Heili Sirviö has only been skateboarding for four years.
The Sirviö family moved to Australia around seven years ago and both Heili and her sister Miila Sirviö have Australian citizenship as well as Finnish. Skateboarding initially began for the duo when they took their father’s skateboard out of the closet during Covid lockdown in 2020.
For decades Olympians from Taiwan - formally the Republic of China - have had to compete under the team name “Chinese Taipei”. The rule is strictly enforced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The rules are often attributed to pressure on the IOC from the Chinese Communist party government, which claims Taiwan as Chinese territory it intends to annex. It uses its hefty influence to shrink as much of Taiwan’s international space as it can, whether that’s at the United Nations or a birdwatching association.
But the name “Chinese Taipei” also dates back to Taiwan’s former authoritarian rulers, who for decades vied with Beijing to officially represent “China” on the international stage. In 1976 they rejected an offer from the IOC to compete as Team “Taiwan” instead of “Republic of China”. Today, “Team Taiwan” would more accurately represent the population, which increasingly identifies as primarily Taiwanese, but it is no longer an option.
This is true and it was a poor race by Ingibritson but to focus on the winner: his PB coming into this was good for fifth in the race. People reckoned an OR might be required to win it. It was, and it was I believe three seconds up from his PB. The kick gets the medal but the pace throughout was phenomenal.
True. Russia, right now, is bad by any halfway reasonable standard, and they are actively trying to spread hate and division everywhere.
It was a fantastic race! Just before the gun, I turned to my husband and said all eyes are on Ingebrigtsen and Kerr, but especially the Norwegian. It’s hard to like the guy, so I wonder if all the other runners were gunning for him? The Americans staying up in the pack and running together was spectacular.
That was crazy, right? I honestly thought it was over for him, but it seemed as if Ingebrigtsen moved slightly right to fuck with Kerr and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ouch - there was a nasty fall in the men’s steeplechase final. Girma appeared to get into a shoving match with El Bakkali just before a hurdle and wasn’t lined up right. He bit it in midair with the knee of his trailing leg and went down hard.
I just saw that headline. I hope he’s okay!
It was a bad fall and he was stretchered off the track. Too soon for an injury report. I hope he’s OK, too.
He appeared to hit his head.
Quite a few falls today but that was awful.
That was terrible fall in the worst place! It seemed like Rooks was surprising a few runners (I swear that one runner gave him a double take when he caught up) and perhaps runner who fell was distracted? Their legs are so heavy by the end of the race…eesh!
I was annoyed that NBC didn’t even acknowledge the fall. I heard about 90 min ago that they had to stretcher him off and they took him to the hospital for a check-up. (But you knew that. I need to read more thoroughly!)
[Steeplechase was my husband’s collegiate event, so we were watching it (took a significant break from work 
).]
I was more 400-800-1500, but I did stretch once for steeplechase, just to do it. It was fun but I wasn’t good at it!
I’m pretty sure Girma got his footing messed up when he tangled with El Bakkali just before the hurdle.
The NBC track commentators have been terrible. All dramatic statements without saying a thing about what is going on. I swear I’ve heard “Which one is going to remember this day for the rest of his/her life” a dozen times. The answer is every &#+!-ing one of them, you dolt! It’s the &#+!-ing Olympics!
Yeah, I gave up pretty early on that network, just plain awful. I watched women’s volleyball on what I think was called the USA network, and it was great to see almost all of the game for once.
I was a swimmer on a club team, then runner and a swimmer in middle school, then only x-country and track in HS (because air was easier than water), and finally a swimmer again for two years in college.
My events were the 440 and 880 cuz I’m an oldie. CIF was s-l-o-w-l-y transitioning to metric distances after I graduated HS, though I seem to recall some invitationals being daring* and trying out a few 400 and 800 races.
*Because F#ck you, metric system!
Frankly, the 1500 still messes me up. I was used to the mile or 1600 in hs, but had to adjust to the 1500 in college. The first few times you start on the far side of the track, it’s strange. Eventually, I just started doing the math in my head as a 1200 with a 300 meter warm up!
I sure hope it was worth potentially infecting fellow athletes and those working the event.
“We were trying to keep this close to the chest. The people who knew were the medical staff, coach, my mom,” he said. “We didn’t want everybody going into a panic, we wanted them to be able to compete. We wanted to make this as free as possible. I’m competitive. Why would you give them an edge over you?”
How fucking considerate!
