Welcome to this biweekly newsletter, written by me, Corye Perez Beene, Ph.D. I am a United States History Professor and certified “sports nut.” I find the sports stories from the past to the present that celebrate the Awesomeness of American Sports (NO politics!)
Thank you for your support! I am so appreciative of YOU being here 😃
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Gold Medal
Tokyo Olympics Recap
Why cant the Olympics be every year? (SIGH) The good news is that we have the Winter Olympics that begins in February in Beijing, and we only have to wait 3 years for the next Summer Olympics (in Paris).
Here are how my former students/husband’s former athletes did in the Olympics:
Fred Kerley (USA) - Silver Medal in the Men’s 100m
Vernon Norwood (USA) - Gold Medal in the Men’s 4x400m Relay (he ran in the preliminaries)
Sally Kipyego (USA) - 17th in the Women’s Marathon
Natoya Goule (Jamaica) - 8th in the Women’s 800m
Jereem Richards (Trinidad & Tobago) - 8th in the Men’s 200m
Im so proud of them and happy that they made it as far as they did!
Here is a complete list of all medals won for Team USA: LIST
There were so many great moments for Team USA but my FAVORITE has to be the Women’s Volleyball Team winning gold! It was Team USA’s FIRST GOLD MEDAL for Indoor Volleyball! And their Coach, Karch Kiraly, battled through cancer while continuing to coach them. He had not shared his diagnosis with the team until AFTER he was healthy again. Coach Kiraly is the only man or woman to win a gold medal in indoor volleyball and beach volleyball as a player as well as a coach.
Allyson Felix won the Gold Medal in the 4x400m Relay and won a Bronze Medal in the 400m. She becomes the most decorated track athlete in history (11 medals), surpassing Carl Lewis. She is retiring now.
The women’s 4x400m relay team won the Gold Medal by 4 seconds; from Left to Right: Sydney McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad, Athing Mu & Allyson Felix.
The beach volleyball “A Team” won Gold: April Ross and Alix Klineman
You know you are having an incredible meet when you break your own Olympic record not once, not twice but THREE times! That is what shot putter Ryan Crouser did! His previous record had been 73 feet, 10¾ inches. Here are his 3 record-breaking throws:
74 feet, 11 inches
75 feet, 2¾ inches
76 feet, 5½ inches
Did I mention that he threw even further than the above throws at the US Olympic Trials: 76 feet, 8¼ inches! Its the WORLD RECORD by the way! The shot put weighs 16 pounds!
Imagine winning FIVE gold medals in your illustrious career! Team USA Women’s basketball players Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi did that when they helped defeat Japan’s team to bring home the Gold Medal! They are the first basketball players (male or female) to win Gold medals! Amazing!
But folks, I saved the best for last: the men’s 400m hurdle race. Now even though our athlete Rai Benjamin earned the silver, it was THE RACE of the entire Olympics. The Gold medalist of Norway, Karsten Warholm, ran 45.94! No one thought a hurdler could run faster than 46 seconds in this race. To put things in perspective: the men’s 400m race had several runners clock in with 45 second times, but they didnt have to jump over 10 hurdles to do so! Experts are calling it “THE BEST RACE IN OLYMPIC HISTORY!”
🚨 NEW WORLD RECORD 🚨 Karsten Waholm (@kwarholm): 45.94 🥇 Rai Benjamin (@_Kingben_): 46.17 🥈 Alison dos Santos: 46.72 🥉 WHAT A MEN'S 400M HURDLES FINAL 🤯 #OLYMPICS (via @NBCOlympics)Benjamin and the Bronze medalist Alison dos Santos of Brazil also broke records! My husband, the Track and Field Coach, was totally freaking out over this race! He couldnt believe these times! He said it was amazing!
Silver Medal
Did you see this showoff robot making free throws? LOL!
Broadcasting history was made last month when, for the first time, Major League Baseball had an all-female on air broadcasting crew: Lauren Gardner, Heidi Watney, Alanna Rizzo, Sarah Langs and Melanie Newman.
In Track and Field, does the lane play an important role in the success of the runner? Short answer: not really. Assistant Professor of Economics at Middlebury College David R. Munro crunched the numbers for 8,000 races.
Using roughly 8,000 individual race results, I found that the “middle is best” belief is not well supported by the data. In the 400, I found no evidence that middle lanes are fastest. All lanes seem to be roughly equal. It is worth noting that there is more variability in 400-meter times, so it is harder to detect small effects, if they exist. But even this nondifference between lanes in the 400 is striking.
Read all of his conclusions HERE
How do divers make such a small splash? Read THIS
Winning a gold medal with just a couple of seconds to spare? That is exactly what wrestler Gable Steveson did! Watch this:
Congratulations to the USA Men’s soccer team for their win over Mexico in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. They won 1-0.
Bronze Medal
Sometimes just a sweet gesture or in this case, inspirational gesture catches attention; this man came every morning to the Olympic Village to hold up this sign - “Good Morning Athletes! Even if you dont get a medal, youre still the BEST!! So believe in yourself!”
Thank you to Paul Putz (@p_emory on Twitter) who shared this story from Christianity Today about how the Olympics are really about failure: ARTICLE
The Olympic dream animates tens and perhaps hundreds of millions around the globe to pursue dreams they will never achieve—but in striving for those dreams, if they are lucky, they become more of who they were meant to be.
Did you watch Men’s Diving? Did you listen to Jordan Windle’s incredible story? He was in an orphanage in Cambodia when he was adopted by his Dad. Wow!
Read this story of some of the acts of kindness and sportsmanship we witnessed at the Olympics: HERE
Tennis superstar Naomi Osaka has a Barbie doll now. It sold out a few hours after it was released.
Thank you for reading! Are you looking for a speaker for your next event or conference? Email me at historybeene@gmail.com