Fiji’s First Gold: Rugby Sevens Debut in Rio

Rugby Sevens can be fast and furious. But the first seven minutes of the Rugby Sevens final at the 2016 Rio Olympics was much faster and more furious than Team GB could have ever have wanted.

In 55 seconds, Fiji’s scored its first try. Two and a half minutes later, Fiji got its second, and suddenly were up 12-0. A few minutes later, they’re up 17-0. They would race to a 27-0 lead at the end of the 10-minute first half, and go on to finish off Great Britain 43-7, making the first Rugby Sevens debut at the Olympics a memorable one.

For people like me, rugby is an unknown. Born in New York City, my sports mindshare was filled to capacity with MLB baseball, NFL football, NBA basketball and NHL hockey. The New York area alone has 10 professional sports teams in those four sports domains.

With so much happening in sports in the Big Apple, I personally have little bandwidth for college sports, let alone soccer, rugby, or cricket. But every four years at the Olympics, I get to increase my sports acumen and enjoy excellence at the highest levels in other sporting disciplines. I also learned that Fiji, despite the fact that the island nation had never won a medal in the Olympics, was expected to win gold at Rio.

Sure, Fiji is a very strong team. They have won the Hong Kong Sevens international tournament more times than another country since its inception in 1976 – twelve times – and were the reigning World Rugby Seven Series champions. And yet, Fijians and the Fiji team understood that the Olympics put them under the microscope of the entire world, observed by both super fan and casual fan alike.

As quoted in this South China Morning Post article, the British coach of the Fiji Rugby Sevens team, Ben Ryan, has seen the passion Fiji citizens have for their rugby. “I can have an hour drive to work and see 50 villages all playing rugby, it’s the passion, it’s the national sport, the islands won’t be having parties in sporadic parts of the country, it will be all parts of the country in every village across 350 islands.”

But like an idea whose time has come, Fiji fulfilled the dreams of a nation. “It’s history in the making, first gold medal in the Olympics and we’re all proud to be Fijians,” said Fiji prime minister, Frank Bainimarama. “They’re all celebrating [in Fiji] – in fact they’ve been celebrating for the last three days.”

In the same article, Fiji captain, Osea Lolinisau, was trying to come to grips with reality. “It’s a massive achievement to get a first medal for your country – I told the boys on the podium, ‘Is this really happening, are we really gold medal winners? “We’ll probably wake up tomorrow, it will dawn on us – this achievement will be part of our history back home.”

Watch here for the match.

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Ode to Joy: Some of the Most Exuberant Displays of Happiness at the Rio Olympics

Far left, China’s Fu Yuanhui, bronze medalist in the 100-meter backstroke

When you think of Brazil, you think of samba, you think of Carnivàle, you think of joy. And the Rio Olympics had its share of joyful moments.

Here are a few of my favorite examples:

Fu Yuanhui: The Chinese may have had an off-par Olympics in terms of medal haul, at least to them, but Chinese swimmer, Fu Yuanhui, became an overnight sensation. While the Chinese expect gold from every one of their athletes, the Chinese and the rest of the world fell in love with the 20-year-old bronze medalist in the 100-meter backstroke. There were few more expressive, more unfiltered, more joyful than the young woman from Hangzhou. Watch the clip for a few examples of why Fu Yuanhui lit up the Twitterverse with delight.

Justin Rose: The golfer on Team GB was outspoken in his criticism of other professional golfers foregoing the Olympic re-boot of golf after over a century. Justin Rose won gold in men’s golf, stating “It’s right up there with anything I’ve achieved in the game.” Rose won on skill and determination. But on the 189-yard par-3 fourth hole in the first round of the tournament, Rose walked into a bit of luck with his 7-iron, nailing the first ever Olympic hole in one. Watch the video to see Rose’s pleasant surprise.

