Though football isn’t an Olympic sport, there are a few NFL connections in Rio.
Patriots WR Nate Ebner is playing for the USA Men’s Rubgy sevens team, and the wife of Bears DE Mitch Unrein, Corey Cogdell-Unrein, just won the bronze in Olympic Trap Shooting.
This is the second bronze medal of Cogdell-Unrein’s career; her first came in Beijing in 2008. She did not medal in the 2012 competition in London. She beat Spain’s Fatima Galvez in the third-place match to win bronze.
To be clear, this is a fantastic accomplishment by Corey, and all credit to her. The fact that she has a husband who plays in the NFL doesn’t overshadow or define her accomplishment. It’s just awesome on its own. But, it was pretty cool that the Bears locker room banded together in support of her:
Entire nation & in particular @ChicagoBears stand behind @CoreyCogdell. Trap Medal hunt begins at 2pm ET. #USA pic.twitter.com/3DdE7n3DSh
— USA Shooting (@USAShooting) August 7, 2016
There was a one problem: due to conflicts with training camp, Unrein wasn’t able to travel to attend the event. No problem, right? He could just stream it online! However, thanks to NBC’s ongoing issues with tape delayed events, the final wasn’t shown live anywhere in the US. NBC pulled the live stream of the event as they planned to show it live on another channel on tape delay later in the evening, and Unrein was not happy about that:
Those asking, @NBCOlympics says no livestream of @CoreyCogdell Finals match at 2ET. Preparing tape-delay TV on CNBC at 6ET. Could change.
— USA Shooting (@USAShooting) August 7, 2016
https://twitter.com/MitchellJUnrein/status/762322225471127552
Cogdell-Unrein is the only American woman to medal in the trap shooting competition, which began as an Olympic sport in 2000.
