Weekend: Excuse Us, Octopus Eyebrows? ​​🐙

Allow us to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of the Paris Games. No, not the Italian gymnast with a Parmigiano Reggiano sponsorship, the “Olympic Muffin Man,” or the dressed-down Turkish shooter — though, give them all the medals, s’il vous plaît. Instead, we’re talking about the athletes’ biggest cheerleaders. That includes young fans (if we were this girl, we’d never recover either), fellow athletes, and celebrities like Chris Meloni (who knew he was such a table tennis fan?) and Nicole Kidman with her “lookalike” daughters. Not to mention, Team USA’s hype men: Flavor Flav — who signed an “unprecedented” five-year sponsorship of USA Water Polo — and Snoop Dogg, who in addition to inspiring medal-worthy memes, has taken his role as NBC’s “ambassador of happiness” very seriously. Exhibit A: his patriotic drip. Exhibit B: his swim lesson with Michael Phelps. And Exhibit C: his commitment to dressage, despite his fear of horses. (Naturally, Snoop matched his equestrian outfit with Martha Stewart's.)

Of course, we couldn’t talk about unsung heroes without acknowledging the real stars of the sidelines: the family members. After being banned from the Tokyo Games due to pandemic restrictions, we now get to see parents and siblings in all their glory. And it’s undoubtedly better with them there. We’ve gotten moments that are super sweet (we dare you to watch this video without crying), extremely delightful (is anyone having a better time than Frederick Richard’s dad?), very intense (NBC, put your heart-rate monitors on Jordan Chiles’s parents next), and perhaps iconic (Ilona Maher’s sisters wore shirts so good, Jason Kelce nabbed one). Even Simone Biles’s husband — who caused an uproar after claiming he was “the catch” — had his own redemption tour, thanks to his custom Simone merch and diligent scorekeeping. And while we’re not giving him a medal, we will say: Très bien, Jonathan.