Category: Olympics

Categories
food Katie Ledecky Olympics

Katie Ledecky: the Olympic chocolate muffins are straight up chocolate cake

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I was today years old when I learned there was a restaurant chain named for a beloved dog that specializes in chicken fingers. Yes, I’m talking about Raising Cane’s; no, I don’t live under a rock (at least I didn’t think so!). Where has this joint been all my life? I love dogs! I love chicken fingers! But I digress… Champion swimmer Katie Ledecky — who became the most decorated American female athlete at the 2024 Paris games — was invited by Raising Cane’s to give a keynote address at their employee appreciation event in Cancun last week. While there, Ledecky shared what she gets asked the most since the Olympics is: did you try the double chocolate muffin? As you may recall, Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen whetted the world’s appetite this summer with his artful, funny TikTok videos devoted to the double chocolate muffins. While Christiansen was a fan, it seems Ledecky was not, but just on the grounds that it was basically dessert for breakfast:

Katie Ledecky’s sweet tooth was no match for the food at the 2024 Olympics.

The swimmer, 27, revealed that she tried the “infamous” chocolate muffins during her stay in Paris for the Games this summer while attending a Raising Cane’s employee appreciation in Cancún, Mexico, on Tuesday, Sept. 24.

After giving a keynote presentation, and before heading into a Q&A with the food establishment’s owner and founder Todd Graves and co-CEO AJ Kumaran, Ledecky said one question she is asked all the time is tied to the sweet treat.

“One question I’ve been getting a lot is, ‘Did you try the chocolate muffins in the Olympic Village, the infamous chocolate muffins?’ Yes, I did,” the athlete said.

“I tried it after I was done competing for breakfast,” she continued, adding: “I had about two bites because it was straight up chocolate cake, and I can’t do that for breakfast.”

Earlier this summer, during the Games in Paris, double chocolate muffins that were being served in the Olympic Village went viral on TikTok.

At the time, PEOPLE reached out to Sodexo Live! — the company responsible for feeding the 15,000 athletes living in the Village — to learn more about the treats. It was discovered that the goodies, made popular by Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen, were 130g “Maxi” muffins “presented in a tulip cup.”

“It is filled and topped with dark chocolate, featuring chunks of dark chocolate and milk chocolate. This muffin is served daily at the main athletes’ restaurant and at the six takeaway food areas within the Village,” a representative for the company explained.

“This dessert is very popular, as around 2,000 chocolate muffins [are] consumed each day at the Athletes’ Village. In total, Sodexo Live! Plans to serve 100,000 muffins throughout the Athletes’ Village during [the] Olympic and Paralympic Games,” they added at the time, without revealing the tasty recipe.

[From People]

“I had about two bites because it was straight up chocolate cake, and I can’t do that for breakfast.” Well have you tried, Katie?! Come on, I know you have the discipline to build up the stamina! So even if you start with two bites one morning, by the end of the year you can be downing the whole muff, easy! And speaking of, there’s a crucial follow up question that was not asked of Ledecky (at least not in People Mag’s reporting). She says she ate two bites and couldn’t have any more… for breakfast. Come clean, Katie: what happened to the rest of the muffin? I hope it was saved for later or given to someone else to enjoy!!

Here’s what I’ve learned today: you can be the newly-anointed most-decorated American female Olympian and still get a barrage of questions about a chocolate muffin; I need to find a Raising Cane’s and try their chicken fingers; I need to find a job at Raising Cane’s or somewhere else that will appreciate me all the way to Cancun. The last place anyone from my office was sent to was a Wegmans to procure a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting to get us through an afternoon slump. As a species, we might be addicted to chocolate.

Photos credit: IMAGO/Eurasia Sport Images / Avalon, Getty and via Instagram

Categories
Olympics Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise agreed to do Olympics for free as long as he could do all his own stunts

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Tom Cruise’s big thing seems to be continuing to prove he can do all the stunt work, but the takeaway I get is of an artist stunted in his growth; a man frozen in another time of his life. Objectively I understand why he was tapped for the Olympics closing ceremony bit — where he rappelled down the Stade de France, then brought the Olympic flag to 2028 host city LA in a prerecorded video. It brought his movie star touch, considering the games are headed towards tinseltown. Now Casey Wasserman, president and chairperson of the LA28 committee, has divulged that Cruise chose to accept his mission almost immediately, and was happy to do it for free, no less. But only if he could do all his own stunts. Quelle surprise.

