What I wrote yesterday in my updated blog needs yet another update today.
The reason is that the Swedish pole vaulter Armand “Mondo” Duplantis has made it again. My latest post about him was in April, when he had just set yet another world record, 6,24 m, see 121’2024 (2024-04-30). And today, he raised that mark to an even higher level, 6,25 m, when he won the gold medal in the Paris Olympics 2024. Here is a picture of the exact moment when he surpasses the bar:
Armand Duplantis raises his own world record in pole vault to 6,25 m on 218’2024 (2024-08-05) to win the gold medal at Paris Olympics 2024. Photo taken by Martin Meissner/AP.
Armand and Sarah Sjöström were recently elected to be this years’s Swede of the Year by the organization Svenskar i världen (Swedes in the world) for their incredible performance over the years. How assertive they were when choosing this couple in an olympic year such as 2024. See also reference #1 below.
During the ongoing Summer Olympics in Paris, the fabulous Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström once more showed why she, still active, is already considered a legend in the history of swimming. She first became known to the general public in 2008, when she was 14 years old and won the European Championship (for adults) in 100 m butterfly. Maybe you remember that she won the same distance also at the Summer Olympic in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and, although still recovering from a broken elbow, also managed to win a silver medal in 50 m freestyle at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
And now she has done it again! In Paris, her main goal was to compete in and hopefully win the 50 m freestyle. But since there are a couple of days between the freestyle events of 100 m and 50 m, she decided to also venture into the 100 m event. That final was held today and, of course, Sarah won! Let’s see what 50 m freestyle has in store for us!
As I already anticipated above, Sarah Sjöström won her favorite distance, 50 m freestyle, easily. In the semifinal yesterday, she swam on 23,66 s, only 0,05 s slower than her own world record, 23,61 s from 2023. Today, it was yet another 0,05 s slower, but her result, 23,71 s, was well ahead of all the competitors. Double gold medal to Sarah in the Paris Olympics!
Sarah Sjöström receives her second gold medal during the Paris Olympics 2024. Photo taken on 217’2024 (2024-08-04) by Jonas Ekströmer/TT.
And also today, the Swedish table tennis player Truls Möregård tried his best to win the gold medal, but the Chinese player Fan Zhendong exhibited once more the Chinese superiority in this sport, in a final that really captured the audience. At the end of the fifth game, when Fan was close to conclude his victory, Truls pulled a very nice trick. He saved the ball when it almost hit the ground, returned it in such a way that it bounced on the Chinese half of the table and came back towards Truls’ side, impossible for Fan to reach it. Here are screenshots from the exact moments when Truls picks up the ball and when it is returning to the Swedish side. In reference #2 below, you can find the complete video capture of the feat.
Swedish table tennis player Truls Möregård surprises his opponent. the Chinese player Fan Zhendong, with a very nice trick during the final in Paris Olympics 2024, held on 217’2024 (2024-08-04).
Today’s header photo of the port of Santorini was taken on 194’2024 (2024-07-12) by my friend Anne Clementino during a visit to this Greek island, also named Thira by the locals. It is located in the South Aegean sea and is a very popular turist destination. Besides enjoying the outstanding weather conditions of the Mediterranean sea, they also go there for the Greek hospitality and the famous Greek cuisine. Thank you, Anne, for this marvellous view!
More about Santorini and its explosive past can be found in reference # 3 below.
In my earlier post of 212’2021 (2021-07-31), I talked about how fantastic it was to enjoy the Olympic Summer Games from Tokyo, but also showed an example of an anachronic feature, the use of security pins to secure the number tags of the participants, something that really should be improved in Paris in 2024.
Another thing that really needs to be improved is how the organisers treat the names of the participants. It seems that we are still in the stone ages of information technology, when all texts had to adhere to the 128-character ASCII set, with no non-US characters allowed. Fortunately, that has been improved through the UTF-8 and UTF-16 character sets, so why should IOC still behave as it was the 1970’s? Can we hope that the four athletes below, and their colleagues, may have their names written in the correct way in 2024?
Four prominent athletes who participated in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and had their names spelled in the conservative IOC fashion. In the upper row, from left to right, are Sarah Sjöström, Sweden, the queen of world swimming, but due to an elbow injury earlier this year only managed to squeeze one silver medal in these games; Novak Đoković, Serbia, currently outstanding in world tennis, but who had to settle without any medal this time. In the lower row, from left to right, are Batuhan Çiftçi, Turkey, a boxer that did not do very well this time; Gabriela Braga Guimarães, Brazil, member of the Brazilian female volleyball team which took the silver medal in Tokyo.
More about current text coding can be found in reference # 1 below.
