Most of us in Hawaii wanted to see 2021 Tokyo gold medalist Carissa Moore go out with a repeat performance in surfing, considering this was her last competition, at least for now. America, though, is 2-for-2 in women’s surfing gold, as Caroline Marks emerged victorious this time.
On another note from surfing, the stunning image of men’s bronze medalist Gabriel Medina seemingly levitating along with his board was replicated a day or two later by a skateboarder.
The thing that makes this cool is surfing was contested halfway around the globe from Paris, 12 time zones away in Tahiti, pretty much by necessity. So, the Olympics did what they’re supposed to do and brought the world closer together — in this case by images.
The U.S. men’s volleyball team — which we always watch closely here — captured bronze after finishing 10th in the Tokyo Games.
Yeah, they would’ve preferred gold. But bronze is a sign of real grit and resilience since the match is played so soon after the deflation of being knocked out of the semifinal.
All those diving digs by Erik Shoji (Punahou), tight sets by Micah Christenson (Kamehameha) and clutch blocks and kills from Taylor Averill (University of Hawaii) didn’t go to waste. The presence of another Punahou alum, Micah Ma’a, makes this squad’s roster one-third full of players with significant Hawaii ties.
Madison Chock was born in California but is of Native Hawaiian ethnicity. Her sport is ice skating, so what was she doing at the Summer Games? Maybe in Paris on her honeymoon, since she married her doubles partner, Evan Bates, in June? (Their wedding was here in Hawaii.)
It was Olympics business in Paris, as Chock, Bates and the rest of the U.S. figure skating team event members received gold medals that they’d earned at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, and the Japanese team was also on hand in Paris to accept silver medals.
It took this long because no medals were awarded for the event in ’22. Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee team that won tested positive for a banned substance. After all the legal issues were settled, the Americans climbed from second to first, Japan from third to second, and the ROC team went from gold to bronze.
The two-year wait had to be tough. But how about 24 years?
Jamaican sprinter Beverly McDonald, now 54, finally got the bronze medal she earned in the 200-meter run at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. McDonald was fourth to the finish line in that race. American Marion Jones was first.
But Jones later forfeited the three gold medals and two bronze she won on the track in Australia, when in 2007 she was caught up in the BALCO investigation. She also served jail time after confessing she’d lied to a grand jury about using performance-enhancing drugs.
That elevated McDonald to a bronze medal, but she never received it until last week in Paris.
McDonald was among 10 track and field and weightlifting athletes from the Sydney, Beijing and London Games to receive medals in a reallocation ceremony for summer Olympians.
It makes you wonder where the line is on the reallocation of medals. If horrific officiating is a legitimate cause for an appeal, no one has a better case than the 1972 U.S. men’s basketball team — which Hawaii sports fans have a vested interest in, since UH star Thomas Henderson played for that team.
Three officiating decisions based on confusion over a timeout in the last second of the gold medal game handed the Soviet Union a 51-50 victory over the Americans.
The U.S. did appeal. FIBA, basketball’s governing body, rejected it.
“The Americans have to learn how to lose, even if they think they are right,” said FIBA’s secretary-general, R. William Jones of Great Britain.
It was the U.S.’s first loss in 64 men’s Olympic basketball games. The rest of the world was tired of the Americans dominating hoops 52 years ago — even if it meant giving the Russians the gold during the Cold War.
Now that the IOC seems in the mood to fix past mistakes, maybe it will take another look at this one.
