Second Gold for Allman. Triathletes Take Silver.

In a packed Olympic Stadium this evening, Valarie Allman brought the crowd to its feet with a majestic display of dominance in the women’s discus competition. Allman came into the competition as the defending champion, though her two subsequent world championships appearances had seen her take bronze (2022) and silver medals (2023).

“The biggest thing that I wanted to change was to come into this one with the mindset of really going for it,” she explained. “I am proud of my [world championships performances], but I fell short of that top spot on the podium. I know that, if that’s the goal, you have to be fearless about really pushing yourself.”

Once the competition got underway, “fearless” was only one adjective that could be applied. “Dominant.” “Superlative.” “Peerless.” Make up your own. They will all work. Suffice it to say that Allman took the field to school and then ate their lunch – if that’s not too ungracious.

But, before we get to that, let’s start at the beginning. It’s a very good place to start (according to Julie Andrews).

For NYAC members, this morning’s focus was irrevocably drawn to the mixed triathlon relay. In this event, each individual in each four-person team completes a swim/bike/run course before handing off to the next team member. In Paris, the order was male-female-male-female, a reversal of how it had been in Tokyo where, notably, the US team, including Taylor Knibb and Morgan Pearson, had won silver medals. At the conclusion of this morning’s race, Pearson, who handled third leg duties, contemplated what it had all meant. “A lot of people watch the Olympics and know nothing about triathlon; but this is our life. I can speak for all four of us. We pour everything into this. We all want to be the best. It’s 24/7, 365. Unleashing that dedication over our lifetime, or the past three years, however you want to measure that – it’s really important for us. I wanted to empty the tank. We all did.”

And they did precisely that, they being Club members Seth Rider, Taylor Spivey, Pearson and Knibb who, at the conclusion of an enthralling and thrilling race, secured the silver medals, a half stride behind the victorious Germany team and a literal hair’s breadth ahead of Great Britain.

“We figured if we all executed a nice race, we would be in contention for a medal,” continued Pearson, “There was no expectation, outside of us all giving 100%.”

There could be no debating that, as the fantastic foursome produced a race performance for the ages. If a star of the team had to be picked – though there were certainly four – the supernova had to be Knibb, who, having suffered through nightmare outings in the cycling time trial and individual triathlon, today gave a proper showing of the caliber of athlete that she is.

Inevitably, questions remained until the last minute about whether the event would even be held. Swimming practice was suspended yesterday when pollution in the Seine was found to be above acceptable levels. The Belgium team had to withdraw from the race when one of its athletes, Claire Michel, became ill from exposure to E. coli. As dawn broke, however, conditions were deemed to be acceptable and the race went ahead as scheduled at 8am.

US aspirations in Paris were of the same order, or higher, than they had been in Tokyo, though the dramatis personae lined up against them was as formidable as could be imagined. The British team included Paris individual champion Alex Yee, Georgia Taylor-Brown and Beth Potter, three of the most intimidating triathletes on the planet. While France had Cassandre Beaugrand and Emma Lombardi, first and fourth in the women’s individual race here, Germany, Norway, Spain and Portugal were among several more who could be on the podium. If you were betting, though, the safest money might have been on…well, there was no safe money. Great Britain might have been a marginal favorite; but, really, no way to tell.

Spain’s Alberto Gonzalez was first out of the (murky looking) Seine after the 300m swim. But no time to ponder sanitation; Miguel Hidalgo (BRA) was hard on his heels, along with Tim Hellwig (GER) and the USA’s/NYAC’s Seth Rider. (The whole US team was NYAC members). Yee, notably, was eighth, 10 seconds off the pace. Into the 7K bike stage – in which contenders Pierre LeCorre (FRA) and Hayden Wilde (NZL) crashed, essentially ending their medal hopes – Gonzalez kept pushing, only to be reeled in by the pack close to half way and swallowed whole. A superb runner, it was almost inevitable that Yee would take control on the 1.8 mile run, which he did, handing over to Tokyo individual silver medalist Georgia Taylor-Brown with a three-second advantage on Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Rider, chasing hard, was in 10th, 16 seconds in arrears.

Although Taylor-Brown did a superb job at the front of the field, widening her margin to seven seconds as she came out of the water, the USA’s Taylor Spivey was comparably impressive, bringing the USA up to fifth, 13 seconds down. During the bike segment, that was to change still more as Spivey produced a superb leg to pull back yet another place, moving into fifth by the second transition. The run produced the real fireworks. Germany’s Lisa Tertsch stormed around the two-lap course, reeling in the leading Briton with the exchange zone in sight on Pont Alexandre III. Barreling into the zone, Tertsch handed off to Lasse Luehrs, a member of the team that won last month’s World Triathlon Mixed Relay Championship title. Britain was still close at hand in second, with Switzerland and the US 13 seconds down.