David Katoatau: If you have never heard of the Republic of Kiribati, you may be excused. This nation of 33 atolls and reef islands spread out over 3.5 million square kilometers lies on the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. On one of those islands resides David Katoatau, who came in 15th at the 2008 Beijing Games in the 85kg weight class, and 17th at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the 94kg weight class. At the Rio Olympics, Katoatau managed only 14th in the 105kg weight class, but came in first in the Olympic dance competition. In his last failed attempt in Rio, Katoatau fell over, rolled on his back, flipped himself up, hugged the weights, and started the most joyful funky dance you’d ever see from a weightlifter.

Monica Puig: If you weren’t following tennis in the Olympics closely and tuned on the television for the women’s finals, you would be wondering, Who is Monica Puig? Even casual fans of tennis would likely have recognized Australian Open champion, Angelique Kerber, but you could be excused if you didn’t know the unseeded Puig.

However, every time Puig won, her home country of Puerto Rico began to rumble and roar. In an economic mess, Puerto Ricans have had little to cheer about in recent months. But as Puig continued her march to the medal round, an entire country stopped to watch. With monumental expectations on her shoulders, Puig did the unthinkable – she upset Kerber. Her medal was gold, her tears were of joy.

Monica Puig's tears of joy — Monica Puig cries tears of joy.

Brazil’s Soccer Team: When Neymar sent the winning penalty kick at the finals of the Olympic soccer championships, not only did Neymar collapse in tears of joy, the entire country of Brazil exploded in celebration.

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Brazil’s Golden Goalkeeper Weverton: On the Olympic Squad for Luck as Much as Skill

Weverton celebrates with Neymar — Brazilian goaltender Weverton rushes to celebrate with teammate Neymar.

Neymar knocked in the winning goal, securing Brazil’s first Olympic gold medal in its religion of soccer. But it was Weverton the goalie who arguably won the match for the Seleção, with his lunge to the left and save of Germany’s Nils Petersen’s penalty kick in the last moments of the Olympic finals.

Surprisingly, Weverton wasn’t even on the team five days prior to the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics. How did he get on the team, and find himself in the most intense moment, inside the pressure cooker of Maracanã Stadium, during Brazil’s most important sporting event of their Olympic Games?

To be blunt, Weverton was lucky. Three times, circumstances conspired to change his fate dramatically.

One of the world’s most prestigious football tournaments, the Copa América, is held in South America pitting the best of Latin America, with nations from North America and Asia. Unfortunately, Brazil had been going through a funk, and the team’s performance at Copa América in June was poor – so poor that team manager Dunga got the sack, a little less than 2 months before the start of the Rio Olympics. In a state of uncertainty and flux, Rogério Micale was appointed coach of the Brazilian squad that would assemble for the Olympics. While Dunga did not appear to consider Weverton for his Olympic squad, apparently Micale did.

The second stroke of luck was an injury. Micale had Fernando Prass as his starting goalkeeper. Prass, at the age of 37, was having a fantastic year leading his team, Palmeiras, to the top of the Brazilian first division. On July 25, 11 days before the start of the Rio Olympics, Prass injured his right elbow. He was expected to make it back to the pitch on August 1, but his injury didn’t get better fast enough to satisfy Micale.

The third circumstance that bent the heavens in Weverton’s direction was distance. Micale’s first alternative to Prass was Diego Alves, the goalkeeper for Spanish club Valencia CF. But Alves was not in Brazil, and with precious few days left before the start of the Summer Games, Micale needed someone in Brazil to begin preparations right away. That’s when he decided to place a phone call to the captain and goalkeeper for Atlético Paranaense, a professional football club in Curitiba, Brazil. His name was Weverton, and he was getting off the plane returning from this team’s loss to Sport Recife the night before.

Weverton makes the save — Weverton stops Germany’s penalty kick.

That phone call would drastically change his life. Coach Micale wanted Weverton, who at the age of 28 had never been selected for the national team, to join the Brazilian national team for the Olympics. Not only that, with the start of the Olympics only five days away, Micale wanted Weverton minding the nets as the starter.

