Welcome to this week's episode of the Sports Curious podcast where we are talking about the second half of the Olympics. That's right, we promised you in our Olympics crash course, part one that we would have a part two because there are so much happening and you know if you're watching the Olympics on Peacock that there are so many events happening. There's no way to keep up with them. There was no way for us to cover them all in our short and sweet format.
So today we are going to talk about track and field, wrap up what's happening and what you can expect for the second half of the Olympics. And joining me to talk about that is my favorite co -host, my favorite brother, my favorite co -founder of last night's game, Scott. Scott, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me back to for part two. We're half way through the Olympics right now and we're just fully engulfed in the Olympic spirit. We're fired up.
United States is going going well so far and we're going to keep it going. Yeah. What's your thought? What's your highlight of the... You know what, let's do it this way. At dinner night, every night, we do Rose and Thorn in my household, the highs and the lows. What's your Rose of the Olympics thus far and your Thorn of the Olympics thus So, Rose is a good thing, right? The one that's bad. Thyrton is bad, or not ideal. Not ideal. So Rose is absolutely going to be Gold Zone on Peacock.
I know you've gotten into it. For those who don't know, Red Zone kind of revolutionized the way we watched NFL games on Sunday. Scott Hanson sits in the studio for like 10 hours straight and just goes nonstop. It's whip around coverage. Gold Zone is a 10 hour period of TV where you whip around every competition.
Every time there's a medal being awarded, a medal race, you get to see Yeah, I think you nailed it when we were talking about it earlier, that you don't get up to go to the bathroom though, because you like every single moment, you could miss something happening. And that's how I feel about watching Golden Zone. I have to turn it off when I'm working because I cannot focus because it's just like, wait, it's fencing. And it's like the very, the tail end of it. I totally agree with you.
is a game changer. It's all the most exciting parts of everything, so that's good and bad because you can't go to restroom. Thorn is maybe two. Sleep deprived from watching random sports all hours of the night. Another thorn which thought NBC said they were going to do a better job of is letting us know what's live and what's not live. It's still very unclear, as you probably know.
Well, that's the thing, when we all got home from work today, it was like, okay, let's turn on what else is live before prime time TV starts. And it said surfing was live, that was over. It said something else was live, that was over. And I was like, okay, well, I don't think anything's live because it seems to be far too late in Europe. But I was thinking maybe stuff just ran late, but it's just, we figured it out. It's a trial and error situation. Napsuley, what's your Rose and thorn?
Or did steal your thorn? I have to say the row, one of my roses, I think the opening ceremonies was incredible. I think I text you that it was like, I was just like, I was sobbing at one point when they gave the hundred year old man the torch in a wheelchair. Like I couldn't, I just couldn't do it. And then Celine Dion got on there and she hasn't been seen hardly in public, let alone singing. And I'm just like tearing up. And I just thought they did a really good job.
And I thought it was also really interesting because we normally watch the Olympics. And it's, let's do, this is the depiction of how Pangea, what Pangea looked like and the tectonic plates move. And you're like, this is weird. And it's all very, it's all very abstract. And I felt like they did a good job of Paris. doesn't need a lot of explaining, right? I mean, this is the Louvre. Okay, great. This is the Mona Lisa. Let's the minions in there. But I think that was really cool.
But I think they did a really good job of the parade of nations happen intermittently. So we didn't get just all parade of nations. We got a little bit of everything. So you're engaged throughout the whole thing. And so I thought that was really cool. I did feel bad for these people and the pouring, absolute pouring rain, but it was rain mixing's epic. And I thought it was pretty incredible. And I'm intrigued to find out what we missed, because I know they did cancel some pieces of it.
And so I'd be intrigued to see what we actually missed. But I think the opening ceremony was absolutely incredible. And it's going to set the bar at a whole other level for LA and Milan. And so that'll be really cool to see how everybody ups their game for that. So that would be my rose. Obviously I'm loving being able to watch it during the day too, which we haven't had a chance to do with the past three Olympics have been in Asia. My thorn would be, I can't keep up with all of it.
I feel like when I watch one, I'm missing something else. And so I love that though. I think it's so cool because I'm watching stuff that I normally wouldn't watch. hmm. Mm hmm. like one of my favorites. you know, it's just the thorn is there's just so much going on. So I guess it's not a bad thing. Right. Right, right. So it's very, it's very cool. Cool to watch the excitement of the men's gymnastics team winning their bronze. They haven't earned a medal in 16 years.
