Light The Cauldron

When I say "Japan" what do you think about? I'm guessing that if you hear about Japan in the news, it's probably about some technological innovations or a natural disaster. And now, Japan is in the news because of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics!

A lot of people are going to be attending these Olympics. To be honest, some of the people reading this blog are going to be attending these Olympics! Heck, I am attending these Olympics!

I know that as soon as the flame was extinguished in Rio, I made a commitment to get to Tokyo in 2020. To get myself ready, I started looking online for content creators that could help me understand the country even better than I did in 2016.

My background knowledge of Japan at the time was their involvement in World War II and anime. Yup, I had no real understanding about the culture, language, or people of the country. So I wanted to change that!

Over three years I have discovered many different people who live in Japan and make it their living…

So much has happened over the last few weeks that it would be crazy to cover all of them in separate articles. So instead, it's time to resurrect the famous Mini Blurbs!

Well, Simone Biles is incredible. I really can't add more to that, right? Everyone's written about her, so I won't try to include new items. I will say that it's disappointing that the FIG didn't give her named elements more credit because of the insane difficulty to them. They say it was because they didn't want girls trying them who weren't prepared. But if girls are properly coached, then that shouldn't be a problem! And if they aren't properly coached, who's really the responsible party? Biles? Nope.A slew of countries qualified for the Olympics thanks to their positions in the team competition at Worlds. No big surprises except for the ladies team from Brazil, who didn't qualify. However, they can have individual apparatus qualifiers!The men's team from Russia t…

Last week the IAAF World Championships wrapped up, and it was ten days of fun for me! I was able to catch a majority of the coverage, and was not disappointed in what I saw. While I was cheering for my picks to win, I can't say I was ever disappointed in who won the event. I hope that this was a great warmup for all of those athletes, and I'm excited to see many of these athletes in Tokyo next year!

Let's take a look at how I did with my picks!

Men's 100 Meters

My Pick: Christian Coleman

Actual Winner: Christian Coleman (1)

This was a solid pick. When the gun went off, there wasn't any doubt that Coleman was going to take this handily. Plus he won it with the fastest time in the world this year! Justin Gatlin ended up with silver, and Andre de Grasse of Canada won the bronze.

Women's 100 Meters

My pick: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Actual Winner: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (1)

Dina Asher-Smith and Marie Josée Ta Lou made competition fierce, but no one can yet challenge Fras…

Yesterday I had the privilege of going to Indianapolis and watching the first ever meet of the International Swimming League - a brand-new, team-based swimming league. I was curious to see how this style of swimming would go, and considering I'm not very far away, I had to jump at the chance.

Before I get to my experience at the meet, let me explain the ISL. It was started this year by Ukranian billionaire Konstantin Grigorishin, who worked to make swimming a bigger deal around the world - and pay the swimmers accordingly. This is professional swimming.

Most swimming meets that take place - from kid meets all the way to the TYR Pro Swim Series - are all the same: compete in heats, place your best time, and then figure out which final you'll be in.

(You can find my articles on the Indianapolis TYR Pro Swim Series here and here.)

In the case of the ISL, there are no heats. There are teams of 24 athletes - 12 men and 12 women, and the roster fluctuates depending on the athlete&#…