How would Weverton Pereira da Silva do? Through the preliminary games, the knockout quarterfinals and semifinals – through five consecutive Olympic matches, Brazil and the newfound goalie did not give up a single goal. It took nearly 60 minutes into Brazil’s sixth match before Weverton gave up a score, a strike hit so sharply by Maximilian Meyer of Germany that no goalie would have had a chance. In other words, Weverton had already paid back the faith Micale had invested in Weverton. But it was at the very end of the finals, on that fateful kick by Petersen, when Micale’s investment paid dividends.

Weverton, the accidental Olympian, saved the day, the match and quite possibly, the Olympics for Brazil.

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31 Athletes Who Had Been Suspended for Doping Won Medals in Rio

Outspoken American swimmer Lilly King said that anyone who had been caught doping in the past should not be at the Rio Olympics. As it turned out, according to this New York Times report, 120 Olympians had been caught and had served suspensions. Since there were 11,000 athletes in Rio, that’s a ratio of one of every one hundred.

As the article went on to state, of those 120, 31 athletes bagged a total of 34 medals at the Rio Olympics. With so much attention on the 270+ Russian athletes ruled eligible, despite a WADA report recommending the ban of all Russian athletes, one might expect to see the list of dopers peppered with Russians. But that wasn’t the case.

31 Athletes Suspended and Awarded Medals_NYT — From the New York Times. Click on image to go to article.

Those 31 athletes came from 21 different countries. Russia had only one, Lilly King’s foil, Yulia Efimova, who finished second to King in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke finals. There were countries who had three each: Germany, Jamaica, Kazakhstan and the United States. For the United States and Jamaica, the athletes caught were primarily in track, including big names like Lashawn Merritt, Justin Gatlin, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Asafa Powell and Yohan Blake. I was also surprised to learn that the famed Swiss Miss, tennis great, Martina Hingis, who won silver in women’s doubles in Rio, was also on the list.

The sport that seemed to be the most riven with doping cases, or perhaps the best at monitoring and catching dopers, was in fact track and field, in which 9 of the 31 athletes caught in the past had won 13 of the 34 medals. The next most riven/best monitored is the sport of weightlifting, of which 11 lifters won 11 medals. Seven of those weightlifters – three from Kazakhstan, and the others from Georgia, Romania, Iran and Armenia – had all completed their suspensions this year. I’m not sure whether that means they were potentially the cleanest or not, but it certainly means the cloud of suspicion hangs heavily over that sport.

Unexpectedly, I learned that the sport of equestrian has a doping problem as four horsemen (and horsewoman) had served suspensions.

Or maybe it was the horses. It’s all very complicated.

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What if All Russian Athletes Had been Banned from the Rio Olympics? Let’s Speculate

Rio Medals Table sans Russia

A little less than two weeks prior to the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics, the IOC made a fateful decision. A report from the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended that all Russian athletes be banned from international competition, including the Olympic Summer Games. The IOC, which had the final say, chose to defer judgment on eligibility for Olympic participation to the various international sports federations. While the international track and field organization, IAAF, had decided much earlier to ban the entire Russian track and field team, many other federations chose to allow the Russians to compete. In the end, 278 Russians were cleared, while 111 were ruled ineligible.

At the end of the Olympic Summer Games on August 21, Russia had tallied the fourth highest number of gold medals (19) and total medals (56), behind the USA, China and Great Britain. Russia finished ahead of Germany, France and Japan.

But what would have happened if all Russian athletes were banned from the Rio Games as WADA had recommended?

Would the medal tables have changed significantly?
Would any individual or team have won for their country a medal in a specific category for the first time?
Would any nation have won its first medal of any kind, ever?