Like that was just, that kind of stuff is just so cool, right? You're with these stories and all the things that you're seeing. So we're to talk about the second half of the Olympics, which tends to be swimming in gymnastics or sort of the front end track and field is sort of the backend things like soccer and basketball, tennis. They kind of go throughout the whole thing. And so I guess let's talk a tiny bit gymnastics because we're rolling into the individual portion.
which every team, as we talked about before, a, everyone comes on with a specialty, right? Now you have to qualify to be on bars and do the vault and whatever that might be. For the women, it's four events, for the men, there's six events, and then obviously the all around. So that is cool. I'm excited for all of those. I don't want to spend too much time belaboring gymnastics because we kind of did that on the first one.
And then of course we have swimming still wrapping But let's talk a little track and field. I'm going to just serve it up to you and you start with track and field where you want to start with track and And I think they get like the whole second half of the Olympics because these are the biggest events like the 100 meter men's race, Usain Bolt is forever legend, the fastest man in the world because of one race. And that's what everyone talks about.
So especially in Europe, all these track events are so huge that it's going to really exciting to I think I want to start with the track itself because when you tune in to watch it's going to be a pleasant surprise for your eyes at the color of the track because most tracks are always the same color. Of course it's France so they decided to make their track purple. So visually appealing on the TV. It actually, it's purple but it incorporates three separate colors. A nice lavender.
I know you're a big lavender person. dark purple for the service area and gray for the exterior curve. So it is purple but there's some different tones within It's kind of fun. Why purple? Do you know why? Or why purple? Well the colors of the Olympics is your purple, blue and green. Or it's the palette. I don't know what that means. But that's why. So I guess I decide to go purple and make a statement. Anytime you see a purple track, you're know France did it first. I mean, there you go.
And this stadium holds 77 ,000 plus fans, which is incredible. mean, that's a college football stadium. Plus, And I'm sure it's going to be absolutely packed for a lot of these events we're going to talk about. These, I mean, these are global icons. Some of these big names are talking about, and can we talk about one more thing about the actual track? What it's made, it's actually made, what it's made up of other than a lovely color palette.
It's made up of shells of bivalve mollusks and mussels and clams that have been recycled. Yes. and field is made of seafood shells. Okay. Recycled and used to ground it up into powder and put it in the track. I guess it's better than that gross rubber stuff they put on football fields now. So there's that. So hopefully the mollusks and mussels make it a fast track. So we want to see some world records, don't I like this, I'm here for it.
I think it's cool, I that speaks to their whole, know, the games were pushing to be sustainable. And so they're not using rubber and they're not mining for materials for the track they're making out of stuff that already exists that was gonna go into a landfill anyways. Yep, those mollusks get a second chance at life. I would really curious if the mollusks come from like a local restaurant. Like do we collect them from restaurants or they just come from the ocean?
have the answer I just need to find it real Just knowing what I should order that maybe this will catch on and maybe I need to start ordering more shellfish. You could use it for everything, really. I mean, really, could grind it down and put it in my backyard. It's a... the track maker has a partnership with a fishing company called... I don't know, it's a very hard name to pronounce. Nidia -tas? Nidia -tas? Sure. So that's where they come from. Interesting. Well, there you go.
Now, I would say the biggest deal, at least maybe at Team USA, one of the biggest deals, who you just told me is like the smallest person, is Sha 'Carri Richardson. So Sha 'Carri, she qualified for the Olympics in Tokyo, then she failed a drug test, tested positive for marijuana before the event and was not able to go because she was suspended. She had gone through the death of her biological mother.
and she had had some challenges at that point and did not go to the Olympic games, the last summer Olympic games. She's here. She said she's not back, she's better. Like she is going to be a force, she is a force to be reckoned with, but she, you tell me is larger than life, but smaller in person. Small in stature but big in personality. I was actually pretty stunned to learn she's only 5 '1".
I mean when you watch her run, I guess you don't notice when they're running or just because her personality is so big that it blew me away. And she's competing against these much larger women so that's even more impressive. Yeah, I mean, one of her steps is one and a half of theirs or more. So yep, she's back. She's better. I've been really impressed the way she's handled questions about, you know, missing the last Olympics and things like that.
She's very positive, extremely well -spoken on the subject. So it's nice to see her get a chance for redemption here. And like we said, the 100 meter dash for men and women is like the preeminent race and that's her specialty. And she has the fastest in World Competition this year. So she's really setting up to excel. 10 seconds, think about that, 100 meter sprint in 10 seconds, 10 .71 to be exact. It's incredible. And you're five one. I mean, that's just incredible. I mean, she's 24 years old.
I watched the interviews with her during the opening ceremony and you're right. She just has the right attitude. She's got the right head on her shoulders. Her nails are incredible. I think the one thing we need for people to watch The nail game for track and field women and men is by far above everyone, at least amounts above everyone else.
