Week 1: Sexism, Racism, Glorious NBC Tape Delays, Phelps Teaches a Lesson, WTF is Happening to the Pool?, Ukrainian Gymnastics, & Minor Construction Issues

There’s very little insight I can add to the wonderful coverage of the Phelps-Le Clos brouhaha from this past week. Chad le Clos is human, and we’ve all made similar mistakes of bravado, overconfidence, machismo. I distinctly remember grounding out to second base in the final inning of a very important little league playoff game, after demanding that the kid who was supposed to bat be removed, and cajoling the coach to let me pinch hit in his place. Chad: I’ve been there. We’ve all been there.

But, the lesson remains utterly simple:

Schadenfreude, Week 1:

• Fresh off its wonderfully insensitive coverage of Simone Biles’ adoptive parents, NBC kept up the good work by crediting female Katinka’s Hosszu’s record breaking swims not to her own hard work and years of dedication, but instead, to the man in her life: “And there’s the man responsible.”
• Not to be outdone, the San Jose Mercury News decided to get in the act with a fun headline of their own. See if you can spot the potential issue here:

• Dutch gymnast and “Lord of the Drinks” Yuri van Gelder never did make it to his competition this week, as he was a tad inebriated.
• The Rio Diving Pool is closed for the time being, because it’s turned a beautiful shade of moldy green and, as the German Diving Team has pointed out, “the whole building smells like a fart.”
• Rio officials have found a novel way to cut down on recycling costs!

• It seems they may also be cutting corners on construction costs. As a child, there’s nothing quite as damning as breaking the Olympic Rings live on international television. The kid need only to stick to that foolproof childhood defense: deny, deny, deny.

• Not that we enjoy continuously sniping at NBC (or, do we?), but their coverage of the Olympics is getting their worst ratings in two decades.
• Ukraine’s gymnastics team, perhaps eager to go out clubbing with the “Lord of the Drinks,” decided — on second thought — that they’d rather not compete in the singular competition for which they’d been practicing for their entire natural lives. Because really, who has the time?
• More from our riveting series on Brazilian construction: The Czechs seem to be having just a tiny issue in their residence at the Olympic Village:

Brief Moments of Emotional, Soul-Quenching Bliss (ESQB), Week 1:

• Weightlifter Oscar Figueroa Mosquera wins gold for Colombia, and takes off his shoes to show retirement. I may be dead inside, but I still found this moving.
• With Lyu Xiaojun of China looking like a lock for gold, Kazakhstani Nijat Rahimov made the bold move of adding 12 kilograms (four kilograms above the world record), on his second clean and jerk attempt.
• Brothers Gary and Paul O’Donovan, the reigning European Lightweight Double Sculls champions, gave a wonderfully Irish interview.
• Simone Biles has broken gymnastics.
• The reason you should start watching ping pong:

• A Syrian refugee athlete who saved 20 lives by pushing a boat for 3 hours won a swimming heat at Rio Olympics.
• Kosovo and Fiji both won their first Olympic Gold Medals in history.
• Lilly King calls out all of the dopers: “I did it clean.”