Winter Olympics: Search and Destroy

I'm also warming up to curling, of all "sports" - there's some intagible beauty about the entire curling process that gets me right here. (No, here.)

And of course from my hockey bitching elsewhere, it's pretty clear I have a special place in my heart for hockey. Unfortunately I became really ill yesterday and slept throught most of the hockey on the CBC. D'oh! Bronchitis suX0r.

Plus our bloody flatmate spent the ENTIRE weekend slumped in the sofa watching it so no-one else could get into the front room without being bored to death.

I'm gutted that I fell asleep due to beer during the final of the two man bob, that looked excellent.

I've missed too much of the hockey though, disappointingly.

I've been watching it as I can throughout, with the eternal proviso that one's own music should be played as the audio feed rather than the NBC wibble. So the ice dancing then.

But then, I think she'd have left the arena smiling, regardless....

I'm already dodging the Kwan fans in the room, but I couldn't help giggling when she fell. (My skewed sense of humour, don't you know;>?) She was entirely too complacent, to suit me.

Sarah Hughes was amazing. I haven't seen anything like that in years. Sasha Cohen... HAW HAW!

Ms. Cohen comes from Laguna Niguel around here, and the impression of her is not much different from that of many people who grew up there -- the potential (if, certainly, not always the reality) of being a little miss priss. In comparison, Sarah H. seemed so cool -- smart, friendly, relaxed, and as Dan said, having fun.

What Ned said about Cohen sounds pretty credible from here....looking at her pinched priss face I was just imagining what a spoiled little ballbuster she must be....utter absence of tits......those bizarre identically-sized Dolphin teeth that make her look even bitchier.......I'd still do her though....that one kicked-out glide move only she can do had my jaw dropping....but I'd mistreat her....two weeks into it I'd take her to the surgeon for implants but convince homeboy to not implant implants but instead, "whatever you got in your glove compartment, duke.....yes, even those week-old Wendy's fries"

So how about the bitching.....the Koreans are overreacting but Ohno (his face still annoys me DEEPLY) made too big a deal and they do have a bit of a case....I like South Koreans....they're rugged folks and the chicks are milky.....Korean-american indie kids are insecure insufferable cunts though.....the Russian whining about the ladies skate is ridiculous.....I hate Russians too.

The way the medal count works is so unfair and retarded because some sports like distance-ski jumping have so many bloody near-identical sub-events and 300000 medals while the best most-watched/anticipated sports are just simple three-medal one-shot male event + fem. event deals (skating, hockey, freestyle skiing).

I hope none of you saw Bill Maher on Leno last night.....what a stacked card, let me tell you....the biggest pseud on TV with the most unfunny cunt on earth.....Bill said some shit so ignorant it somehow eclipses his "overweight people are just lazy and why should I pay health taxes because they're pigs?!" P.I. show and rap music comments....he says something like "I don't watch the Winter games....they're not sports...they're GRAVITY!!! You sit on a sled.." All the while with that huge triangular nose and those smirky incredulous "I mean COME ON!" facial gestures that must mean this guy actually thinks he's being cleverfresh...... everyday I cry a 40oz of tears trying to understand how people can think this man is exceptionally intelligent or witty....my theory is that Bill is the mascot for midbrow pseuds all over the USA that aren't outright morons but have just the right amount of totally cursory knowledge about shit in general to think they can stop right the fuck there.

no winter Olympics thread?

the UK women's short course speed skater's Olympics lasted one corner...

Doing very light watching myself at this point, but caught a few things here and there.

I'm recording both bbc channels overnight, like 16 hours total, and then fast forwarding through the 90% i don't care about. but either it's hard or i'm stupid but i keep watching things on the wrong order - the edited highlights before the live footage (it's hard, there are multiple multiple-hour shows, with no contents listed, the pvr groups them per channel and orders the groups by the start time of the most recent)

women's snowboard slope style results were read out on the radio news before i could watch them, which was annoying. especially as it came down to the very last run.