“The backstory is that we realized we were producing a 15-minute live TV show, and so I hired who I think is the best person in the world to do that,” Wasserman said at the CNBC x Boardroom: Game Plan in Santa Monica, Calif., this week, referring to producer Ben Winston, who had the idea to bring Cruise into the fold.

“The best part of the story is we pitched on a Zoom, and the original idea was a person in the stadium as a stunt double,” Wasserman continued. “We’re like, ‘Well, there’s no way we’re getting this. We’re going to get four hours of filming time. We’ll do the thing with the Hollywood sign, he’ll hand the thing off, and he’s done. Maybe we’ll get the other stuff and the rest will be just a stunt double.’”

To their surprise, Cruise agreed to the gig almost immediately, but not without setting the terms for his participation. Wasserman recalled, “About five minutes into the presentation, [Cruise] goes, ‘I’m in. But I’m only doing it if I get to do everything,’” effectively rejecting the idea of a stunt double and insisting on performing every aspect of the segment himself.

However, Wasserman said Winston told him, “Don’t get too excited. [Cruise] loves doing this stuff, but when his team realizes how many shooting days it’s going to be and rehearsals, this is never happening. I’m telling you I got it, but it’s never happening.”

But the Magnolia star proved them wrong. “Sure enough, every step of the way, he got more involved and more engaged,” Wasserman said.

In addition to participating for free, Cruise agreed to get involved in the Hollywood section of the segment during a particularly busy moment in his schedule, as he was still shooting the eighth Mission: Impossible movie across the pond.

“He finished filming Mission: Impossible at 6 p.m. in London, got right on a plane,” Wasserman recalled. “He landed in L.A. at 4 a.m. and filmed the scene where he pulls onto a military plane. In L.A., he does two jumps out of the [plane]. He didn’t like the first one, so he did a second jump. Then he helicoptered from Palmdale to the Hollywood sign, filmed from 1 until 5, helicoptered to Burbank Airport, and flew back to London.”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

Tom Cruise is utterly confounding and vexing to me. On the one hand, he displays many admirable qualities: remembering friends and colleagues’ birthdays; showing up for female athletes; giving advice to filmmakers trying to navigate difficult Hollywood producers. On the other hand, he’s the VIP of a major global cult, a cult he’s so committed to that he chose his devotion to it over having a relationship with his daughter. But Top Gun: Maverick saved moviegoing, so… I recognize that Cruise is associated with a classic movie star charisma, that certain je ne sais quoi. And I also appreciate that he executed his bit of daredevil risky business for the Olympics perfectly. And while he wasn’t paid a fee for this gig, he did bank millions in favorable press and public goodwill. It gave him a positive counter-narrative to reports of his daughter dropping his last name as she goes off to college, and the reminder that he’s kept his eyes wide shut on her for 12 years.

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Photos credit: Vincent Kalut/Panoramic/Avalon, Daniel Leal/Avalon and Getty

Categories
Olympics Rebecca Cheptegei

Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei in critical condition after her boyfriend set her on fire

olympian-rebecca-cheptegei-in-critical-condition-after-her-boyfriend-set-her-on-fire

The Paris Olympics were full of so much positivity, and I loved all of the stories of supportive partnerships and marriages within the Olympic community. There were so many boyfriends and husbands who were genuinely so proud of their Olympian partners, men who were not threatened by their partners competing in their fields and winning medals. But of course there are awful stories too, like what happened here to Ugandan distance-runner Rebecca Cheptegei. Rebecca competed at the Paris Olympics, then returned to her home in Kenya, where she lives and trains. Her (current or ex) boyfriend sneaked into her home while she was in church, then when she returned, he doused her in gasoline and set her on fire.

A Ugandan athlete who appeared in the 2024 Paris Olympics is in critical condition after reportedly being set on fire by her boyfriend in Kenya. Distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei, 33, suffered 75 percent burns on her body after her boyfriend allegedly doused her in gasoline and set her on fire at her home in Trans Nzoia County in western Kenya on Sunday, Sept. 1, police said, per the Associated Press, BBC News and ESPN.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander, Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday, per the outlets, that the attack happened during a dispute between Cheptegei and her boyfriend Dickson Ndiema.

“The couple were heard quarreling outside their house,” he told journalists, per BBC. “During the altercation, the boyfriend was seen pouring a liquid on the woman before burning her.”

