PARIS – Messaoud Redouane Dris of Algeria is the No. 14-ranked fighter in judo’s men’s under-73 kilo class. He’s the current African champion. A junior African champion. Last year, he took silver at the International Judo Federation Grand Prix in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the gold medalist at the 2022 Mediterranean Games.
This is a guy who, one would think, by any measure would relish the chance to get on the tatami at his first – very first – Olympic Games.
But no.
PARIS – In the blue corner, representing the United States, from Spring, Texas, ladies and gentlemen, Roscoe Hill, dancing with orange shoes, baptized – why should you believe it because everything in boxing is 100% true but this really is – by George Foreman himself.
In the red corner, in lime-green shoes, representing the Refugee Olympic Team, Omid Ahmadisafa, a product of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a world champion in 2017 in kickboxing – not boxing, kickboxing – who three years later, while competing in Italy, sought asylum was invited to train with the German national team in Cologne.
And here we were, the rain having finally cleared outside, the stands maybe half full, perhaps 25 reporters from around the world here inside Arena Paris Nord, to take in this first-round men’s under 51-kilogram fight.
You couldn’t make it up if you tried. Script this, fight club, if you dare.
PARIS – Swim competition at these Paris 2024 Games got underway at 11:02 Saturday morning. By 11:38, Micah Masei, representing America Samoa, was done, his Olympics over just that quickly, 34th of 35 in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke, second to last.
Masei knew coming in that this, or something very much like this, would be the drill.
Which, in the case of Micah Masei and literally thousands of others of those taking part in these Paris Games, is absolutely the fundamental truth.
Because for most here the Olympics are not about winning.
The Olympics are about hopes and dreams.
Most swimmers do not take part in the opening ceremony. He did. Through the pouring rain. To take part in what International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach declared to the assembled athletes would be the “pinnacle of [their] Olympic journey.”
PARIS – Here in France they have a saying for the thing that transpired as Salt Lake City won the right to the 2034 Winter Games, delivered amid an International Olympic Committee thrashing of the IOC’s favorite dog to beat, the United States of America.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The more things change, Uncle Sam, the more they stay the same.
The IOC gave Salt Lake 2034 because it had to. It needs American money. The U.S. television rights deal expires in 2032.
There are 44,000 windows along the six-kilometer route, roughly three and a half miles, of the River Seine proposed for the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Keep this in mind as you weigh Saturday’s events in Pennsylvania, where a gunman climbed to an open roof to take shots at Donald Trump.
It is 100% impossible to secure open space.
Reynold Hoover is four weeks into his new gig, chief executive officer at LA28.
Hoover, 63, comes to the job after an incredible career, mostly in the military, that saw him earn the rank of lieutenant general. That’s three stars.
Skeptics: do we really need a former three-star general militarizing the Olympic Games? In, of all places, Los Angeles?
“I’m not going to try to militarize the organization or the Olympics,” Hoover said Wednesday in his first interview since taking over at LA28. “That’s the wrong way to go.
EUGENE, Oregon – The 2024 U.S. track and field Trials came to a close Sunday with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone winning the women’s 400-meter hurdles, and in world record time, 50.65 seconds. “Honestly… when I crossed the line,” she said, “I was, like, oh, snap.”
Sydney is a generational talent. She is so ridiculously good, almost two full seconds ahead of runner-up Anna Cockrell, in 52.64, she might well do in Paris in the 400 hurdles what most world-class female racers can only dream of in the open 400 – run in 49 seconds. Sydney is so good she has run the fastest time in the world this year in the open 400, 48.75 seconds. But she’s not going to run that in Paris. Only the 400 hurdles.
Sydney is so good that her 400 hurdles now is like a men’s 400 hurdles featuring Edwin Moses in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Edwin won 122 in a row. Sydney doesn’t race that often. Not hardly. Still, the point is the same. With respect to Holland’s Femke Bol, until proven otherwise, it’s not who’s going to win. It’s how much by.
EUGENE, Oregon – As part of the official schedule of the 2024 Trials, USATF, the United States track and field federation, dutifully staged 20-kilometer race walks for both men and women Saturday morning, and three men and three women finished 1-2-3 in each race and none stands much of a chance to go to Paris for the Olympics, and what are we doing here?
The third-place finisher on the women’s side Saturday is 58 years old, Michelle Rohl, mother of five, grandmother of one. She competed in the Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000. Allen James, who competed in the Games in 1992 and 1996, finished 14th Saturday in the men’s race. He is 60.
EUGENE, Oregon – Track and field is not football, the American kind. But it happens on the track that falls happen. That is, in racing, people fall down. Sometimes at critical moments. Sucks.
The thing is, just as in football, as the timeworn saying goes, it’s not that you fall – it’s how you get back up.
Football coaches will tell you, endlessly, it’s a matter of character.
Which brings us, amid the U.S. Trials for the 2024 Paris Games, to Athing Mu, who fell earlier this week in the women’s 800 meters, and is not going to get the chance to defend the gold medal she won in the event in Tokyo three years ago.
EUGENE, Oregon – To get to the shrine that is Pre’s Rock, about a mile east of Hayward Field, you must go – drive, sure, but on foot is best, really – up.
The spot where Steve Prefontaine died, 50 years ago next year, is up a steep and winding hill. Do you believe in certain theologies? Up?
On the occasion of a major track meet, like this week’s U.S. Trials, pilgrims wind their way up to the Rock. As they did Thursday. Scott Davis, 53, of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a pastor, referring to Prefontaine: “He’s an inspirational figure. Never quitting.” Michelle Bright, 51, of Bryan, Texas, and Katherine Denena, also 51, of College Station, Texas, Bright saying of Pre, “I’ve always known the name.”
What is it about Steve Prefontaine, dead since late May 1975?
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