Would the medal tables have changed significantly? The answer to the first question is no. if the Russians had to give back all of their 56 medals, around 30 nations would be getting additional medals. America could have added two medals but they were already 50 medals ahead of China. China was actually impacted the most by Russia’s presence, as they could have had as many as another 7 bronze medals without the Russians in the mix. But that would still have left them far behind the US in the overall medal race.

Italy may have felt the pain considerably. Like the Chinese, they lost out potentially on as many as 7 bronze medals in a wide variety of sporting areas. Azerbaijan potentially lost out on 5 bronze medals, if not for the Russians.

Of course, these are guestimates I’ve made based on what individuals or teams came in fourth. Complicating matters, in sports like judo or wrestling or boxing you have at least two people each tied for third and fourth. In the case of the men’s lightweight boxing tournament, there were four people who finished just below one of the bronze medalists, a Russian. Who knows who would have actually gotten the bronze without Vitaly Dunaytsev in Rio?

Would any nation have won its first medal in a specific category? The answer to the second question is yes. Dipa Karmaker is a female gymnast from India, and her score of 15.966 in the individual vault competition left her 0.15 points behind Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland. If silver medalist, Maria Paseka of Russia, had her medal revoked, Steingruber, Switzerland’s first gymnast to win a medal of any kind, would be awarded a silver medal. Her bronze medal would go to Karmaker, who is the first ever Indian to compete as a gymnast in the Olympics, and could possibly have been the first to win a gymnastics medal if the Russians were not allowed to compete.

Would any nation have won its first medal of any kind, ever? The answer to the third question is yes: two countries could have finally broken the high-performance glass ceiling with a bronze medal.

If not for Russia, Cameroon could have taken home a bronze in women’s freestyle wrestling (75kg). Annabelle Ali, Cameroon’s flag bearer in the 2012 Games, tied with Vasilisa Marzaliuk of Belarus one notch below the Russian Ekaterina Bukina.

Additionally, Mauritius could have experienced its first medal. Kennedy St Pierre was one of four heavyweight boxers to place fifth at Rio. If Evgeny Tishchenko were not in Rio, a favored boxer would have been out of the competition. Who knows who would have beaten whom? Out of 8 quarterfinalists, four get medals, so St Pierre’s chances would have increased significantly if the Russian was not in the ring. Yes, you can say that for the other competitors, but for Mauritius, it would have been party time if St Pierre brought home the bronze.

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Anatomy of a Badminton Finals: Japan’s “Taka-Matsu” Pair Inspire Japan with their Incredible Come-From-Behind Gold Medal Victory

This finals was hotly contested. The tall Danes, Christinna Pedersen and Kamilla Rytter Juhl, were facing off against the agile Japanese, Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi, for gold in badminton. The Danes were up 19-16 in game 3, and they looked to become the first non-Asians to ever win gold in women’s pairs. Could they fend off the Japanese, also looking to take their nation’s first badminton gold?

Up till 2016, the Chinese had won close to 40% of all medals awarded for badminton in the Olympic Games since the sports’ inception in 1992, sweeping gold in all categories at the 2012 London Games. Thus it was somewhat of a surprise in badminton circles that, on August 18, the 14th day of the XXXI Olympiad in Rio, the champion in women’s doubles would be from either Denmark or Japan.

The Japanese duo, popularly known as Taka-Matsu (a combination of the first parts of both athletes’ last names), have been badminton partners for 10 years, and are world #1. The Danes have been playing together for six years, and were the European champions. And these badminton pairs had already battled each other 12 times in the past, with the Taka-Matsu pair winning 7 times. More importantly, the Japanese had won the last 5 matches between them.

But that didn’t stop the Danes from winning the first game 21-18, a lengthy affair, with very long rallies. Watching badminton closely for the first time, I was amazed at the reflexes of these athletes, who were smashing the shuttle cock across the net at amazing speeds (upwards of 200 kilometers per hour).