Ndiema also sustained serious burns in the fire. The pair were put out by neighbors and transported to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the nearby city of Eldoret for specialized treatment. In a report filed by the local police obtained by AP, the pair were described as having been heard arguing over the land the home was built on before the incident.

Kosiom told local outlet The Standard, “[Ndiema] is believed to have sneaked into the compound at around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday while the wife and the children were in Church. Upon returning, Dickson, who had procured petrol, began pouring it on Rebecca before he set her ablaze.”

He added to the outlet that items including “a five-liter jerrican” belonging to Dickson and “a burned mobile phone believed to be for Rebecca” were collected for forensic analysis. An investigation is ongoing, per multiple reports.

[From People]

“Ndiema also sustained serious burns in the fire.” I hope he does not survive his self-inflicted injuries. I hope Rebecca gets the best treatments available and that she survives. Jesus, this story is awful. Given this detail – “he is believed to have sneaked into the compound at around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday while the wife and the children were in Church” – I genuinely believe that Ndiema was not Rebecca’s current boyfriend. This is stalker-ex behavior. This was Ndiema punishing Rebecca for breaking up with him and for being an Olympian. Toxic masculinity.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Categories
Elon Musk Imane Khelif J.K. Rowling Olympics

Imane Khelif has filed a criminal complaint against Elon Musk & JK Rowling

imane-khelif-has-filed-a-criminal-complaint-against-elon-musk-&-jk-rowling

Imane Khelif is a woman. She’s an Algerian boxer who has boxed on the international circuit for years. She qualified for the Olympics, and during one of her rounds, she sparred with an Italian named Angela Carini. Carini quit the fight in less than a minute and turned on the white-woman tears, claiming that Khelif punched her too hard (??). Then Carini told the international media that the IOC needed to investigate Khelif’s gender and that Khelif was not a cisgender woman. This became an Olympic culture war for the transvestigators and it was just as horrid and offensive as you would think. The IOC quickly came out in defense of Khelif and said that she is exactly who she says she is: a woman from Algeria, she was born a woman and she identifies as a woman. That didn’t stop JK Rowling, Megyn Kelly and a host of transphobic bigots from attacking Khelif online for days throughout the Olympic games. Khelif ended up winning the gold medal! To celebrate, she’s going to sue the f–k out of a lot of people.

J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newl crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif.

Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris public prosecutor’s office on Friday.

The lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who may have written hateful messages under pseudonyms, said Boudi. The complaint nevertheless mentions famously controversial figures.

[From Variety]

I hope this lady goes all-in. This is currently a criminal complaint, but I hope Khelif follows through internationally. Sue JK Rowling. Sue Megyn Kelly. Sue all of these disgusting people and get that money. Something nice: Algerians rallied behind Imane and she’s getting so much support and love back home.

Supporters of Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif gathered in Algiers to celebrate after she won gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics. pic.twitter.com/eHfL4fJoN1

— DW News (@dwnews) August 12, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Categories
Olympics

British Olympian weightlifter Emily Campbell: ‘the cardboard beds are not a vibe’

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The 2024 Paris Olympics have shone a light on many random, fascinating things that I, for one, did not know before three weeks ago. For instance: an athlete can be sponsored by cheese; there’s a shocking lack of pagan education (or at the very least Greek mythology) in modern culture; you can get a year’s worth of medical exams for free in two weeks at the Olympic Village (but you have to be an athlete, le sigh); and the food of champions is double chocolate muffins. (Have I been paying attention to items on the periphery of what the Olympics are really about? Yes. Am I bothered by that? No.) Another odd tidbit that’s garnered a lot of attention throughout the games is that chic Paris opted to continue the trend set by Tokyo and host this year’s Olympians in… cardboard beds. Needless to say, the furnishing choice was not appreciated by the hard-working athletes. Or as bronze medal-winning British weightlifter Emily Campbell put it, “The cardboard beds are not a vibe.”

The accommodations for the more than 10,000 Olympians who traveled to Paris weren’t exactly five-star.

British bronze-medal weightlifter Emily Campbell delivered a scathing review of the sleeping arrangements that she endured in the Olympic Village.

“I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed,” Campbell told the BBC after the Olympics. “I know it sounds so… but honestly, the cardboard beds are not a vibe. I’m looking forward to going home and seeing my family because I haven’t been able to catch up with them.”

In Tokyo in 2021, Campbell put up a silver-medal performance in the women’s 87 kg event.

The beds were a central talking point going into Paris.

