles story it's own post.

Because I think it's going to be the biggest Olympic story in a mounting list of American disappointments in Tokyo, I think this Simone Biles story may be the largest.

It is already being colored as someone finally having the perspective as to putting health in front of medals.

For those living under a rock the last 12 hours:  Simone Biles performed in the vault in the team competition last night, then abruptly and shockingly withdrew from the team competition, allowing the illegal Russian Olympic Committee team to win the women's team competition.

In a later statement, she said she withdrew to "take a step back" for her mental health and to prevent injury.  The mental strain of the Olympics became too much for her, and she will evaluate further participation on a day-to-day basis.  (Personally, I think this is a statement she's out for the Games, but doesn't want to say it yet.)

---------------

I'm queasy on this one.  VERY QUEASY...  The Spider Sense is going off as if it's a five-alarm fire.

Let's lay three (and a fourth later added) very important facts out on the table in support of Biles' statement:

1) The Russian drug-waiver hack of 2016 showed that Biles suffers from, and takes medication for, ADHD.  (She publicly outed that information herself afterward, and does have a medical waiver -- which is how the hack found it.)

2) Biles is already known to be one of Larry Nassar's victims in his widespread sexual-assault spree among Olympic hopeful athletes.

3) And Biles, more than anyone else, probably has millions, if not tens of millions, of USOC, NBC, and USA sponsor dollars backing her because of what was to be an expected haul of anywhere between four and six medals, many (if not ALL) of them gold.

ADDING 12:55 PM PDT 4) A chronicle of Biles being done for these Games has reported through the Sporting News that Biles went through the Olympic trials with a foot injury -- possible ligament damage in her foot.  (From which she still landed an unheard-of Yuchenko Double Pike vault in podium training, apparently...)

So there IS a plausible case that this is a mental health situation.  If it is, she needs to withdraw and take care of herself.  She's already won gold for her nation multiple times over in Rio and has nothing further to prove in any respect of the term.  As disappointing as it would be to many Americans, that's legit.

So why is this getting it's own post?

I don't see the timing of this at all.  I hope I'm wrong -- and will be the first to admit I'm wrong, but it may take many weeks, months, even years to confirm it if I am truly wrong and this is just a personal mental-health issue and the first major case of putting self-health before nation and medal count in what ESPN, at least, is calling a possible new era in sports in this regard.

(Holy run-on sentence...)

The only thing which stinks high-heaven with me is:  WHY NOW?  (And, in light of #4, why mental health and not disclose the foot injury?)  Why didn't this happen as part of a pattern -- say a World Championships here, another competition there, etc. and so forth and so on?  Why would she withdraw to prevent injury now, at what she's been training the last four years to do?  She could've retired from the sport as one of the greats at 19 and  no one would've batted a damn eyelash!

And (adding with the new Sporting News information) if the foot was that injured, why did Biles risk Tokyo in the first place?  (See cause #3 above...)  Was Simone Biles forced by NBC and the USOC to compete in Tokyo because of the monetary and sponsor influences with her name and likeness all over them?

And if the foot injury was part of the equation, why not disclose THAT???  She apparently did get her foot wrapped before withdrawing.  So why is it "mental health" if there's a very legitimate foot injury in play she's been dealing with for three months?

She does not need to ever answer those questions, or any similar.  I would hope someone would, but I cannot ever expect Simone herself (or anyone else) to do so.  It would be arrogant of me to do so.

But I have a couple very real and queasy possibilities, all of which I hope are wrong:

1) She's positive for COVID, a number of the other women on the USA gymnastics team are too, and, because of NBC's influence, it gets swept under the rug.

Consider:  The "Russian Olympic Committee" team.

The ENTIRE BASIS of the disqualification of Russia from formal recognition as a nation in these Games is a disqualification of their National Olympic Committee!!

If they are not to technically represent Russia, then why do they get to represent, in any form, forget the change in flag and the use of Tchaikovsky for the "national anthem", the very National Olympic Committee which created the disqualification.

Four words:  Too Big To Fail.

And if you think Russia is bad in that regard, the United States is a six-ton elephant, Too Big To Fail.  Remember, also, in seven years, the USA is supposed to host these Games!!!

So, if it came back, Justin Turner (mid-Game 6 World Series)-style, that she had COVID mid-competition, you don't think NBC, with so much invested (monetarily and otherwise) in Biles, would not do everything in it's power to cover it up?

2) Someone got to Biles and ordered her to take a dive.

Now, this is not likely.  But do recall that she is compromised, at least by the Russian drug-waiver hack.

If (and only if) someone has something on Biles which would basically upset the apple cart, she could've been blackmailed.

3) And then a possibility I have gravely feared for African-American Olympians in these Games:  She no longer, in good conscience, can represent a country where at least 40% of the population is turning it's back on sports because it is "too Black".

Of the three possibilities, this one, to me, would be the most likely.  And I wouldn't blame Biles or any other Black USA athlete for this stand, if this was the problem.

 I can easily imagine the MAGA/BLM conflict in this country being such a mental strain on Biles, as it is for many Blacks.  Could it finally have gotten to the point she can no longer, in good conscience, represent her nation?

I can't answer that, nor can I expect her to.

Day 502

• Good news for Wisconsin sports fans:  Aaron Rodgers is in Packers camp on Day One.  It sounds like he is a go for this season.
• Bad news for Wisconsin sports fans:  Christian Yelich has come down with the coronavirus.  He and another Brewer are now out.
• Texas and Oklahoma HAVE formally petitioned to join the Southeastern Conference.  And this would be in 2025, so they'd pay no penalty upon that situation.  Which means that college sports, as you knew them as NCAA constructs, have about four years left, at maximum.  I think this sets the table for 2024 to be the last football season at at least half the FBS schools.  
• And the domino effect may already be on.  Reports today are Kansas and Iowa State are looking to enter the Big Ten.
• With thanks to my anonymous friend who often sources this kind of stuff, Trevor Bauer (on the day he was to complete his administrative leave) has just had that administrative leave extended to at least August 6th.
• We apparently have our first sacrifice to football for the new season:  15 year old in Macon, GA -- collapsed at first practice and passed.
• Trea Turner, positive for COVID.  And in another embarrassment to MLB's handling of it all, he was allowed to start the game, found out while he was on base...  Left immediately after he scored on a subsequent home run.

