Dukes Olympians (Schedule for Obscure Events)

USA (and former Duke!) Archer Jacob Wukie

Well, it’s that wonderful time of the year when NBC ceaselessly promotes athletic programming throughout it’s morning lineup for the evening to come while  pretending that programming is not actually taking place LIVE right over Matt Lauer’s shoulder.  Gotta love the Olympics and a media format hanging on the mid-90’s as best they can.  But the good news is there are three former Dukes heading to London! (it’s possible there are more JMU connections, so please let us know in the comments if you know of others)  And also good news is that the events they’ll be competing in are not likely to force you to wait for west-coast primetime on the peacock flagship to catch them!

Corky Julien – Canada, Women’s Soccer – One of the best Olympics twitter follows you’ll find  former Dukes womens soccer superstar @juliencm21. In case you didn’t know, and of course NBC wouldn’t want you to know anything actually takes place prior to their big advertising bonanza at the Opening Ceremonies, the Women’s Soccer tourney actually started already.  Bad news is Canada dropped their opener 2-1, but good news is that was against the current holders of the World Cup Japan (yeah, that Japan that beat Team USA in a thrilling OT match in the final), so there’s no shame in that result and it certainly doesn’t destroy Canada’s shot at coming second in the group and advancing to the elimination tournament.

Eva Hannesdottir – Iceland, Swimming – Look, we may be wrong on this, but she’s not likely to make it out the heats to any televised portion of the swimming competition.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t cheer for her at Opening/Closing Ceremonies and tune into some online early heats if you’re bored at work.

Jakob Wukie – USA, Archery (Amurica! Eff yeah!)  – The Men’s Team competition actually takes place Saturday as one of the first events out of the gate so don’t sleep.  Literally, the early rounds are at 4 a.m. our time and the advancing and medal rounds appear to take place at 10 a.m.  The men’s individual competition takes place throughout the week with the medal rounds on Friday at 9 a.m.  All of the archery can be livestreamed through NBC since, needless to say, they won’t be re-airing it in primetime unless someone wins something.  That said, Jakob is a very serious contender so we encourage you to track him througout the week and keep an eye on the medal count come Friday!