They were made from recycled materials and reportedly designed to help save resources for the environment, but many joked that they also stop any love-making dead in its tracks.

“I hope that Paris 2024’s efforts to reduce its impact will show that it is possible to do things differently,” said Georgina Grenon, director of environmental excellence for the organizing committee prior to the games.

[From NY Post]

Wow, looking at pictures of those cardboard bed frames took me right back to high school physics. Allow me to explain: there was one lesson on weight distribution where my teacher had us make “support beams” by rolling up pieces of flimsy printer paper, and then see how many heavy textbooks we could stack on them before the whole thing came tumbling down. It was a lot more than you’d think! So while your first thought may have been, “What is keeping those incredibly fit and muscular athletes from crashing right through the cardboard?” the answer is, science. And speaking of, bravo to Paris for being environmentally conscious with the beds, but were there really no other eco-friendly options available? I’m just trying to reckon how it can be feasible to provide extensive and gratis medical care, but not better beds. C’est un mystère.

When we were talking about hobbies a little while ago, I bragged about eating being the one I participate in with the most gusto. But I neglected to mention sleeping, which I’ve technically dedicated more hours of my life to. Though I can make do fairly well on a couch, to turn in a top notch performance I need to be on my extra-firm mattress, so I totally empathize with the athletes here. (What? Stop laughing.) I used to be a super fluffy mattress girl, but a few years ago when it was mandated by the state that I replace my ancient bed, I dutifully sampled the wares at the department store. And I was shocked I tell you, shocked to discover how good the extra-firm ones felt! It was like my back could finally relax. It was a transcendent level of support. Yes I realize that in Paris it was the frames and not the mattresses that were cardboard. But my point is that if even I need a certain standard of comfort in my physically low-intensity life, then by gosh our Olympians deserve better beds!

Categories
Jordan Chiles Olympics

Jordan Chiles was stripped of her medal by a CAS judge with lots of Romanian ties

jordan-chiles-was-stripped-of-her-medal-by-a-cas-judge-with-lots-of-romanian-ties

This Jordan Chiles saga is being called gymnastics’ “highest profile controversy since the 2000 games in Sydney.” Sure, if you ignore Larry Nassar and the IOC banning Russia. But I agree that this Chiles controversy is a very big deal. In summary, the Olympic judges in gymnastics underestimated Jordan Chiles’ score for her floor routine. USA Gymnastics immediately appealed and the judges changed their score, thus ensuring the bronze medal for Jordan. The Romanian federation appealed to the IOC and CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) using a false argument that USAG complained about Jordan’s score four seconds too late. The IOC said: strip Jordan of her bronze and give it to the Romanians. USAG tried to appeal but the CAS refused to accept USAG’s evidence that they actually appealed the judges’ incorrect score well within the 60-second window. Now we’re learning that one of the people on CAS’s three-person panel has deep ties with the Romanian federation.

American gymnast Jordan Chiles and the US Olympic team may very well feel like protagonists in a Franz Kafka novel, as they find themselves trapped in an increasingly surreal scenario while attempting to reclaim her bronze medal. Their efforts to reclaim the bronze medal that Chiles thought she had won during the floor exercise at the Paris Olympics are encountering some increasingly bizarre obstacles, and a new twist in the ongoing saga emerged Tuesday.

The head of the three-person panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which ruled that the USA’s initial inquiry over Chiles’ floor exercise score was filed after the one-minute deadline and awarded third place to Romanian Ana Bǎrbosu on Saturday, has been representing Romanian interests for years.

Dr. Hamid G. Gharavi, Philippe Sands and Song Lu sat on the panel, of which Gharavi was the president, according to CAS. Gharavi’s resume, linked on CAS’ website, lists multiple legal cases in which he has represented Romania in arbitration cases.

The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution was the first to report on the legal ties Gharavi has with Romania.

In response to an inquiry for comment, Gharavi referred CNN to CAS. CNN has reached out to CAS about a possible conflict of interest within the panel.

In a statement given to the New York Times, CAS said: “In accordance with the guidelines on conflicts of interest issued by the International Bar Association (IBA), CAS has no reason to remove an arbitrator making such disclosure if the parties do not object to his/her appointment.”

What was praised as one of the best-ever Olympic Games has been tarnished by confusion, heartbreak and allegations of incompetence leveled against the governing bodies involved.