The COVIDLympics, Day 4: Big Night for NBC...

The Simone Biles gold-medal haul may begin tonight if the Russians don't say anything about it, and the hosts and the USA play for gold in softball.  AND the women's soccer team has a must win with Australia for 2nd in the group.

• Another gold maiden broken, the second of the Games, this one for Bermuda!  Flora Duffy won a rain-soaked women's triathlon.  Bermuda's previous medal was a bronze in boxing in Montreal.  Bermuda joins the Philippines in this honor.
• And a full maiden, the first of the Games:  Turkmenistan has it's first Olympic medal in history, a silver by Polina Guryeva in weightlifting.
• AND DISASTER FOR NBC:  Simone Biles forced to withdraw, Russia wins, and the whole timbre of the Games may be about to change.
• And then Japan shuts out the USA in softball.
• AND THEN the USA women's soccer team draws scoreless to advance to play the Netherlands in a quarterfinal match they have to be sizable underdogs in.
• I'm about this close to crying foul and doing a post of itself.  There are all sorts of rumors, and no one is confirming WHY Biles withdrew tonight.  Various sources, collated by Fox Sports Australia, are saying that a massive rumor swirl is going around, stating anything from a day-to-day ankle injury to a "mental health concern" not unakin to Naomi Osaka with the last two Grand Slams (Osaka was also eliminated from the Olympic tennis on Day Four).  I have no problem with this if it's "ankle", but wouldn't we already have been told this, not unakin to what happened to Kerri Strug in 1996 in Atlanta?  If this is a "mental health concern", do we have the prospect someone got to Biles and they threw the gymnastics events?  Perhaps Biles doesn't want to represent this United States anymore??  This all goes away if we do find out this is an ankle -- but if this is done under the cover of "mental health"...  And then you have the COVID possibility, even though she did stick around to be with the other athletes...   
• Apparently Biles is one of the athletes, according to an ABC News report after the Russian hack four years ago, who takes an ADHD medication under medical waiver.  So it's not 100% infeasible, but something just smells OFF... 
• And who benefits from Biles' withdrawl the most?  The same Russians...
• It is now officially a "mental health issue", Biles saying she needed to step back in a post-evening interview.  Then why now and not before?  That's not a question Biles should have to answer -- but it is a question someone like myself, who has some very real questions about Team USA in these Games as a general concept, still has.  (And opens the possibility that Biles, for some reason, was ordered to take a dive.)
• However it is, I do sense a general rising anger of the "Medal Count" Americans in the Dick-Waving Contest...  Just in the last 24-48 hours:

1. The United States lost the men's 100m backstroke at the Olympics for the first time since 1992 Barcelona.
2. The United States lost the women's gymnastics team event at ANY major international in a decade.
3. Japan beat the United States for the gold in softball 2-0.
4. Katie Ledecky lost the women's 400m freestyle, the first Olympic race of any kind she's ever lost.  And she may lose another one tonight -- she has to swim both the 200m final and the 1500m final in the same session tomorrow morning Tokyo time.

• As for that Dick-Waving Contest, the United States leads the total with 25.  China is second with 21, the Russians and Japanese are joint third with 18, Great Britain has 13.  So, the usual suspects.   
• Japan leads on the official table.  That country leads in the gold medal department with 10.  USA and China have 9 each, Illegal Russian Team now has 7, Great Britain has 4.
• I wonder how China and their "incomplete map" believe about the six medals, one gold, Chinese Taipei/Taiwan have won in these games.  (If China were to demand that be added to their total, they'd top the table.)
• Seventy-two events have now been completed, about 20% of the total.
• Thirty nations have now won gold medals at these Games.
• Fifty-six nations now make up the medal table.
• A Moroccan boxer must be a big Tyson fan:  Disqualified for attempting to bite off his opponent's ear!!

Day 501

• Pretty much a blah news day on Day 500.  But three biggies to start 501...
• A majority of LA Dodgers players do not want Trevor Bauer to ever return to the team.
• Frank Reich, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, has COVID -- and he was vaccinated.
• But the big one is the end of the Big XII Conference:  Texas and Oklahoma WILL leave, not renewing their media contracts.  Now, the only question is whether they'll try to pay a significant amount to breach their current media contracts and move faster than 2025!
• The WWE is actually going to script a series on probably their second-biggest out-of-ring victory -- Vince McMahon winning his 1994 steroids trial.
• In another step of sports betting becoming the legal centerpiece of American sports, Caesar's has bought the naming rights for the next two decades of the iconic Superdome in New Orleans.
• It appears as if one of the largest storylines in the NFL offseason has come to an end.  Concessions by the Packers which MIGHT give then Rodgers for one more season...
• ... and now (to none of my surprise), Davonte Adams wants to talk.
• A lawyer for Houston Texans QB DeShaun Watson now has word of two new complaints of sexual misconduct, upping the number of police reports against Watson to TEN.  All this has now officially made Deadspin question why Watson is not on the Commissioner's List.  Very good question, you won't like the answer:  How many people, and who, does this league revolve around?  I got six for sure:  Watson, Jackson, Mahomes, Brady, Rodgers, Wilson.  I'll take arguments on more...  This fucking guy is one of the few players for whom the drink is stirred.  The bottom line is, with 22 women now in an apparent sexual-predator spree by one of the six men who probably has this league revolve around him -- he's GOT TO GO.  NOW!!!!   

The COVIDLympics: Day 3: And we're starting early...

