Our ladies are in action today......Good luck to them.
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U.S.A. Archery in action today.
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Preview
The U.S. Olympic Archery Team is gearing up for strong performances in Rio. With a full men’s team qualified and one woman’s slot, U.S. archers are aiming to claim podium spots in both individual and team competition. Historically, the U.S. has turned in strong performances in team events, finishing with the men’s silver medal at the London 2012 Games. Entering the 2016 Games ranked second in the world (behind Korea), the U.S. men hope to improve on their 2012 finish and claim the team gold medal for the first time since 1996.
Leading the U.S. men are veterans Brady Ellison, who is making his third Olympic appearance, and Jake Kaminski, who returns for his second Olympic Games. Both will have a shot at improving on their medal haul from London. Earlier this summer, Ellison made history by earning an unprecedented seventh consecutive invitation to the Archery World Cup Final – a strong sign of his podium potential heading into Rio.
Set to join Ellison at the Archery World Cup Final is newcomer Zach Garrett, who will make his Olympic debut along with Mackenzie Brown, who is the lone American female representing Team USA in archery. Brown, Ellison and Garrett each open Olympic competition with top-five world rankings.
The archery competition will be held at the Sambódromo (Maracanã Zone), and include both a team and individual competition. The sport has a simple, yet far from easy, objective: to hit the bull’s eye on a target from a distance of 70 meters. A fascinating test of nerve and accuracy, archery requires strong mental focus and precision. The first day of competition on Aug. 6 is an individual ranking round in which each archer shoots 72 arrows. The next day features the team competition, followed by individual medal events on day three.
Athletes To Watch
Mackenzie Brown
Brown made a big splash on the international scene in 2015. After just missing qualifying for the world championship team, she quickly hit a turning point and collected her first world cup title and world cup team gold medal, while also earning an invitation to the archery world cup final and clinching a bronze medal at the Olympic test event in Rio. Currently ranked fourth in the world, Brown is a strong contender for the Olympic podium.
Brady Ellison
Ellison has been chasing Olympic gold since he made his Olympic debut at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. After finishing the London 2012 Games with a silver medal in team competition, Ellison is back and hungry for more. Quoted as hoping to be the best archer that has ever lived, he recently became the world’s only six-time Archery World Cup finalist and will be a favorite to win gold in Rio. He is a three-time world champion (one outdoor, two indoor) and three-time Pan American champion. Additionally, he is the first recurve archer in history to win three World Cup Final titles (2011-12-14), and holds the record for the longest continuous period as the world No. 1 in men’s recurve, from August 2011-April 2013.
Zach Garrett
Possibly one of the greatest minds in archery today, Garrett competes with equipment by his own design and was a standout for Team USA throughout the 2015 season. In his first run at the Olympic Games, he aided the U.S. men to the silver medal at the 2015 Pan American Games, helped the team qualify its Olympic quota spot at the 2015 World Archery Championships, and earned the Longines Prize for Precision as the most precise archer at the world cup in Wroclaw, Poland.
Jake Kaminski
Kaminski has the motto “I AM” tattooed prominently on his bow and lives by those words. He began archery as a young teenager and quickly switched from compound to recurve with an eye toward making the Olympic Team. After helping the U.S. men to the team silver medal in 2012, he will look to add to his Olympic medal haul in Rio.
Storylines
Preview
The U.S. Olympic Archery Team is gearing up for strong performances in Rio. With a full men’s team qualified and one woman’s slot, U.S. archers are aiming to claim podium spots in both individual and team competition. Historically, the U.S. has turned in strong performances in team events, finishing with the men’s silver medal at the London 2012 Games. Entering the 2016 Games ranked second in the world (behind Korea), the U.S. men hope to improve on their 2012 finish and claim the team gold medal for the first time since 1996.
Leading the U.S. men are veterans Brady Ellison, who is making his third Olympic appearance, and Jake Kaminski, who returns for his second Olympic Games. Both will have a shot at improving on their medal haul from London. Earlier this summer, Ellison made history by earning an unprecedented seventh consecutive invitation to the Archery World Cup Final – a strong sign of his podium potential heading into Rio.
Set to join Ellison at the Archery World Cup Final is newcomer Zach Garrett, who will make his Olympic debut along with Mackenzie Brown, who is the lone American female representing Team USA in archery. Brown, Ellison and Garrett each open Olympic competition with top-five world rankings.
