CMS Sportscast: 2024 Summer Recap

By Cameron Moore (7th)

Does anyone remember from my Olympics preview that I said I was excited for my next article three months from then? Well, it has been three months, so time to write another article, I guess. This is basically three months of summer sports in less than five minutes (hopefully). So, from the Stanley Cup (in hockey, not the noise making water bottle) to the Olympics and beyond, here is your 2024 summer recap.

 

Paris Olympics 2024

The Olympics were by far the biggest event of the
summer. Here’s the main points:

• The USA has topped yet another Olympic games. While level with China in gold medals (40), they topped overall medals by a landslide (126).

• US men’s and women’s 5x5 basketball teams both won gold!

• Track: Noah Lyles became “fastest man in the world” after beating Jamaican Kishane Thompson in one of the best finishes in recent Olympic memory. The difference? 0.005 seconds. 

• American Grant Fisher shocked everyone with bronze medal performances in the 5K and 10K races.
  “World’s fastest woman” went to Julian Alfred, who’s 100m dash gold achieves the first ever medal for Saint Lucia!

• Katie Ledecky dominated the pool…again. Was that really a surprise, though?

• The US beats Australia in swimming gold medals.

• The Olympic Opening Ceremony lives up to its hype, goes down as one of the best!

• 8 fell ill following swims in the Seine River.

• Leon Marchand became a French celebrity following an impressive swimming performance in Paris.

• Multiple nations received their first ever medals at these games. These nations are Albania, Cabo Verde, the Refugee Olympic Team (a team of refugees from 11 countries), Dominica, and Saint Lucia. Four nations won their first golds, including the already mentioned Dominica and Saint Lucia, as well as Botswana and Guatemala.

 

These are obviously not ALL the points from these Olympics, but these are just a key few that I included here.

NBA and Stanley Cup Finals

American sports had two big finals months back in June. The NBA finals were a breeze for the Boston Celtics, defeating the Dallas Mavericks 4-1. Jaylen Brown won Finals MVP.

The Stanley Cup finals, however, were much more entertaining. While the series looked all but over as the Florida Panthers raced out to a 3-0 lead, the Edmonton Oilers clawed back, tying the series and forcing a game 7, only to fall to the Panthers, who won their first ever Stanley Cup Finals. It’s truly a shame, since the NHL has never had a 3-0 series comeback, let alone in the finals.

Euro 2024

Germany welcomed 24 of Europe’s best men’s national teams for the European Championships. The tournament came with many surprises, including the Swiss, who made another magical run. They proceeded to shut out Euro 2020 champs Italy in the round of 16, and took England to penalties in the quarter finals. The three lions, however, would beat Switzerland in penalties and make it to their second straight Euro finals, where they again lost, this time to the Spanish, and young rising star Lamine Yamal. There was some controversy in the Spain vs Germany quarterfinal, where referee Anthony Taylor missed a Marc Cucurella handball that would’ve given Germany a penalty kick. In fact, German fans tried to replay the game (including a petition with over 370,000 signatures).

Copa America 2024

The US and many other CONMEBOL (soccer federation in North America) nations participated in South America’s 16-team Copa America tournament, which was hosted in the states. Lionel Messi and Argentina defeated Colombia in the final of the tournament. Messi’s Inter Miami teammate, Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, said goodbye to international football with a third place performance at the Copa. (They defeated fourth-place Canada, which was a surprise to all.) The US was massively disappointing, as a group stage upset loss to Panama (!!!) eventually got them grouped, not even making it to the knockout stage, and it caused them to fire then-coach Gregg Berhalter.

So, that is the summer recap for 2024. Now we are all caught up on sports after being forced to procrastinate over the summer, I can now write about stuff that actually happened within the month (finally) until June when I’ll be forced to procrastinate over the summer again. But it’s only September, so I won’t worry about that for now.