The Olympics this year is facing many challenges; COVID, athlete protests, churn among the officials, and the chance of still being canceled despite starting already. This thread is dedicated to the "Good News" stories coming out of the Olympics completion. I expect many people are seeing local human interest stories about athletes from their area who are competing. Please feel free to add some news about the athletes below. To start -- here is the story about one swimmer from our area in North Carolina... 'She knows she's representing something bigger than herself': Triangle's Claire Curzan primed to compete in Tokyo Games https://www.wralsportsfan.com/she-k...an-primed-to-compete-in-tokyo-games/19785804/ laire Curzan has been swimming since she was three years old. The past few years the Cardinal Gibbons High School swimmer trained at Triangle Aquatics Center (TAC) fine-tuning her strokes. Curzan is heading in as one of the youngest athletes to compete on the global stage. The hard work has paid off, as she’s just hours away from putting all of her skills to the test. On Saturday, the Cardinal Gibbons Senior will compete in the 100-meter-butterfly at the Tokyo Games. The qualifying heats begin at 6:25 a.m. The semifinals start at 9:40 p.m. Her coach, Bruce Marchionda, says Claire's early success is the result of her hard work at TAC and never giving up. Cardinal Gibbons swimmer Claire Curzan makes the cut for Team USA "To be there and be part of it and watch her climb out of the water and come directly over to us and high fives and hugs and to feel like 'I helped her reach her goal' is just a huge sense of pride," Marchionda said. Marchionda has trained other Olympians and knows the responsibility that comes with competing for your country. "She knows she is representing something bigger than herself," Marchionda said. The coach said that when the Olympics were postponed last year, Curzan took the year to focus on one day getting to Tokyo. In June, Curzan finished second in the 100-meter butterfly at Monday night's United States Olympic Trials. The top two finishers in the race punched a ticket to Tokyo. In three seasons at Cardinal Gibbons, Curzan has won six state championships and has been named the MVP of the championship meet twice. She was named Girls Swimmer of the Year at the HighSchoolOT Honors on Thursday night.
They hosted a large local watch party for Claire at the Cardinal Gibbons H.S. football field and many local supporters showed up. Unfortunately her semi-final swim heat was due to be aired at 9:40pm EDT and the men's swimming coverage went long. The did not broadcast the ladies Heat 1 which Claire was in and only Heat 2 was aired. Her supporters were disappointed. Claire ranked 10th between the two heats and did not move on as part of the top 8. However the Olympics were a great experience for her and our local community is quite proud of her.
O Oh crap I was looking for her swim time but coudl not find it.. I hate when the Olympics are in Asia/Russia.... everything is tape delayed and NBC does a shit job of editing and overlaying the background stories. I stayed up to watch some events live last night since NBC, MSNBC, Olympic Channel and USA were showing stuff. I actually watched Horse dressage and never saw a more useless sport or misuse of the word the athlete.
This is a North Carolina Olympic athlete human interest story from Fayetteville which is a neighboring city to the Triangle area of North Carolina that I live in. Fayetteville's Naomi Graham went from being homeless to boxing for Team USA in Olympics https://www.wralsportsfan.com/fayet...-to-boxing-for-team-usa-in-olympics/19794079/
Bermuda wins its first gold medal, becoming the smallest country to win gold at the Summer Olympics https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bermuda-olympics-gold-womens-triathlon/ Bermuda just took home the gold medal in the women's triathlon in Tokyo — making it the smallest country to win gold at the Summer Olympics. Flora Duffy earned the gold medal in the event with a time of 1:55:36. This is the first Olympic gold medal for Bermuda, which has an estimated population of 62,034. The country is so small, it only sent two athletes to the Tokyo Games – Duffy for the triathlon and rower Dara Alizadeh. The country's first Olympics was Berlin in 1936 and in its Olympic history, it has only taken home one other medal — boxer Clarence Hill won a bronze in the men's 81kg heavyweight competition at the Montreal Games in 1976. With its first gold medal, Bermuda joins a short list of small countries to win gold at the Olympics — but it's still the smallest to do so at the Summer Games. According to the Olympics, five notable small countries have won gold. Luxembourg, which has an estimated population of 637,177, won gold in the men's 1500 in 1952. Suriname, in South America, which has an estimated population of 607,600, won gold in the men's 100 butterfly in 1988. Bahamas, which has an estimated population of 381,200, won gold for sailing in 1964. And Grenada, in the Caribbean, which has an estimated population of 113,084, won gold in the men's 400 in 2012. Lichtenstein, which has an estimated population of 38,245, won gold alpine skiing at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.