Tag: tokyo olympics

WATCH: Raevyn Rogers mounts insane comeback to win first Olympic medal in 800m final

Raevyn Rogers looked to be down and out, but a massive kick down the backstretch shot her past 4 women and put her in third, winning bronze in the 800m final.

Now that’s how you finish a race like there’s no tomorrow.

For about 90 percent of the race, Oregon Ducks legend Raevyn Rogers was near the back of the pack, seemingly letting her chance at a first Olympic medal in the 800m final get away from her. Up ahead, United States sensation, Athing Mu, was dominating and pulling away down the backstretch.

While the world was focused on the 19-year-old who was about to cruise to her first of hopefully many medals, Rogers was mounting a charge.

Down the final straightaway, Raevyn flew up the leaderboard, making her way past four other women to just barely edge out a third-place finish as she crossed the stripe. Mu won the gold, and Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson — another 19-year-old — won the silver.

It was stressful until the very end, and at many points, didn’t look like it was going to happen, but Rogers found a way to get the job done and land on the podium in her first Summer Olympics.

The legend lives on for one of Oregon’s all-time favorites.

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Jade Carey threw down a stunning floor exercise routine to win her first Olympic gold medal

Talk about some redemption for Jade Carey!

USA’s women’s gymnastics team will all be going home with at least one medal from these Tokyo Olympics thanks to Jade Carey’s superb gold-medal winning floor exercise.

On Monday, Carey won her first-ever Olympic gold medal after posting a floor exercise score of 14.366, besting Italian Vanessa Ferrari by 0.166 points. With the win, Carey has become the sixth and final US woman gymnast at these Olympics to win a medal, joining teammates Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Grace McCallum, Jordan Chiles, and MyKayla Skinner.

The win marks an incredible turnaround from Carey, who just 24 hours prior took a scary tumble during the vault final on Sunday, finishing well off the medal podium in the process. Carey’s stunning victory no doubt was a moment of redemption and vindication for the 21-year-old.

It doesn’t get any better than that!

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Tokyo Olympics: What is sport climbing? Explaining the newest sport

If you’re looking for something different in the upcoming schedule at the Olympics, one event that may catch your eye is sport climbing.

If you’re looking for something different in the upcoming schedule at the Olympics, one event that may catch your eye is sport climbing.

This is the first year that sport climbing will compete in the Olympics and if you have no idea what to expect once everything unfolds, we’re here to offer some helpful context.

Right off the bat, let’s start with the basics. Sport climbing is, at its essence, competitive rock climbing. The athletes are using just their hands and feet to ascend up a vertical wall. No equipment is permitted beyond safety ropes and climbing shoes.

The sport is broken up into three unique subsections. They are as follows:

Bouldering – Complete as many routes (also called “problems”) possible in a given time

Lead – Climb as high as possible on a 15-meter wall in a 6-minute window

Speed – Climb as fast as possible on a 15-meter wall, typically finishing in quicker than ten seconds

The athletes compete in each of these events and medals are awarded based on overall placement in the aggregate. Winners must show a wide range of skills in order to take home their medals.

However, because each discipline is given equal weight, accomplished climbers who do not typically focus on speed are put at a disadvantage. Shauna Coxsey, who will compete for Great Britain, offered this explanation (via Olympics.com):

“It’s a bit like asking Usain Bolt to run a marathon and then do the hurdles. No one has really transitioned before. No boulderer has transitioned to speed and lead, and no speed climber has done it to bouldering and lead.”

Another unique element about sport climbing in the Tokyo Olympics is that athletes will not actually get to see the walls for the bouldering discipline or the lead discipline until right before they begin the competition. The walls will literally be held under wraps until right before climbing.

The United States is sending four athletes (two men, two women) to compete at sport climbing in the Tokyo Olympics. Qualifying events begin Aug. 3 and the finals are on Aug. 5 and Aug. 6.

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Olympic Update: Jenna Prandini finishes 13th in 200m; Raevyn Rogers to run in 800m final

There are a number of former Ducks competing at a high level in the Tokyo Games, with Raevyn Rogers advancing to the 800 final, and Jenna Prandini finishing 13th in the 200m.

The Oregon Ducks have been well-represented at the Tokyo Olympics this past week, with well over a dozen athletes running in the ‘Athletics’ section of the games.

Competition on the track is well underway, and for fans of the Ducks, it has been highlighted by Oregon legend Raevyn Rogers, who advanced to the 800m final which will be run on Tuesday morning at 5:25 a.m. PT.

We will continue to update this list as the Olympic games go on, with some big stars continuing to take the track, including Devon Allen, Marcus Chambers, and English Gardner. Stay tuned as the Tokyo Games continue to roll on.

High jumpers Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi are our ‘Heroes of the Weekend’

This was such an awesome moment.

