A famous old boxing match was ended with a perfect right to the jaw that sent the hapless victim to instant dreamland. One fine sports journalist of the time described the punch as “landing like the judgement of God.”

That story is the perfect metaphor for describing Canada’s mighty hammer-thrower’s Ethan Katzberg feat at the Olympics. Katzberg, all of 22 years, did the famous punch more than one better. On his first trip to the circle, he took his stance, got into the requisite spins of the body as it rounded the circle, straightened up and let the swinging hammer fly; and fly it did – a clear 6 feet ahead of any competitor’s best throw. It instantly ended the competition. Game, set, match!

And through it all, Katzberg’s expression betrayed very little, no shock, no excitement, just bright eyes barely hiding a self-satisfied grin. He won gold with one throw and knew it. As did the rest of us.

After that the field threw their hammers gamely for the pleasure of being second. In truth, most viewers do not remember any of their names. It hardly could have been otherwise after Ethan Katzman’s majestic feat. Viewers, we’re sure for the most part, were waiting to see if he could better his decisive first throw. He didn’t, but it didn’t matter; the record will stand for many years.

At this point we must confess that we keep a special eye out for “our guys” – Canadians with some Caribbean lineage, no matter how weak that link is. That is not to say that we do not go wild at every Canadian medal, whether it be in the water, the mat, the ring, the parallel bars, on the bicycle, everything. We swam every stroke with the brilliant Summer McIntosh and willed Joshua Liendo to his silver medal.

We were saddened by the drone fiasco that sank the women’s soccer team, the collapse of our sprinters, and the men’s basketball team. But we took solace in the mighty Camryn Rogers, who took a page out of Ethan Katzberg’s playbook, and put an early end to the contest with a massive hammer throw.

Rogers who went head-to-head with American Annette Nneka Echikunwoke, a woman of remarkable physique that would make the mythical Amazons proud; she towered over six impressive feet. As they passed each other at the circle, Rogers barely reached her shoulder. Yet the word “mighty” which refers more to strength than size, was the perfect description of the compact Canadian, who took the hammer and threw it several feet beyond Echikunwoke’s leading mark. From the look on the face of the great American thrower, she knew that the jig was up. As in the case of Katzberg, it was game, set, match.

As Camryn Rogers stood at the top step of the medal podium, her head was barely level with Echikunwoke’s head, who was standing on the lower step. But the grin on Camryn’s face told the tale.

So here we are with lots more of the games still to come. We will be there in spirit to watch our men’s 4×100 relay team redeem themselves and hope that more gold medals flow to Canada in the final days.