While most of us might only have had eyes for Rhasidat Adeleke in her 400m semi-final on Wednesday evening, among those lining up in the eight-strong field was Jamaica’s Junelle Bromfield. It proved to be a hugely disappointing run for Bromfield, who finished last with a time that was well over a second slower than her personal best.
“Dismal,” was the common enough description of her performance by some of her own press, but she’d have been forgiven for feeling a bit, well, fatigued going in to race.
You know how Noah Lyles revealed after his 200m final that he had Covid? And that he’d had a few restless nights in the run-up to the race? “She said I was coughing through the night and she had to keep moving me to make sure I would stop,” he said of his girlfriend and fellow athlete, with whom he shares a room in the Olympic Village.
And she is? Yup, Junelle Bromfield. After that lack of sleep, she probably did well to even get to the 400m start-line.
‘We don’t play for Bronze’
There’s been no love lost between sprinter Noah Lyles and the United States basketball team ever since he had a bit of a dig at NBA players calling themselves world champions. “World champion of what,” he asked last summer. “The United States? Don’t get me wrong, I love the US at times, but that ain’t the world ... we are the world.”
Still, you’d imagine the US basketball Twitter account, which is warming up for the team’s gold medal game against France on Saturday, would have had some sympathy for Lyles when he only managed a third-place finish in Thursday’s 200m final, him having Covid and all.
Their response? “We don’t play for Bronze.” As burns go, that one is sizzling.
Seine water quality
Yet another Seine-related quote from an Olympic athlete that would leave you green around the gills.
From Hungary’s Bettina Fabian, who finished fifth in Thursday’s 10km marathon swim: “It was really hard because we couldn’t really focus on the race. We had to care about the water quality and what’s going to happen afterwards.
“We had to focus on not swallowing water and being safe in the race. I saw some brown things ... I hope it’s not what I thought it was.” Cripes!
Colourful riposte
Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo has been on the receiving end of no little criticism from political opponents for an array of issues around the Olympic Games, not least what they described as the “blasphemous” section of the opening ceremony.
She had quite a, eh, sharp response to them when she spoke to Le Monde. “F**k the reactionaries, f**k the far right, f**k all of those who would like to lock us into a war of all against all. The far right’s messaging has been crushed by these Games and by the opening ceremony. Something incredibly positive is happening.”
If only she’d speak her mind.
Word of Mouth
“The start was pretty bad when I got punched in the face, hit in the head three times, somebody kicked me in the stomach, I think I pulled my groin halfway through. In terms of the last lap, I was just absolutely dead.” — Apart from that Daniel Wiffen enjoyed his open water marathon swim.
By the Numbers: 1.23
That’s how many billion euros analytics firm Ampere Analysis predict these Olympic Games will earn in sponsorship revenue, a 60 per cent increase on Tokyo.