The archery competition will be held at the Sambódromo (Maracanã Zone), and include both a team and individual competition. The sport has a simple, yet far from easy, objective: to hit the bull’s eye on a target from a distance of 70 meters. A fascinating test of nerve and accuracy, archery requires strong mental focus and precision. The first day of competition on Aug. 6 is an individual ranking round in which each archer shoots 72 arrows. The next day features the team competition, followed by individual medal events on day three.
Athletes To Watch
Mackenzie Brown
Brown made a big splash on the international scene in 2015. After just missing qualifying for the world championship team, she quickly hit a turning point and collected her first world cup title and world cup team gold medal, while also earning an invitation to the archery world cup final and clinching a bronze medal at the Olympic test event in Rio. Currently ranked fourth in the world, Brown is a strong contender for the Olympic podium.
Brady Ellison
Ellison has been chasing Olympic gold since he made his Olympic debut at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. After finishing the London 2012 Games with a silver medal in team competition, Ellison is back and hungry for more. Quoted as hoping to be the best archer that has ever lived, he recently became the world’s only six-time Archery World Cup finalist and will be a favorite to win gold in Rio. He is a three-time world champion (one outdoor, two indoor) and three-time Pan American champion. Additionally, he is the first recurve archer in history to win three World Cup Final titles (2011-12-14), and holds the record for the longest continuous period as the world No. 1 in men’s recurve, from August 2011-April 2013.
Zach Garrett
Possibly one of the greatest minds in archery today, Garrett competes with equipment by his own design and was a standout for Team USA throughout the 2015 season. In his first run at the Olympic Games, he aided the U.S. men to the silver medal at the 2015 Pan American Games, helped the team qualify its Olympic quota spot at the 2015 World Archery Championships, and earned the Longines Prize for Precision as the most precise archer at the world cup in Wroclaw, Poland.
Jake Kaminski
Kaminski has the motto “I AM” tattooed prominently on his bow and lives by those words. He began archery as a young teenager and quickly switched from compound to recurve with an eye toward making the Olympic Team. After helping the U.S. men to the team silver medal in 2012, he will look to add to his Olympic medal haul in Rio.
Storylines
- Mackenzie Brown is all about friends, family, faith and archery. The Texas native grew up shooting archery and began taking the sport seriously in middle school. Now, at just 20 years old, she is poised to break the Korean stronghold on the women’s Olympic archery podium after scoring the bronze medal at the Rio Olympic test event and working her way into the top-five international rankings.
- Zach Garrett began shooting archery at age 4 when his grandfather made him a bow and arrow out of sticks. He fell in love with the sport and his single mother supported his growing interest by buying him equipment from garage sales and driving him three hours to meet with the closest archery coach available. He finally broke onto the international scene in his first year competing on the world stage in 2015. In the short time since making his debut, he climbed to a top-five world ranking. A self-made archer, he is an inspiration to many young archers across the nation who dream of making the Olympic stage.
- Brady Ellison recently married Slovenia’s top compound archer, Toja Ellison (nee Černe). The two met on the Archery World Cup circuit and began dating at international events. Ellison proposed after winning the 2016 Indoor Archery World Cup Final in Las Vegas and the two were married in a private ceremony last spring. Quickly recognized as an archery power couple, Ellison is looking stronger than ever in his support system as he returns to the Games with his family in tow.
Ginny Thrasher brings home the FIRST MEDAL for the U.S.A.
Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher is the first U.S. Olympian to medal in Rio, coming from nowhere to win gold on Saturday morning.
A Virginia native and West Virginia student, the 19-year-old Thrasher was in bronze position after the first three shots, and moved into second after six. She moved into first after 11 shots.
Fellow American shooter Sarah Scherer made the final, but was eliminated after finishing eighth.
The eight-woman field for the 10m air rifle final was Elaheh Ahmadi (Iran), Li Du (China), Barbara Engleder (Germany), Daria Vdovina (Russia), Snjezana Pejcic (Croatia), Yi Siling (China), and Thrasher and Scherer.
China’s Du set an Olympic record in qualification, shooting a 420.7 to pace the field.
Americans Scherer (416.8) and Thrasher (416.3) qualified for the final with the fifth- and sixth-best scores, respectively.
Virginia “Ginny” Thrasher is the first U.S. Olympian to medal in Rio, coming from nowhere to win gold on Saturday morning.
A Virginia native and West Virginia student, the 19-year-old Thrasher was in bronze position after the first three shots, and moved into second after six. She moved into first after 11 shots.
