You might have heard that there was a bit of uproar about a section of Friday’s opening ceremony which featured drag queens, a transgender model and a nude singer and bore an uncanny resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’.
The Paris 2024 organisers ended up apologising to anyone offended by the segment, but that hasn’t entirely calmed the reaction.
One of the angriest responses to it all came from none other than Donald Trump Jr who described the segment as “seemingly satanic”, one that was produced by “leftist insanity” that is trying to “push woke ideology”.
In passing, incidentally, Trump Jr mentioned that “my mom was an Olympian (Czech Natl Ski Team)”, the family having often claimed that the late Ivana Trump was a reserve for the Czechoslovakia team at the 1972 Games. But? According to Snopes, who researched the claim, the Czech Olympic Committee found no mention of her in their records – and to top it all, “at the 1972 Winter Olympics, there was no women athlete who competed for Czechoslovakia in the Alpine skiing events”. Fake news, then.
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Tamberi turns lost wedding ring into a positive
Most forgiving Olympic spouse? Take a bow, Chiara Bontempi. While her husband, high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi, was waving the Italian flag during the opening ceremony on the Seine, his wedding ring fell off, bounced off the boat and in to the river.
He took to Instagram to apologise to her.
“I’m sorry my love, I’m so sorry. Too much water, too many kilos lost in the last few months or maybe the irrepressible enthusiasm of what we were doing.”
He then produced the most positive spin imaginable on an unfortunate event. “If I really had to lose it, I couldn’t imagine a better place. It will remain forever in the riverbed of the City of Love.”
And then he suggested that she chuck her ring in the river too.
“Then they will be together forever and we will have one more excuse to renew our vows and marry again.”
“Only you,” Chiara replied, “could turn this into something romantic.”
Salukvadze makes it 10 in a row
While Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze failed to progress to the final of her 10m air pistol event in Paris on Saturday, she still achieved a pretty remarkable feat – this was her 10th successive appearance in the summer Games.
The 55-year-old won gold on her Olympic debut back in 1988 for the Soviet Union, then following its collapse she represented the ‘Unified Team’ in Barcelona four years later, and has lined out for Georgia ever since.
She now joins Canadian showjumper Ian Millar at the top of the list for summer Olympic appearances, but as the Guardian pointed out, he missed the 1980 Moscow Games because of Canada’s boycott, so Salukvadze is on her own when it comes to consecutive appearances. Some record.
Ebden bows out to the best
When he got a late call-up to appear in the singles tournament in Paris, following withdrawals through injury of a number of players from that event, doubles specialist Matt Ebden would have been nervous enough – after all, it had been two years since he played a singles match. Then he saw who he’d up against and it’s unlikely he slept the night before. A fella by the name of Novak Djokovic.
He was crushed, losing 6-0, 6-1, even offering his racquet to the crowd on the off chance that someone could put up a better fight against Djokovic. After the game?
“Safe to say, I’m officially retired from singles after that.”
Word of Mouth
“I was melting myself in Andorra and Spain to prepare for the heat and humidity in Paris – and then I’ve come here and now I’ve got hypothermia. Not what I was expecting.” – A shivering Ryan Mullen after he finished 12th in cycling’s time trial in decidedly wintry conditions.
By the Numbers: 9,320
That’s how many miles from Paris the surfing venue is, in the French territory of Tahiti to be precise. Hopefully the competitors don’t have to commute from the Olympic Village every day.
