Sunday, 21 August 2016

My Vacation Time in Scarborough, Ont. in August 2016--Sat.Aug.13,2016 (DAY 8 of RIO 2016)

In athletics, the men’s 100 m heats are now on.  Obviously, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt is the one who is expected to win, but there are others too.  There are two Canadians running in the heats:  Aaron Brown and Andre de Grasse and they may or may not make it into the final.  Of these two, I believe Andre de Grasse did advance to the final, but Aaron Brown did not.

In athletics, the women’s 100 m semi-finals and final is scheduled for tonight.  The men’s 100 m final is tomorrow night.  The men’s 10,000 m final is going to happen tonight.  As it turns out, Mo Farah of Great Britain won the men’s 10,000 m race, but did not break the world record.  When the women run their 100 m final, it is expected that the winner will have to run a sub-eleven-second race.  As it turns out, Elaine Thompson of Jamaica won this race in 10.71 seconds.

There is a CAN vs. CAN beach volleyball game going on, which is a women’s round of sixteen (round-robin play).  There is a men’s round of sixteen going on today too.  Obviously, only one of each of these Canadian teams can advance to the quarter-finals, involving eight teams.  The Canadian women’s teams are:  Pavan / Bansley and Broder / Valjas.  Pavan / Bansley won the match and will advance.  The Canadian men, Shalk / Saxton will meet the team from the Netherlands in the round of sixteen.  However, the Canadian men lost and will not advance.

The women’s heptathlon is continuing in its second day today.  Brianne Theisen Eaton has done four events already:  the 100 m hurdles, shotput, 200 m sprint, and the high jump.  Her point total so far is 3871.   The long jump, javelin, and the 800 m race are also scheduled for today.  She has placed 9th so far and must improve her performances today in order to move up in the standings.

Tonight, swimming finals continue with Michael Phelps of the USA in the 4 x 100 m medley relay final.  If his team wins this race, it will be his third gold medal in the Rio 2016 Olympics!  He will be (or already is?) the most decorated Olympian ever, and that is no small feat.  I believe he’s won twenty-seven medals in five Olympic Games.  I don’t believe anyone is going to come close to or surpass this accomplishment anytime soon.

Canadian swimmers, Ryan Cochrane, who will race in the men’s 1500 m freestyle event, and Penny Oleksiak, who will race in the women’s 4 x 100 m medley relay tonight, are favourites.  These races mean that there are two more chances for Canadian medals before swimming is finished at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.  The women are also racing tonight in the shortest race of record – the 50 m freestyle final - however, there are no Canadian women in this race.  Pernille Blume of Denmark won it in 23.07 seconds.  As it turns out, Ryan Cochrane placed 6th in the 1500 m freestyle final, out of the medals.

Women’s 3 m springboard diving took place today.  There are five rounds of diving per day of competition.  So far, there has been two days of competition.  Two Chinese women are at the front of the pack, but Canada’s Jennifer Abel is following closely in third.  She has been moving upward steadily.  Canada’s Pamela Ware is in 9th place, which qualifies her for tomorrow’s competition.  Only the first twelve from today’s competition will advance to tomorrow.

In the team pursuit event in cycling, Canada’s team of four women was riding opposite New Zealand’s team of four, and won!  As a result, Canada won a BRONZE medal, yet again!  

Tomorrow morning, I will be checking out of the Holiday Inn Express in Scarborough and Brent will be taking me up to his place in Janetville (on Lake Scugog) again.  This will be my last week of babysitting James this summer.  I’ve been living at the Holiday Inn Express for the last nine days.  Next Friday (August 14th), I’ll be coming back to Ajax and checking into Homewood Suites again – this time for about three weeks. 


I’ve been faithfully watching the Olympics daily while at the Holiday Inn Express but, just in case I don’t get to watch TV at Brent’s place during the day, I now have my new cell phone and can download the CBC Virtual Reality App onto it!  That means I can watch the Olympics like I was right there in Rio!  I can also download the CBC App, the Facebook App, the TD Bank App – any App that I would regularly use.  What I cannot do yet is call people, or text or email them because I don’t have a sim card that would allow me to do these things.  I’m going to wait till I get to London, England and then purchase a sim card there.  That’s because the roaming charges alone would make me go broke if I used my current Canadian sim card in my new cell phone!  Anyway, I was not going to be using my cell phone in Europe except to take pictures and listen to music.  If I have to text someone or email them, it would only be done on an emergency basis.  I must be prepared to either use Skype to communicate or just send postcards to my friends and family in Canada while I’m in Europe.

copyright 2016 - Anne Shier

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