"The Triumph of Victory, The Agony of Defeat." ABC brought us that binary way of viewing sports with their historic Wild World of Sports program back in the 70's. While not connected to the Olympics, it is easy to view it in that way also. Well, for the US team in 2016, in their biggest events so far performed by their biggest stars, there has been no agony or defeat. The US has, with a machine-like precision, dominated the two highlight sports of Week 1, Women's Gymnastics and Swimming, to make you both appreciate their dominance, and look elsewhere to get that real sporting suspense and drama.
There is a certain nationalistic pride that comes when one of your contrymen / countrywomen dominates the world the way Simone Biles did in the All-Around final yesterday, or the entire US team did in the Women's Team Final on Tuesday, or whatever it is that Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps that makes them so great (more about Phelps in a bit), but pre-ordained sports is never as interesting as it should be. Sports fans love greatness. It has been shown time and time again, from team sports with the Patriots in teh 2000s, or 49ers in the 80s, or the Bulls in the 90s, to individual sports with Tiger Woods adn Roger Federer at various times, that true greatness can drive a sports popularity and ratings. But still, we prefer it when those guys are pushed, when they have rivals. These top US folks just simply do not.
The gymnastics events were foregone conclusions heading into the Rio Olympics, and basically through one turn of the qualifying round, when the US dominated qualifying as a team, and had the top-3 scores for the Individual All-Around qualifying (knocking Gabby Douglas out because only two per country could qualify), I was both in awe of the precision and flawless way they dominated, and somewhat dismayed that no one was challenging them. The US Women's Gymnastic Machine just threw down on the world on Tuesday, getting the top score on each of the four parts, and winning by 8 points. While it was fun because it was America, it was slightly boring to watch peerless perfection.
Simone Biles of course managed to match all expectations she had of performing like someone who, at 19, is already being called the best gymnast of all time. There is a machine-like quality to why that is, given that she has been literally known to jump higher than any other previous gymnast. Her performance has been absolutely flawless, and it gives a nice bonus to the US to not only have won the Individual All-Around four straight times now, but two in a row by African American women. Also, let's always remember the only person that could even come close was the other American Aly Raisman, who at least seemed human in her performance, but like a seasoned veteran in every other way. She's the oldest, she's the team captain, and it showed during the team event, always the first to congratulate the other girls after their performances, leading the chant of being the 'Final 5'. Then, she actually, honestly, seemed more elated to share the medal stand with Simone than having the Silver herself.
Raisman can leave the Olympics knowing that she was a key cog in the two most dominant gymnastics teams maybe ever. Their total score of 184.897 had them a full 8 points up on China. But let's not forget that in 2012, they were 99% as good, scoring 183.596, winning by five points. The US got slightly better, which seems amazing remembering how ruthlessly efficient they were four years ago, but the rest of the world got worse to. It is sad that the rest of the world is almost ceding defeat. I'm sure this is cyclical, and there will be a day when a Simone Biles type rises in another country, and we can't win forever, but the gap seems to be widening.
Moving to the pool, it is more of the same. The US has lapped up on the events everyone expected. Sure, it says something about the brilliance of Katie Ledecky that she entered into Rio with tons of expectations, and has met each and every one of them. In swimming, when there is visual proof of how each person is relative to the other, it was almost laughable watching the gap just widen between her and the competitors in teh 400m freestyle. But if swimmings equally laughable number of total events staged and medals handed out gives us anything, it is the more potential for drama to catch up.
First of all, while no other country can match the US's depth, size and overall quality, individual performers are more than capable. There were many races where the US was a decided underdog. Hungary's Kitinka Hosszu has been every bit the dominant force that Ledecky has (and with her we see evidence of the worst part of nationalism, with vieled references to the potential she is doping when she wins by so much, but never when it is an American doing the same). Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom and Canada's Penny Oleksiak (who is 16 and is on track to own Tokyo 2020), and even China's Sum Yan, have all equalled any non-Phelps or Ledecky person this time around.