Yeah, her nails when they were interviewing in the rain and she put them up, that was, I don't know how she got, I don't know how she does anything with them, but they're incredible. Yeah, I mean, like I said in a team call earlier today, the team do say travel with their own manicures because everyone looks like lights They must, they have to. That's an absolute person you have to have on the payroll. That sense. You to do what you got to do, all right?
Now, OK, so we have Shikari, who's running the 100 meter. There's a chance. I've seen pictures of her practicing with the relay team, but they have not announced the 4x100 meter team itself. But I have seen pictures posted that she was practicing with them. It makes sense to get her in there she's healthy and rested. Right, well, and if she's the fastest woman on the track, she's a great anchor, right? Yeah. That one, I think is always so incredible.
I mean, you watch the swimming one, the swimming relays, and they just have to dive in where we've got that handoff that is the trickiest part that I know gives everyone mass quantities of anxiety in a relay race. Especially if they're not training year round with each other. As you said, they haven't announced it yet. if you only have a week or two of practice, that's an extremely hard thing to perfected going from a full speed to slow down, and then the person going from a dead stop to going.
It's pretty incredible. Now we've gone from the fastest woman in the 100 meter. Let's talk about the fastest man on earth, I believe was the title he gave himself. He did, he did. So we're talking Noah Lyles, who we spoke about nails. He had his nails painted for the opening ceremonies. I think it said icon, if I'm not mistaken. So he's an interesting character. He definitely likes to stir things up, maybe talk a little bit in the media.
He's not afraid to admit that he's fast and he wants to win. I don't know about the humble part, but yeah. But it's all a mind game. I was I think I told you I started watching the Netflix sprint. And that's a lot of just, there's so many mind games they play off the track, on the track with each other and I think he just tries to get in people's heads. I'm gonna have to watch that, is it good? I have not finished it yet, I will finish it by the time the track starts.
It's very interesting, the track athlete is very much different than a basketball athlete who is on a team, they're individuals, it's all on them basically, so their determination is incredible. Okay, Netflix, it's called Sprint. sprint. Yes, and he's, it kind of depicts that Noah's best race is a 200 meter and he's the best there, but he's diving into the 100 meter and that's like a whole different mindset, a whole different athlete. And he may be not as well liked down there or welcomed.
They feel like he's impeding on them. So if he goes down there and wins, it's, it'll be quite the Interesting, interesting. So there's two other people that I would like to talk about. And actually one other thing I want to talk about too, but Sydney McLaughlin- LaVrone, we all know her, Sydney McLaughlin from the last Olympics. She is a 400 meter hurdler. You would recognize her. She is on commercials.
Hurdling is 400 meter hurdles has got to be, and it kind of goes down as one of the toughest competitions there is. And this is This is her jam. She is like the queen of the hurdles. Yeah, she's absolutely dominant. There's no one that even comes close to her when she's running the races. It's like she's so far ahead, nobody's even in the picture. And she just continues to get better, actually, I think, since last Olympics, her time has improved. She's constantly breaking her own world records.
I mean, let's look at these numbers, right? So she's a two -time Olympic champ, three -time world champ, 400 -meter hurdler, right? Okay, so she has broken the world record five times in her career. She ran it in the Olympic trials at 50 seconds. I mean, it's incredible to think that just the sheer speed of these people and how I can really get my car to go that fast. and you're jumping over hurdles. and you're jumping over hurdles. It's absolutely incredible.
Yeah, so she's must see TV show beyond Goldstone for for sure. we have we have Sydney, we have Sha'Carri we have Noah. I really love this Quincy Wilson. I remember him from the US Olympic trials and he's 16 years old and he didn't he didn't make it originally. And then or he was, guess, an alternate at this point, right? If it was an alternate, think that's the right word. After the track and field finals. And then he was picked to be in the four by four hundred meter relay.
And he just, I just remember him having such a good attitude. I yeah, can barely drive a car and now he's on the biggest stage in the track world in front of everyone on one of the most competitive races as well with a bunch of other studs, so. Right. Well, it's him and Hezly Rivera. They're both 16 years old, youngest people on the team. the summer of 16 year olds. Thriving. The player from Spain in the Euros who's the youngest ever scored at 16, so it could be on to something.
It could be be on to something sweet 16. Now you had a story about the 1500 meter championship. Talk to me a little bit about the 1500 So the 1500 meter may not be a marquee race, maybe in America, but we've got this, everyone loves a rivalry, right? We've got this rivalry between two of the best runners in this category, in this competition. And it's very heated, a lot of war of words. One of the runners have declared war on the other guy. it'll spice things up a lot. A lot of trash talk.
It's a tough last name. It's Jacob Ingebrigtsen Breitsen from Norway and Great Britain's Josh Kerr. And these two are like heated rivals. It goes back quite a while, at least a year, that they've been going back and forth. Just trash talking and stirring things up. So that'll give somebody something to watch in a different race. And the other thing, I mean, why not? This is a good kind of war. We're gonna go with this, right? A little battle.
