Small/Ecker in K2 500m final; David Smith wins second Olympic bronze

Kayakers Small/Ecker in K2 500m final

In today’s Olympics men’s K2 500m kayaking event, hard-of-hearing athlete Aaron Small and his partner Jonas Ecker advanced from the semifinals into the final. There, they paddled hard and finished in 8th place overall. They were about three seconds behind the gold medal winners, Germany. This concludes their Olympics. It was cool to have someone from the deaf/hard-of-hearing community as an American Olympic competitor and especially cool to see Small and Ecker signing “Ready spaghetti” before their races, which is their thing. There’s a very good chance that we’ll see Small again in future international kayaking competitions and hopefully at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

David Smith wins second Olympic bronze

The other deaf/hard-of-hearing American Olympian, men’s volleyball player David Smith, won the bronze medal today by defeating Italy. Congratulations to Smith and his fellow American teammates! The Paris games is Smith’s fourth Olympics and he now has two bronze medals with his first in 2016.

Kayaking final: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJBBQrJmvQ

Volleyball bronze match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyNyF60acRY

Team USA tweet on volleyball bronze: https://x.com/TeamUSA/status/1821935971912577337

https://usavolleyball.org/athlete/david-smith/

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