But more than that, we have actually had drama in the pool. We had that incredible race where Simone Manuel, a C-level star for US swimming, came out of nowhere to win the 100m freestyle yesterday (tying for the win), with her genuine reaction of shock, instead of the normal reaction of our swimming stars (Phelps mostly), one of 'I knew it' coupled with steely determination and confidence. Or when Ryan Held broke up in tears during the National Anthem in the 4x100m relay win for the US, surrounded by his more accomplished teammates who were there to console (and laugh at) him. There is more genuine drama in swimming.
There is also more depth, again a function of more medals. The US's dominance in swimming is not just being the place where Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky (and a quick shout-out to Ryan Murphy, who is the other swimmer with multiple individual race golds) were born, but also its unparalleled depth. Swimmers like Nathan Adrian, Connor Dwyer, Maya Dirado, Josh Prenot, Kathleen Baker. The US depth is ridiculous. It truly is a machine aimed at getting the most medals with the most diverse set of people. It really seems like the US solved a complex linear optimization issue, with so many events run concurrently, and needing to have enough people to do it all, and came up golden. It is just amazing when in some random race, even when the US is not seriously competing for a Gold, we generally have someone good enough to get us close to a medal and add to that ridiculous tally (right now 24 total medals, Australia is in 2nd with 8).
Of course, no one is still coming up more Golden than Michael Phelps. I don't know why we should have expected any less. Phelps has often stated how disappointed he was with his performance during the 2012 games in London, and how much better prepared he was this time around. Well, when the disappointing result is 4 gold medals, 6 medals overall, then it makes sense that the dominant result would be all the Gold Medals.
Few things were as ridiculous as last night. He had already taken part of two successful relay teams, and won the 200m butterfly, avenging probably his most painful non-Gold in 2012 (it should be noted htere was drama there - while he tossed away 'rival' Chad LeClos, he barely beat Masato Sakai), nothing showed his dominance, both now and always, like his performance yesterday. First came one of his specialties, the 200m IM, which he won in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Well, he not only made in 4 for 4, he did so by two seconds, which is absurd in such a short, complex race. What was more crazy was halfway through he was in second. He took over first in what is supposed to be his weakest stroke (breakstroke), and then flew away from the pack, taking a .4 second lead to a 2 second lead by the end.
And then he decided to show how good he still is. NBC had made so much of the short turnaround he had from that 200m IM final and the 100m Fly semifinal - and for good reason. The 30 minutes in between the two is absurdly short in a truly intense sport in the worst way. It is hard to expend that much energy in a short period, have the body cool off well, and gear right up to do it again. Making it worse was what the 100m Fly meant for Phelps also. This is the other race where he has a chance to win four Olympic Golds in a row. The Butterfly is his best stroke, and this is the signature race of it. He qualified well for the semifinal, but it seemed outlandish to expect him to do well in that one, and one length down the pool, when he was in 7th, that made sense.
And of course, he ended up .01 seconds behind the semifinal winner. His last 50 meters, going from 7th to nearly winning, was just incredible. It is another reminder that he is not normal, he is not playing the same game as anyone else. He is about to have a legendary Olympics. He has a good potential to win 6 Gold Medals in his 6 events. The hilarious part is he is doing this both at 31 years of age, which is supposedly old in the world of swimming, and that this will still be most definitely not his best Olympics. Phelps has taken a slightly more arrogant pose in the pool (his celebrations are those of someone who just knows they are better than anyone ever), but more affable and introspective tone outside it, combining to make him an even more interesting figure now.
The US will try to continue to their machine-like domination of the primary Olympic sports next week on the track, but there they enter territory where they don't have the headline star (Usain Bolt), and they don't have this incredibly history to live up to and continue. I don't know if the world has seen anything in recent decades quite like the last two US Olympic Women's Gymnastics teams, and this incredible collection of swimmers, headlined by the best Olympian Ever. Drama has at times been sucked out of the competition, but legacy, importance and brilliance has not and will not be.