Fellow American shooter Sarah Scherer made the final, but was eliminated after finishing eighth.
The eight-woman field for the 10m air rifle final was Elaheh Ahmadi (Iran), Li Du (China), Barbara Engleder (Germany), Daria Vdovina (Russia), Snjezana Pejcic (Croatia), Yi Siling (China), and Thrasher and Scherer.
China’s Du set an Olympic record in qualification, shooting a 420.7 to pace the field.
Americans Scherer (416.8) and Thrasher (416.3) qualified for the final with the fifth- and sixth-best scores, respectively.
Result of the first ever women's Rugby Sevens match at the Olympics......France 24.....Spain 7
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USA Swimming has announced the four women who will swim the preliminary heats of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay this morning: Amanda Weir, Lea Neal, Allison Schmitt and Katie Ledecky. The inclusion of Ledecky, who finished seventh in the 100-meter freestyle at Olympic Trials last month, sets her up to potentially match Missy Franklin's female record of five medals won at a single Olympics.
Ginny Thrasher on the podium showing off her Gold medal.
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Madison Keys looked comfortable mostly in her Olympics first-round 6-3, 6-3 win against Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, but the match took her 1 hour 21 minutes to see out.
Carlos Balderas wins his opening bout against Berik Abdrakhmanov by UD. 29-28 three times.
1:00 PM West Coast 4:00 PM East
Whatever you feel or say about Women's Soccer this is gonna be a Hell of a Game. This here is among the best matchups of The Tournament, France a competent talented squad with REVENGE as USA beat them in the same game, opening match (pretty much) of 2012 Olympics for both teams...
...France jumped out 2-0 within just 15 minutes of the start to that game, USA came roaring back to shut them down and put up 4 Goals to win 4-2.
Last 2 Matchups between these 2 Squads have gone 2-0 USA and 2-0, a France Win but those games nowhere even close to the Pressure & Importance of this game,
these squads here are STACKED to the Max, including the Brilliant Young Defender Morgan Brian.
https://www.instagram.com/moebrian/?hl=en
https://twitter.com/moeebrian
Whatever you feel or say about Women's Soccer this is gonna be a Hell of a Game. This here is among the best matchups of The Tournament, France a competent talented squad with REVENGE as USA beat them in the same game, opening match (pretty much) of 2012 Olympics for both teams...
...France jumped out 2-0 within just 15 minutes of the start to that game, USA came roaring back to shut them down and put up 4 Goals to win 4-2.
Last 2 Matchups between these 2 Squads have gone 2-0 USA and 2-0, a France Win but those games nowhere even close to the Pressure & Importance of this game,
these squads here are STACKED to the Max, including the Brilliant Young Defender Morgan Brian.
https://www.instagram.com/moebrian/?hl=en
https://twitter.com/moeebrian
American swimmers Chase Kalisz (4:08.12 ) and Jay Litherland (4:11.11) both qualify for tonight's final in the men's 400-meter individual medley. Kalsisz's time was the fastest this year in the event and a personal best for Kalisz by more than a second. He will be the top seed tonight. Litherland will be seeded fourth.
That feeling when you win your first Olympic heat!.....Congrats Kelsi!
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Hope Solo keeps shining despite being constant lightning rod.
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil -- If locals hoped to get under Hope Solo's skin by heckling the goalkeeper during much of the United States' Olympic opener against New Zealand, they chose the wrong material.
The chants of "Zika" that by the end of the game rang out loudly each time Solo kicked the ball were by most reckonings payback for what some fans perceived as the player maligning their country in social media posts showcasing the veritable arsenal of mosquito repellant that she brought to Brazil. But Solo, who previously apologized for any offense given, shrugged off the jeers.
The fans got some entertainment. She got yet another clean sheet.
If they really wanted to irk her, they should have questioned her workload.
Few matters predictably elicit an icy response from Solo like a question, however well-intentioned, that she interprets as an implication that low save totals, or even scarce touches in some games, equals a light workload. She bristled at such a query after her 100th international shutout a month ago against South Africa, and after first diplomatically defusing the subject of the heckling Wednesday night, she again took umbrage at a familiar line of questioning.
"A lot of my shutouts have been very intense games, with a lot of shots on goal, so please don't take away from that," Solo said. "But I will say shots on goal, it's not the only stat that a goalkeeper should be judged by. There's crosses, there's the kicking game, there's organizing the defense, there's positioning.
