The COVIDLympics, Day Thirteen: It IS almost over...

• Kinda started getting that vibe on Day 12 after the morning track session.
• A lot of people were talking very strongly about that the United States was going to make up the gold-medal deficit in the Athletics/Track and Field events.
• There are 15 track and field events left in which the United States can still possibly medal.  They will, however, need two gold medals in those 15 events to prevent from the worst track performance in the history of the USOC -- 6 gold -- done both in 1972 and 1976.
• In what has become the story of the entire Games:  The USA has the most medals in Athletics (and by quite a distance!! -- the USA has 20 in the first 32 events.)  However, only five gold and 11 silver.  No other country has more than seven total medals or three gold.
• The 400 meter relay for the men crashed out sixth in their heat due to a botched transfer.
• This means the USA will not get a gold medal in any of the men's sprint events.  The 100, 200, 400 and 4x100 relay.  This has only happened three times.  1908 -- the FIRST London Olympics.  And there, they got silver in the 100 and 200.  And 2012 in London, with the great Jamaican takeover, where in those events alone, Jamaica won all three medals in the 200, gold and silver in the 100, and blasted the world record in the relay.  And 2016, meaning the United States has not won the 100, 200, 400 or 4x100 relay men's gold in three straight Olympics.
• In fact, of the five gold medals the USA has won in athletics, three have been in the field, and four have been by women -- the only male, the runaway victory by undisputed world #1 in the shot-put Ryan Crouser.
• Olympic history was made yesterday.  Eddy Alvarez of the USA baseball team helped clinch at least a silver medal as the USA made it's way through the repechage rounds after losing to host Japan.  The two countries will play again for the gold medal on the final weekend.  Alvarez becomes the sixth athlete ever, and the third from America, to win medals in both Summer and Winter Olympics, winning silver in the Russian Drug Olympics in short-track speed-skating before starting his professional baseball career.
• To give an idea of how ridiculous the weather has gotten, at least the sixth gold-medal event has been forced to be moved because of the heat wave:  The women's soccer final has been relocated from Tokyo in the morning to Yokohama in the evening for Day 14.  The men's soccer bronze medal match has been brought forward two hours.  100 degrees with humidity again on Friday!  Yokohama will also host the men's final -- though that was scheduled due to the track and field competition.
• A wave of sexual harassment of female reporters at the Games has surfaced (but you won't find it, YET, on any major media -- I had to go to Yardbarker to find out about it).  An NFL reporter (not in Tokyo), Laura Okmin, has received several concerning messages on her social media from female colleagues, asking for advice on how to deal with disrespectful, and probably assaultive, athletes.  Names are being taken and given to Olympic officials.  I expect nothing to be done about it, sadly.  After all, sexual harassment is part of the territory (and part of the benefits package) for the male elite athlete.

Inside the Games...

• In a move which will undoubtably bring waves, Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia is making a campaign for the chairmanship of the IOC Athletes Committee.  With Russia officially banned from the Olympic movement, one can only speculate as to the effect should she win...
• The fields of Ancient Olympia are burning because of a wildfire, and local villagers have been forced evacuated.  It is unclear whether the actual site of the flame's lighting is affected.  Temps there have reached 47 Celsius (116.3 F).
• Nigeria will be forced to put a new anti-doping commission after the blocking of 10 athletes and the disqualification of an eleventh from their track team.
• WHOOPS!!!  The IOC has been forced to apologize to the Ukraine -- when their artistic swimming team medaled, they were referred to as Russians (members of the ROC team).
• Six members of the Greek artistic swimming team (half the entire team now) have been identified as positive for COVID.  I think we can safely assume the other half is also, now, infected.   
• A Ukranian racewalker had his Athletics Integrity ban upheld against his participation in the 20km race walk by the CAS for failure to submit to no-notice drug tests.

Other news bits:

• Predictably, Donald Trump has spoken with glee on the downfall of the US Women's Soccer Team in these Games -- calling them no short of "leftist maniacs".  If you want any idea why the USA is going to lose the gold medal count to China, it starts with the Orange Oompa-Loompa right over there.   

And, speaking of the National Dick-Waving Contest

• Looks like it's gonna be a split title.  Golds are China's:  34, to the USA's 29.  22 for Japan, 17 for Australia, 16 for both the Illegal Russian Team and Great Britain.
• The USA now running away with the total.  91 (including 12 on Day 13), 74 for China, 58 for the Illegal Russian Team, 51 for Great Britain, 46 for Japan, 41 for Australia.
• 269 of the 339 medal events have been completed -- only 70 left.  16 of them in track and field.
• 63 nations now, in the record count for gold medal nations (three more added to the list)
• 88 nations total on the table.  And that also breaks the record, set in London with 87.
• We have our next total medal maiden, the Games' third.  The small African country of Burkina Faso won it's first Olympic medal when Hugues Fabrice Zango won bronze in the Olympic Triple Jump.  He is the only male track athlete in these Games from the country.  The country only took seven athletes.
• Burkina Faso joins San Marino and Turkmenistan as countries to get their first Olympic medals.  Bermuda, the Philippines and Qatar remain the only three countries to get their first gold medals at these Games.  This is in contrast to 9* nations (including Kuwait under the Independent banner) winning their first gold medals in Rio.
• The reason for the asterisk was found upon research today:  Bahrain had been listed as breaking their gold-medal maiden in Rio.  And they had, as of the time of the Olympics.  However, back-drug testing of London samples resulted in the disqualification of both Turkish 1500m medalists, gold and silver, and, in 2017, promoted Bahrain's Maryam Yusuf Jamal to the Olympic championship, making her Bahrain's first Olympic gold medalist.
• (In an irony, it appears Jamal is the only clean medalist from the event, and the only clean woman in at least the top five!  The two below her were both suspended in 2015, three years after the London Games, but their 2012 medals still stand.)