Paris 2024 Olympic Firsts Quiz

The Summer 2024 Olympics in Paris ended a little while ago on Sunday, August 11th. Congratulations to all athletes who came to these Olympics and competed fairly and to the best of their ability! This GeoFact of the Day quiz highlights medal winners representing countries — and an athlete valiantly competing for the Refugee Team — that have not won a medal previously or have not won a gold medal until Paris 2024. Three Caribbean island countries, three African countries, one European country, one Central American country, and the Refugee Olympic Team are all represented in this post. Quiz answers are listed below — enjoy and good luck!

1)      GRENADA earned bronze medals in men’s javelin throw and men’s decathlon. 2024 is the first Olympic year in which Grenada won more than one medal. Which name is not one of the athletes who won these medals?
A — Lindon Victor
B — Anderson Peters
C — Timothy Conch

2)      BOTSWANA celebrates its first ever gold medal, which was won by Letsile Tebogo. Letsile also earned a silver medal as a teammate on the men’s ___________ team.
A — badminton
B — 4 x 400 meter relay
C — football

3)      ____________ is the home country of Cindy Ngamba, the women’s 75 kg boxer who earned the first ever medal (bronze) on the Refugee Olympic Team.
A — CAMEROON
B — SOMALIA
C — YEMEN

4)      True or false: EL SALVADOR is the Central American country winning its first ever gold medal.

5)      Track athlete Julien Alfred won a gold medal in the women’s 100 meter dash and a silver medal in the women’s 200 meter dash at the Paris 2024 Olympics. She won these first ever medals on behalf of which Caribbean island country?
A — SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS
B — SAINT LUCIA
C — TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
D — BARBADOS

6)      Two freestyle wrestlers — Chermen Valiev and Islam Dudaev — won the first ever medals (both bronze) for their country in Southeastern Europe. Which country?
A — ALBANIA
B — GREECE
C — NORTH MACEDONIA
D — MONTENEGRO

7)      David de Pina (Daniel Varela de Pina) won a bronze medal in men’s 51 kg boxing and therefore earned the first ever medal for which island country in Africa? Hint: this country is an archipelago located west of mainland West Africa, and the country’s name translates to green cape in Portuguese.
A — MAURITIUS
B — SEYCHELLES
C — SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE
D — COMOROS
E — CABO VERDE
F — MADAGASCAR

8)      True or false: Thea LaFond competed in women’s triple jump and earned the first ever medal — and a gold one at that — for DOMINICA.























ANSWERS

Question 1:
C . . . . . Timothy Conch

Question 2:
B . . . . . 4 x 400 meter relay

Question 3:
A . . . . . Cameroon

Question 4:
False . . . . . Guatemala

Question 5:
B . . . . . Saint Lucia

Question 6:
A . . . . . Albania

Question 7:
E . . . . . Cabo Verde

Question 8:
True

The Amazing Race 33, Episode 5 Recap

Episode Info: Teams race through Switzerland, where racers bungee jump over 700 feet off the Verzasca Dam.

Episode Airdate: Wednesday, January 26th, 2022

The Amazing Race episode 5 brought teams to the canton of Ticino in southeastern SWITZERLAND. The area may be familiar to longtime viewers as it was the majestically mountainous setting for an episode in season 14 (2009). The six remaining teams of this season 33 quickly encountered a…

● Roadblock (“Who Wants to Get Down with the Travelocity Roaming Gnome?”): one member on each team took on a death-defying task indeed. Holding the iconic garden gnome figure, he or she had to bungee jump 722 feet from the top of Verzasca Dam. In several flashback scenes, teams from season 14 were shown completing the same task despite being terrified. The dam is Europe’s highest bungee jump drop-off. In regards to the team of Akbar and Sheri, Sheri unfortunately was compelled to complete the frightening quest despite her fear of heights (acrophobia); this was due to Akbar being deemed by medical staff as too overweight to safely bungee jump at the insane height. While understandably frightened, Sheri found enough courage to face her fears and do something thrilling. Cayla, Dusty, Kim, Lala, and Natalia also completed the harnessed jump.

● Teams received a small satchel for their gnome and then drove to Lugano, an Italian-speaking city very close to Italy. They proceeded to Piazza Carlo Battaglini in hopes of finding and completing a…

● Detour, choice between “Bartender Race” or “Sausage Encase”: teams choosing the Bartender Race option — Akbar/Sheri, Dusty/Ryan, and Kim/Penn — found twelve wine bottles and twelve cone-shaped containers of chestnuts and delivered them to a cocktail party. The Bartender Race was good exercise for teams because they had to climb up and down dozens of stair steps to deliver all the items. Teams choosing the Sausage Encase option — Arun/Natalia, Cayla/Raquel, and Lala/Lulu — made a type of Italian sausage (Luganega) by encasing ground sausage into a tubular lining. They coiled the sausage links into separate spirals and pinned them with long “toothpicks.”

