Recapping the very best of the Rio Olympics

KOOL A.D. is a professional rapper, astrologist, male model and aspiring sports columnist out the Yay Area offering exclusive Olympic commentary.

Sup y’all it’s ur boy KOOL A.D. remember the other week when I was like “tune in while I report on the Olympics?” Well apparently the Olympics are over? Damn, that was hella quick. Never really ended up reporting on them did I? What can I say, ur dude is a busy man. I did manage to keep abreast and watch a few key events tho so if u missed The Olympics too, I wrote up all the lil highlights here for ur lazy ass.

Like I mentioned in my last article but I feel bears repeating, the Games were met, as they often are, with a lot of protest before and throughout. Like for example, while y’all were watching Fernando Mereilles’s “interesting” Dancing Slaves Opening Ceremony, cops were outside the stadium shooting tear gas and flash grenades into a sea of thousands of protesters decrying public health and safety issues, excessive spending despite the deep economic recession, police brutality, and the mass displacement of the poor that came with Rio hosting the games. The ongoing protests were organized by a group called Comitê Popular Rio, who dubbed the 2016 Olympics the “Exclusion Games.”

So while thousands gathered within the castle walls, and thousands protesting from behind the gate met with brutality from the cops, some 50 million or so Brazilians sat at home in front of their TVs, watching neither the Olympic coverage nor the (basically nonexistent) protest coverage, but their telenovelas, whose WEEKLY ratings are roughly double that of major American TV event ratings like the Oscars and the Super Bowl, these past weeks being no different.

No matter, apparently, because the Olympics have always been more about Western corporate interests and tastes than those of the populaces of the majority of the nations that vie to host the games.

But seeing as how my job was ostensibly talking about the actual games, here’s my lil recap.

Seems fitting to note that the first Olympic gold medal this year went to the United States for, surprise, shooting guns. It might seem like a no brainer that the nation that leads the world in gun ownership and gun violence (nearly one gun for every US citizen, and over 80% of all global gun deaths, an unprecedentedly huge number of those being American police killing civilians in the streets without trial, worth mentioning) would take gold in a shooting event but interestingly, the favorites in most of the shooting events are actually the Chinese. So it came as a surprise to some (excluding ur boy) when Southern American college gal Ginny Thrasher upset favored Chinese shooter Yi Siling and her teammate Du Li, who took bronze and silver, respectively, in the 10m air rifle competition.

First record broken was newly-Brexited British swimmer Adam Peaty for his 57.55-second 100m breaststroke, shaving a couple tenths of a second off his previous record, a typically British bit of tedium for the record books. First leg broken was Samir Ait Said out of France, with one of the gnarliest scrubs I’ve ever seen when he landed wrong after doing some crazy flips over a lil hobby horse, this fool’s leg looked like dangling bubblegum, the pain must have been unreal, big shouts to homie, he took it heroically well, left the stadium in a stretcher to thundering applause.

Despite that tho, the winner of the Most Gully Olympian award is 18-year-old Syrian refugee swimmer Yusra Mardini, who, while winning her heat in the 100m butterfly, was outpaced in succeeding heats and didn’t make the semis. She had a second chance in the 100m freestyle but again missed the cut. Still, considering she saved the lives of 20 other Syrian refugees earlier this year by pushing their sinking boat (for three hours) to safety in the Aegean sea, I’m pretty sure she’s not tripping. She’s young tho, so probably the one to look out for in the next four to eight years.

Close runner up for the Most Gully award is Feyisa Lilesa for crossing his arms over his head as he won silver in the marathon, apparently risking possible imprisonment, even death for performing this gesture of protest used by his Oromo people, who have been demonstrating against the Ethiopian government for years regarding the systemic prejudice against them. Some Ethiopian spokesperson gave an official “it’s not that deep” type statement but being that a number of members of Lilesa’s family were already imprisoned for similar acts of dissent, it likely is at least somewhat close to being that deep. Speaking of quick Ethiopians, Almaz Ayana broke the record for 10k track gold in a nigh effortless, Bolt-esque performance.

Other highlights: Simone Biles and Aly Raisman took gold and silver respectively for their flawless individual gymnastics show outs. They also won an easy team gold with help from Douglas, Hernandez and Kocian. (Quick lowlight: some assholes got mad when Gabby Douglas forgot to put her hand over her heart during the national anthem, and of course, later said nothing when like 5 other white male athletes did the same. And even if she conscientiously refused, that would be her right, too.) Simone Manuel became the first black woman to win individual swimming gold for USA, slaying her 100m freestyle and spitting some fire victory bars regarding racism and swimming while black.

Neymar and squad finally scooped Brazil’s long overdue first soccer gold, at home no less, finally getting some much, much needed revenge on Germany who notoriously humiliated them in this very same city not but two years ago at that horrific Rio World Cup. Phelps retired as the most decorated Olympian ever after winning his 23rd gold medal in his final race, the 400m freestyle. Literal fastest dude ever on earth, the inimitably swaggy Jamaican Usain Bolt, made it look easy, taking his third consecutive 100m sprinting Olympic gold. Michelle Carter became the first American woman to win gold for shot put. Katie Ledecky absolutely murdered the 800m freestyle, hitting the wall a full 11 seconds before anybody else and shaving two whole seconds off her previous world record. And yea, USA, disproportionately monied imperialist force that it is, dominated, as per usual, scooping 121 medals, 46 of them gold, biggest proportionate haul thus far.