"I've said it my entire career, that I hate stats. ... It really doesn't tell the whole story."
The story of that career will presumably reach its 200th chapter when the United States plays France on Saturday (4 p.m. ET), and Solo should become the first goalkeeper to reach 200 appearances. It is a game of unusual stakes so early in the tournament. The winner, if there is one, becomes the prohibitive favorite to win Group G and face a third-place team in a quarterfinal. The team that finishes second in the group will play a quarterfinal against the winner of Group F, which without writing off Canada, could well be world No. 2 Germany.
France is the rare opponent that cedes little if anything to the United States either physically or technically. It keeps putting itself on the brink of something special in major tournaments -- the semifinals in the 2011 World Cup and 2012 Olympics and a quarterfinal exit in the 2015 World Cup in which it arguably outplayed Germany but yielded in a penalty shootout.
The stumbling point has been an inability to turn laudable possession into corresponding goals.
And the best way to prolong that streak is to stop the chances before they happen.
"She organizes everything," co-captain Becky Sauerbrunn said of Solo's effect on the U.S. defense. "Any time I'm out of step, she'll let me know and I'll have to correct it, or I'm going to hear it again and again and again. She demands perfection, and she'll let us know when it's not perfect. I think the sheer amount of shutouts she's gotten, it's a testament to her and how she can organize us. It's just wonderful to play with someone behind there that demands that from the people in front of her. And I respect the hell out of her."
An outside back more often out of earshot, especially in front of the kind of large and noisy crowds that flocked to the World Cup a year ago, Meghan Klingenberg nonetheless echoed Sauerbrunn's sentiments on organizational skills.
She also noted the second part of the résumé.
"She makes big saves when we need her to," Klingenberg said. "When [stuff] hits the fan and we break down at the end, she makes big saves."
Go back and watch some of the goalkeeping gaffes in the opening round of the men's and women's competition here to appreciate the value of that.
The nature of the U.S. team's stay in Brazil could be in the hands of someone whose visit was once a question mark.
In February, Solo told Sports Illustrated that if the Olympics were at hand, she wouldn't go because of concerns about the Zika virus. In explaining the evolution of that thought process, she said this week that she and husband Jerramy Stevens consulted three infectious disease doctors to educate themselves on the risks involved in traveling to the country most associated with the virus (although it has now spread as far as the mainland United States, with a recent outbreak in Miami determined to have originated there).
"We got to the point where we asked enough questions -- we prepared ourselves as best as possible," Solo said. "And we got to a level of being as comfortable as we possibly can be. I'm here now. I am very happy and proud to be here. As I said, we haven't been to Rio yet; I have no idea what to expect in Rio. But it has been beautiful here. It's been beautiful."
She went on to suggest the U.S. media was culpable for scaremongering and being unduly harsh on the Brazilian people in the Olympic buildup. It is never without some merit to point out the modern media's penchant for hyperbole, so point taken. At the same time, a prominent athlete going public with the idea that she wouldn't, based on the evidence she had at the time, go to the Olympics is the kind of thing that is going to generate coverage and feed the hyperbole.
She can pass a couple of quarters our way, but she can't pass the whole buck.
That quite possibly the best keeper who ever played women's soccer reaches an unequaled milestone in this manner is perfectly in keeping with the whole story of her career. It could have come in a forgotten friendly. Instead it will come in a defining game of these Olympics, against an opponent that might well be one goal away from a floodgate of championships opening.
And it comes against the backdrop of headlines that whether overblown, as in the heckling here or her comments after being replaced in the 2007 World Cup, or legitimate, as in the domestic violence case that preceded last year's World Cup, find her -- or vice versa -- with more regularity than shots.
It isn't as simple as counting saves. There is always so much more to the story of a truly complex figure.
"I think there is a lot of negativity out there sometimes," Solo said, prophetically, before the opener. "So I feel like I'm always just trying to push forward and take another step towards a highlight in my career. I think that's just the way I handle things. I just keep looking for the next feather in my cap, so to speak. But more or less, I just want to win another tournament.
"I think going along with trying to win this Olympics, I will be reaching my 200th cap and who knows what else. The desire to win has allowed me to reach these other accomplishments."
This much is clear.
Saturday is the kind of game her team wouldn't want to play without Solo in goal.
Then again, there are a lot of those games.
The Boys are ready for action.
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Ana Ivanovic is out with Carla Suarez Navarro really winning over the Rio Centre Court crowd in a hard-fought 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory.
