RIO de JANEIRO — Coming into these Rio Olympics, after the U.S. team’s underwhelming performance at the 2015 World Championships, there were concerns far and wide about how the American swim team might do at the 2016 Rio Games.
Now the answer is as plain as #PhelpsFace.
The 2016 U.S. swim team was, in a word, riveting.
Just excellent.
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RIO de JANEIRO — Anyone in any kind of relationship — so this means pretty much everyone in the world — knows that there is always a tension, if not a struggle, over power and control. Easy joke: especially if you’re married! (Note: Love you, honey, and it’s 25 years in September!)
The trick is to figure out how to accept direction, guidance, criticism and more from the other, understanding that he or she genuinely wants the best for you — without all of that leading to feelings of being diminished, demeaned or, worse yet, submission.
Draw your chairs closer into this little group therapy circle, please: that acceptance explains precisely why Michael Phelps is swimming unbelievably great at these 2016 Olympics, which he swears — uh-huh — will be his last.
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RIO de JANEIRO — If Thursday night’s men’s 200m individual medley final between Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte was the end, as Jim Morrison and the Doors once said, it made — in a riff on what Morrison also told us — for no safety yet a big surprise, a race in which two of the best, ever, pushed each other one final time. Each in his own lane, literally and figuratively, Phelps and Lochte have for years been on a similar quest. Their mission: to push boundaries in search of excellence.
As Morrison put it, to be limitless and free.
After London, these words seemed to apply, and in full measure. Phelps said he was done. He was not. He had unfinished business.
At these Rio 2016 Olympics, a Games he repeatedly has declared will be his last, Phelps on Thursday night staggered the field over the final 100 meters to win the 200m IM, and by nearly two seconds.
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RIO de JANEIRO — Kayla Harrison is a very, very bad woman.
Bow in her direction. All her opponents do.
In one of the most thunderously badass performances in Olympic judo history, Harrison on Thursday plundered the women’s 78-kilogram (172 pound) category to win a second straight Olympic gold.
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RIO de JANEIRO — If you had a son, you would want him to be just like Nathan Adrian.
The guy is smart, funny, respectful and humble. He is quiet, steady, a genuine leader.
Oh, he’s tall and handsome, too, the very picture of America’s best pluralistic and tolerant tendencies. His dad, James, is a retired nuclear engineer; his mom, Cecilia, who comes from Hong Kong, is a nurse.
Oh yeah — Nathan Adrian is an incredible athlete.
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RIO de JANEIRO — When, oh when, will everyone learn to stop riling up Michael Phelps?
As the U.S. swim star Natalie Coughlin put it Tuesday night on Twitter, “Don’t poke the bear.”
In the latest chapter in a long-running story of what happens when you poke the bear, Phelps, obviously fired up by South African star Chad le Clos’ antics Monday in the ready room, won his 20th Olympic gold medal in the event that has seemingly forever meant the most to him and his family, the 200m butterfly.
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RIO de JANEIRO — This is a story about Olympic dreams, though it is not just about that. This is a story about families of all sorts, though it is not just about that.
This is a story about fairy tales, and how sometimes at the Olympic Games, in particular within the extended judo family — and it really is a family — fairy tales really can come true.
Last Friday, at the Opening Ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympics, judoka Majlinda Kelmendi carried the flag for Kosovo. It wasn’t until 2014 that the International Olympic Committee had even recognized Kosovo as a separate country — a process that had started in the sports world when the International Judo Federation became the first to say Kosovo was real, in 2012.
On Sunday, in the women’s 52-kilogram (114 pounds) category, Kelmendi won gold.
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RIO de JANEIRO -- Lilly King is a great swimmer. But a good sport? One who lives — in her gold-medal moment — the key Olympic values: friendship, excellence and respect?
Much of the English-speaking media proved all too eager Monday evening to latch on to an easy — and false — narrative that abruptly cast King as a virtuous American hero, striking a blow for drug-free sport in winning the women’s 100m breaststroke while slaying the notorious Russian, the sudden villain Yulia Efimova.
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RIO de JANEIRO — Of all the images from Michael Phelps’ storied career, perhaps none is as visceral — as open and truthfully honest — as the shot from the finish of the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a portrait of Phelps screaming to the heavens in raw, primal, triumphant victory.
This was the race in which Jason Lezak somehow willed his way past France’s Alain Bernard. Lezak was behind when he dove in. He was behind at the turn. He was behind until the very end, when he out-touched Bernard in a moment that instantly became an Olympic classic.
Right there on the deck, Phelps, who had set the Americans to the lead in the first leg, roared. Right behind him, Garrett Weber-Gale, who had pulled the second leg in the relay, fists clenched, leaned back and screamed in jubilation. Both guys were in their star-spangled LZR suits.
This is the red, white and blue moment the U.S. swim team lives for.
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RIO de JANEIRO — If, like most people, you last paid serious attention to Olympic-caliber swimming in London, when that Michael Phelps dude announced he was retiring, welcome back to the pool for your every-four-years dip, and just in time to catch the one and only race at these Games at which Katie Ledecky was always likely to take second instead of first.
In the final swim of the final event of the first day of swimming’s nine-day run here at the Rio 2016 Games, Ledecky anchored an American-record 3:31.89 in the women’s 4x100 meter freestyle. It took a world record 3:30.65 from the Australians, who were heavily favored, to win.
Even in second place, the legend of Katie Ledecky just keeps getting better and better. This was the first time Ledecky had ever — ever — raced the 4x100 relay for Team USA at an international level. The last time she swam in a 4x1 was in high school, she said afterward with a laugh.
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