Each Monday during the Olympics I’m going to bring you my “Hero of the Weekend,” in which I shoutout someone who did something pretty incredible in Tokyo, something that made me stand back and say WOW.

This week I have not one, but two heroes – high jumpers Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi.

I don’t know if you saw what these two guys did over the weekend but it was pretty darn cool. They were the last two standing in the competition and instead of having a jump off for gold, the longtime friends decided to do something awesome

Check out the video above for more on their inspiring story.

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Gators News: Olympics roundup plus Florida golf updates

Asides from the news overseas, there are also a few stories closer to home involving both the men’s and women’s golf teams.

Welcome back from a historic weekend at the Tokyo Olympics, where a pair of Gators made their mark on international athletics immortality — including one who not only broke his own record but ascended into the Pantheon of all-time greats at the summer games. And speaking of great, the University of Florida currently leads all American schools in the overall medal count, holding the lead over the Stanford Cardinals by a healthy margin.

Asides from the news overseas, there are also a few stories closer to home involving both the men’s and women’s golf teams. Here is a look at the latest from the Gator Nation.

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Another former Tiger claims Olympic medal

Two former Clemson women’s track and field athletes claimed Olympic medals on Sunday in Tokyo. The day started with Patricia Mamoa’s silver medal in the women’s triple jump for Portugal and finished with former Tiger Keni Harrison winning a silver …

Two former Clemson women’s track and field athletes claimed Olympic medals on Sunday in Tokyo.

The day started with Patricia Mamoa’s silver medal in the women’s triple jump for Portugal and finished with former Tiger Keni Harrison winning a silver medal in the women’s 100 meter hurdles.

Harrison started her college career at Clemson in 2012 before she transferred to Kentucky. While with the Tigers she won an ACC championship in the 400-meter hurdles and was a member of the 4 X 400 relay team.

Clemson Variety & Frame is doing their part to help bring you some classic new barware and help one of the local businesses that helps make Clemson special.

Order your Nick’s barware and do your part to help.  #SaveNicks

Carli Lloyd was seen doing sprints alone on the field after USWNT’s loss and fans loved it

Carli Lloyd is a legend.

The United States Women’s National Team got off to a rough start in the Tokyo Olympics with a loss to Sweden in its first match of the Games.

And while the team bounced back after that they suffered another tough loss Monday in Tokyo, losing to Canada 1-0 in a semifinal match in which they looked nothing like the team that won the World Cup just two years ago.

They will still get a chance to play for the bronze medal later this week but the loss to Canada was a crushing one.

There was an incredible moment after the game, though, as Carli Lloyd was seen doing sprints all by herself on the field:

You can see her in the background of this interview, too:

Now that is some dedication and hard work after a tough loss.

Twitter loved it.

Gators Bobby Finke, Caeleb Dressel collect three more gold medals for Team USA

Caeleb Dressel won his fourth and fifth gold medals Saturday while Bobby Finke grabbed his second of the Tokyo Olympics.

Former Florida men’s swimmers Caeleb Dressel and Bobby Finke added three more gold medals to the Gators’ overall total in the Tokyo Olympics. Dressel earned two gold medals in the 50-meter freestyle and the 4×100 medley relay. Finke grabbed his gold medal in the 1500-meter freestyle. Dressel’s two gold medals Saturday brings his overall total to five and Finke’s to two.

In the 50-meter freestyle, Dressel won the race with an Olympic record time of 21.07. But he would shatter more records later in the evening during the 4×100 medley relay. Team USA tallied a world record 3:26.78.

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Finke won a gold medal when he surged from behind in the last 50-meters of the 800-meter freestyle earlier in the Tokyo Olympics. He claimed the win in the 1500-meter freestyle in the same fashion. Finke finished with a time of 14:39.65.

Florida former and current student-athletes have combined for seven gold medals and 13 medals overall in this year’s Olympics.

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Men’s high jump winners had a pretty special reason for deciding to share the gold medal

“Can we have two golds?” What an awesome moment between two good friends.

Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi shared one of the more heartwarming moments of the 2020 Toyko Games on Sunday when the two high jumpers decided to share the gold medal instead of having a jump off to declare a single winner.

Barshim and Tamberi were tied up after both were unable to clear the last height of 2.39 meters (7.8 feet) following three attempts.

The two didn’t know if sharing a gold medal would be an option until Barshim asked an official a very simple quesiton: “Can we have two golds?”

The answer was yes and the two winners had an awesome celebration.

USA TODAY Sports’ Tom Schad is in Japan covering the Olympics and shared this pretty awesome note about the friendship between these two men and why their decision to share the gold was so special:

Awesome.

Tom has even more on the story over at USA TODAY Sports. Make sure to read it.

What a story and what a moment for those two gold medal winners.

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