The 2024 Summer Olympics are now officially over and there was a lot to celebrate.
Frankly too much for any one column, so I am going to write about the events that I watched in the second week, which was full of track and field athletes getting their moment in the sun.
Not everyone gets track and field which is beyond me. These are the fastest athletes at every distance, the highest and longest jumping, the most specifically skilled in any sport. I love to marvel at athletic freaks of nature when I watch sports and track and field has those in spades in almost every event.
There is a debate among pro athletes that track and field athletes are the overall best athletes which I won’t get into, but they deserve to get the spotlight for one week once every four years, if not more.
Also, the American track team earned the most of any team at the Olympics with 34 total medals including 14 gold. I won’t recap all, but here are the events and athletes that stuck out to me.
The week started with the sprinters, seeing who would be crowned the fastest man and women alive in the 100 meter race.
The USA had two sprinters who came in with potential to take the gold for the first time in many years.
The women had Sha’Carri Richardson, who went to high school at Dallas Carter and had been denied going to the last Olympics after testing positive for marijuana after winning the USA trials. She is known for being very stylish, though it was toned down for this Olympics.
The men had Noah Lyles, who had graduated from just running the equally fast 200 meters to also running in the 100 meters. He is an animated showman and also a big nerd, racing with a Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card tucked away he would then show the camera after wins.
It did not go Richardson’s way as she finished second. She earned a gold medal when she later anchored the 4×100 relay, coming back from second place to win the race.
For Lyles, it took a freeze photo and an explanation of what crosses the finish line first for people to realize he won the closest 100 meter final since 1980. He beat second place by five thousandth of a second.
It would not be all good for Lyles. His better event, the 200 meters, saw him finish third for a bronze medal. He revealed after the race he was dealing with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, which dropped him out of two other relays.
Gabby Thomas was not as hyped coming in, running in the 200 meter race. Still, she won gold for the first time after getting bronze at the 2021 Olympics and silver at last year’s world championship.
Her emotion after winning could bring a smile to anyone’s face.
Grant Holloway was looking to cement his career with a gold in the men’s 110 meter hurdles. He got silver at the 2021 Olympics despite being a heavy favorite and has won all of the world championships since then. He came through to win it to secure his legacy while Daniel Roberts finished second.
In the men’s 400 meter race, Quincy Hall dug deep in the final straightaway to pass three guys in front of him to win the gold medal in a matter that was inspiring.
In the women’s long jump, Tara Davis-Woodhall won the event. The magic was watching her and her husband, Paralympian Hunter Woodhall, reaction and exchange after she had won. She then did a sand angel in the jumping pit.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the middle and long distance runners from the USA had a great week. At any distance past 400 meters, America does not have a rich history of international success like some other countries do.
Arguably the sexiest of the long distance races is the 1,500 meter race, probably because it is the shortest.
Just short of one mile, every person had to be forced at some point in their life in PE to run, jog or walk a mile for time. It is the longest distance almost anybody can imagine jogging before things just get out of hand with the distances increasing.
It was supposed to be a showdown between Norwegian’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Great Britain’s Josh Kerr, who had been putting the other down in the press for a year leading up to the race.
Ingebrigtsen was the cocky defending Olympic champion in 2021 and Kerr had beaten him at the 2023 world championship.
Then the Americans crashed the party as Cole Hocker came from third place with his final kick, winning the race in Olympic record time and becoming only the third USA man to win gold in the event.
He was not the only American to medal as Yared Nuguse came from behind to edge Ingebrigsen for the bronze medal. It was the first time two Americans have taken medals in the event at the same Olympics.
The 1500 meter race was not the only event American distance runners did well in. Grant Fisher came back in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races to finish in bronze in both of them.
Then in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, where they add hurdles and a water work to the race, Kenneth Rooks made the bold but mad decision to take the lead and try to pull away at the beginning of the final lap despite his inexperience at the top level. He was caught on the final straight away by the defending gold medalist, but just held on to win the silver medal.
Of course, not all American track athletes were trying to win a gold for the first time. Several were defending champions and some of the all time greats doing what they do.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is so good at the 400 meter hurdles, there was only one runner in history who even had a chance to hang with her. She was in the race, Dutch athlete Femke Bol who made noise in the 4×400 relays for her country as well.
McLaughlin-Levrone blew not just Bol away, who did not have her best race, but the whole world as she set a world record despite no one being within a second and half of her. Fellow American Anna Crockrell got silver.
Then the men’s shot put saw all time great Ryan Crouser earn his third straight gold medal in the event. He came into the games not 100% because of an injury earlier this year, but he just gutted it out to still win.
Fellow countrymen Joe Kovacs finished behind him for the third straight Olympics as well, earning his third silver medal in the event.
To wrap it up, while he was not competing for USA, the American born Mondo Duplantis, who competes for Sweden for reasons, showed why he is the greatest pole vaulter of all time despite being just 24 years old.
He broke his own world record at the games of 6.25 meters or 20 feet and little more than five inches.
If you have never seen in person how high a pole vaulter can go in person, anything past 15 feet is scary high so 20 feet is insane to me.
While the most famous image of pole vaulting from the games was a slow motion video of someone’s appendage hitting the bar, I wish it was this moment.

I know I missed some track and field moments, especially from other countries. Also, while I would like to talk about the basketball tournament, this story is long enough as is.
What event did you like watching during week two of the Olympics? Leave a comment or send an email to [email protected].