Five Ring Circus
“There is the table tennis player who didn’t get enough financial support back home. The discus thrower who couldn’t make rent. The badminton player who needed help to continue her journey to Paris.” The big names go to Paris in style. But many American athletes and their families resorted to GoFundMe to make it to the Olympics.
+ With their nation under siege, Ukrainian athletes shine at Paris Olympics.
+ A whale got its turn in the spotlight on the last day of Olympic surfing.
+ Duplantis breaks pole vault world record on way to gold … and into our hearts! The New Yorker: Armand Duplantis, the Timothée Chalamet of the Pole Vault.
+ Romanian PM to boycott Olympics’ closing ceremony after ‘scandalous situation‘ in gymnastics ruling. “Ana Barbosu had already begun celebrating her bronze for the floor event Monday when coaches for American Jordan Chiles entered an appeal to judges over Chiles.” (It’s part of the rules, but man, that was just brutal for Barbosu.)
+ NYT: More than 50 years since its inception, BREAKING will debut as an Olympic sport in Paris, where B-boys and B-girls will vie for gold and glory. (What’s coming in ’28? Disco dancing on a color-lit floor?)