Every day at the Olympics we bear witness to incredible athletic feats, and come to be intimately, however briefly, familiar with the gold medal winners, the stars who will be interviewed on national TV and come home to a hero’s reception. But those aren’t the main characters on the internet.
By now, everybody knows who Saturday’s main character was.
At least he wasn’t this guy. 🤷♀️
OK let’s class up this joint again. Over in gymnastics, Simone Biles took gold on vault (duh), and the internet’s pommel horse boyfriend Stephen Nedoroscik took bronze.
Today in men’s floor routine, the Philippine’s Carlos Yulo became the first ever athlete representing the Philippines to both win more than one gold medal, and win a gold in gymnastics.
You may remember Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who was subject to horrific online abuse over questions about her gender. Her subsequent opponent, Hungary’s Luca Hamori, flamed the fire by posting this on Instagram:
Well, Hamori lost. Bye.
Alright back to the Americans. These absolute units took gold and silver in shot put, proving that these old timey sports are precisely why the Olympics are so special.
Over in swimming, Katie Ledecky won the gold in the 800m swim, making her the only woman in all of Olympics history – any sport – to take four consecutive golds in the same event. Michael Phelps hit this same milestone in 2004-2016 for the 200m individual medley.
On the men’s side, Bobby Finke broke the 1500m world record, while also looking like this.
But also, the men took silver in the 4×100 relay, ending a 64-year gold medal streak. Yikes! Oh well.
It was a dramatic weekend for Team USA’s runners.
Although the US set a new world record for the 4x100m mixed relay during the qualifying heat, we got smoked by the Netherlands in the last lap.
In the women’s 100m sprint, all eyes were on Sha’Carri Richardson, who won gold in the 2023 World Championships, after she was deemed ineligible to compete in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo after testing positive for cannabis.
Ultimately, she took the silver medal behind Julien Alfred, who won St. Lucia’s (population: 180,000) first ever Olympic medal.
But the most dramatic race happened today in the men’s 1oom, where Team USA’s Noah Lyles won by .005 seconds, which tbh I can’t believe we can even measure.
You’d think that given that the difference between first and second was imperceptible to the human eye, the broadcasters might exercise caution. Or:
In contrast:
If you saw his pre-race promo, you might have guessed this man had been talking! his! shit! but at least he backed it up.
With today’s wins, tonight, the US finally tied China in gold medal count, making us #1 in both gold and overall medal count.
Every few weeks, RFK Jr. pops up to remind us that he’s still running for president in a new bizarre, disturbing new fashion.
Ten years ago wasn’t that long ago, so we very much have access to the coverage from that very event!
On the eve of Kamala Harris’ selection of a VP candidate, the internet remains firmly behind Minnesota governor Tim Walz. But Walz has a backer who is probably more important than all online posters combined.
Today on the Internet 