BUFFALO, N.Y. — There are now two remaining Western New Yorkers in competition in the Tokyo Olympics — Anita Alvarez and Brian Irr.
Both are in action this week, repping the red, white and blue in artistic swimming and in karate.
We start with Anita Alvarez, who is from Kenmore — she and her duet partner Lindi Schroeder finished in 13th place Monday, tied with Mexico, after their first day of competition in artistic swimming.
Alvarez's parents and her brother were cheering in Orlando at a watch party.
"They had a good swim I wouldn't say, it wasn't their best swim, I feel like they were lacking a little bit of energy and excitement, but there's no fans in the stands, it's hard to perform in front of nobody," said Karen Alvarez, Anita's mom, "A free routine, it's basically free, they can do whatever they want tomorrow they compete in the technical event and in that routine they do have required elements that everyone has to do."
Karen Alvarez says she and Anita were texting Monday on how things went.
"They were feeling good, they thought it was an okay swim," Karen Alvarez said, "Tomorrow, they'll swim the technical duet events and then they combined the scores with today's scores and then, the top 12 will advance to finals."
So the U.S. has to move up one spot to get into the medal round.
"We are stronger than a couple of the countries that are ahead of us, in the technical event, so we just have to see if the point difference will be enough to make it up make up the difference," Karen Alvarez said. "The competition has really, really gotten strong there's a lot of countries that just focus on the duet event that have pulled ahead of the us."
Also in competition this week — Newfane's Brian Irr will compete early Saturday morning in karate.
He's had a ton of support from his hometown with flags, signs, and t-shirts made up cheering him on.
Saturday's schedule shows there are women's competitions starting at 1 a.m., so Brian might not be on right away, for you early risers.
Anita Alvarez competes at a more reasonable time on Tuesday. Technical routines in artistic swimming start at 6:30 a.m. Karen Alvarez says Anita and her duet partner will probably get in the pool around 7:15 a.m.