In badminton, winning game 1 is a huge advantage as you only need to win two of three to take the match. But in game 2, the Japanese stormed to a 6-1 lead, winning easily 21-9. Game 3 would be winner take all.

The final game in the women’s double finals started breathtakingly with a long and sensational rally that gave the Danes a 1-0 lead. The Danish duo went on to take an 8-5 advantage, but the Japanese got it back to 8-8. Then 9-9. When Juhl hit it into the net, and made the score 10-9 Japan, she picked up the shuttlecock and showed it to the umpire. She was suggesting that the shuttlecock had been worn down enough to merit an exchange. The umpire said no, and Juhl continued to plead, looking frustrated. When Matsutomo went up to the umpire’s area, she extended her racquet to Juhl, essentially asking for the shuttlecock as it was Japan’s serve. Juhl did not give Matsutomo the shuttlecock, instead brusquely pushing her racquet away. Matsutomo cooly walked away, and Juhl got a warning from the umpire.

The match continued to remain even. The Japanese took the lead at 12-10, but the Danes quickly got it back to 12-12. Then the Danes won two points in a row to make it 14-12, only to see the Japanese tie it right back at 14. The contest would go on to 16-16. The championship was only 5 points away from being claimed, but which nation would take it?

The Danes made a claim. Pedersen got it to 17-16 with a cross-court winner. Juhl repeatedly defended smashes with her backhand, eventually getting it to 18-16 when Matsutomo could not match Juhl and miss hit. Then Juhl made it 19-16 with a powerful slam that Ayaka Takahashi could not handle. The Danes were only 2 points away from gold.

Misaki Matsutomo upon victory — Misaki Matsutomo celebrates the Taka-Matsu victory.

There are no five-point plays so the Japanese would need an incredible run. They’d have to get it back one point at a time. It was at this point that the diminutive and stonefaced Matsutomo took the opportunity to shine. Matsutomo showed touch with a drop shot that quickly got it to 19-17. Matsutomo smashed a cross-court winner to make it 19-18. Matsutomo, who at times dominated the forecourt, smashed the shuttlecock at the Danes once, twice, three times, four times before the battered Danes yielded the point.

Suddenly, it was all tied up at 19. Both teams were only 2 points away from golden glory. In the next point, Takahashi sent volley after volley from the back court until Pedersen misfired. Incredibly, the Taka-Matsu pair were at match point.

And finally, when Juhl hit the shuttlecock into the net, the Japanese won their fifth consecutive point, coming from behind in dramatic fashion to take the gold medal. Takahashi fell to the ground. Matsutomo beamed broadly.

“For just a moment, I thought we were going to lose,” said Takahashi in this Japan Times article. “But I watched Kaori Icho’s wrestling match on TV yesterday, and all three Japanese wrestlers came from behind to win their matches. I remembered that and I thought we had a chance to turn it around. I thought we might lose for one second, but I soon got it out of my system.”

Taka-Matsu pair’s incredible come-from-behind triumph bodes well for Japan. No doubt a generation of young Japanese badminton talent were inspired, and will gun for glory when the Olympics come to Tokyo in 2020.

Juhl and Pedersen get their silver medals

Juhl and Pedersen get their silver medals.

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Promoting Tokyo 2020 Part 2: How Companies Which Are Not Olympic Sponsors Do It

Sports Fest 1

Mitsui Fudosan won the rights to be the Japan Olympic Committee’s exclusive real estate Tokyo 2020 Gold Partner. That shuts out companies like Mitsubishi Jisho (Mitsubishi Estate, in English) from marketing themselves using the Tokyo 2020 logos, or even the word, Olympics, and of course, the five-ring Olympic logo.

But there are ways companies get around the strict licensing rights dictated by the IOC. They market themselves by association.

From August 4 to 22, Mitsubishi Jisho sponsored Sports Fes Marunouchi, essentially in the middle of the Ginza, Tokyo’s established business, entertainment, shopping district, very near the famed red-bricked Tokyo Station. The Sports Fes featured over two weeks of athletic displays, Olympian appearances, and interactive sporting activities, all on the most expensive streets in Japan.

