It may not be possible to catch all the best moments in a single day of the Olympic Games—but we’re going to try. Every day, we’ll award titles for standout achievements at (and around) Rio 2016, achievements that may or may not be recognized on the podium (and may or may not even be of an athletic nature). Here are our picks for Day 3.
Gold medal for game face
Michael Phelps for the win here and a stare that almost broke the internet.
On Monday ahead of his 200-metre butterfly heat, Phelps launched eye-daggers at South African swimmer Chad le Clos, and immediately #Phelpsface and a million memes were born.
But, why the stare? First, le Clos beat Phelps at the 2012 Olympics by 0.05 in the 200-metre butterfly, and it marked the first time the most decorated Olympian in history lost the event on an international stage in a decade. A couple years after that, Phelps lamented how the event had slowed since his retirement, and after le Clos posted a fast time he said, of Phelps: “So, he can keep quiet now.”
Shots fired. And here we are now.
Phelps, by the way, beat le Clos in their heat on Monday.
Gold medal for finger-wagging, trash talking—and backing it up
American swimmer Lilly King wins this award, and it’s no contest.
First, the backstory: After a 100-metre breaststroke heat on Sunday, Russian Yulia Efimova—a woman who has twice tested positive for banned substances, a swimmer who was a late addition to the start-sheet in Rio—put up an index finger, presumably to tell everyone she had the fastest time.
King answered back with a finger wag (and smile) that was caught on camera, and then she went out and swam a faster heat. The 19-year-old later told NBC’s Michele Tafoya of her Russian competitor: “[She’s] been caught for drug cheating. I’m just not a fan.”
The two went head-to-head on Monday. It was a must-watch.
What did King do? She set an Olympic record and won the gold medal. Efimova came in second. We haven’t seen the Russian wagging any fingers lately.
Gold medal for winning medals for Canada
The swim team takes this one. They’re on a torrid medal-winning pace, having won one per day so far in Rio. On Monday, 20-year-old Kylie Masse won bronze in the 100-metre breaststroke, and came one one-hundredth of a second from silver.
Just how big is this showing for the swim team, and specifically for its women, who’ve won all three medals thus far for Canada in the pool?
We’ll let fellow swim team member Ryan Cochrane, a two-time Olympic medallist, explain:
Gold medal for addiction to technology and stupidity
Enzo Lefort of France lost his cell phone in the middle of his fencing bout on Monday, because it fell out of his pocket.
Enough said.
Gold medal for bouncing back
If you watched Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team get crushed by Great Britain 22-0 in the preliminary round at these Games, your first thought upon hearing the two teams would meet again with a bronze medal on the line was probably: “Uh-oh.”
In their semifinal against Australia earlier in the day, the Canadians didn’t look their best, either.
But did they ever turn it on with a bronze medal on the line. Canada led from start to finish to earn a 33-10 win over Great Britain and the first-ever Olympic bronze awarded in their sport.
Ghislaine Landry—known as “Pocket Rocket”—had 18 points, including two tries.
The win got Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeting, too:
*Honourable mention in this bounce-back category goes to Canada’s women’s basketball team. Earlier Monday, they trailed Serbia by 18 points in their round robin match, but stormed back to a dramatic four-point victory, led by Kia Nurse and her 25 points. They’re now 2-0.
Gold medal for bathroom signage
This covers…everything.