• Already in the water for the triathlon before 7 AM. 
• RL has stifled most of the day's energy and want to watch the Olympics, but I can still get some stuff in today.
• And as is not usual for this blog, we begin with a very wonderful and positive story.  Maria Belen Perez Maurice finally realized her dream, after a long fencing career, of representing Argentina in the Games.  Unfortunately for her, she was eliminated in the first round of her event.  She did take home gold of another form, though (we think):  Her coach, Lucas Saucedo, was her long-time partner -- and, at a post-competition press conference, he decided to request to make himself more than that, according to Sports Illustrated:

Y después del combate de esgrima le pidieron casamiento a María Belén Pérez Maurice en vivo. pic.twitter.com/wEmGuOW7CB

— Rústico (@lautarojl) July 26, 2021

• She said yes.
• Rock star P!nk has decided to pay the fine for the Norwegian beach handball team for not ridiculously over-sexualizing themselves.
• Abdullah Alrashidi won bronze in the men's skeet event today (USA actually won both skeet gold medals today) -- what makes this unusual for two reasons.  First, he's from Kuwait, a national Olympic Committee which has only won three Olympic medals in it's history, all bronze.  (If you remember, a Kuwaiti actually won gold, but this was when Kuwait was banned, so he won it as an Independent Olympic Athlete.  Alrashadi actually won a bronze in Rio as well.)  All five medals by Kuwaitis, including the two won as Independent, have been in shooting.
• The second reason it's unusual is because he's 57 years old.
• Both skateboarding street gold medals went to the hosts -- Momiji Nishiya won the women's event.  What makes THIS unusual?  She's 13.
• Kosovo is joining Japan as doing very well in the judo.  Their third medal in Olympic history is another gold in the judo, their second in the Games.
• Continued appeals by the IOC to abide by COVID protocols.  Sixteen more confirmed positives in the Olympic community, including three athletes -- only one of the 16 was in the Village at the time.
• Not sure if this new report is included in this list, but another Dutch athlete has tested positive, this one a tennis player.
• A Dominican baseball player has won himself a one-way ticket home due to a cannibis positive.
• Another Muslim refusing to face an Israeli due to politics in judo.
• A tropical storm is going to hit eastern Japan tomorrow and has already shelved at least two outdoor events tomorrow and accelerated the schedule of a third.
• Some discussion of the oversexualization of women in the Games.  Not only is the German gymnastics team wearing fuller outfits as a protest of it, but the Olympic Broadcasting System has come under fire.  You can start by either quitting with effective "bikini volleyball" or abolishing beach volleyball as a sport of the Games.   
• Current figures indicate that 80% of the Japanese people have already watched some portion of the Olympic program.  Contrast this -- and Inside the Games did! -- with the lowest Opening Ceremony ratings since Seoul for the United States.  
• And, in news far more endemic to this blog (at least in that it's bad news):  Less than 24 hours after Tunisia's Ayoub Hafnaoui won a shock gold medal in swimming for the nation, it appears the nation may be about to suffer a coup -- the President has suspended Parliament in the African nation.
• The softball showdown is set.  Though the USA has only scored nine runs in the group phase of the softball, they've only given up two -- hence, with a 2-1 victory over the hosts, they win the right to bat last when the US and Japan do it again whenever the weather will allow (scheduled for Day 4 tomorrow, but...) for the gold.
• Checking on Olympic maidens (first medals/first golds in a nation's history).  Appears to be no full maidens yet, but a gold maiden was broken today.  The Philippines got it's first gold medal in their Olympic history today -- Hidilyn Diaz did one better than her Rio performance in winning the 55kg women's weightlifting division today for the Filipinos' first Olympic gold medal in history.
• In the final medal event of Day 3, Japan bested China for the first mixed-doubles table-tennis gold medal.  It is the first time since 2004 that any country has defeated China for an Olympic gold medal in any table-tennis event.
• And with that, the National Dick-Waving Contest:  China leads the total with 18, USA second with 14, Japan has 13.
• However, Japan leads the gold-medal count (and, hence, official table) with 8 golds.  USA has 7, China 6, the illegal Russian Team 4.
• 23 nations now have gold medals.
• 51 nations now have medals.  It took five days in Rio to get 51 countries to medal -- only three here.
• And we ended late...  Started with the men's triathlon at about 6:30 AM JP time Monday -- ended with a reverse-sweep by World #1 Brazil to turn back Argentina in men's volleyball at 1 AM JP time Tuesday!

The COVIDLympics, Day 2 Part 2: ... but a lot of schaudenfruede for NBC and Team USA as well...

I've taken some heat for my eventual prediction that China tops the USA on the medal table.

It may not come true, but two marquee events tonight (and two portended from beforehand) seem to indicate that the medal haul for the USA may NOT be as much as many thought or predicted...

1) The USA women's gymnastics team was a bit shaky in their qualification rounds.  They got the requisite number of people to the Final and the team was several points ahead of everybody...  except the illegal Russian team 

2) France has defeated Team USA in the men's basketball opener 83-76.

3) Team USA's 3-0 thumping at the hands of the Swedish women's soccer team.

4) Team USA softball has only scored seven runs in four games - they are 4-0, because they've only given up one.  But...

The schaudenfruede is deep.

But I will go further:  I do think that at least SOME of this is due to the fact that the whole political climate in the United States is NOT conducive for SOME athletes to play for the name on the front of the jersey.

And, as that goes, I do believe it's already had some impact, after the first two days of competition.

Now, in the National Dick-Waving Contest:  China still leads the medal table.  Three more golds today (two weightlifting and one diving) give China 6 -- with 11 total medals (6-1-4), they also lead the total.

But Team USA did have a more stereotypical Summer Olympics day.  10 medals, four gold to start their haul (shooting, fencing, and taekwondo to add to the one swimming gold).

That's second on the total, but the hosts already have FIVE golds on the Games for second on the table, adding a skateboarding gold, a swimming gold, and two more judo golds to the haul).  They have six in the total.

23 events have been completed.  Ten different nations have won gold medals.  Forty different nations have medaled.

===========

And another piece of schaudenfruede kicked in:

Only 17 million Americans (and this includes the streaming) saw the 2020 Olympics Opening Ceremony in the United States -- the lowest number since at least Seoul.

The COVIDLympics, Day Two: NBC can finally smile now...

Medals in Archery, Road Cycling, Diving, Fencing, Judo, Shooting, Skateboarding, Swimming, Taekwondo, and Weightlifting today.

Non-medal competition in 19 other disciplines, including the start of the march of both Simone Biles and the USA men's basketball team.