All these incredible athletes are the best in the world at their respective sports. I wish them all the best and hope they have a fantastic Olympics experience they'll always remember fondly. May those of you who are fans enjoy the games from home, too. I have no particular interest in these sports, but at least they're better than watching NASCAR.

Italian curling team pretty awesome so far

Anyone who's watching, can you keep an eye out for athletes from Francophone countries doing cool stuff? Looking for things I can tell my class about the games.

i'm only watching the extreme sports parts of this and whilst the french aren't featuring much there are plenty of french-canadian names.

4th in women's snowboard slope style
https://olympics.com/beijing-2022/olympic-games/en/results/snowboard/athlete-profile-n1045849-laurie-blouin.htm

Max Parrot (of Bromont, Que) won the men's (controversially). Sébastien Toutant from L'Assomption, Que., finished in ninth place.

In men's downhill skiing 41-year-old Johan Clarey (from France) won his first Olympic silver medal today and became the oldest Alpine skier to win a medal.

Man, that short track speed skating move with the lap marker, damn.

the relay of that just looks like chaos

super bad luck for yuzuru hanyu, who will likely not make the podium in the men's figure skating after missing his first jump in the short program today despite an otherwise flawless routine - apparently, there was a hole in the ice that prevented him from taking off for the jump properly. really unfortunate.

nathan chen for the gold probably - goes into the final with a record-breaking skate, though I thought he was overscored :/

some more figure skating drama: the medal ceremony for the team event, which was supposed to have been held yesterday, has been postponed over an unspecified "legal issue" involving multiple skaters. it sounds major - possibly a doping or judging issue?

The Russian Olympic Committee won the gold, silver for US and bronze for Japan. Canada was fourth and could be upgraded if there are any changes to the official results.

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/33249419/team-figure-skating-medal-ceremony-beijing-olympics-delayed-legal-issue

Frrnch rider was 2nd in women's ski big air yesterday, which would make a good maths lesson if nothing else (1620 is 4.5 full rotations...)

Ok so this figure skating medal drama is just absolutely bananas: https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1119043/valieva-legal-problem-beijing-2022

The exact nature of Valieva’s problem is unclear, although there have been widespread claims that the drug involved was not performance-enhancing, but recreational.

There is also a dispute over whether the substance was taken in or out of competition.

The situation is complicated even further because, under the rules of the World Anti-Doping Code, Valieva is a "Protected Person".

That means as "an athlete who at the time of the anti-doping rule violation: has not reached the age of sixteen" Valieva cannot officially be identified if she is guilty of an anti-doping violation.

Meanwhile Russian media has been reporting that the banned substance was weed, which if true, makes this whole thing even more incredible.

men's snowboard cross was fun, especially when it was close. the small final with the first-person camera, i can see them doing that again.

Ah! Thanks for pointing this thread out, mostly so that I can post this weird wtf moment:

https://streamable.com/uytw1a

And the figure skating drama is some bullshit. So you've got Russia, notorious for doping, and a dubious coach, and a skater who tests positive for a banned substance ... I mean, come on, they know what substances are banned, if there is any team that absolutely does not deserve the benefit of the doubt it's Russia.

i watched her do the quad in real-time, it was pretty thrilling! she fell on her ass about a minute later and i thought to myself welp, damn, i guess that's it for her dreams but she was still in first place for that stage afterwards so by my lights she's leading a pretty charmed life

i have no beef, she's 15, she's one of the most talented athletes in the world, if she wants to take some kind of heart medication because it helps her legs who fucking cares

rather watch her skate than not. but tbh i've never cared about doping in sports unless it's framed around athlete welfare concerns like concussion or excessive pain killing injections etc.

