The Olympics

[Drunk Monk]

Tokyo 2021. Let's get this party started. 

[Greg]

Yep. I was shocked to find the illicit substance was cannabis.

[Drunk Monk]

Goddammit. I just spent like two hours trying to navigate the Olympics site https://www.nbcolympics.com/schedule/sport/fencing trying to watch something more than highlights. I opened it through Peacock and through my local broadcaster (I tried and failed to use my mom's Xfinity) but no luck. 

We saw a little bit of the Opening Ceremonies until NBC cut us off. Frustrating.

[Drunk Monk]

Let's just watch that again, shall we?

Congrats to Kiefer! Got any backstory on her here, Maestro Yeti?

[Greg]

I've spent the morning switching between the three channels. So many sports.

[Drunk Monk]

Peacock only shows select highlights but I’ve yet to catch anything live. 

My fav story of today:

Gymnast Oksana Chusovitina

[Greg]

Was she the 47 year old gymnast?

I had four channels going last night. NBCSN, NBC, USA, and CNBC. So many sports. i saw a lot of the live swimming events. Beach Volleyball Women's, Indoor Volleyball Women's. The Triathlon. Kayaking. Gymnastic prelims. Women's Softball. Some were repeats of stuff from earlier in the day. Some of it was taped.

So much sports.....!

[Drunk Monk]

Such a bummer

Olympic dream derailed: Stanford fencer Massialas spends days in COVID isolation, loses 1st match
[/url]
[url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/author/ann-killion/]Ann Killion
Updated: July 25, 2021 11:03 p.m.

3

San Francisco fencer Alexander Massialas lost his first Olympic match Monday, ending his dreams of adding another Olympic medal to his collection and continuing a nightmarish week due to COVID-19 protocols.
Massialas spent the past eight days quarantined in a hotel, apart from his teammates in the Olympic village. He was placed into contact tracing due to being seated on his flight to Japan near beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb, who tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the Games last week.
Crabb, who said he is vaccinated, has remained in quarantine at his hotel.
Massialas, who is vaccinated and continues to test negative, was quarantined completely for three days and then allowed to only do certain kinds of limited training, but not be near any of his teammates.
“I’m obviously really disappointed,” said Massialas by Facetime after his loss to Germany’s Peter Joppich. “I’ve been trying to stay positive and make the best of a bad situation.”


But his father Greg, a former Olympic fencer, and a coach for the fencing team, thinks the week took its toll on his son.

“He’s been locked up in isolation and I think it got to him,” Greg said.
The ordeal started after Massialas landed in Tokyo and was held for 12 hours at the airport. He was taken to a quarantine hotel and stayed there for three days. Then he was transferred to another hotel, where more of Team USA is staying, but remained under strict protocols.
The three-time Olympian, who won a silver individual medal and a bronze team medal in Rio, spent much of the week wondering if he would be able to compete at all. He finally received clearance to compete in his foil match on Monday a few days ago. But he was unable to train with his teammates.
After the disappointment, he is looking toward Sunday’s team competition. He hopes by then, he will have been cleared to move into the village.
“Everyone’s flying blind - there’s not a lot of clarity,” Massialas said. “But the best athletes have the shortest memories. I’ll take some time to be upset and sad but then I’ll look forward to winning gold with my teammates.”
Massialas qualified for Tokyo several weeks before the Games were postponed. He spent 2020 training in his parents’ San Francisco home and working to save Stanford sports, including fencing. He was a key member of “36 Sports Strong” the Stanford alumni group that successfully fought to overturn the university’s decision to drop 11 sports.
Ranked fifth in the world, Massialas had hopes for gold at his third Olympics. He also looked forward to sharing the experience with his younger sister Sabrina, who is on her first Olympic team. He had hoped to walk in opening ceremonies with her and hang out in the village. Instead, Monday was the first time he saw her.
“I’m trying to get her to enjoy the moment, because this is something she’s dreamed of for a long time,” Massialas said. “Sometimes life throws something at you that you didn’t expect.”
Though Crabb was vaccinated and is apparently a breakthrough case, Massialas wishes that all his teammates were vaccinated because he’s an example of exactly what’s at risk. Close to 100 U.S. Olympians are unvaccinated, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. All are rolling the dice with not only their own Olympic dreams but those of their teammates.
“It’s definitely perplexing,” said Massialas, who added that the entire fencing team is vaccinated. “I like to think about my teammates and whether or not I’m putting them in a dangerous situation. I don’t want to hurt them in any way.”
Massialas’ five-year dream was derailed by the seat he was assigned on an airplane.
“Sometimes you get unlucky in life,” he said. “But at least I got to compete. And I will try to help my team win.”
Massialas’ teammate Gerek Meinhardt, another San Francisco native, also lost his first match on Monday. His potential pre-match distraction was for a far happier reason than Massialas. His wife Lee Kiefer won gold in individual foil on Sunday. The married fencers are both in medical school at the University of Kentucky.
“I think he had a really emotional, wonderful day and was a little bit drained,” said Greg Massialas.
The men’s team event will take place on August 1.
Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: akillion@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @annkillion

[Greg]

Bad story. My fingers are crossed for the foil team event.

[Greg]

Just finished women's Triathlon. Sucker for any event where Team USA has a chance to win a medal. USA took bronze. I'm seeing a lot of ads with Race Imboden

[Drunk Monk]

I confess I’m not so patriotic. Just show me great athletics. 

Watched highlights of TKD, judo, fencing, surfing then some of the skateboarding and am now sucked into the women’s gymnastic quals.

[cranefly]

Does anyone know why roughly 100 US athletes haven't been vaccinated?  I could understand, sort of, if they just didn't want to risk the side effects just before the Olympics.  Sort of like Tanaquil Le Clercq, the Ballerina who postponed the polio vaccine for a European tour for fear it would degrade her performance -- only to come down with polio, which ended her career.  Even then, I think the athletes are being very selfish and short-sighted.

If the reason is political, all the more reason to root against them...

My two cents worth.

[Greg]

The Anit-vax sentiment is strong. It's a problem. They should have been told to vax or not compete.

The problem with Alex's row mate is that he had also been banned for violating safe sport guidelines and only had been reinstated on appeal.

[Drunk Monk]

Simone! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

this is becoming the games of sadness. however the underdog sports and countries seem to be faring well, but perhaps that's my own attentional selectivity.

[Greg]

Bermuda wins big in the women's triathlon for their first medal ever. Great Britain has a big upset over China in Men's synchronized platform diving. Japan beat USA in Woman's Softball.

It's all a puzzlement.