11 Offbeat Olympic Moments

While the Olympics offer the ultimate in seriously competitive athletic matchups, there are always some funny pop-culture blips that emerge away from the center arena of play.

Since the opening ceremony a week ago, the medal count for the U.S. has risen rapidly, with athletes including swimming superstars Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, our women’s gymnastics team, and shooting star Ginny Thrasher.

There have been glorious moments and terrible mishaps.

There have been terrible mishaps, such as Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten, who crashed and suffered three spinal fractures; French male gymnast Samir Ait Said, who broke his leg in a terrible accident on the vault on the second day of preliminaries; and Armenian weightlifter Andranik Karapetyan’s terrible arm snap as he tried to lift 429 pounds Thursday.

And there have been glorious moments, such as the narrow beach volleyball victory by Kerri Walsh Jennings and her partner April Ross over the Swiss team of Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Vergé-Dépré on Wednesday night — and all the other Team USA triumphs.

Here are some of the odder things that have happened outside of the intense competition:

Archery guy looks just like Leonardo DiCaprio
Brady Ellison, a three-time U.S. Olympian, took home a silver medal in this year’s team archery event. But what everyone noticed was how much the 27-year-old archer looks like 41-year-old Oscar winner.

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French cyclist looks like Kate Middleton
Her name is Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, a cyclist from France, and she’s been making jaws drop for her likeness to a certain Duchess of Cambridge. Ferrand-Prevot is 24. Duchess Kate is 34. But you be the judge.

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Golfer freaks out when airlines loses his clubs on the way to Rio
It’s a fear all travelers have — the airlines will lose my luggage! When it happens to an Olympic golfer on his way to the Olympic games, it’s particularly stressful.

Emiliano Grillo, representing Argentina, was not happy when his clubs seemed to be lost.

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But it ended well and he has moved on to tweeting about the great Rio course. The 60 players representing 34 countries hit the links starting Thursday morning, seeking golf’s first Olympic medals more than 100 years.

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“SNL” star tweets so much NBC invites her to Rio
Leslie Jones, one of the stars of “Ghostbusters” and a regular on “Saturday Night Live,” has a love-hate relationship with Twitter. She quit it after angry “Ghostbusters” fans were trolling her, but when the Olympics came on, she was back — with a patriotic vengeance. Wearing red, white, and blue outfits — even donning a swim cap — she began tweeting her cheers for team USA.

She was so enthusiastic that NBC flew her down to cheer from the actual sidelines.

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Canadian swimmer’s unusual pre-race ritual
It may not seem like a lovely gesture, but it works for Canadian swimmer Santo Condorelli. The 21-year-old gives his dad the middle finger before each race. It’s something he’s done since he was 8, and it was actually his dad’s idea. Joseph Condorelli noticed that his young son was getting frustrated by losing to older swimmers.

“[He said] ‘You’ve got to build your confidence yourself and say eff everybody else that you’re racing,” Condorelli told The Canadian Press. “He said ‘Every time you’re behind the blocks, give me the finger and I’ll give it back to you.”‘

It’s not a gesture we’d suggest you have your kids try. Condorelli recalls a time when his dad was right behind the TV cameras and he flipped him off. “I had to write an apology.”

No fishing in the toilet
Several of the athletes have shared photos the bathroom sign they see every day. It pretty much prohibits everything, including fishing in the toilet and, it seems, toilet paper.

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One Olympic record likely to broken: The Sex Record
One record has already been broken — the number of condoms supplied to athletes in the Olympic Village. At Rio 2016, according to Quartz, the count stands at 450,000, with 175,000 sachets of lubricant for good measure. It’s the largest number of contraceptives ever delivered to an Olympic Games.

Phelps Phace
You probably didn’t miss Michael Phelps’ angry face and the many memes it spurred. The moment happened before the men’s 200-meter butterfly semifinals event Monday night, as Phelps was caught making a mad face as his rival, South African competitor Chad Le Clos, danced and shadowboxed in front of him. Don’t worry — Phelps went on to trounce Le Clos in the pool.

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Oiled-up Tonga guy
People are still talking about the Parade of Nations during the Opening Ceremony, in which Tonga’s flag bearer stood out.

Pita Nikolas Taufatofua quickly became a social media sensation for his shiny torso. Australian-born Taufatofua, 32, is competing in taekwondo and is the first Tongan athlete to qualify for the sport, according to The Washington Post.

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Ew, why is the pool green?
Suddenly one of the pools at the aquatic center was a creepy green color, not the bright blue we typically see. Um, did someone forget to check the chemical levels?

Rio spokesman Mario Andrada told The Associated Press that the green was due to “a proliferation of algae.” Andrada said it was “because of heat and a lack of wind.”

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Fencer drops cellphone during match
Yes, that happened. Enzo LeFort, 24, from France was busy lunging and parrying when — oops, his black cellphone dropped out his pocket. He was in the middle of a bout against Peter Joppich of Germany. After the point, he stooped down and picked it up.

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