Next up for the US was Morgan Pearson. He produced a sterling swim, but admitted to working hard against the Seine’s challenging currents.

“The Seine is crazy,” he said. “Just the current and everything. That’s going to be the most memorable thing for me. We generally don’t swim in rivers. And if we do, it’s usually not flowing at a meter per second, or whatever it was. It’s a different variable.”

Coming out of the water, Great Britain’s Samuel Dickinson held a five-second advantage on Germany, with Switzerland six seconds down, Italy 15, Portugal 19 and the USA 23. For the next two stages, things remained largely as they were. Great Britain held the lead, but with Germany chasing hard and the forces amassing behind them. At the third and final exchange, Great Britain held the lead, five seconds up on Germany, with Portugal third and the US and Italy side by side, 21 seconds down on the leader.

Now it was all down to Knibb. To say that she had endured a testing Olympics is to understate the case. Having accomplished a remarkable double by qualifying for the US team in both the cycling time trial and the triathlon, the NYAC woman came to Paris with distinct and realistic medal aspirations. In the time trial, those hopes were mercilessly dashed when she crashed four times in the rain-slicked conditions. In the individual triathlon, an uncharacteristically poor swim similarly drowned her hopes and, again, she placed 19th. In the aftermath of those results, Knibb had stated the necessity to put them behind her and to move on. No way she did that. On the contrary, she took those results and embraced them and used them as gasoline, as fuel on the fire. And with that fire, she lit the fuse.

Great Britain’s anchor – maybe not the best metaphor for somebody about to swim, but even so – was Beth Potter, a 2016 track Olympian turned world class triathlete. Potter was first to emerge from the Seine, seven seconds up on Germany, and 18 up on…the USA, with Knibb having ploughed through the water like that boat at the start of Hawaii Five-O. You could almost hear the theme music, it was that good. Next up was the cycling leg. Yes, the sport in which Knibb was also an Olympian, and thereby one of the best in the world.

She attacked this segment with that knowledge, that she was the best in the field, and with a ferocity to erase the memories of her outing the previous week. First she reeled in Germany’s Laura Lindemann; then, with Lindemann taking advantage of the slipstream – Olympic triathlons are draft legal – the two set about making sure that Potter was less lonely up front. That happened with just one kilometer remaining, and the three entered the transition zone almost in tandem. (Get it? After the bike? Tandem? Yes? Anybody?).

Knibb’s transition was far from fluid; but, still, she surged to the front as the run got underway, fired with the intensity of something to prove. You could see it. But Potter and Lindemann were sitting in; and Potter, remember, was an Olympic 10,000m runner. But when the fire is burning, those things don’t matter; it’s only about what you can do right here, right now. And Knibb was intent on proving that with every step.

Remarkably, with one lap of the two lap course completed, Potter was weakening, losing a meter to Knibb’s relentless pressure. That was as weak as she got, though, and around the second lap, she hung in, meaning that when they swung right into the 300m straight to the finish line, there were three women still in it, all sprinting for the three medals that were right there. In that closing battle, it was all about strength, and it was Lindemann who had it, gaining precious inches and an all-important second as the line drew nearer.

That was how it ended: Lindemann and Germany took a sensational gold; but, as Potter and Knibb fought tooth and nail just two feet behind, it was impossible to determine who, as they charged across, had taken silver and who bronze. So close was the call, that TV initially gave it to Great Britain. That was quickly corrected and the result confirmed. Germany had the gold, the USA silver, and Great Britain the bronze, a single second covering them all.

“There are no words to describe it,” commented Spivey. “I thought, at one point, we were going to be in bronze; and that’s actually what they told us when [Taylor] first crossed the line. But the boys told them to look at the photo finish again. We were lining up to go to the podium and they said, ‘You know you got silver.’ I think we are the happiest silver medalists ever.”

You can call it memorable. It was. In fact, unforgettable. A race we will be talking about when the next Games roll around, and the ones after that. That’s the mark of an epic.

So now back to Valarie Allman, who, in Stade de France this evening, set about defending the title she had won in stunning fashion in Tokyo. In the two world championships since that time – Eugene, OR in 2022 and Budapest, Hungary in 2023 – Allman had won bronze and silver, a step or two down from where she wanted to be; but, this season, she had been dominant, indicating that things were falling into place at just the right time.

