Gymnastics...the drama, the pageantry, the crazy judges, and for Team Mark, the clutch draft picks.
Aly Raisman delivered. While Gabby, Jordyn, and MaKayla continue to grab the headlines and the nauseating in your face "Make this place your home" promos (and poor Kyla Ross gets to just hang around), Aly stepped up and won Gold in the floor exercise and Bronze on the balance beam. That makes her the leading point getter for all gymnasts drafted at 11 points. Granted, this also ties the totals for Zou Kai, of Closet Russian Womens BBall Fan (Wild Card), and Kohei Uchimura of Union Jim, who was the Men's All-Around Champion.
Aly vaulted (pun enforced) Team Mark into 2nd place, along with the efforts of Ivan Ukohv in the High Jump and Alistair Brownlee taking the Triathlon Gold. However, it is tight at the top. Caterina Ponor managed a gymnastics silver for Mad Hatter to keep her in first, but many teams are knocking on the door.
And everyone check their email for details on our closing ceremonies for Sunday, graciously hosted by Trent and Kara!
Not many points given out today, but the most went to Closet Russian Women's BBall Fan, who surged ahead to claim a share of the lead!
I think Mad Hatter is shaking in her fascinator now.
The focus will quickly be turning to the team events and who even has a chance for points left. As most team events are either in the elimination rounds or about to begin, it will be interesting to see who hits the jackpot and who goes home empty.
The biggest match of the day was in Women's Football with the USA vs. Canada. This game was just epic. The USA scored with literally 37 seconds left in stoppage time of the second overtime period to secure the victory and the berth in the Gold Medal Match vs. Japan. They are ensured a medal, and Canada is sent to the Bronze medal match. Find highlights if you haven't seen them already - one of the best football games I've seen.
All I can say now is, GO BRAZIL - I need victories in Basketball, Football, and Beach Volleyball!!!
We're entering the home stretch - 161 of 302 total events have been determined. What that means is that many of the medals have been awarded, but plenty are still to come. It also means that many of the sports are over, so we will be able to soon hone in on who has a chance to win the Fantasy Olympics, and who will be left behind.
There wasn't a lot of change today, but the key medals were obviously in Tennis and Sprinting.
In Tennis, Serena took the singles Gold and doubles Gold over the weekend with her sister, Venus. The Bryan brothers took the men's doubles gold, and Mike Bryan picked up a mixed doubles Bronze. Andy Murray finally won something at Wimbledon twice over besting The Fed and claiming the mixed doubles Silver.
Usain Bolt carried the night in repeating in the 100m dash. Bolt, runner-up Yohan Blake, and 3rd place Justin Gatlin were all drafted, so many points were handed out. Sonya Richards-Ross won the 400m giving Team Mark a Gold.
The following sports have concluded activities:
Swimming
Archery
Rowing
Fencing
Tennis
Badminton
Still plenty left, but that's a lot off the board.
Who thinks they have the best chance to win the overall title?
They call it Super Saturday - midway through the games with tons of medals dropping. For one team, it was more than super.
The Tony Danzas accumulated 38 points on Saturday alone, jumping from 15 points and 10th place to 53 points and 2nd place all on today. Just ridiculous. Matt Grevers is one of the stealth picks of the games, gaining another Gold and 13 points total for swimming. The Danzas kept piling on gold after gold, racking in points in swimming, sprinting, distance running, heptathlon (field), fencing, and tennis. Silvers were claimed in rowing and wildcard sprinting. The laptop aid in the draft appears to be paying off. It only takes one day to make a swing. I'm still waiting on my day. I hope it happens before the next Olympics in Rio.
Swimming is OVER. (Except for the crazy open water swims, but for us-it's over)
Michael Phelps carries the swimming points total, but I thought it would be interesting to see what could have been if we knew more and Sports Illustrated tried a little harder. Here's a big list with some of the top Undrafted talent mixed in:
Oh what could have been...
Team Mad Hatter maintains the lead, but one big blow to her team occurred today when LaShawn Merritt pulled out of the 400m prelim heats with a hurt hamstring. The defending gold medalist is out of the Olympics, and Team Mad Hatter goes from a potential 10 points to 0 for Sprinting. Will it matter? We'll find out! She did get 10 points for stinkin' Badminton so it may not matter.
Here's to an exciting week two of the games!
Day 7 has wrapped up, and swimming is almost wrapped up (thank goodness!). Lots of medals delivered today, but the bottom of the standings stays pretty stagnant (me).
