Rachel ran out of time in the Best New Thing in the World (video) Monday night and left one of the best parts of the story out. To recap, Brazilian Felipe Kitadai was so happy that he won Brazil’s first medal of the London Olympics, a bronze in judo, that he would not take it off. He even showered with it, but he didn’t want to get it wet so he clutched it in his teeth in the shower. And then what Rachel had to leave out, from the script:
Of course…. look at the size of that medal… so I could see if you clutched it very gently in your teeth, trying not to leave a bite mark… and if you didn’t wear the ribbon around your neck… I could see how you might drop your bronze medal in the shower.
Which… led to an awkward moment at a press conference the next day.
As Kitadai and a fellow Brazilian judo winner were presented with a traditional celebratory dish of a sweet, chocolatey dessert called brigadeiros… the other medal winner, Sarah Menezes, was able to take the traditional picture.
There she is holding up her medal next to her bowl of brigadeiros… while Kitadai just holds up the bowl. And later… he is persuaded to take his broken medal out of his pocket… holding it carefully next to his bowl of brigadeiros, making sure the ribbon is covering up the broken part. As Rachel noted, Brazil has asked the International Olympic Committee if Kitadai can have a new bronze medal, and on Monday the IOC said yes.
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