• Much ado about Team USA's shutout on Day 1.  Day 2 should go better, with four swimming finals and Skateboarding leading the list.  But, like Day 1, unless something surprising happens, not much else on the docket except setting up for later.
• Like Simone Biles, who is performing such routines on women's gymnastics, that, should she successfully complete them, may be effectively impossible to score under current gymnastics guidelines.
• Statistic to keep in mind:  The USA won 46 gold, 37 silver, 38 bronze for 121 total medals in Rio.  Of that, in women's gymnastics, swimming, and track were 33 gold, 22 silver, and 19 bronze -- 74 of that total.  The rest of the contingent was 13 gold, 15 silver, 19 bronze.  If you need to know both where NBC makes it's bacon on coverage AND why there were no USA medals in Day 1, here you go.
• Australian television is happy:  The audience of 2.7 million Australians for the Opening Ceremony is not only the largest event of 2021, it's also a fair increase from both Rio and London for the OC.
• No word yet -- absolutely none -- on NBC in the United States.
• 7 AM JP start today -- surfing heats.
• Another in-competition positive fells an American medal hope:  Bryson TheShamBeau is out of the Olympics with a COVID positive.  Patrick Reed takes his spot for next week's golf tournament.
• And a later report adds Spain's Jon Rahm to the COVID positive list.
• And Day 2 is already going better, if you're NBC and Team USA.  A gold and six total medals in the pool already, and the day is young for Team USA.
• But the women's gymnastics, expected to be a massive medal haul for the USA, took a significant hit in qualifying.  Yeah, they still did better than most everyone else, but the Russians did even better than they did.  Simone Biles fell in two events, but the qualifications still were there for Team USA.
• Speaking of women's gymnastics, there was a BLM protest written into one of the floor exercise routines.  It was only performed once, though:  It was by Costa Rican Luciana Alvarado, who ended her routine on one knee with a fist squarely in the air...  And yes, it was seen as a pro-BLM protest by NBCOlmypics.com.   
• The Refugee Team nearly got it's first medal, as Taekwondo athlete Kimia Alizadeh lost a bronze medal match today.  She's not quite like the other Refugee athletes, though -- she actually DID win bronze in Rio, but became a refugee last year when her home country of Iran turned her achievements into a propaganda tool.

Day 499

• Las Vegas sportsbooks with an ominous word for Packer fans -- they tend to try to get the best information for obvious reasons, and the current downgrading of the Packers from a 9 1/2 win total to 7 1/2 is on the indication Aaron Rodgers will retire from the sport this summer.  They also now are picking Minnesota to win the NFC North.  And I think, now with Davonte Adams also saying "no go" to the Pack, 7 1/2 is a generous number.  I think a post-Rodgers Packers could EASILY be one of the worst teams in the NFL.
• A new report says the latest sportsbook skinny is next week!  They still have not formally announced what "Jeopardy!" is going to do for next season yet, with only two new weeks to go in this season.   
• According to a baseball blogger, today's Yankees-Red Sox game is the first known one where both starting pitchers, Jameson Taillon and Nathan Eovaldi, have each had Tommy John surgery TWICE.
• At least a second NFL coach has been fired for refusing to vaccine up.
• Unvaccinated players may be tested daily during the season -- vaccinated players may get once a week or less.  The NFL is also proposing fining unvaccinated players $15,000 per offense for refusal of protocols.

The COVIDLympics Begin: Day One Of Medal Competition

Medal play today in Archery, Road Cycling, Fencing, Judo, Shooting, Taekwondo, and Weightlifting.  Non-medal play in 16 other disciplines.

• China gets the first gold of the Games in air rifle.  And the second as well -- both air rifle golds have gone to China.
• Don't expect the USA to do a great deal in this first day.  They had possibilities with the Mixed Team in Archery (USA was eliminated R16 by Indonesia) and I think Fencing, but if you take a look at the medal-awarding disciplines today, it isn't a great deal of expectation here.  That'll start tomorrow with the first swimming finals and Simone Biles' march beginning.
• At least according to a list published Friday evening US time on MSN, there are no further COVID positives on the USA team.
• Once again, the Olympic truce is not airtight.  For what seems to be the zillionth Games in a row, a Muslim (this one an Algerian) has withdrawn from the Games rather than face an Israeli in judo.
• Kosovo has struck again.  It has two Olympic medals in it's history, both gold, and, as of tonight, both are in the judo women's lightest-weight class (-52 kg at Rio, -48 kg in Tokyo).
• USA women's soccer team looking out of sync again.  2-0 at the half over New Zealand, but have had FOUR offside goals called back in the first half!
• Final was 6-1, including two New Zealand own goals due to the pressure.
• And the first day's medal table is finally complete.  28 countries won medals on Day 1 -- the USA NOT one of them...  No country won more than 4 medals in the 11 completed events.
• China won 4 medals, 3 of them gold.  South Korea won 3, one gold.  Italy, Japan, Serbia, and the illegal Russian team won 2 each.
• It is the first time since Munich 1972 in which the United States failed to medal on Day 1.  There were opportunities -- a USA cyclist was part of the two-man break which eventually won the road cycling gold for Ecuador.  He fell back into the second pack and finished sixth or seventh.  The archery and fencing were disappointments, but this wasn't the most productive of slates for Team USA on Day 1.
• The USA can't even win when they're winning on Day One.  Their women's water polo team broke the Olympic record for goals and margin with a 25-4 win over Japan.  Neither record lasted more than two hours:  Spain then beat South African 29-4!!
• Yeah, there's #NBCFail, but that has nothing on South Korea, whose broadcast of the Opening Ceremony was so apparently offensive, they were forced to apologize.  South Korea, instead of using the country's flag and/or geographic location during the Parade of Nations, used instead things they felt representative of the country:  Pizza for Italy, Salmon for the Norway, the Chernobyl disaster for Ukraine, the Haitian riots.........
• At least two prominent Japanese medal hopes, the men's 400 IM world champion in swimming and a final bow for one of the greatest male gymnasts in history, both went by the boards on Day One.
• Japan's first gold of the Games (and both of their two medals) came in lightest-weight judo.
• As if the Games had enough problems, a SE Asia TYPHOON may be impacting them early next week...  It has already tweaked the rowing schedule rather seriously...
• There is now discussion to bring the Winter Olympics back to Salt Lake City in 2030.  From being there in 2002, I can't say, for the life of me, they were the worst of hosts.  The problem is that I don't know what kind of country this is going to BE in eight and a half years.   
• Samir Atd Said is performing gymnastics at the Olympics again for France -- after a near-tragic fall five years ago in Rio.   Said finished third in the qualifying in the men's rings event here, so he is a medal possibility later in the competition.
• We have our first in-competition COVID positive:  The Netherlands had to withdraw Finn Florijn from the single sculls repechage because he has the coronavirus, in a test from after his heat race on Friday.

