As someone who is engulfed in swimming 365 days a year, as we know many of our readers are, the question “how was the swim meet?”, while so simple on its surface, can be a challenge. We know our spouses, our families, and our friends are asking to be polite, to show interest in what we love, and to make conversation, but it’s easily to be paralyzed by how to explain this deep complex story of swimming into an answer that they’ll understand and care about.
So throughout this meet, we’ll take a shot at distilling the answer to that question into a couple of bite-sized pieces to get the conversation started. This is a perfect share on Facebook for your aunties to read or to email back to your cousin on a Sunday morning.
Hopefully these launch into more specific follow-up questions and discussions where you can really flex your muscles.
How Was the Meet? – First Finals Session at #Tokyo2020
- Ahmed Hafnaoui – This 18-year old kid from Tunisia, who nobody had heard of before, won the 400 free from an outside lane. Everyone lost it – SwimSwam didn’t even have a bio for him. Even our web developers in Bulgaria were messaging us about it all night.
- Americans Break the Ice – The Americans won 6 medals, which is a good day. Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland went 1-2 in the 400 IM for Team USA’s first medals in any sports, so it was good to get off the schneid. US didn’t win any medals on day 1 of the Olympics for the first time since 1972. The times weren’t that fast, and everyone was slower than prelims, but that seems to be a theme – between the pandemic and the morning finals, everyone is more focused on places than times.
- Australia’s World Record – That was the first World Record of the Olympics. They crushed everyone. It was looney tunes. The US gambled and got bronze after using Simone Manuel on the anchor, even though she didn’t qualify in this relay specifically.
- Sarah Sjostrom – She broke her elbow in February, had surgery, and is somehow faster than before the injury. She broke an Olympic Record leading off Sweden’s relay and swam her best time in the 100 fly since 2017. Can’t even explain how impressive that is.
- Yui Ohashi Breaks the Ice for Japan – It’s been rough for Japan early at the Olympics. Some of their big favorites have missed the finals. But They got their first medal in swimming from Ohashi, and she lit up the pool deck and the podium with her reaction and smile.
Here’s when the second finals session starts in your timezone, you can watch it on NBC, BBC, CBC, EuroSport, or whatever else is listed here.
Medals TableAfter Day 1:
TOKYO 2020 OLYMPICS: POOL SWIMMING MEDAL TABLE AFTER DAY 1
| NATION | TOTAL MEDALS | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE |
| USA | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Australia | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Tunisia | 1 | 1 | ||
| Japan | 1 | 1 | ||
| Canada | 1 | 1 |
Why are your web developers in Bulgaria?
I was thinking to ask the same question. Now I see someone else noticed the same thing.
My friends are learning a lot about swimming due to my very new and apparently insatiable gambling habit.
Do you have better picture of Ahmed Hafnaoui ? In that picture, he looks like Ricardo Mayorga. 🙂
I’m pretty sure Japan got gold in Judo before Ohashi.
Comment above is first medal in swimming, which is correct!
I think they meant first gold in swimming, not all sports, after the disappointment of Seto.