Sports Fest 2

On the Sunday afternoon I went, I saw people watching the Rio Olympics on the big screen, as well as adults and kids testing to see how high they can jump, how low they can extend their arms, how fast they can throw a basketball. And I got to see London Olympian and fencing silver medalist, Kenta Chida, in a display of fencing so close, I could have jumped into the match from my front-row seat.

Sports Fest 3

Except on the large-screen TV where NHK was broadcasting the 2016 Rio Olympics, you didn’t see the word Olympics, or the Tokyo 2020 logo, or the five-ring Olympic logo anywhere. Mitsubishi Jisho is not an official sponsor, and is forbidden from doing so. But it’s clear to everyone why Mitsubishi Jisho is sponsoring the Sports Fes Marounouchi. By holding this event during the Rio Olympics, and inviting former Japanese Olympians to talk about their experiences and display their skills, this Japanese real estate firm is basking in the golden glow of the Olympics, so hard to contain behind the curtains of IOC contracts and rules.

Sports Fest 6 — Men’s individual foil silver medalist at the 2012 London Olympics, Kenta Chida.

Does this rankle the official real estate sponsor of Tokyo 2020, Mitsui Fudosan? Most likely, yes. But these are the Olympics, a premier symbol of competition. And the competition doesn’t end with the athletes. Companies in Japan will be battling for our mindshare in the coming years. And if necessity is the mother of invention, then I look forward to the creative ways non-sponsors guerilla market themselves, as we embark on the road to Tokyo 2020

Watch the video below for an up-close display of foil fighting. En garde!

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Promoting Tokyo 2020 Part 1: How Olympic Sponsors Do It

Coca Cola Booth Roppongi Hills 1 — Coca Cola booth at Roppongi Hills

It was August 6 and I had just watched the opening ceremonies of the Rio Olympics, which was being broadcast live in Japan that lazy Saturday morning. Quite coincidentally, my wife and I reserved a Brazilian barbecue place in Roppongi for dinner that evening.

Roppongi is a hive of activity, a center of commerce, entertainment and shopping that bustles 7 days a week. In our stroll through Roppongi that day, I came upon two examples of how official Olympic sponsors have begun marketing the Olympics, not only as a lead in to the Rio Olympics, but also as a proud reminder that Tokyo will be the host of the XXXIII Olympiad in 2020.

Coca Cola is one of 12 worldwide Olympic sponsors, part of the so-called TOP program – TOP standing for “The Olympic Partner”. Like other TOP sponsors, Coca Cola has exclusive rights in the food and beverages industry to use the word Olympics and the five-ring symbol of the Games in its global marketing and advertisements, among other exclusive rights.

And in the popular Roppongi Hills square was a Coca Cola booth, with kids and adults lining up to get in. Inside the booth was a large screen displaying a swimming competition computer game. A pair of contestants would line up in front of the screen, get a motion-sensing band attached to their wrist, and then furiously roll their arms as their watched their avatar on the screen race to the finish. At the end, they were awarded a medal with a bottle of Coca Cola attached.

After dinner, we walked to my old work haunt – Midtown Tower. This popular office complex was built by Mitsui Fudosan, a major real estate developer in Japan. Mitsui Fudosan is not a TOP partner, but is instead a Tokyo 2020 Gold Partner. In the Olympic hierarchy of sponsors, the IOC allows the local national Olympic committee to select local sponsors that have exclusive rights in Japan to market and advertise using the word “Olympics” and related logos.