Day 498

• The MLB team in Cleveland will now be known as the Cleveland GUARDIANS???  What the blazes is that??   
• Speaking of that sentiment...  Now word that Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC may be a done deal...  AS SOON AS MONDAY!  The complete dissolution of the Big XII Conference may soon follow.
• And one ACC AD basically states what I've proposed -- just with not as many teams.  Doing away with the lower programs once and for all in favor of a 32-team national superconference for at least football, or four 16-team conferences.
• Another AD says that, once Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big XII, the rest of the conference holds basically zero monetary value going forward.
• Another scenario says this is the beginnings of a breakaway from the NCAA, one which will almost certainly kill the antiquated criminal-coddling organization.
• Rick Dennison has been fired as an assistant coach of the Minnesota Vikings...  because he refuses to take the goddamn vaccine.

The COVIDLympics, The Opening Ceremony

• Greeeeeeeeeeeeat...  Even the NBCOlympics.com feed is going to be NBC...
• Immediate statement of the state of the world in the opening video.  The normalcy of everything pre- and start of 2020, then shattered with the empty streets due to COVID, but the training goes on, even as the world stops...
• Fireworks at the stadium, then a single runner on a treadmill...  (A Japanese national-champion women's boxer/first-responder)
• AH...  #NBC(Olympics.com)Fail #1 -- we're going to get ad-ed to death.  Interrupt the ceremony's first sequence, FIFTEEN MINUTES IN, with at least three ads on the stream, even though you have a number of ads on top of the screen.
• Many people I'm watching with are likening the early part of the ceremony, up to the rising of the Japanese flag and the Japanese national anthem, to a funeral procession...
• Memorial moment for not only COVID losses, but the 1972 assassinated Israeli athletes.  Mike Tirico, heading the NBC coverage, notes this is at the insistence of IOC head Thomas Bach, a contemporary of the athletes killed by Black September.
• A brief cultural performance culminated with a wooden representation of the Olympic rings -- with wood from trees which were planted for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
• And now, a truncated Parade of Nations...  Starting at 8:39 PM Friday night Japanese time.
• And Square-Enix gets a nod.  The start of the Parade of Nations gets the opening to Dragon Quest IX -- when the Refugee Olympic Team, second after Greece, shows up, they get the Final Fantasy victory theme!  Yeah, I'm a weeb.  Can it...   (PS:  The apparent entire list of video-game music (in Japanese) for the Parade...)
• #NBCFail #2 -- interrupting the stream to show the Team USA bus heading to the stadium....  If I wanted that shit, I'd be watching this over the air!!!   
• Interesting quirk of the Japanese language...  There is no technical alphabetical order.  So it's Greece, then the refugees, then the nations in the order of the number of strokes (lines) in the Japanese representation of the nation's name, Japan going last.
• 206 nations in the Parade.  Much to NBC's disgust, they have to cover and watch them ALL before Team USA shows up.  Team USA is #204 -- only France separates them from the hosts.
• And even though it's truncated with fewer athletes, etc...  It still sounds like it's going to take TWO AND A HALF FREAKING HOURS.
• While on Reddit, I was looking up the list and saw Tonga, with Pita Tautafaloa as the flag-bearer, about #122 of the 206.  When I said that on the Olympic thread, I got "Thank you for your service..."  :)
• Change in the tradition for the ROC team.  You will be hearing quite a bit of Tchiakovsky's Piano Concerto #1 -- the IOC has approved that for the use as the Russia Olympic Committee Team's "National Anthem", rather than the traditionally-used Olympic Hymn for that case.
• Of course, per #NBCFail, you could be Channel 7 in Australia, who's literally getting their information on some of the smaller countries from Wikipedia.
• And the Ceremony on a longer and longer delay, because, unlike #NBCFail and them editing countries out, the ads the Aussies are showing are making the Ceremony LONGER!!
• There he is!!  Oiled up and looking great as ever...
• And, once the USA team gets in, we can't take the cameras off of them.  (#NBCFail # at least 3)
• The island country of Vanuatu got in on the act, as Riilio Rii also came in oiled and shirtless.
• The abbreviated Parade of Nations clocked in at a solid two hours.
• And NOW, a cool moment.  After a brief cultural moment on the floor, eyes are turned skyward as hundreds of lit drones perform a light show, eventually morphing into the planet Earth as John Lennon's "Imagine" is performed in Japanese.
• #NBCFail #4:  Cutting out some of the remarks of the head of the Organizing Committee as the Ceremony itself starts.
• #IOCFail:  Thomas Bach, that's enough!!!  Good God, I've been known to be verbose...
• Naomi Osaka gets the honor to light the cauldron.
• Three hours and 49 minutes.  So let's see how NBC screws up the rest of this...
• Somebody REALLY got bored.  An athlete from the African nation of Eritrea was seen prostate on the stadium floor about halfway through the Opening Ceremony.  The official Olympic Twitter account had some fun with it...

Hang in there! ☕️

We're over halfway there! #OpeningCeremony #Tokyo2020 | #UnitedByEmotion | #StrongerTogether | #Olympics pic.twitter.com/ZsHYZ9sTn5

— #Tokyo2020 (@Tokyo2020) July 23, 2021

The COVIDLympics, Day Zero, Part One: The Non-Opening Ceremony Part

• There will be a small bit of competition today -- largely in an event the USA will not be interested in.  Rowing will have it's heat races Friday JP, and archery will have it's seeding shootings as well.
• NBC will do a live broadcast of the Opening Ceremony at about 4 AM Pacific.  The prime-time, edited, #NBCFail version, 7:30 Pacific Friday night (with Day 1's events already starting by then).
• This post will cover everything BUT the Opening Ceremony for Day Zero.
• 2014 European Champion in the 400m hurdles Karlem Hussein, running for Switzerland -- banned from the Games as part of a nine-month suspension for doping.
• Alex Hazdic has been banned from the Olympic Village by his sport, USA Fencing, for three claims of sexual harassment by women between 2013 and 2015.  He will be allowed to compete, but must stay 30 minutes outside the village at all times.
• Several hundred Japanese protested the Olympics near the stadium.  Though surrounded by police that they would not disrupt the event, they were not arrested nor otherwise accosted for protesting.  Just asked to keep the roads clear.
• Even at a little under four hours, many athletes were expelled for COVID considerations from the end of the Opening Ceremony.  No hard feelings THERE, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...   
• Probably after significant jawboning from the IOC, Guinea reversed course and decided to participate in the Tokyo Games, one of 206 nations to do so.  A Tokyo 2020 volunteer carried their flag.  Five athletes will represent the nation.
• About one USA athlete in six (about 100) is unvaccinated, according to a study of forms submitted...
• The curve continues to steepen:  The number of reported cases, as of the Opening Ceremony, of Olympic-affiliated parties with the coronavirus has now exceeded one hundred.
• Early skinny has the losers of the Fashion Olympics (Opening Ceremony Edition) to be the Italians and an Armani-designed outfit.  One Yahoo! reporter says it looked like Pac-Man tried to eat their white shirt and got sick.