Her goal was evident and she made no secret of it. Even so, the defending champ’s first effort was a foul, the only one of the round, leaving arch-rival, Bin Feng (CHN), the 2022 world champion, with a 66.33m/217-7 leading mark. That simply wasn’t acceptable, and Allman set about making that known. Stepping into the circle for the second time, she unleashed a statement of intent that landed more than two meters ahead of the field, coming back to earth at 68.74m/225-6. It was a “Don’t get any ideas. I’m keeping my title” moment.

Allman’s third was not much worse, a 68.06m/223-3 that was still more than half a meter farther than anybody else had reached. At this stage, Feng held the silver medal position at 67.51m/221-6, with Sandra Elkasevic from Croatia, the Olympic champ from 2012 and 2016, third, at exactly the same distance, a season’s best. (Elkasevic was positioned third because Feng had a better second-best throw).

In round four, Feng showed that this bout was far from over, reaching her best in the series, so far, a 67.13/220-3 effort that consolidated her silver medal position. But if Feng thought she was inching close, Allman gave her something else to think about. Throwing last in round four, the American launched one that flirted with the stadium roof and eventually came to land at 69.50/228-0, almost 2.5 meters up on the field. That’s big. Allman fouled her fifth, as did Elkasevic, while Feng improved to 67.25m/220-7. Positions unchanged.

If anybody had hopes of taking Allman down, they had one chance to do it. They tried, and they didn’t. Elkasevic fouled and Feng reached 65.98m/216-5. Allman, just because she could, and knowing that the gold was hers, launched another rocket, this one landing at 69.21m/227-0. Put it this way: the new and still Olympic champion had four legal throws in the competition; any one of them would have taken the crown.

“I don’t know how to put into words what I’m feeling,” Allman commented. “I feel so grateful for how tonight played out. I didn’t let myself believe that I was Olympic champion until it was all done. It’s just so special. Pressure is becoming my friend. I think it’s one of those things I’ve learned can bring out the best in you, if you embrace it. I felt that so much in my prelim; and then tonight, on my first throw, I think I felt the weight of, ‘Holy crap, this is the Olympics.’ It took me a minute to find my groove, but once my coach got me in a better headspace, we just took it throw by throw. It felt like things were clicking. I’m so grateful to embrace that and to be part of such a historic night.”

Action in the men’s water polo tournament is continuing and getting heated. This afternoon the US team, still in group play, faced a powerful Croatia team in a battle to determine third place in Group A. Team USA prevailed 14-11 in a thrilling and close fought game, giving them the nod for third place, despite being level on overall points.

The US took control of the match in the first quarter, leading 5-2 into the first intermission. In the second quarter, Max Irving found the net twice as the US scored another five to Croatia’s three, leaving the half time score at 10-5. Croatia built some momentum in the second half, closing to within four goals at the end of the third quarter (11-7) and to within three by the final buzzer (14-11); but three goals might have been 23. The US prevailed, advancing to the quarter-finals where, on Wednesday (August 7th), they will face Australia. For the record, NYAC members, Max Irving and Hannes Daube, each scored three goals on four attempts to lead the Americans.

The other NYAC action today was in the wrestling arena, the first day of Olympic competition, where Adam Coon (130kg GR), in his first bout, came up against Amin Mirzazadeh from Iran. If you’re not a follower of Olympic wrestling, chances are you are not familiar with Amin Mirzazadeh. On the other hand, if Olympic wrestling is your bag, so to speak, you will have realized that this draw was not especially good news for our man. Mirzazadeh has many listings on his resumé; for the sake of expedience, let’s just leave it that he’s the reigning world champion.

That is not to say that Coon was intimidated or did not fight like the champ that he is; on the contrary. But for Coon to have prevailed would have been an upset of tsunami proportions; and, today was not the day for that. At the end of a torrid bout, the score stood at 3-1, bringing Coon’s Parisian experience to an end.

Today was a big day for the NYAC and its members; tomorrow will be more of the same. Picture this:

• Wrestler Sarah Hildebrandt begins her quest for a second Olympic medal.
• Long jumper, Tara Davis-Woodhall, a medal favorite, undertakes her qualifying rounds.
• DeAnna Price goes after the hammer throw gold medal.
• The US women’s water polo team faces Hungary in the quarter-finals.
• Omari Jones, already a boxing medalist, fights in the semi-finals in order to determine what color medal he will receive.

If you were hoping for a quiet day in the Olympic schedule, tomorrow is not for you. On the other hand, if you were hoping for more action, more medals, more thrills and more entertainment, tomorrow will be a day for you to embrace like a long lost friend. Or a kitten. Or a newborn baby. You get the idea.