Category: 2016 Rio Olympics

By Frank Gogola | @FrankGogola RIO DE JANEIRO – There will be no encore for Lexi Laird. The former IUPUI swimmer failed to advance past the 100-meter backstroke heats Sunday at the Olympic Games. She spent 63 seconds in the pool in her first and what will be her only Olympic appearance. She plans to compete through the end …

By Rebecca Harris | @MsRebeccaHarris RIO DE JANEIRO – Virginia Thrasher won the women’s 10-meter air rifle competition with a score of 208.0, an Olympic record. The 19-year-old West Virginia student became the first gold-medal winner of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Throughout the competition, Chinese shooter Du Li was in hot pursuit, never falling …

RIO DE JANEIRO – After I sat down in my second-row seat in the upper deck of the Maracana for the Opening Ceremony, what I saw made me smile. Yes, the Opening Ceremony, with its messages of celebrating diversity, acceptance and saving the planet, was great, the last of which seemed over the top in …

RIO DE JANEIRO — “I only speak American, British, New Zealand and Australian.” So said a volunteer as several hundred media members grew increasingly antsy and anxious, waiting in the security line to get into Maracana Stadium for the Opening Ceremony Friday night. The volunteer hasn’t mastered his Barack Obama impression, but his southern U.S. …

By Rebecca Harris | @MsRebeccaHarris RIO DE JANEIRO — Some athletes would be intimidated by being the only athlete from their country competing in a particular event. Not so for USA Fencing’s Jason Pryor, Olympic rookie and lone wolf in men’s epee. While he feels a team bond with the athletes in other weapons, at …

RIO DE JANEIRO – “For me?” I was not prepared for the question. Not after the overnight flight, seeing the first light of a new day shortly after the view from the previous flight had featured a bright red sunset. Not after the walk through the airport terminal, the discovery of the first of many …

By Frank Gogola | @FrankGogola RIO DE JANEIRO – Mikaela Mayer first met Claressa Shields at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Spokane, Washington. Shields was still a relative unknown. It would be several months until she won a historic women’s boxing Olympic gold medal. “I came up to her, and I’m like, ‘Hey, …

By Rebecca Harris | @MsRebeccaHarris RIO DE JANEIRO — The Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games had the Dream Team. London’s Games in 2012 had the Fierce Five. Rio 2016 has the “Perfect 10.” The “Perfect 10” is two-time Olympian Abby Johnston’s brainchild, born shortly after the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Diving wrapped up in June. “We …

INDIANAPOLIS — Sports journalism students at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis will have a rare opportunity to cover the world’s biggest sporting spectacle, the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Frank Gogola and Rebecca Harris, graduate students in the Sports Capital Journalism Program in the School of Liberal Arts’ Department of Journalism and Public Relations, will write …