Day 497

• In just recent days, bans against transgender athletes in Louisiana, Arkansas, and West Virginia have all been overturned by judges.
• Yermin Mercedes has retired from baseball, and Tony La Russa and telling other teams to plunk him appears to be responsible!
• A state agency in California has formally sued Activision-Blizzard over sexual harassment of female employees and unequal pay.  I'd like to welcome the state of California to the video-game culture of this century.  You will not enjoy your stay.   
• The NFL has joined the SEC's lead -- and added that any forfeited games, the offending team will not be paid for those games either!
• On the other side of the equation is DeAndre Hopkins, who believes he has the Constitutional right to infect people, and, hence, may retire from the league, rather than take the vaccine.
• The insider-trading case has closed against Mychal Kendricks:  One day in jail (today), three years probation, 300 hours service, $100,000 fine.  He has already been suspended for this offense by the NFL (8 games in 2018).  Did not play in the 2020 season, but because he has already served an NFL penalty for this, could be signed, free and ready to go, as soon as tomorrow.
• Another example of the end of the NCAA because of NIL:  Mikey Williams, seen as a top-100 prospect for 2023, has already signed a potential multimillion-dollar deal with Excel Sports Management for Name, Image, and Likeness.  Many believe he is so beyond his high-school peers, a shoe deal is in order.
• Greg Knapp, a coach for the Jets, died of his injuries in a bicycling accident, according to a statement from the family.

The COVIDLympics, Day -1: Another Opening Ceremony Official Cancelled Due To The Past

• Kentaro Kobayashi, one day before he was slated to be the director of the Opening Ceremony, was cancelled today, fired because of a 1998 comedy routine where he did a completely tasteless joke about the Holocaust.  And you found this out only 24 hours before the Opening Ceremony?!?!?!?   
• More women's softball and men's soccer pool play today.
• As we formally hit the morning of the Opening Ceremony in Japan:  COVID cases in Japan are at their highest in over six months at about 2000 new cases.  The State of Emergency has done little to nothing.
• The IOC has reversed a previous announcement and will place kneeling protesting athletes in their highlights and social media as appropriate.
• A final prediction from OlympicMedalsPredictions.com (not sure who the outfit is who is doing it or putting on the website) has the USA winning the table with 108 medals and 50 gold.  China is second with 92 and 42 gold. Disqualified Russia is third, Japan and Great Britain duke it out for fourth and fifth.
  
• Gracenote has published it's Virtual Medal Table, where it predicts the nations will stand.  They pick the USA first, but with only 40 gold and 96 total.  They actually pick the illegal Russian ROC team second in total, 21 gold, 68 total.  Though they believe China will get 33 gold, they believe China will only score 66 total.  (They give a reason that no recent post-pandemic performances have been recorded for many of the Chinese top athletes, so they admit this number may be drastically low.)  Gracenote, therefore, forecasts the circumstances will create the widest-open Games in history.
• Historic night last night for a lesbian couple in the Games.  Both are softball players -- one for Team USA, the other for Mexico.  Amanda Chidester drove in the only run Monica Abbott would need for a USA 1-0 win over Canada.  Her fiance (they got engaged last Fall), Anissa Urtez, tied the game with Japan at 2 and sent it to extra innings with Mexico's first Olympic softball home run.  Japan scored in the eighth to win 3-2.  The two will oppose each other in Saturday's third group game.  USA is 2-0 in the six-team round robin, Mexico 0-2.

Some Inside the Games material:

• The Czech Republic now has five six COVID positives in their Olympic traveling group, and they want to know why.  Two beach volleyball players, a beach volleyball coach (the husband of one of the two player positives), a table-tennis player, a cyclist (added today) and an unnamed official are the six.  At least two of the four athletes have withdrawn from the Games.
• The island nation of Guinea has withdrawn completely from the Games, citing new variants of COVID-19 in Japan.
• The mystery surrounding who will light the cauldron Friday night seems to be coming down to either 2021 Masters Champion Hideki Matsuyama or 2004 women's marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi -- who began the initial torch run last year.  There is also belief a more symbolic choice may be made, like 1964's, when a student born on the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima was chosen.
• A row regarding a comment made by the Australian Olympic Committee President to the Premier of Queensland (where Adelaide, the 2032 site, is) "ordering" the latter to appear at the Opening Ceremony.has been quelled as a misunderstanding fanned by media who weren't there.  The Premier has accepted and will be there.
• Eight qualifying marks for track and field have been tossed as fraudulent by the Athletics Integrity Unit -- same unit which works with WADA and the IAAF for drug testing, but it also goes beyond that.
• One blogger at Inside the Games, though cautiously optimistic toward letting the Games begin, acknowledges the risks and wonders what will happen if some passes due to the coronavirus at what he calls "Tokyo Olympics Lite".

