A Look at Rio 2016’s REAL Winners and Losers
Including the winner of the coveted SMH medal
This Olympics has had highs and lows—and we’re not just talking about what’s up on the podiums. We’re here to break it all down for you with our very own medal ceremony. Well, our winners get medals; the losers are stuck with “most likely to…” superlatives instead. We’d like to end on a high note, so we’ll start with the losers first.
- Most Likely to Eat Her Words: Hope Solo. When the American women’s soccer team lost to Sweden in the quarterfinals, the goalkeeper lashed out and called her opponents “a bunch of cowards,” only to watch them take home the silver medal.
- Most Likely to Disappoint Their Mothers (& The Rest of the World): The Gas Station Gang (aka Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger, Jimmy Feigen and Ryan Lochte, but mostly the latter). You know the story by now, so we’re not even going to reiterate it here. Instead, suffice it to say we’ve joined in with the world’s collective *facepalm*, and we’d like to use this as a reminder to everyone: just don’t lie to your parents to begin with.
- Most Likely to Have Been a Sore Loser in Gym Class: Islam El Shehaby. Despite the fact that diplomatically Egypt and Israel purportedly get along, the Egyptian judoka refused to shake the hand of Israeli Or Sasson when Sasson defeated him in a first-round match, which is a serious breach of judo etiquette. That wasn’t the first time this Games (or in previous ones) the Israeli team experienced animosity, either. Political situations may be fraught, but isn’t the point of the Olympics to put that aside?
Alright, time for the good stuff.
THE RELISH BRONZE: Taking home the bronze is the ever-fabulous Lesdogggg aka Leslie Jones. We are so happy NBC brought her down to Rio for the Olympics. (If there’s one “female-pandering” thing they did right these Games, that was it.) She has way too many great pics and vids to share all of them (check out her Twitter and Instagram feeds; you’ll see what we mean) but here are a couple of our highlights:
She loves Sanya Richards-Ross as much as we do:
And is all of us meeting Katie Ledecky:
We’re sure your actor/comedian day job will be keeping you busy once the Olympics are done, Les, but if you feel like stepping back into the sports world, give us a call :)
THE RELISH SILVER: A tie between the two great Olympians leaving us after these Games, Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps. Well, we don’t think the latter will mind if we give his medal to his son Boomer instead. The boy’s got the game face, the Olympic champion dad and the “Grandpa” coach — will we see him in 2032?
Bolt made all of us gasp in awe at his gazelle-like speed, but we especially love that he did it all with a smile and some great dance moves. We’re going to miss the man.
THE RELISH GOLD: All we have to say is this: Ladies. Supporting. Ladies. We motion for a special half-year edition of Galentine’s Day to celebrate the fantastically badass women of the Rio Olympics, particularly those on Team USA.
Gold for Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel. Gold for the Final Five (especially Simone Biles). Gold for the U.S. women’s water polo and basketball teams, both in dominant fashion. Gold for Claressa Shields, first American to go back-to-back as Olympic boxing champion. Gold for the women’s 4x100 relay team, a podium sweep for the Americans in the 100m hurdles, and a moral victory for Nikki Hamblin and Abbey D’Agostino, who won the world’s hearts with their camaraderie.
We’re an all-women team ourselves here at The Relish, so we couldn’t be more proud to have such a great group of ladies show the world that yes, we do love sports, and oh yeah, we’re pretty good at them too.
It’s hard to believe our #Rio2016 coverage is coming to a close — it’s been an intense two weeks. But don’t worry, we’re ready for the U.S. Open, NFL kick-off, college football, MLB playoffs and more (as you already know if you’re subscribed to our newsletter). Stay tuned!
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