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Published: August 20th 2016
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Day 14 is in the books here in Rio and its hard to believe we are only two short days away from the Closing Ceremonies of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games! While the time goes fast for us, it clearly moving even faster for Usain Bolt. It seem unfair to starting talking about this day without mentioning his super-human achievements over that past 12 years. To think that one man has won the 100m, 200m and 4x100m Relay in three straight Olympics simply defies logic. Its hard to imagine anyone in the future surpassing this truly epic Olympic resume.
We started our day back at the Olympic Park and had our first chance to watch some diving at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Centre. This venue was the only building on site at what is now Olympic Park prior to Olympic construction. It was built in order to host diving and swimming events hosted by Rio at the 2007 Pan Am Games. Interestingly, it is the only Olympic venue that is named after someone. Maria Lenk was an accomplished Brazilian swimmer back in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was also the first Brazilian swimmer to ever set a swimming
world record (one that stood for nearly 5 years). In many ways, she was a swimming pioneer, the first, as an example, to swim Butterfly in competition. While she never achieved her dream of winning an Olympic medal (WWII caused the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Games), she did go on to be inducted into the FINA Hall of Fame and compete in Masters Swimming for the balance of her life. In her late 80s and early 90s, she would regularly swim 1500m plus every day. She died suddenly, just prior to the 2007 Pan Am Games while training in the pool. Her heart pressure dropped suddenly and she died upon arrival to the hospital of cardiac arrest at age 92. The Mayor of Rio named the pool in her honor just prior to the Pan Am Games and the name sticks to this day. At the time of her death, she still held five Masters Swimming World Records!
The session we watched today was the Men's 10m Platform Preliminary Round. There were a total of 28 divers and each one of them had 6 dive attempted. The highest cumulative scores advance the top 18 divers on to
the finals tomorrow night. There were two Canadian in the field, one that ultimately qualified and one is an alternate for tomorrow's final. The real star of the day was Great Britain's Tomas Daly. He was just unreal. No judges were needed to see he was far and away the best diver on the day. We watched dive after dive him achieve unanimous 9.5s and 10.0s from the judges and all 7,000+ spectators in attendance. It was fantastic to watch! You will also notice in the pictures tonight that the pool is blue. That might be a surprise, as the media (which we have criticized often in this blog) will lead you to believe the pool is green and will be for eternity. Simply not the case. By the way, how about Great Britain at these Olympic Games? They estimate that their medal haul at these Games has cost British citizens $2 per person, per year in the past 4-year Olympic cycle. This was part of the British Government's legacy commitment after it hosted the Games in 2012. Seems like a pretty solid investment for 60 medals. They won 65 as host and look to beat or match that total
by the end of the Games. Not bad when you consider in Atlanta (1996) they had 15 and 28 in Athens (2004).
After our time at the dive tank, we walked across the park to watch the final Men's Basketball Semi-Final between Australia and Serbia. Truth be told it wasn't much of a game. Australia struggled to score out of the gate and only posted 5 points in the first quarter, only 14 points in the complete first half! Serbia went on to win easily 87-61. Truthfully, we really weren't there for either of those teams. We were back cheering on our Canadian referee Steve Seibel. We've talked about him previously in the blog and suffice to say he had this game well under control as the Crew Chief. He has officiated the Gold Medal game at the World Championships, the World Cup, North American Championships, European Championships, National Championships and this is his third Olympic Games. He has done quarter-finals and semi-finals, here's hoping for the big final for Steve, the Olympic Gold Medal Game on Sunday.
On the Canadian front today, we're sure you are just as excited as we are that Canada continues to add
to our medal total day after day! Not without drama today that included protests and DQs, we added 3 more Bronze to an already impressive collection here in Rio. We now have more medals in a Summer Games than in any time in Olympic history since the 1996 Games in Atlanta (we had 22 there) and we now have our third highest total ever (1996 Atlanta - 22 / 1984 Los Angeles - 44). Keep in mind, that back in Los Angeles more than 16 countries boycotted the Games for political reasons. We sent nearly 100 more athletes than normal and the competition was not as strong. The point being, if you put an asterisks beside 1984, Rio is shaping up to be our most successful Games ever. This is even more impressive when you consider we only won a single medal in rowing and none in Canoe/Kayak -- both in the top 4 in terms of all time medals we have won at Games. We also just can't say it enough, but how about our women, another medal today as our National Soccer team successfully defended their Olympic Bronze Medal. Not bad for a country that couldn't even qualify
the first three times (1996, 2000 and 2004) Women's Soccer was included in the Olympic Program! We see derogatory statements made about "hitting like a girl" or "throwing like a girl" or just plain "playing like a girl"...for us, we hope this has inspired a whole new generation of Canadian girls to be involved in sport and continue to show Canadians and the world what those statements really mean!
Tomorrow is our last full day at the Olympics. We will head to the beach to cheer on our Canadian Women's Triathlon Team and then catch the Women's Gold Medal Basketball Game.
More pictures below.
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Kim Dupuis
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:)
What a wonderful tribute to Maria Lenk. Well deserved after her love of the sport. We had our closing ceremony yesterday at work.. Watched the bronze medal soccer team. Our group of tenants whether in wheelchairs, walkers or limitations all have a love for sports and can they cheer:) Gotta love that. Each tenant was given a button to represent their country. To represent the Olympic flame they filled sugar cones with cheesies:) Shout out to Eric Lamaz for his bronze medal in individual show jumping. He had the fastest round in the jump of with his little mare "Lady" but one rail came down for a penalty. Her first rail down for the whole spring/summer season leading up to and including the Olympics:) Lady is adding to the "girl" power:) Of course my famous Olympic niece and nephew were a highlight of my conversations. They love to hear about you travels. Enjoy your day. xo