USA men’s Basketball started out strong, spanking China like we all knew they would, 119-62, then, of course, whupped Venezuela 113-69 before having a surprisingly rough time getting over on Australia for that 98-88 W (Melo, who now holds the Olympic scoring record, saved the day on that one), then eked out another sloppy 94-91 win over Serbia and another close 100-97 win over France (Klay splashing the way to victory on that one). They managed a cleaner win in their rematch against Serbia to scoop gold with some real classic old fashioned American rock tossing. Everybody was on point but KD and Irving prob went off the most in that last game.

Regardless, it’s actually USA Women’s Basketball that put up the real numbers tho, winning every game by an average of 37 points. The closest anyone got to shaking them was France who still lost by 19 points haha. People don’t seem to really talk about how USA Women’s Basketball has been quietly, matter of factly, dominating the Olympics for the past 20 fuckin years, prob a BasedGod blessing tbh. Taurasi mighta caught the brunt of BasedGod’s blessing tho, always sick widdit, she’s been an absolute beast this year, with record-breaking threes, finessing the fuck out of Serbia and Senegal before giving Spain that work scooping the gold with a 29-point win that she dolloped more than her fair share of sauce on. Bird and Catchings kilt it too as always. Breanna Stewart, in there strictly off the strength of her college hooping, was hitting double digit points in most games and is one to watch in the second half of the WNBA season.

Egyptian women competed in beach volleyball for the first time ever, wearing bodysuits and abayas, causing a shitstorm of ignorant ass reportage. They lost to the Germans, unfortunately. Gotta say, ur boy’s never personally been a fan of the Germans in the Olympics.

Other classic villains of the games? Russia. They whole team infamously almost got DQ-ed from the entire Olympics after proof of a “massive doping conspiracy” was Wiki-leaked, but a few of the unimpeachable star athletes made the grade and slid in, snagging 56 medals, 19 of them gold, making them 4th place overall in medals. Truth be told tho, if u were to axe me about steroids, I wouldn’t be surprised if every last damn Olympic athlete was juicing but a story like that’s above ur boy’s pay grade.

Anyway, regardless, the number one villain this year gota be young gold medalist swimmer douche Ryan Lochte, who got fucked up and vandalized a gas station bathroom and then for whatever lame reason made up some fake story on global TV about getting robbed? Then referred to this complete lie as an “over-exaggeration.” What a loser. Al Roker really went off on dude, it was funny to see the Rokester on his rare Malcolm X.

USA Women’s soccer got knocked out surprisingly early by Sweden after having a rough time mustering up a 1-0 win against France followed by a surprising tie with Colombia, failing to medal for the first time ever in USA Olympic women’s soccer history. Hope Solo was not at her best, let’s put it that way.

Heard Israel blocked Palestine team head Issam Qishta from traveling to Rio on some old classic bureaucratic colonialist bullshit. I was not mad at all or even surprised in the least when Egypt’s Islam El Shehaby refused to shake hands after losing his Judo bout to Israel’s Or Sasson in protest of their illegitimate, brutal, illegal occupation of Palestine.

Speaking of bullshit, Serena got knocked out on some bullshit too, I heard Drake tweeted and deleted that the Olympics is rigged and I would have to agree, They gotta be, it must be foul play, I swear, maybe she got drugged mane it’s uncanny, no way she lost fair and square. Serena Williams is the best tennis player on earth, bruh, they shoulda just handed her the gold medal, why she even need to show up matter fact fuck it they coulda FedEx-ed her the thing. Something foul is afoot out there in Brazil mane, a real sense of foreboding mane, u might say a real fear & loathing bruh bruh ask Comite Popular Rio they would tell it to u. But everything happens for a reason, and Serena’s exit made some room for wavy rican tenista Monica Puig to snatch tennis gold from Germany for PR, first boricua to do it, dalé.

Speaking of el Caribe, Cuba always be doing they thing in the Olympics, especially in boxing, and this year was no different, tying Uzbekistan for most boxing gold and coming up with 11 medals altogether (five of them gold), which makes them the most decorated competing Spanish-speaking country and, when accounting for their small population, throws them in the top ten competing countries. A truly remarkable island mane, ain’t nobody like los Cubanos.

Bruh, Cuban boxing is flawless and beautiful to watch. I called La Cruz’s light heavy gold shortly after he put the hurt on Turkey’s Ünal, and he did not disappoint, easily stopping France’s Bauderlique and Kazakhstan’s Niyazymbetov respectively in his following bouts. He kinda took the last round off against Niyazymbetov, opting to dance a bit, more of a victory round really, having unanimously won the first two rounds. Bruh bruh is out the cuts of Camaguey, got shot in the skreets not but like two years ago, came back super maney with it like it never even happened. While Robeisy Ramirez Carrazana had a touch of trouble getting over on America’s gnarly hitter Shakur Stevenson, he still managed a 2-1 win for bantam gold. And thirty minutes later in the middleweight final, Arlen Lopez slid thru with the hat trick, winning Cuba’s third gold with no trouble from Uzbekistan’s Melikuziev, an easy 3-0 victory, fresh off handing Azerbaijan’s similarly out-matched Shakhsuvarly’s ass to him a couple days prior.

U know the illest one tho? Synchronized swimming. I was hella zooted watching that the other morning, wild relaxing. Bruh, it’s no dudes allowed, very futuristic. Imagine a world without dudes, where all war has been replaced by synchronized swimming. It could happen.

Anyway, so the closing ceremony. Kinda the same deal as the opening one tbh, a thousand or so fools in shiny unitards with their shiny blankets, dancing, protests and police clashing outside, a lil less allegory this time, more samba, some dreary rain, the audible booing of Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes.

I guess the highlight would be Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe popping out a green sewer tube dressed like Super Mario to announce the 2020 Tokyo Games finna be lit as fuck apparently?

I guess we’ll see, catch me in 2020 in Tokyo reporting live, I swear I’ll really do it next time.