Sumitomo Fudosan Midtown Tower Olympics Exhibition 1

Mitsui Fudosan used the open area in front of Midtown Tower artfully. Dotted throughout the square were sculptures of figures in athletic pose, gleaming white and geometrically fashioned. A female basketball player and a wheelchair tennis player greet us at the entrance. A sprinter climbs the glass cover of the escalator leading down to the underground shopping areas. Synchronized swimmers rise from a shallow pool of water, a paralympic runner strides, and a pair of judoka negotiate a fall.

Mitsui Fudosan wants you to “Be the Change”. In a missive at the display area, the JOC Olympic sponsor states that like athletes, whose daily efforts and countless beads of sweat and tears, have shaped them into Olympians with unique and wonderful stories, Tokyo is also being shaped on a daily basis, building by building, each with their own stories. The last line of the missive states, “Next, it’s Tokyo’s turn. The Olympics will be on our stage. What fantastic stories will be told?”

Sumitomo Fudosan Midtown Tower Olympics Exhibition 2

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Ancient Michael Phelps Pushing the Age Barrier: Who Said Youth Has to be Wasted on the Young

Gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, representing Uzbekistan, competed in her seventh Olympics in Rio at the age of 41.

American cyclist, Kristin Armstrong, won a gold medal in the individual road time trial in Rio, the third consecutive Olympics she has done so, at the age of 42.

Equestrian Phillip Dutton won a bronze medal in individual eventing for America at the age of 52.

Relative to Chusovitina, Armstrong and Dutton, swimmer Michael Phelps is a spring chicken. But at the age of 31, Phelps’ phenomenal Olympic career, particularly based on his results in Rio, is most definitely an outlier vis-a-vis his rivals and rival-wannabes. According to The Washington Post, “over the past 10 Summer Games, the oldest athlete to swim in the finals for the same events in which Phelps is scheduled to compete has been 29 years old, with the average age just under 22 years old. And, not surprisingly, times get slower as an athlete ages.” (Yes, Anthony Ervin winning gold in the 50-meter freestyle at the age of 35 is an even greater outlier.)

Role models are so important to aspiring athletes. And it’s not just adolescents and teenagers whose passions are ignited by their heroes. It’s Gen X. It’s even the Baby Boomers. They see Chusovitina and Phelps as trailblazers for those of us in our 30s, 40s and 50s, whose daily lives are filled with marketing meetings, children’s soccer matches, evening social gatherings, and attempts to overcome sleep deprivation on the weekends.

More and more commonly, men and women past their “prime” are making the time and taking the challenge to up their game in high performance athletics. The “Olympics” for athletes of age groups from 35 to over the century mark is the World Masters Games. The number of participants since 1985 has grown from over 8,000 to close to 30,000 in 2009, which was more than twice the number of athletes who took part in the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

As the nations of the industrialized world see their populace age rapidly, the people with the most money and influence are the aged demographics. Clearly, their interest in staying healthy and happy grows as they collectively age. As the human body’s production of hormones that enhance the benefits of physical exertion diminish from the age or 35, we can feel very clearly our strength diminishing over time. But considerable research and thought is going into how to increase flexibility, strength and staying power the older you get.

And the research tells us that exercise, low intensity or high, done on a consistent basis, will yield positive results for practically everybody. But the fact of the matter is, our busy lives demotivate so many of us from making that daily effort. This personal coach explains that making the effort is just a matter of making a decision.

The hard part about this for maturing athletes is that job and family responsibilities may make getting to bed early difficult. You need to make a choice as to the type of life you want to lead. If you’ve made the decision that you want to live a healthy, fit life, then going to bed early is part of it. That will likely mean the end of midweek social events, skipping TV after dinner, and strict adherence to stopping work after 8:00pm.

But to get to competitive levels of athletic performance, no matter your age, you need to dream. Photojournalist, Susana Girón, has followed these silver athletes taking their pictures, and concluded that age is not an issue if you have that burning passion for excellence.

Sport in the elderly is not simply an issue of health. It is said that once you become older, you stop dreaming and become less passionate about things. The bodies of these athletes might dwindle with each year, but the passion with which they live and face the events remains stronger than ever, especially as they become aware that every championship might be their last. Living with passion means to remain forever young.

