Pitchin with Pritch: Olympics yield some outstanding performances

Another busy week in Japan as Tokyo hosts the Olympics. 

I don’t know if the gold medal count for each country is the official scoreboard of the Olympics. But at one time on Sunday, China was listed at the top of the list with 24 golds and the United States was second with 20 gold medals. 

At that particular time however, the United States had 59 total medals and China had 51. 

The next closest country was Japan with 31 and they were tied with Australia with gold medals but Japan had 17 golds and Australia had 12 so Japan was listed as the third place position. I am sure that by the time this gets published, these numbers will have changed big time.

There were a number of outstanding performances Sunday as I watched and one that really stood out was an act of sportsmanship that many times you do not see in today’s athletic events.

In one of the 800-meter qualifying races, Isaiah Jewett, a USA runner, and Nijel Amos of Bostswana, were amongst the pack and Amos accidently clipped the back of Jewett’s foot and both of them took a fall, taking them out of any chance of qualifying for the next round. 

They both got up and then ran side by side to the finish line and shook hands after finishing. The winning time of that heat was 1:44 and the two runners that had fallen crossed in something like 2:44. 

I don’t know the rules of Olympic races, but Amos was offered the opportunity to advance to the next round.  Jewett was in third Amos in fourth in the heat when they went down.

 Last information that I saw was that Amos was moved to the next round but Jewett was not. Don’t understand that decision, but the Olympic committee doesn’t consult me for my opinion anyway!

The other thing that happened was in the men’s high jump where two guys tied for the gold medal. They were given the choice to share or continue competing. 

I am pretty sure the one jumper would have won it outright because he just looked like he had more ability. But it looked like he said something like “let’s share it” because the other guy went nuts celebrating while the other jumper just walked away smiling

Also on Sunday, Lamont Jacobs of Italy won the 100 meters in 9.8 seconds and is the first person other than Usain Bolt from Jamaica to win the 100 since 2008. USA’s Fred Kerley was the silver medal winner running 9.84.

Then, I happened to be tuned to the right network when they ran a piece on the women’s triple jump winner who was Yulimar Rojas from Venezuela. She set a world record with a jump of 51-5, breaking a world record that was set in 1995.

On Saturday, the USA men’s basketball team won their game against the Czech Republic 119-84. I didn’t get to see all of the game, but I saw the third quarter where they may have hit 90% of their 3-point attempts and they put up a bunch of them. Kevin Durant scored 23 points and became the all-time leader in Olympic scoring for the USA team.

I am always surprised with what events make up the Olympic games. There have been a number of new things through the years but I usually stick to basketball, volleyball, track and then fill in with what looks interesting when those other events are not being played. 

It is too bad that covid has kept people out of attending the games this year. Let’s hope that this is the last time that happens.