Clearly, Michael Phelps has helped the Mad Hatter claim the top spot a week after the Opening Ceremonies. With 21 points from one athlete, that's more than 3 other teams have total. It's also clear that drafting Phelps-Lochte-Franklin 1-2-3 was the correct move, even if they have seemingly been over-hyped. Phelps has 21, Lochte 17, and Franklin 16 points. However, it's also clear that they aren't everything, as Team Mark is in 8th and The Cheerios in 4th with the other top scorers. There are still plenty of points to be had! The first track and field points were awarded to The Dream Team with the Gold Medal in the 10000m to Dibaba of Ethiopia. I think The Dream Team had a good strategy and stands to do well over the next week of competition. Watch out for his team moving up the leaderboard. Union Jim captured the Bronze with Cheruyiot from Kenya. He had a big night as well, moving up to second place behind strong performances from the Germany Quad Sculls rowing group taking the Gold and Reese Hoffa from the USA taking the Bronze in the Shot Put.
One big upset affecting future points is the big loss for Fish and Chips of Gold, who will receive no points for Volleyball as the top team of Todd "The Professor" Rogers and Phil Dalhausser lost in the first round of the beach volleyball medal tournament. Sharing her pain is Faster, Higher, Stronger with the Spanish Men's Football team not even advancing out of their group after winning the Euros a month ago and the most recent World Cup. An embarrassing loss for the Spanish side, but a painful one for Faster, Higher, Stronger, who got a bit weaker.
On a completely different note, Dong Dong won the trampoline competition tonight. Yes, that's his name.
This weekend should be fun.
Today provided a flurry of medals (for most teams - myself and The Tony Danzas are playing the waiting game).
First, I want to issue an apology to Kristin J, as I had misread her team name as "The Daft Bottin," which makes no sense. Of course, the correct name is "The Daft Boffin," which provides plenty of appropriate humour and British relevance. Go hit up Alta Vista, Ask Jeeves, or use your favourite search engine to seek out further definition, and kudos to Kristin J on a clever name!
Here is the leaderboard for today (I sorted to make it easier to see that my team is terrible!):
For those who like the old leaderboard, here's the teams in draft order:
Big points today dropped in from the Rowing competition. With the rowing squads counting for team points, teams can quickly move up the leaderboard. The Cheerios were smart to grab the dominant USA Women Eights team who secured a Gold and a 10 point boost. The potential for points even had Team Mark excitedly calling me trying to piece together if it was his Great Britain Fours team that won a silver today (Conclusion: No, that event is still to come, today was "Lightweight" Fours men where Faster, Higher, Stronger won a Bronze).
Other noteworthy points from the day are obviously the big win by Gabby Douglas taking the Gold Gymnastics All-Around. The Daft Boffin did miss out on Jordyn Weiber participating in and possibly winning this event, but she intelligently selected Victoria Komova of Russia as a wild card selection who nearly stole the Gold away from Gabby, but cried herself to a Silver. That's right Russia, 2 is not a winner and 3, nobody remembers. Too bad you couldn't win one for the motherland.
In swimming, there were some more races, and more medals, and more continuous coverage of the Phelps/Lochte/Franklin NBC lovefest. I mean really, NBC, we get it - they're world class athletes, but how many times to you have to ask Phelps if he's "back," or "lost it." And how many times do you have to ask Lochte how it feels to swim against Phelps, and how many times do we need to be reminded that Missy Franklin is only 17, and from Colorado where no one apparently can swim and she's just so darn happy all the time. How about covering all the people that are BEATING these superstars and probably have interesting stories about them!
Well, track and field is starting tomorrow so that should be refreshing. Also, I'm not bitter that my swimmer sucked.
Badminton-gate expelled 8 athletes from the games, however the lone Badminton selection was by Mad Hatter with Zhao Yunlei of China, who was not declared part of the expulsions and is an even stronger Gold medal favorite now. It would have been interesting if we had declared Badminton a sport category in the draft! We may have to add a rule for next time that you would lose points for throwing matches.
Onto Day 7...patiently waiting on some points.
The medals keep flowing on Day 5, just too few on my team.
Can I rant for a minute about Kosuke Kitajima? What a bum. Double gold medal favorite to double 4th place. Ugh. My swimming total is 0. I should have picked basically ANYONE on the US team and would have gotten points. Big lesson for Rio in 2016...
Overall it's a pretty tight leaderboard. Lots of swimming points keep accumulating for everyone but me. Fish and Chips of Gold continues a stellar, balanced performance with multiple medals across multiple disciplines. The Dream Team holds true to the moniker by earning the first team gold medal with his Germany Eights Sculls Rowing win.
My shining star - Ding Ning, taking the Silver in Table Tennis. What a great name.
After 5 planes in 2 days, I'm tired so not much other update for now, but things should be very interesting tomorrow night with the girls gymnastics showdown.