Okay, the other thing that we might, people have gone to battle about is the women's track uniforms. I just wanna kind of highlight this because it's kind of stirred up the dust a couple months ago, but they're very high cut bikini -like bottoms. And people are like, do we really need these? Are these? necessary. It kind of goes back to, what are we prioritizing here? Are these functional? I did notice beach volleyball was wearing pants at some point too.
So that's what I was thinking because it was two teams, but then they're back in their normal attire. So it's just something to keep in mind if you want an easy conversation starter. The women's track uniforms have been a big, we're not sure what we're doing with that type of thing. Have they announced any other alterations that they can combine yet? I guess we'll I haven't seen anything, we'll have to wait and see.
Now we have track and field, kind of, I want to touch on one thing that I kind of always forget is an Olympic sport, and that's golf. Yes. Golf is an Olympic sport and we have golf coming up as well. Golf is an Olympic sport now. We have both defending gold medal champions from the United States. Xander Schauffele won gold medal last Olympics. And since then, he's won two majors this year. So he's on fire. And then we have Nelly Korda who won gold last Olympics as well. So it should be good.
It's basically just a regular golf tournament. They're playing four rounds like they typically do. And the United States looks pretty solid going in. That's awesome. LIV golfers? They are allowed to play because it goes off the world rankings, so some actually did qualify with enough points. Nobody on the American team, obviously, because we have such great golfers. But there'll be a few, like I know know John Rahm. He's gonna be there.
There's a few others that kind of fly under the radar, but they will be And so let's think about what your last thing you're going to talk about is, we have basketball will wrap up. The 10th and 11th will have that gold medal, that gold medal round. Tennis will wrap up. What else am I missing? We are going to wrap up quite a few other things.
And so it's incredible to see that there's still so much happening, like swimming and gymnastics will come to a close, but there's still a lot of phenomenal stuff to watch. What else am I missing that you wanna close us off Guess we can talk tennis real quick. There's some interesting things going on. It is a Roland Garros, like we said, we saw the King of Roland Garros, Rafael Nadal, unfortunately go down to Djokovic in a kind of his swan song, I think. And then we have some big stars.
One of one Novak Djokovic who's won every major, he holds the record for majors one all time. Does not have a medal or does not have a gold medal. So he's looking to that's like the only thing he has left to accomplish. is like his kryptonite. So we'll see if he can, Alcaraz is obviously gonna be, who beat him in the Roland Garros Airs final is gonna be a tough one. we have that and then we have, Coco Goff can stay in and she would be the first American to win a gold since Serena in 2012.
It's been a while. You know what I like about the Olympics is there's some fun pairings for doubles, right? Coco, Jess Pegula, Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz. Like it's just kind of cool to see that these people are, know, they're fellow country, country men, country women, country people, country persons. But it's cool to see that they are these phenoms battle it out on the court, but then they're together and they get to play together. And it's just kind of a cool thing to see.
I mean, no different than the basketball, both men's and And especially with N 'Dal and Alcraz, that's like the old and the new. So we have those two coming together. Hopefully they can make it at least play for gold. Yeah, is the Nadal officially done or is he, I can't remember, okay. Not, no, not yet. He's gonna try to heal up at some point and play more, but we'll see. We'll see, we'll see how that works itself out. Well, this is the second half. We've still got so much ahead.
Keep up with us at lastnightsgame .com and of course on social. Thanks for joining me and trying to squeeze all of this information. we should say, this is where I forgot to, I forgot my one thing that I wanted to talk about. The Paralympics. So you got to look out for Track and Field's power couple, know, Travis or excuse me, Tara Davis Woodhall. She's an American long jumper. And then her husband, Hunter Woodall, is a double-amputee sprinter and three -time Paralympic medalist.
So the Paralympics happen in all the same venues. They stay in the same Olympic village. They happen right after the Olympics starting August 28th. And so it's cool to see that's something to keep an eye on. And we'll obviously talk more about that on lastnightsgame .com and on social, but that's something cool to keep an eye out for. That's if you're feeling the Olympic blues. We got a little bit of football in there, a little bit of Paralympics.
There's a lot to handle, so it's really cool to keep an out for that And you'll see him supporting his wife because she is she is a normal Olympian so she'll be in She'll be competing here in a days. Yeah, it's incredible. like, he's, it's very cute. Like he's kind of obsessed with her and it's really cute to see their social posts. So I highly recommend following him on social just for that factor of Okay, now I can roll this out. Thanks for everybody for coming.
Thanks everyone for listening and we look forward to staying with you at lastnightsgame