Augusti anno 2016 var månaden när Sverige hade fyra drottningar! HKH Silvia må förlåta mig, men namnen på allas läppar är naturligtvis Sarah, Jenny och Tove! (Vilken tur att det inte blev OS-guld i fotboll! Visst har vi stora hjärtan, men hur skulle väl 27 drottningar kunna rymmas på samma gång?)
Sveriges Radios excellenta sportredaktion sammanställde ett utdrag från sina referat med alla svenska medaljtillfällen i Rio-2016, se och lyssna på bildspelet i referens nummer 1 nedan. Tyvärr är orientering inte en olympisk sport ännu, så bättre än VM-guld är ju omöjligt, referens nummer 2 nedan handlar om när Tove tog hem sitt första (av två) seniorguld.
Svensk idrotts gyllene drottningar, från vänster till höger: Sarah Sjöström, Jenny Rissveds och Tove Alexandersson. Material från Digitala insatsstyrkan på Sveriges Radio och TT Nyhetsbyrån.
So you think you know everything? Then answer me, which is the biggest landlocked country in the world, i.e. a country which has no natural access to a major stretch of water? You may think of Switzerland, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Bolivia, Paraguay and others, but the answer is Kazakhstan! And the following photo is also from Kazakhstan, an internal river named Ural river, at the city of Uralsk.
The physical border between Europe and Asia, the Ural river at the city of Uralsk, Kazakhstan. Photo taken by Dina Giltinan on 2016-08-25.
And just as yesterday, when yet another bridge connecting Europe and Asia was inaugurated in Istanbul, so is this also the exact spot where the two meet. Europe is at the left side of the river, Asia is on the right sida. My friend Dina was recently there visiting her parents and was kind enough to send me this photo and others from Uralsk, thank you very much! Below is a medley of some of those photos. See also reference number 4 below.
Four photos from Uralsk, all taken by Dina Giltinan on 2016-08-01. From left to right: Two typical scenes, the Monument of Syrym Datouly and the Golden Church, as well as the portal showing that we are leaving Europe into Asia (third photo), and then coming back from Asia into Europe (fourth picture). This portal is located on the European side shortly before the dividing bridge shown in the header photo.
… Tack för idag, slut för idag! / That’s what I learned in school!
Så är det dags att avsluta ännu ett olympiskt spel. Vad gäller arrangemanget så gick det väl ungefär som man kunde förvänta sig, med många trevliga inslag både för deltagare och publik. Och naturligtvis också de förväntade negativa sakerna, högra priser, långa köer, korruption, problem med säkerheten, mm. SRs Latinamerika-korrespondent, Lotten Collin, som alltid gör djuplodande reportage med fängslande ögonvittnesberättelser, berättade i dagens Godmorgon, världen om hur det var och vad som lokalbefolkningen nu har att vänta. Lyssna på reportaget i referens 1 nedan.
Tack och lov vann det brasilianska fotbollslandslaget äntligen det första OS-guldet, så nu kan folket leva ett bra tag på det skådespelet, nu fattas bara bröd! Något annat som de naturligtvis inte kommer att glömma så lätt, och resten av världen också, var när den amerianske simstjärnan Ryan Lochte med kompisar hittade på att ha blivit rånade, när de i själva verket hade spårat ur efter en våt fest. Nedanstående karikatyr beskriver väl hela situationen:
Ryan Lochte at public display in the olympic pool in Rio de Janeiro after he had to admit about making up a story of armed robbery a week ago. Illustration in Folha de S. Paulo, published 2016-08-20.
Vad gäller de svenska prestationerna så tycker jag att som helhet kan vi vara rätt så nöjda, från simmardrottningen Sarah Sjöström till cyklisten Jenny Rissveds och allt där emellan. Referens 2 nedan jämför Sveriges Radios medaljkandidatlista för juli med det faktiska utfallet, intressant läsning. Apropå Jenny Rissveds, hon minner mig mycket om Sanna Kallur under 2000-talet, båda så sprudlande glada och energiska, kan deras gemensamma koppling till Falun vara en bidragande orsak?
Slutligen, om ni tror att problemet med de stora olympiska spelen och de gigantiska kostnaderna är något nytt så kommer här en tankeställare. För 40 år sedan, i februari 1976, när Innsbruck i all hast fick ta sig an ytterligare ett olympiskt spel efter det att Denver hade dragit sig ur på grund av protester kring kostnader, skrev jag som frilansare på Chalmers Studentkårs tidskrift Tofsen om mina funderingar om just detta, se referens 3 nedan.
… Tack för idag, slut för idag!
(Today’s post, entirely in Swedish, deals with the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, as well as contains a reminder that the problem with the huge organization and high costs was already there 40 years ago.)
What did you learn in School today? 