The Best Story of the Olympics (So Far)

C/O a lil' baby bonus Monday post!

I watched a lot of Olympics this weekend. Possibly too much. Lots of cool stuff happened!

Legendary Spanish tennis players Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz took the court in one of the cooler both-hands-on-the-torch moments you’ll ever see in any sport.

An Italian high-jumper lost his wedding band in the Seine and miraculously turned it into a net-positive interaction with his wife.

A hometown star, 22-year-old French swimmer Leon Marchand, broke a Michael Phelps record in the 400-meter individual medley to win gold.

This isn’t even specific to a person, but having watched a lot of the surfing competition out in Tahiti, I’m impressed that all the competitors are still alive.

Flavor Flav is America’s preeminent water polo patron?

Simone Biles is back.

And yet! None of those mondo cool moments top the one I’m about to rant about.

Longtime readers will know I have a soft spot for rugby, and some may even remember that I wrote the following in January, giving a New Years’ resolution to French rugby star Antoine Dupont:

jk 11.) Antoine Dupont
Resolution: Medal.

This one’s an honorable mention, because only I care about this. Dupont captains the French national rugby team, but he’s sitting out Europe’s biggest annual tournament — the Six Nations — to focus on playing sevens in preparation for the Paris Olympics. It’s a different-ish sport played with far fewer players, all of whom tend to be quicker and more skilled than your average. It’s more fun, and Dupont trying to win one for the home crowd should be too.

Guess what happened Saturday? Dupont won gold for the home crowd, scoring a hat trick to hand Fiji its first-ever loss at the Olympics.

All three of those scores came in the second half, after the two sides drew to a 7-7 tie in the first. 1.) Dupont entered the game, and 2.) France won the game. His singular dynamism was the difference.

(NBC won’t let me embed the video, but you should watch if you haven’t.)

For those unfamiliar, this guy is an absolute superstar. Dupont is listed at 5’9”, 187. A giant, he is not. And yet, he’s one of the very best players in the world, consistently mixing it up with a physicality beyond his frame. He fears no one, and has long excelled in the chaos of broken play. You want the ball in his hands. More often than not, he’s going to make something happen.

I’m trying to think of an American equivalent, but it’s something similar to this scenario: if flag football became part of the next Olympics, and a player no less than Patrick Mahomes cared so much about winning it that he stopped playing for the Chiefs to focus on winning the gold in flag.

Or if it was 3x3 basketball instead, and Anthony Edwards took a step back from the Timberwolves just to conquer a different version of the game.

Those are imperfect analogies for several reasons, mainly that the USA dominates both football and basketball. We’re a big country and we play both sports a lot. They’re our favorites.

France, though, is one rung short of a rugby powerhouse. First off, much as I caught a vibe in the Stade de France last year, it’s a soccer country and always will be. Second, while they’re a perennial contender in rugby, they’ve never won the Rugby World Cup in the far more prominent 15-a-side version of the sport. They’ve made the final three times, and came dangerously close to making it this year too, but they’ve never raised the cup.

For that reason, this is a bigger deal than it would be for a lot of other countries. It was the host nation’s first gold medal of the tournament, delivered — not all on his own, but as the clear difference-maker — by a top-flight player who made it a priority to do exactly what he just pulled off.

I will quickly add as consolation that I have nothing but love for the Fijian squad. They are the only team who could’ve brought a 17-game win streak into the Olympic final and still garner the same enthusiasm from neutral fans as if they’d been the plucky underdogs.

Theirs is a nation who so adores their rugby team that they literally appear on their legal tender. It’s the 7-dollar bill, because of course it is.

Both teams are giving a lot to this sport that I happen to quite enjoy. The U.S. will next host the summer Olympics in 2028, when I hope they’ll be more of a factor than they were this year. Then they’ll host the Rugby World Cup in 2031, when I know they won’t be much of a factor at all, but I can still hope on the basis that that’s like seven years from now.

It’s a shame that most of the men’s rugby was played before the Opening Ceremony, which buried most of the pool play. I’m not sure how many people knew the games had started, so a lot of that probably got lost.

But! But. That final. I noted (Notes’d?) that it was the dream matchup, and I’d say it got the dream payoff too.

And now you can watch the women’s rugby! Both the semifinals and finals are tomorrow. The Americans are playing for a medal.

So get in there, folks. Mix it up. My man Dupont would be proud of you.

Also, This

⚾ We’ll keep this short, but we’ve got a Cards deadline deal! What a Monday. Erick Fedde, arguably the top arm on the trade market, is heading to St. Louis in a three-team deal that sends a fan favorite in Tommy Edman to the evil empire that is the LA Dodgers.

I’ll take it. Edman rocks, but dealing from a position of relative strength — what with the emergence of Masyn Winn at short and the Edman-y role that Brendan Donovan continues to play — to bolster one of need makes a lot of sense on paper.

My one quip? Fedde’s 31, and this is by far the best year of his career. So you better hope this level is what you’re getting as opposed to the prior six seasons. This has the potential to age poorly, but bringing him in without paying in prospects (Chicago was reportedly asking after the struggling Jordan Walker) is a nice little trick.

Tacking Tommy Pham on is pretty comical for several reasons, but hey. We already brought Lance Lynn and Matt Carpenter back. More the merrier…? Welcome home, guys.