Rio 2016, Week Two: (Don't) Blame It On Rio

English: Ryan Lochte during 2008 Olympic Trials (Omaha, Nebraska). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To the surprise of almost everyone, the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro did not come crashing down in a heap.  No terrorist attacks.  No Zika-infested mosquitoes bit anyone (unless you live in Miami or Puerto Rico).  Only one athlete that we know of got sick from the polluted waterways of Brazil, unless you counted the number of people grossed out by the lime gelatin color of the Olympic diving pool.

The United States dominated these Games with 121 medals (46 of them gold), the most ever won at an Olympics held outside America's borders.  They took control of the swimming pool, the track, gymnastics and the basketball court.  The soccer pitch and the volleyball court?  Not so much.  New stars such as Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky joined veterans Michael Phelps, Ashton Eaton and Allyson Felix in  putting gold medals around their necks.

But all is not star-spangled jingoism.  Usian Bolt and Elaine Thompson of Jamaica were the king and queen of sprinters, dashing off to impressive victories in their 100 and 200-meter races.  Host country Brazil won gold in men's soccer and men's volleyball.  Germany won in women's soccer over Sweden, which was the team American goaltender Hope Solo called "cowards".

Speaking of Solo, for whom Brazilians couldn't wait to see leave their country because of comments she made about Zika, we need to talk about Ryan Lochte.

Lochte won a gold medal in Rio as part of the American swimming relay team, but has never escaped the long shadow of Michael Phelps in his Olympic career.  That is, until he told the world (including his mother) that he and three of his teammates were robbed at gunpoint by fake Brazilian cops.  Rio police, sensitive to corruption charges and reports of alleged attacks against tourists and athletes, responded with video of Lochte and his teammates trashing a gas station.  Lochte hightailed it back to the U.S. of A before the Brazilians could seize his passport, while the others were detained for questioning.  He then tearfully "apologized" on social media and to NBC's Matt Lauer.  All four of his sponsors have dropped him.

Not only did Lochte and his buddies' alleged antics steal media space from his fellow Olympians, the elections, flooding in Louisiana, fires in California, and the picture of the boy in Syria who's seen too much war, but he's also embodied another American stereotype:  The overgrown, overpriveledged "dude" (he's 32) who raises hell in a foreign country just because he thinks he can.

Now that these Olympics are history, we can once again put aside the athletes' triumphs and tragedies as well as the host country's political and social ills for another four years.  Until we meet again in Tokyo in 2020.  No shortage of storylines there.

UPDATE (9/1/16):  All that negative publicity must have done wonders for Lochte.   He'll now be competing for the coveted mirror ball trophy on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars" this fall, competing with such luminaries as Texas Governor Rick Perry, fellow Olympian Laurie Hernandez and Maureen McCormick of TV's "The Brady Bunch".

Rio 2016, Week One: Gold Medals and Bronze Behavior

Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympics bid logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the first week of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro that just concluded, for all the environmental and political horrors that have been inflicted on the Brazilian city, we have yet to hear of an athlete that's been bitten by a Zika-infected mosquito.  But, according to a CBS News report, one Danish athlete had to be sent home for getting violently ill on the polluted waters of Rio.

Otherwise, how are things?

