The Other Side of the Olympics

SWIMMING WITH KATIE LEDECKY:

Swimming with Katie Ledecky at the Maggie Gilbert Aquatics Center in November 2019 was the closest this editor will ever come to a gold medal.

After Ledecky, 27, set a new Olympic record time of 15:30.02 in the 1500 on July 31, I casually mentioned to my daughter, I had swum with Ledecky at the PaliHi pool. “You practiced with her?” my daughter asked. Well, not really.

She was swimming sprints with seven other world-class male swimmers, including Sunset Mesa’s Jordan Wilimovsky under Coach David Kelsheimer. After I finished my laps, I watched for a while and was simply amazed. Just a few lanes away, was one of the top swimmers in the world.

At the Paris Olympics, she won a gold (1500), a silver (4X200 meter relay), a bronze (400-meter) and in the 800 freestyle she picked up a second gold on Saturday. This is her 14^th career medal and her ninth gold.

Ledecky set a new Olympic record in the 1500 with a time of 15:30.02, finishing a full 10 seconds ahead of her competition.

She has said she wants to continue swimming through Los Angeles 2028, and perhaps even beyond. “I don’t feel like I’m close to being finished in the sport yet,” she told yahoo!sports.

MEN’S GYMNASTICS:

Not to take anything away from women’s gymnastics, where the US has won numerous gold medals, but the men’s coverage is more difficult to find.

My son was in gymnastics until about seventh grade, when he was injured playing soccer.  He was tiny and could do flips and all sorts of twists and turns on the vault and floor.

But, there were two events that were excruciating to watch, the rings and the pommel horse . . .and the worst was the pommel horse. It is considered one of the hardest pieces of men’s apparatus to master and according to British Gymnastics “It is unforgiving and had been known to ‘buck’ many a gymnast.”

An athlete continuously balances and swings while supporting the body weight on one hand. A good pommel horse routine covers all three areas of the horse, the middle and both ends, while a gymnast performs the required scissors elements among continuous circular movements. The only part of the body that should be touching the apparatus is the hands.

Young boys don’t have the body strength yet, and moms sitting in the audience routinely looked away while their young gymnasts gamely attempted it.

When I heard sports reporters bemoan that American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, 25, was only on one apparatus in the team event, I realized they had no idea how good he must be on the pommel.

Nedoroscik helped the team win the bronze medal and then on August 3, he took the bronze medal on the pommel horse with 15.300 points. Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan took silver with 15.433 points. Two-time world champion Rhys McClenaghan captured gold and Ireland’s first medal in Olympic gymnastics.

It wasn’t the soccer injury that stopped gymnastics for my son. While we were in the doctor’s office, the doctor had done an x-ray and said with my son’s growth plate, he most likely would be at least 6’2”.

Most male gymnastics are 5’3” to 5’10. Given my son’s impending size, the three- and four-times a week trips to Culver City to the gym did not seem reasonable. He’s now 6’3”.

Male gymnastics take a back seat to the coverage of women in the U.S. American Gymnast Frederick Richard (who is 5’5”) said his plan long-term is to bring as many eyes to the sport as possible. “People don’t see gymnastics from the men’s side,” he said. “You see basketball every single day, when you pick up your phone, when you walk down the street, turn on the TV. You don’t see talk about gymnastics.”

Amen.

 

BEACH VOLLEYBALL’S PARTAIN:

Pacific Palisades Miles Partain (6’3”) and his teammate Andy Benesh (6’9”) have made it to the round of 16, which plays Monday, August 5, against Italy.

The US team lost their first match to Cuba, then bounced back to beat the Moroccan team, The duo had a three-set victory over Brazil and finished 2-1 in Pool D.

Partain and Benesh, according to NBC, parted ways with their coach, Mike Pacek, ahead of the win over Brazil’s George Wanderley and Andre Loyola.

During the match against Brazil, the NBC Olympic Beach Volleyball announcer went into detail about Pertain and that he was not only athletic, but smart – which helped him while playing.

The announcer said that Partain had graduated a semester early from Palisades High School and was valedictorian. The announcer added that Partain had also graduated early from UCLA with a degree in applied math.

The announcer added “Pacific Palisades is THE hotbed for beach volleyball.”

Nice publicity!

STEVE KERR GUIDES BASKETBALL:

The United States basketball team had a 104–83 win over Puerto Rico on Saturday. The U.S. finishes group play 3–0 and moves on to the knockout round, facing Brazil on August 6.

The knockout rounds begin with eight teams in the quarterfinals. The semi-finals are August 8, and the final is August 10.

US players Stephen Curry, Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, Kevin Durant Jasyon Tatum, Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis are all NBA superstars – but to meld together as a team, you need a great coach.

Look to Palisades High School basketball standout Steve Kerr, who graduated in 1983 and is now the head coach for the Golden State Warriors. Kerr has nine NBA titles, (five as a player and four as a coach).

His Olympic assistants are Ty Lue (Los Angeles Clippers), Mark Few (Gonzaga) and Spoelstra (Miami Heat). Kerr put Lue in charge of defense, Spoelstra in charge of offense and Few in charge of what he calls specials teams, which includes zone offense and zone defense (because zones are utilized more in college) and out of bounds plays.

The Palisades-Malibu YMCA were selling tickets for a chance to win a dinner with Steve Kerr. The winner will be able to ask Kerr any questions they might have about the Olympics or the NBA. The tickets were sold, but one could call the YMCA and see if there are any that someone might give up for the August 12 drawing. Call (310) 454-5591 and ask for Executive Director Jim Kirtley.

 

 

HOOPER PLAYS WATER POLO:

The U.S. defeated Montenegro 12-7 to move to the quarterfinals, which will be played on August 7. The U.S. will finish pool play on Monday against defending the world champions, Croatia. The top four teams in each group move on to the knockout round.

Palisadian Johnny Hooper, is participating in his second Olympics on the water polo team. He first played for the U.S. Olympic team in 2020, where the USA took sixth place.

The 6’1” player was on UC Berkeley’s men’s water polo teams for four years. The son of Gary and Mimi Hooper, he attended Village School in the Palisades and Harvard-Westlake, where he helped the water polo team win the Southern Section Division I championship against defending champion Santa Ana Mater Dei.

In Qatar in February, Hooper scored a goal in a shootout loss to Montenegro and the team took ninth. The team took first place in the 2023 Pan American Games. Hooper currently plays professionally for Telimar in Italy.

He speaks fluent Japanese – and many might agree with his choice of a favorite food: Bay Cities Italian sandwich.