Day 496

• And, as predicted, Scott Foster did his job and the Milwaukee Bucks have their first title in 50 years in the NBA.
• The A's are taking the next steps toward leaving Oakland, dissatisfied with what appears to be the city's last offer of a waterfront ballpark...  They need to leave.  Oakland is not a "major-league city" in ANYTHING at this point...   
• Clemson's Dabo Swinney is not only against the 12-team College Football Playoff expansion because it increases the number of games on the kids, but also does not even believe there exist 12 worthy schools.  ... which then should really make me wonder why you even bother with the present model, since it props up many useless schools, in the final matter of football...   
• *SIGH*  Three people were wounded last night in my old home town of Milwaukee during celebrations of the first championship for the city (if you count the Packers) in at least a decade.  SIXTY FIVE THOUSAND jammed Milwaukee's "Deer District" (the area around the current Bucks' arena, the Fiserv Forum) last night.  (I lived in Milwaukee almost four years and never knew what the "Deer District" was...)
• The mayor of New York City is finally requiring verified vaccination of all public hospital workers in the city.  Either that, or be fired, or consent to weekly testing out of your pocket.
• Akin to the Sean Hannity blurb yesterday:  Pastors in Tennessee want the Republican governor to knock it off and get people vaccinated -- sick of the politicization of the virus.
• An altercation between Boca Juniors players and officials and police and players from Atletico Mineiro has resulted in the arrest of six of the former after Mineiro defeated Boca Juniors and knocked them out of the Copa Libertadores.
• Another round of penalties for the homophobic chants from Mexican fans.  This one for the May 29th International Friendly with Iceland -- $109,000 fine from FIFA.  This still doesn't address the CONCACAF Cup or the beginning of the Gold Cup.
• A Houston Chronicle report is basically portending the end of the Big XII Conference -- with Oklahoma and Texas jumping to the SEC.  Texas A&M's AD is already speaking out against the Houston Chronicle report.
• In direct opposition to Sweeney's comments, Mississippi State's Mike Leach would, instead, like to see a full expansion to March Madness levels of 64.  That's probably too many, given the realities of football -- that's six games, remember.  
• Legendary college football coach Bobby Bowden is terminal with an undisclosed illness.

The COVIDLympics, Day -2: It begins...

• I'll do the changeover here.  I'd been using my local time zone, but figure about 5 Pacific is the start of the new day of competition most days, so we go from there.
• USA headline:  The USA women's soccer team is about to take their worst loss in 15 years.  3-0 down to the team which eliminated them in Rio, Sweden, and they aren't looking good at all!!!
• An Australian equestrian athlete has been thrown out of the Games for testing positive for at least the after-effects (a metabolite) of cocaine!
• Zach LeVine and Jerami Grant have both cleared protocols and will rejoin Team USA for the men's basketball tournament next week.  The NBA Finals are now over (Scott Foster did his job!!!), so the team will be full strength for their Sunday opener, barring any more COVID problems.
• And 3-0 is the final.  A major blow to USA medal hopes in soccer.
• ESPN reports that the 2007 and 1997 games are the only other two games at which the USA lost by 3 or more goals.
• It is now official:  Brisbane, should the movement survive to 2032, will be the 2032 Summer Olympics host.  Five of the 77 members at the meeting voted against the bid on a yes-no vote.
• The chief of the World Health Organization with a chilling, yet more correct than he realizes, comment about the coronavirus at the IOC meeting today:  The world will see the end of the coronavirus pandemic when it chooses to do what is necessary to end it.  And I don't see that happening for a while...   
• The IOC meeting will continue on the closing day of Tokyo 202(1).
  
• Even with events starting today, $128,000 has been placed with UK betting outfit Betfair on a prop bet that the Games will be cancelled before the Opening Ceremony takes place at about 4 AM Pacific time on Friday.  Once a 90-1 proposition, it has been bet down to 10-1.
• Reuters is reporting that the Opening Ceremonies on Friday are set to be a more "sobering" experience than previous OC's.
• The US women's gymnastics team, expected to contribute heavily if the USA is to top the medal table in Tokyo, will not be staying at the Olympic Village, with one alternate already positive for the coronavirus and another in contact tracing.
• World number one skeet shooter and gold-medal favorite Amber Hill of Great Britain is out of the Olympics:  COVID, confirmed by test before she was to leave for Tokyo.
• KARMA, BIOTCH!!!  Taylor Crabb, out of the Olympics with a COVID diagnosis.  Crabb, as reported a couple days ago, weaseled his way into the Games after being banned TWICE for misconduct with underage girls.
• If there are any kneeling protests during the Games, the IOC has prohibited it's social-media team from publicizing them.
• Women's basketball player Sue Bird and baseball player (Marlins organization) and former Olympic silver-medalist in speed-skating Eddy Alvarez will carry the US flag in the Opening Ceremony.

Day 495

• Another indication this coronavirus is worse than anyone ever imagined:  It actually has gotten Sean Hannity, no less, to break ranks with his Republican cohorts and demand everyone get vaccinated, due to the fact that enough people have died to it.
• Why?  Polls like the Yahoo News/YouGov poll recently of American unvaccinated:  Nearly two in five now believe the vaccines to be more dangerous than COVID-19 itself.
• Another indication Aaron Rodgers has played his last Green Bay Packer game:  Word out today that Rodgers was to be made the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL with a two-year extension.  Rodgers turned it down flat.
• ESPN already pimping Tampa Bay at New England as the biggest NFL game of the season.  Trial run for the next Super Bowl, as Tampa and Kansas City was?   
• To give the impact of last year's COVID restrictions, the Green Bay Packers (as a public corporation) released their books today:  The Packers lost $149.1 million off of local revenue which would normally have been there had fans been allowed at the games.  Hence, the team operated at a loss of $38.8 million for the last fiscal year.
• OLeksandr Usyk is the next man up for Anthony Joshua after Tyson Fury's COVID positive.
• Looks to me you can load your money on Milwaukee tonight to end the NBA Finals and win the NBA Championship.  Scott Foster will be among the officials tonight, an official Chris Paul has never had a winning game in the playoffs with -- 0-12 or 13, I think.  Would stand to reason.  Three of the players in the Finals have to go directly to Tokyo for Team USA.  As of right now, only eight players are traveling with the team as things stand until the Finals end, either tonight or Thursday.  Team USA's first game is Sunday.   
• Another attempt at a "Trump Won - Save America" banner at an MLB game.  This time in Tampa Bay.  It was received about as well as it was in New York.

The COVIDLympics, Day -3: They're going through with it -- MAYBE????