• The United States currently leads the medal count (54 total, according to ESPN), with most of them coming from swimming and women's--or is it little girls?--gymnastics.  Michael Phelps has been adding to his collection of every medal he's ever won since the 2004 Games in Athens, while Katie Ledecky is emerging as the new force in the pool.  Simone Biles and Aly Rosman led the Americans on the mat and balance beam with golds in individual and team gymnastics.
• Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first Muslim-American woman to compete while wearing a hijab, won a bronze medal in fencing.  And Simone Manuel tied with Canadian swimmer Penny Oleksick for the gold in the women's 100-meter freestyle, an event neither of them were expected to win.  But the fact that Manuel is the first African-American to win a gold medal in swimming, along with Muhammad's accomplishment, will certainly have a more cultural impact long after  these Olympics are over.
• Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova was defeated in the women's 100-meter breaststroke for the gold by American Lilly King.  Since the Russian track and weightlifting teams were banned from Rio for doping violations, Efimova and her fellow athletes are being viewed with suspicion, that they shouldn't be here because they might be 'juiced' too.  But the International Olympic Committee, afraid of upsetting Russian President Vladimir Putin, chose to let other athletic organizations do their dirty work.  So here we are.
• The U.S. women's soccer team is going home without any kind of Olympic medal for the first time in 20 years, having lost its quarterfinal match to Sweden on penalty kicks.  Goaltender Hope Solo, who's usually a lightning rod to begin with and an excellent example of American sportsmanship (that's called sarcasm, Mr. Trump), referred to the Swedish team as "a bunch of cowards" for the way they played the game.  Well, at least we (and she) won't have to hear "Boooooooooooooo ZIKA!" any more.
• When ABC televised the Olympics as far back as the 1980s, the telecasts were extended versions of "Wide World of Sports".   Since NBC took over the Games, their model has been the "Today Show", emphasizing the personal /family dramas of athletes over covering the competition.  And they have done very well with it, because this is the way NBC and its parent company Comcast does business.  So no matter how much we complain about too many commercials, sexist comments about female athletes, and an Opening Ceremony that was longer than the Academy Awards telecast, NBC doesn't care as long as people watch and the money keeps rolling in.  Jim McKay and Roone Arledge must be spinning in their graves.

Rio 2016: All This and Zika, Too

English: A female mosquito of the Culicidae family (Culiseta longiareolata). Size: about 10mm length Location: Lisbon region, Portugal Türkçe: Culiseta longiareolata türü dişi bir sivrisinek. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you think of Brazil, you usually think of the Amazon jungle, rain forests, iconic religious statues, Carnivale, and sandy beaches populated by sunbathers wearing little to nothing at all.

When Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympic summer games, this is what you're getting instead:  Political corruption.  Labor unrest.  Security threats.  Waterways filled with raw sewage.  Unfinished stadiums and accommodations for athletes.  And with Brazil being south of the equator, it's winter down there.

Then there's the Zika virus, which has been spreading north from South America by way of infected mosquitoes.  It can cause illness, especially for men and women in their childbearing years who run the risk of giving birth to a baby with a smaller-than-normal head.  It has also affected the travel plans of spectators and athletes alike.

There had been calls from health-related organizations to get the International Olympic Committee to either cancel, postpone or move the Games because of Zika.  But the only reason the Olympics have ever been canceled is because of two world wars, so disease seems to be low on the IOC's list of concerns.

Because of Zika and other reasons, some athletes have decided not to make the trip to Rio.  Most of them are male professional athletes using the disease as an excuse to recover from the long season, and for the belief that winning a gold medal is less important than winning Wimbledon or The Masters.  Golf (which is returning to the Olympics after a century's absence), tennis and basketball have been the hardest-hit sports.  But the respective women's teams are already in Rio and will be filled with quality athletes.  Apparently, they're willing to risk getting bit by a mosquito in exchange for the worldwide media exposure only the Olympics can bring.

There are others who won't be competing because they were caught using performance enhancing drugs, making the sports they participate in not worth the materials used to make the medals they won.  There was talk of banning the entire Russian Olympic team on suspicions of state-sponsored doping.  But the IOC lost a stare down contest with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in their recommending that punishment should be subcontracted to various sports organizations.  So far, only the track and field and weightlifting teams have been told to stay home.

So it begins, two and a half weeks of poop and pageantry spoon fed to Americans by NBC and its affiliated cable stations for nearly seven-thousand (plausibly) live hours of coverage.  Rio might not be ready, but everyone else seems to be.  Pass the mosquito repellent, please.