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Anatomy of a Pole Vault Finals: Thiago Braz da Silva Launches Out of the Blue to Hometown Glory

Thiago Braz da Silva and his winning vault — Thiago Braz da Silva and his winning pole vault

Renaud Lavillenie was above them all, figuratively and literally. The man from Barbezieux-Saint-Hilaire, reigning Olympic champion, didn’t deign to pole vault the first two heights of 5.50 and 5.65 meters. He was after all the world record holder at 6.16 meters. The men’s 800-meter finals were on, and he wasn’t doing anything anyway…so he watched David Rudisha win gold while he waited on his competition to get through their pedestrian heights.

When his rivals reached 5.75 meters, Lavillenie decided to join the competition. With the crowd clapping and cheering, the Frenchman rose above the bar with ease. As he did at 5.85.

The bar was raised to 5.93, which the announcer said was about the same as “vaulting over the average house”. In other words, the bar was getting pretty high.

Lavillenie is up first and he makes it with a roar. The Frenchman is yet to miss. But 5.93 proves to be a few centimeters too high for Jan Kudlička of the Czech Republic, Piotr Lisek of Poland and Sam Kendricks of the US, the eventual bronze medalist. Hometown favorite, but relatively unknown Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil, also misses his first attempt at 5.93. But the 22-year old from the town of Marília, Brazil, running to the cheers of the crowd, makes it over the bar.

And now there are two. The Champion versus the Kid.

Lavillenie readies himself to win his second consecutive Olympic championship in the pole vault. He is up first, waits for the bar to be raised to 5.98, and clears it easily. By making 5.98 meters, Lavillenie has set a new Olympic record.

The young Brazilian, on the other hand, has never won a medal at an international event of any significance. He’s young, is improving very quickly, and clearly ballsy. Instead of trying to match Lavillenie at 5.98, da Silva says he wants the bar raised to 6.03. da Silva’s never cleared 6 meters, and yet he’s going for it.

Lavillenie calmly sips from a water bottle, sharing laughs with others. Da Silva fidgets with his poles, deciding which one he should use to propel him to new heights. With the new height, it’s back up to Lavillenie. He makes it over on his first attempt, but grazes the bar with his right hip on the way down – it’s the Frenchman’s first miss.

The pressure is intense. da Silva runs to the pit, extends the pole, but just as he raises off the ground, he gives up and falls harmlessly to the ground. It’s back to Lavillenie, a man who’s cleared this height many times in his career, encouraging the crowd to clap. And again, Lavillenie clears the bar only to knock it off as his stomach hits the bar. That’s two misses.

da Silva settles into the runway, victory potentially within his grasp with a miracle leap. He runs, he stabs, and he climbs into the air. He makes it! “What a jump,” shouts the announcer. “What a leap into the record books. What an all mighty chance he has now of taking the gold. Six oh three. The 20th man to go over 6 meters!”

Lavillenie sits in preparation, his face clearly showing concern. He’s likely thinking, “Where did this guy come from?” Looking for answers in the ground. he walks around to screw up his concentration for one final, enormous leap. Lavillenie decides to raise the bar, setting it at 6 meters 8 centimeters. If he makes it, da Silva has to make a very high leap. But the stakes are high for Lavillenie – miss it and the gold falls from his grasp.

The champion zips up his suit as he readies his pole for flight. He runs, he plants his pole, and he launches into the air. But this time, on the rise, Lavillenie’s feet hit the bar, which falls to earth. A new champion has been crowned – Thiago Braz da Silva is an Olympic champion, and Brazil’s newest hero.

No Brazilian has ever qualified in the Olympic pole vault. But in these Rio Olympics, da Silva not only competed, he set the Olympic record and ripped gold from the champion’s hands, vaulting into the hearts of Brazilians all.

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