It has been strange and somewhat bittersweet to no longer be planning my entire day around livestreams of the Olympics so I can write about them for a daily Olympic column. It has been even stranger to have to rely on social media updates due to the work schedule of my new job and not being home to watch. Today and yesterday have been the first chances I have had so far to watch live coverage from Tokyo, while every other day I have had to settle for replays on YouTube, Twitter and Instagram.
While this is not the same as the daily columns I wrote for London, Sochi, Rio and Pyeongchang, and no one is paying me to write my thoughts about the Games anymore, I have felt compelled to write about the first week of Tokyo for old time’s sake and to share my myriad of thoughts and feelings about an Olympics unlike any other we have known in our lifetimes. (Shameless plug here, but my older daily Olympic columns are posted to this blog and can be viewed by selecting July and August 2012, February 2014, August 2016 and February 2018 from the dropdown menu on the home page).
For sake of consistency from my older columns, I will write in sections. I took very few notes prior to typing this, so please accept my apologies if it feels like this skips around a bit.
My favorite moments so far
Last night’s women’s 200 meter breaststroke final is top of my list. I just barely missed watching it live, but luckily the replay of the entire race was posted to YouTube soon after. Not only was it a thrilling race throughout, but seeing South African swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker’s reaction to her world record time of 2:18.95 was pure joy.
That moment was made better by bronze medalist Annie Lazor of the USA, hugging her from the next lane over and congratulating her. In between the NBC commentary, you can hear Lazor tell Schoenmaker, ‘You’re amazing.’ Lazor’s U.S. teammate and silver medalist Lilly King soon joined in on the celebratory embrace, then Schoenmaker’s teammate Kaylene Corbett to create one giant group hug in the pool. I loved the photos that have been shared of that moment. King shared one of those photos on her Instagram last night, fittingly calling it ‘a race for the ages,’ as did Lazor, who wrote on her Instagram, ‘what an incredible race and experience this was.’ Women supporting women. I will always applaud that.
Lazor, who I have been rooting for ever since I found out she lost her father in April and competed at the U.S. Olympic Trials seven weeks later, said it best on an interview with NBC earlier this morning: ‘How can you not celebrate that as a person in the sport, as a fan of the sport?’ Indeed…how can you not celebrate that? And how lucky is everyone on the U.S. team to have such an awesome, supportive teammate like Lazor?
I have somewhat jokingly referred to swimming as ‘track in a pool,’ but I mean no disrespect. While track is and always will be No. 1 in my heart, I love swimming for the same reasons I love track. It truly comes down to the clock and who is the best athlete on that day. And most of all, just like track, I love how swimmers stop to share in the euphoria of a big moment. Just like Anna Cockrell and Dalilah Muhammad stopping to congratulate a truly stunned Sydney McLaughlin on her world record 51.90 win in the 400 hurdles at last month’s U.S. Olympic Trials (in record heat in Eugene, no less), Lazor and King stopped to congratulate and bask in the joy of Schoenmaker’s world record gold. I have said it before and I will say it again: there is no community like those of Olympic sports. And it is a shame they only get the world’s spotlight once every four (or in this case, five) years.
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