Kimberly Aguirre | Los Angeles Times (TNS)
What did American gymnasts Simone Biles and Suni Lee do first after leading Team USA to gold in the team all-around final? Discuss what TikTok sounds to use, naturally.
Biles, the eventual individual all-around winner, chose a crunching sound as she and her teammates mimed biting their gold medals in a TikTok video that has since amassed 124 million views. Lee, the Tokyo Olympics all-around winner, chose to lip dub Kanye “Ye” West’s “I guess we’ll never know” Grammys speech, drawing 45 million views.
The pair’s social media usage mirrors the larger trend of Olympic athletes meme-ing and becoming memes themselves. Compared to the quieter 2020 Tokyo Games, postponed due to COVID-19 and the least-watched Olympics ever for NBC, this iteration has no shortage of viral moments.
Here are some of the most popular Paris Olympics memes.
The muffin man
Olympians have turned to social media to share their experiences from the Olympic village — from the cardboard beds to the dining hall food. One athlete took the internet by storm with his love of one specific food item: the dining hall’s chocolate muffins.
Now nicknamed the “muffin man” by social media users, Henrik Christiansen is beloved online. The Norwegian swimmer, who has more than 400,000 TikTok followers, went viral for his love of the chocolate pastry. He has posted multiple videos about the baked good to popular sounds with captions that include “when bae is looking like a snack” and “muffin reigns supreme.”
“The way I saw the muffin and knew whose account I just scrolled onto,” a TikTok user commented.
Chef Gordon Ramsay even joined in on the fun, commenting, “I think I need to try one now…”
Christiansen has inspired his fellow Olympians, including American sprinter Gabby Thomas and swimmer Abbey Weitzeil, to review the muffin.
Pommel horse guy
At the Paris Olympics, the U.S. men’s gymnastics team broke a 16-year dry spell and earned bronze, thanks in part to pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik.
The glasses-wearing, Rubik’s Cube-solving gymnast spent almost two-and-a-half hours on the bench waiting for his turn on the pommel horse. The NBC broadcast even included a countdown clock to his routine. During the hours of waiting, Nedoroscik won over the internet.
After the routine, social media conversation exploded and the gymnast was dubbed “Clark Kent” for his superheroic athletic abilities and calm demeanor.
“Obsessed with this guy on the US men’s gymnastics team who’s only job is pommel horse, so he just sits there until he’s activated like a sleeper agent, whips off his glasses like Clark Kent and does a pommel horse routine that helps deliver the team its first medal in 16 years,” one X user wrote.
One gym owner even told the Washington Post that Nedoroscik has increased boys’ interest in gymnastics. Nedoroscik also took home the bronze in the individual pommel horse event. No other male American gymnast earned an individual medal.
Turkey’s shooter
While most Olympic sharpshooters use futuristic-looking goggles and ear coverings, one shooter didn’t need any gear to get the job done.
The 51-year-old Turkish shooter Yusuf Dikeç rocked a regular pair of eyeglasses and a hand in his pocket. Dikeç stood out next to the decked-out athletes from competing nations. Nonchalant as can be, he ended up nabbing silver in the mixed team 10-meter air pistol event, earning the country its first-ever medal in shooting.
Since then, internet users have used juxtaposing images of Dikeç next to his competitors.
One X user captioned a split photo of Dikeç and a South Korean shooter wearing specialized lenses with, “Girls packing for a trip vs guys packing for a trip.”
Others have turned the moment into a generation meme, with the shooters with fancy gadgets representing Generation Z and the relaxed Turkish shooter embodying Generation X.
After Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis won the event, he copied Dikeç’s memed pose in celebration.
The bulge that cost a medal
While Sweden’s Armand Duplantis clinched gold in the pole vault, France’s Anthony Ammirati was left medal-less after his crotch caught on the crossbar.
Of course, social media immediately went to work discussing and meme-ing the situation.
“A french pole vaulter knocked the crossbar off with his pole…whoops,” one X user quipped.
Many described it as the best way to lose.
“Some consolation prize having your weapon cause you to lose the pole vault. Like a platinum medal, that,” an X user wrote.
The loss of the medal opened up new opportunities for Ammirati. Adult entertainment company CamSoda offered the athlete $250,000 for a 60-minute show.
Bob the cap catcher
When a swimmer’s cap fell into the pool, Paris sent a Speedo-clad worker to collect the headpiece. Viewers immediately grew obsessed with “Bob the cap catcher.” Many tweets refer to Bob as a “legend.”
“Ok maybe i do have a dream job,” one user wrote.
“My man Bob the Cap Catcher is the GOAT and I will die on this hill,” another declared.
Bob even gained a fan in Snoop Dogg. “That’s my guy,” the rapper, a special correspondent for NBC, said during the network’s broadcast.
‘Unfortunately, I was not chosen’
The memes don’t end with the Olympians. Athletes are revisiting their biggest fails on social media.
Along with some variation of the caption “Unfortunately, I was not chosen for the team,” users can be seen falling off diving boards or flying off the uneven bars.
Lee got in on the action, parodying the popular videos.
“Unfortunately i was selected for the olympics,” she wrote below a video of her balance beam fall on Monday.
Lady Parmesan
Olympic athletes can earn a lot of sponsorships. They often go the classic route: modeling sportswear brands. Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa had a more unconventional approach: eating cheese.
Villa, a part of the women’s team that took home silver, had an old sponsorship deal with Parmesan cheese maker Parmigiano Reggiano.
“I need the people to know that olympic silver medalist giorgia villa is sponsored by parmesan cheese and regularly posts pics of herself with giant wheels of cheese,” one X user posted alongside pictures of the athlete with wheels of cheese.
“It hurts to see people living your dream (being sponsored by parmesan cheese) (not an olympic silver medal),” another user responded.
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