• I'm going to have to find a way to be a bit careful as to how the days are numbered because of the time change, meaning one day (probably "0" just for the Opening Ceremony and all the #NBCFail around that!) is going to have to be "short"...
• ... because today is actually the first day of Olympic competition.  Three softball pool-play matches, several women's soccer pool-play openers.  Also, the podium training for the men's gymnastics is today.
• Paralympic Story #1:  Becca Myers has forfeited her spot on the US Paralympic Team because she cannot bring her assistant, due to COVID restrictions.  She's deaf and blind.  Myers was to be a multiple-medal contender in swimming.  It is apparently the US Paralympic Committee who is blocking the move.  WHAT THE FUCK???  She's deaf from birth due to a rare disorder and is near-blind -- how is she going to be able to do anything outside the pool without that assistance?
• Paralympic Story #2:  A British long-jumper was actually told her shorts were too short at the Great Britain Paralympic Trials.  They're basically two-piece non-bikini swimsuit bottoms.  An official with the competition flagged down Olivia Breen to advise her on it.  Breen is protesting.  Breen has qualified in the event to compete in Tokyo at the Paralympics.  You know, there's a reason they call track athletes "thinclads".   
• On The Other Hand:  I don't know if any of these athletes are actually on the regular team handball team, but members of the Norwegian beach handball team were fined for wearing shorts (instead of bikini bottoms) during a recent competition.  Kinda tells you the purpose of sports like that and "beach volleyball", ifyouknowwhatI'msayin'....   
• Nneka Ogwumike and Elizabeth Williams are out of the Olympics.  Both wanted to play for Nigeria, but both FIBA and, now, the CAS have ruled Ogwumike and Williams have had too high a "contribution" to USA Basketball to be allowed to play for Nigeria.  Effectively, they're the equivalent of what is seen as being "cup-tied" in soccer.   
• Jackie Young has been promoted to Team USA for 3 on 3 women's basketball due to the COVID positive reported yesterday.  Katie Lou Samuelson is a breakthrough COVID case -- she was vaccinated.
• Just this morning (or Tuesday evening in Japan, if you prefer), the current chief of the 2020 Tokyo Organizing Committee has said, in the face of sponsors also pulling out of the Opening Ceremony (Panasonic and Asahi have joined Toyota, at least with respect to the Opening Ceremony), that a last-second cancellation of the Games is NOT OFF THE TABLE.  Toshiro Muto has said that a spike in cases (which appears to be the case in Tokyo at large) and gaps in the "bubble" which is to limit athlete travel will be reviewed.
• Latest reports on the weather in Tokyo have indicated the forcing stopping of training for beach volleyball -- the weather is so warm in Tokyo, the sand is too hot that it ends up burning the players' feet!
• Somebody's head is going to roll with Poland and whoever runs Olympic swimming there.  They had to toss six athletes -- no fault of their own.  The Polish Olympic Committee or the swimming team did not take into account how many athletes the country actually had as quota-qualified for the Games, and sent way too many!
• If you want a reason why a lot of people may be getting sick of Team USA and the Olympics, I present to you Taylor Crabb from the men's beach volleyball team:  Suspended two years in 2017 for inappropriate conduct toward underage girls (including the use of alcohol), then suspended again in 2019 after an agreement which reduced the first suspension to four months was violated (participation in a camp which included underage girls)-- and USA Volleyball stated CLEARLY it was with the intent to remove Crabb from consideration from Team USA for Tokyo!  An arbitrator basically wiped out the second suspension -- he begins play on Sunday.
• Pita Taufatofua, the sensation who spent both the Rio 2016 and Pyeongchang 2018 Opening Ceremonies shirtless and oiled has qualified for his third Olympics, qualifying once again for the 16-man field in the over-80kg division of Taekwondo.
• In a reminder the IOC is far more than just a ceremonial body, the IOC actually is having it's 138th Session starting today in Tokyo.  The highlight of the event is slated to be the formal decision to award Brisbane, Australia the 2032 Summer Olympics.
• One of the decisions today is to give formal IOC sanction to six sporting federations -- federations governing Lacrosse, Kickboxing, Muay Thai Kickboxing, Sambo, Icestocksport (a European form of curling), and Cheerleading.
• The longtime motto of the Olympics has finally been altered, as another decision today.  The new motto is:  "Faster, Higher, Stronger -- Together".

The COVIDLympics, Day -4: Do we really HAVE TO? How many more cases is it going to take?

• A single alternate gymnast from the USA women's team has tested positive for COVID while in the training camp in Japan.  A second alternate has been placed in contact tracing.  None of the main team, as of the moment, are impacted.  Team USA did not release the name of either alternate (probably HIPAA considerations), but the team has four 17-18 year old alternates on the squad.
• It has apparently been publicized by her local coach:  It's Kara Eaker.
• This is in addition to a "false positive" on the team over the weekend.  At least the entire main team is vaccinated.
• A Czech Republic beach volleyball player has also tested positive for COVID.
• This, on top of 33 new Olympic-associated positives just Monday (JST).
• The third South African reported positive was a video analyst for the men's soccer team.
• However, over 30 people have now been identified as close contacts in the South African program to the three positives already given.
• And Zach Levine of the USA men's basketball team has to remain in the United States on COVID protocols.  He may be able to rejoin the team for the tournament.
• The USA women's 3 on 3 basketball team has taken a hit.  Katie Lou Samuelson, positive for the coronavirus while in Las Vegas, out of the Olympics.
• If this isn't enough, the first heat-stroke alert of the year has gone out in Tokyo, meaning all, including athletes, need to ensure they have enough hydration, etc.
• As a result, Ralph Lauren, the creator of the US uniforms, has made special cooling units in the USA outfits (at least for the flag bearers) for the Opening Ceremony.
• Another black eye for the Opening Ceremony on Friday:  One of the composers for the event, Keigo Oyamada, has been cancelled from the event -- fired/forced to resign because of surfacing posts in the past where he stated he was proud of bullying children with disabilities in interviews in 1994 and 1995.
• The Creative Director of the Olympic Games suffered a similar fate in March when he had the gall to tell a plus-sized Japanese actress she should don a pig suit for the event and be promoted as the "Olympig".
• This on top of a former Japanese Prime Minister fired/forced to quit as head of the Organizing Committee in February for misogynist comments.
• And I want to note something right here:  I have only had very limited want, to this point, of accessing my favorite "behind the scenes" Olympic blog - most of what you've seen the last couple weeks is either out front in American media or easily accessible by Reddit.  
• Last week, it was reported that Alexandr Kudashev and Veronika Andrusenko were suspended from the Games for drug use.  They have been overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.  They will be allowed to compete in Tokyo.  They had been suspended due to materials submitted to FINA on the pair -- but the CAS ruled FINA did not actually prove that the materials, in either drug use or evading tests, constituted a bannable offense.
• The NHL will tailor it's schedule with an Olympic break next season, to account for if the Beijing Winter Games of 2022 go on.
• Keith Olbermann, after calling for unvaccinated athletes to be removed from the Tokyo Games last week, now is simply calling for their complete cancellation after the Eaker announcement this morning.