● Upon Detour completion, clues instructed teams to bring out the photograph from their gnome’s satchel and investigate where the depicted but unidentified building is located. Villa Ciani is an 1800s mansion, conference center, and picturesque wedding venue situated steps away from the Pit Stop for this episode: Parco Ciani, a 15-acre park near Lake Lugano. Speaking of lakes, Switzerland is home to over 1,500 lakes.

● Pit Stop: Parco Ciani in the city of Lugano

● In the next episode, teams continue their European adventures in Corsica, FRANCE.

  Season 33, Episode 5 Results

  1st — Dusty and Ryan
       1st place prize — five-night resort vacation in DOMINICA

  2nd — Lala and Lulu

  3rd — Kim and Penn

  4th — Cayla and Raquel

  5th — Akbar and Sheri

  6th — Arun and Natalia
       Eliminated from the competition? No; non-elimination leg

Independence Day in Dominica

People all across DOMINICA recently celebrated their country's Independence Day on Tuesday, November 3rd. Dominica achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1978. Happy belated Independence Day!

Dominica Exports

The following items are major exports of DOMINICA: bananas, bay oil, cement, citrus fruit (especially oranges), clothing and textiles, cocoa, coconuts and copra, footwear, furniture, grapefruit, mangos, root crops, seafood, soap, and various vegetables. According to the International Monetary Fund (data.imf.org), countries and territories buying and importing most of those exports (February 2017 statistics) include Trinidad and Tobago (top importer), Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Egypt, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Senegal, Saint Lucia, the United States, Myanmar, France, the United Kingdom, Suriname, Russia, Kuwait, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Vietnam.

Coastal Cities

GeoFact of the Day currently has seven country-by-country posts highlighting towns, cities, and communities located next to massive water bodies:

— BARBADOS (↗)
— DOMINICA (↗)
— GHANA (↗)
— GRENADA (↗)
— GUINEA (↗)
— SÉNÉGAL (↗)
— TUNISIA (↗)

Want to see your country or territory featured in a new blog post — related to the coastal-city topic or something else altogether? Write a post comment below. Thank you for visiting GeoFact of the Day, today and always!

Parishes of Dominica

Click on the map image above to enlarge it in a pop-up lightbox window.

Part of the Windward Islands archipelago and located south of Guadeloupe and north of Martinique, DOMINICA is administratively divided into parishes named after saints, like in other Caribbean island countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, etc. Dominica's ten parishes are Saint Andrew, Saint David, Saint George, Saint John, Saint Joseph, Saint Luke, Saint Mark, Saint Patrick, Saint Paul, and Saint Peter. More information about this island country can be found in my Dominica post.

Coastal Cities of Dominica

Located in the Windward Islands section of the Lesser Antilles archipelago, DOMINICA is home to the following cities and town located near the coastline (starting north, then clockwise on island): Vieille Case ("old house" in Dominican Creole French), Hampstead, Wesley, Marigot, Salybia, Castle Bruce, Petit Soufrière, Rosalie, La Plaine, Délices ("delights"), Grand Bay, Soufrière, Roseau (Dominica's capital), Mahaut, Saint Joseph, Barroui, Coulihaut, and Portsmouth (northwestern coast).

GeoFact of the Day's Dominica post (↗)

Dominica Endangered Species

As of June 11th, 2015, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ for DOMINICA, a Caribbean Sea island country in North America, lists 6 critically endangered species and 17 endangered species. Fortunately, Dominica does not have any extinct species on the IUCN Red List. The six critically endangered species are the Atlantic Goliath Grouper, Elkhorn Coral, Mountain Chicken (a frog, not a chicken!), Smalltooth Sawfish, Staghorn Coral, and Phycolepidozia exigua liverwort. The Mountain Chicken is also known as the Giant Ditch Frog. Some endangered species include the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Black-capped Petrel bird, Green Turtle, Imperial Amazon (Sisserou parrot), and Nassau Grouper.

Did you know? The Imperial Amazon is only found on Dominica and is the country's national bird. The bird is featured on Dominica's flag and coat of arms.

Dominica post (links opens in new tab/window)

Dominant Religion of Dominica

The commonwealth of DOMINICA is an island country in the Caribbean Sea south of the Dominica Passage and Guadeloupe and north of the Martinique Passage and Martinique. The main religion that Dominicans worship is Christianity. More than 75% of the population is Roman Catholic, and Protestants make up most of the remaining population.

Dominica

DOMINICA is a single-island country in the Caribbean Sea located south of the Dominica Passage and north of the Martinique Passage. Dominica is north of Martinique and south of Guadeloupe - both are overseas regions belonging to France. Like Guadeloupe and Martinique, Dominica is in the middle of a curved strip of islands called the Lesser Antilles. The capital is Roseau, which has over 16,000 inhabitants. The currency is the East Caribbean Dollar, and its ISO 4217 currency code is XCD. A unique feature of Dominica is a boiling lake - specifically a flooded fumarole, or opening in the Earth's crust. The Boiling Lake of Dominica is situated west of La Plaine and about nine kilometers east of Roseau.