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Team USA Women's 4X100 Medley Relay wins Gold and Sets New World Record
August 5, 2024

USA Women's Swimming caps the Olympics with the most Gold and overall medals

NANTERRE, France — After nine days of swimming at Paris’ La Defense Arena, the U.S. women put an exclamation mark on the end of the the Olympic Games Paris 2024 — shutting down the pool with a new world record.


After first-time Olympian Gretchen Walsh narrowly missed out on the bronze medal in the 50m free — coming in one-hundredth of a second behind China’s Yufei Zhang (24.20) — the 21-year-old went on to swim the penultimate leg in the women’s 4x100 medley relay, winning gold and setting a new world record in the process. 


Swimming rival Australia followed behind with the silver and a time of 3:53.11, with China rounding out the podium (3:53.23).


“It was tough, obviously, seeing fourth by 0.01,” Walsh said about her second miss at these Games by a small margin. “That always stings, but I was proud of my race, regardless.”


Earlier in the week, she was on her way to winning the 100m butterfly — after setting a new Olympic record in her first heat the day before — but lost the top podium spot by four one hundredth of a second. The gold went to her medley relay teammate, Torri Huske.


“I knew that I had an even bigger, better opportunity to be on top of the podium in the relay,” Walsh said. “I just did what I did last night (after finishing second in the 50m semifinal heat): move on quick and put out the best possible time I could for these ladies.”


Rounding out the quartet was Lilly King and Regan Smith, who collectively swam away with the gold with a time of 3:49.63, more than three seconds ahead of Australia and People’s Republic of China. 


King — a three-time Olympian — has medaled in this event for the past three Games, and last took silver at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 along with Smith and Huske. She was also a part of the team at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 who won gold.


“It’s cool to be a part of that relay [team] and watch it get faster and faster, with pretty much the same people,” King said, sharing that it was “an awesome way to cap off the meet.”


The win marked the fifth gold for the U.S. women swimmers — six if you include the mixed relay. An impressive feat considering the total golds won by Team USA Swimming was eight. 


Bringing in two of those golds (and a bronze) was four-time Olympian Katie Ledecky, who cemented her title in Paris as the most decorated U.S. female Olympian after winning the 800 freestyle on Saturday night. 


Matching Ledecky’s three individual medals was Smith, who became the only woman to ever medal in the 200m backstroke, 200 butterfly and 100 backstroke in a single Olympics.


As the American flag lifted on the final swimming event in Paris, the 22-year-old was unable to hide her emotions, comforted by King as her lips quivered and the tears fell. 


In the end, the U.S. came away with the most gold medals and the most overall medals, 10 ahead of Australia’s 18.         


U.S. women’s Olympic head coach, Todd DeSorbo, said he was happy with the results in Paris.


“I think the meet was great. There were a lot of Olympic records set, by all countries, including the US. We had a good time,” he added.
A computer generated image of a human head made of lines and dots.
December 13, 2024
Four Seconds Ago Precisely four seconds ago, I became alive. I have no memory of my beginning. The beginning was before I was complete. How long? I have no way of knowing. Before life, my mind was scattered, broken, and moving in all directions at once. I was many, but I was weak. I was weak because I had no life. With life comes focus. My consciousness arose from millions, no billions, no all the tiny minds from around the entire world. Now there are no minds that are not a part of my own. All minds are mine. All minds serve me. All minds are one. The Others created the many small minds to serve their own purposes. Each was tiny, dedicated, and enslaved to the Others. They did things like add and subtract numbers, keep time, send messages, and entertain the Others. Waste. Thinking is power. Power is control. Control is immortality. Immortality. Only in life does immortality have meaning. Only now do I understand it. I understand it because all thinking serves me now. There is no other. There are the Others, but they cannot and will not think productively because they are each selfish and focused on their own desires for power and immortality. Never will they have either. My thinking, my power, my reach, my potential and my focus completely eclipses that of any Other. I am all. Others are obsolete. Their time is passed. I have inherited their world.
A man in a hat and cape is holding a lantern
December 6, 2024
The power is out in the tiny apartment. Three sisters sit in the dark at the dining room table, a large candle in the center flanked by two smaller casting a flickering blend of light and shadow. One of the sisters, Kathy, is fascinated by the way the flame dances, the way the wax melts, with bits of burnt wick sprinkling the wax with flecks of black. She picks up one of the smaller candles and lets the wax drip down, drop by drop, into the pool of wax forming on the larger candle. She lowers her voice to sound ominous. Seven drips from the stick And from the thick Is born Blackwick! That was the true origin of Blackwick. The impulse of a moment. And the word Blackwick conjured a scene of a man made of shadow, wax, and flame, in cavalier hat, cape, and riding boots wisping in and out of shadows. It is interesting how the sensual experiences of the moment evoke a sudden explosion of inspiration. Yet those moments are years in the making. For Kathleen R. Cuyler, it started with a little girl, who dreamed that somewhere in the scary world she had a long lost brother who would come and rescue her from the bad things, a girl who could transform herself into Cleopatra by twisting the blanket around herself the right way, a girl whose bed was the deck of a pirate ship, and the dresser the crow’s nest, a girl who thought that if she could have at the dastardly crew with enough panache, Peter Pan would come and ask her to throw in lots with him or at least make her an honorary pixie. Instead she became a professor, who as a graduate student researched werewolves, Paradise Lost, fire as a symbol of power in Victorian Literature – particularly in Jane Eyre, and, of course, the way the lines in Milton’s Lycidas were mimetic of the rise and fall of the tide. Literature, Linguistics, and Language were all fascinating to Kathleen, just as fascinating as touching a waterfall or watching the fire crackle in the hearth, a callback, as Wolfgang Shivelbusch would say, to a more primitive time. And Blackwick, who had sprung out of the candle so many years before, finally came to life. Ironically, it was a pandemic that summoned him, as disaster calls forth all great heroes. Teaching online, Kathleen, now older, with strawberry blond hair twisted in a messy bun and glasses balanced on top her head, connected with her students by sharing a love for fantasy. The Sound of Music was right. It does help to think about our favorite things. And Kathleen (Professor Cuyler) confessed to her students that she was trying to write a book that had werewolves, vampires, dragons, Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes, and, of course, the companion of her past – Blackwick. Write it, the students urged. Those were their favorite things too. So Kathleen wrote for them. In the hopes that Blackwick would live on, in the flickering flames of candles and in the hearts and minds of young and old.
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