[From CNN]

This f–king sucks. The pro-Romanian lawyer suddenly found that the Romanian gymnasts should get the medal, a medal which should be stripped from the Black American woman? Yeah, not suspicious at all! I’ve also heard that many people found it suspicious that Nadia Comaneci was sitting with/around the judges initially when they made their “mistake” judging Jordan’s routine. Comaneci has also been arguing for all three gymnasts (the two Romanians and Jordan) to receive the bronze.

If you’d like to read more about the lengthy history of conflicts of interest within CAS, go here to an excellent WaPo op-ed. Basically, CAS is extremely corrupt and everyone knows that and yet no one knows how to fix it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Categories
Jordan Chiles Olympics

The IOC says that Jordan Chiles must return her bronze medal on a technicality

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These photos are from August 5, the conclusion of the women’s gymnastics at the Paris Olympics. The final event for the ladies was individual floor. Rebeca Andrade had been pushing Simone Biles throughout the games, and this was the moment where Andrade finally beat Simone’s score. Andrade won gold, with Simone picking up a silver medal and Simone’s teammate Jordan Chiles picking up bronze. It was the first time in Olympic gymnastics that the medal podium was all Black. A historic moment, a beautiful moment for all three women and they celebrated each other. Jordan was so proud – she was going home with a bronze in individual floor and a gold for the team in all-around. Except it all went to hell on a really awful technicality.

U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles must return her bronze medal in the floor exercise, the International Olympic Committee said Sunday, upholding findings that a coach’s appeal that got her on the podium shouldn’t have been allowed. Chiles, 23, had initially finished fifth in the competition on Monday before U.S. coach Cecile Landi successfully lobbied that her athlete’s difficulty score had been under-credited.

Officials on the scene agreed and adjusted Chiles’ score .1 of a point to 13.766, which boosted her above two Romanian athletes, triggering an angry reaction from that delegation. Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said he’d refuse to attend the Olympics closing ceremony in protest. The IOC on Sunday said it would abide by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled that Landi’s protest was made 64 seconds after scores were posted. The deadline for such action is one minute. Romanian Ana Bărbosu, 18, will now be the floor exercise bronze medalist.

“Following the CAS decision with regard to the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Floor Exercise Final and the amendment of the ranking by the International Gymnastics Federation, the IOC will reallocate the bronze medal to Ana Bărbosu (Romania),” the IOC said in a statement on Sunday. “We are in touch with the NOC of Romania to discuss the reallocation ceremony and with USOPC regarding the return of the bronze medal.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if or how Chiles would physically return the medal. She’s already left France and appeared on NBC’s “TODAY” show on Thursday in New York City. Chiles still has a gold from the women’s team all-around. She won silver in Tokyo, also in the team all-around.

“We are devastated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling regarding women’s floor exercise,” according to a statement issued by USA Gymnastics on Saturday night. “The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring.” The sport’s U.S. governing body also said the athlete has been “subject to consistent, utterly baseless and extremely hurtful attacks on social media” since the matter came to light.

“No athlete should be subject to such treatment,” they said in the statement. “We condemn the attacks and those who engage, support or instigate them. We commend Jordan for conducting herself with integrity both on and off the competition floor, and we continue to stand by and support her.”

Chiles posted emojis of four broken hearts on her Instagram on Saturday and said she’d be off from social media to processes this stunning turn of events.

[From NBC News]

This is absolute bullsh-t. WTF is a 60-second rule for challenging the score? Why does that rule exist? That’s barely enough time to process the judges’ screw-up (weird how they underestimated the difficulty of the Black gymnast’s score) and walk over to appeal. The fact that the screw-up and appeal happened in 64 seconds should let everyone know that it was the judges’ f–kup. As for returning the medal… nope. Jordan should keep it. She earned it. They can say it’s a technicality but she earned the score which got her to third place. The IOC should issue another bronze medal to the salty, sore-loser Romanian. That’s another thing – is Ana Bărbosu not embarrassed to “win” a medal this way? On this kind of ridiculous technicality in which a Black woman is being punished for the judges’ mistake? Update: I understand the complaints about referring to Barbosu as a sore loser and maybe that is unfair, but the Romanian team’s appeal actually does seem to be complete bullsh-t and it absolutely smacks of sore-loserism and racism to me.

Also: If Americans are going to do one thing, it’s be a litigious Karen. US Gymnastics has filed an appeal and they have receipts! Apparently, they did get to the judges in under a minute. This whole thing is so strange.

USA Gymnastics has submitted additional evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. pic.twitter.com/GOKymbAtcq

— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) August 11, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.