I guess the question of whether it’s what ‘she wants’ is interesting given the fact that she’s a child. Just feel very sad for her for a number of reasons.

yeah i doubt it's any kind of life

i was particularly interested this year in ester ledecka - you might remember her from that incredible moment four years ago when she won the gold medal in women's super-G by 1/100th of a second on borrowed skis, and later went on to become the first ever winter olympian to get gold medals in two different disciplines in the same games

if you haven't seen it do yourself a favor and watch til the end to see the expression on her face
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke0bRzCWz1c

what i love is how she just goes hell for leather, absolutely bombing it down the hill, all gas, no brakes, makes mistakes, but she's going so fast it often doesn't matter. unfortunately it did this year, she wiped out wide on a turn in the super-G, somehow stayed on her feet and finished fifth

won gold in snowboarding though

big air snowboarding earlier today, worth catching the highlights on bbc2 at 7 if you've not watched it before.

but it's become too much of a spin fest, especially the men's with their 1800s, it's now at the point where the slo-mo repeats are the best of it.

> ester ledecka

they do love pronouncing her rhyming name

I still watch Ester Ledecka’s super g run from 2018 periodically. One of my favorite Olympics moments ever.

this supercut of commentators from different countries reacting to it as it happened may be relevant to your interests

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FhOoEzIsh4

Oh I have watched that a couple of times too. As well as the full length replay of the whole event. I don’t who the commentator team is but I really like their rapport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNhZ_jw-6ek

rather watch her skate than not. but tbh i've never cared about doping in sports unless it's framed around athlete welfare concerns like concussion or excessive pain killing injections etc.

Uh, she's a 15 year old who was given a heart medication she doesn't need in order to improve her blood flow. she says it was an accident, but then yesterday it was reported that her test sample had traces of THREE different heart medications, one of which was the banned substance and another that has been misused before - by dopers in cycling.

There's also nothing healthy about the Russian figure skating programme, where most of their female champions burn out before they turn 20: https://medium.com/@maddnik/eteri-tutberidze-and-the-future-of-figure-skating-ede4aea1cf76

on a related topic, i don't watch FS regularly but the biased judging is really egregious this year. It's always been bad, but anyone who watched it last night would have been completely baffled by the scores given to Russian skaters, who did not put on perfect skates by any means (falls, putting their hand down on the ice, etc.) but are somehow leading the table over the Japanese skaters with similar elements in their programmes and skated clean (in both senses of the word).

I just read through that, and jesus. It's pretty much what I expected, since the Russians keep producing these 15-year-old champions who have disappeared by the next Olympics, but it's still horrifying to read. At the point where you realize that to hack the whole sport all you need to do is starve and permanently injure a steady stream of children, and you're allowed to do that, it's clear that the whole thing is rotten. Shut it all down, or at least don't let girls compete until they're 17 or 18, which would maybe keep this coach from disabling quite as many kids.

the ROC and the rest of the world are just talking past each other at this point since they clearly don't think there's a problem with anything they're doing

why should they when the sports and FS establishment consistently turns a blind eye to and even rewards them for what they're doing?

I feel awful for Valieva cause she's just a kid but it actually is incredible that they allowed her to continue competing - almost any other athlete in any other sport who fails a doping test would get an immediate suspension pending appeals.

the worst was the IOC announcing after that they wouldn't hold a medal ceremony if she podiumed (pending a full review), meaning that this whole mess will likely end up not only robbing her but other athletes/medalists of their full Olympic experience  

yeah totally agree with all that. it just sucks.

regretting my cavalier attitude before, it’s true that doping is a different thing when we’re talking about literal children

lol @ american curling team in their trucker hats

and that's just the women

This Winter Olympics has made me realize I really like curling. It has that (often maligned) element you find in baseball where there’s 13 seconds of action in between longer cerebral bits of planning/anticipation/strategy. I guess that could apply to many sports but baseball came to mind first.

Chaotic scenes at the women's figure skating final last night which really underscored all the problems with the sport. Russia's coach Tutberidze should be banned, and they need to seriously look at raising the age limit of competitors.

Valieva completely botched her free skate and her coach berated her the moment she came off the ice, that poor girl. They never should've let her compete. :(

gold medalist Shcherbakova was utterly miserable, sitting alone hugging a stuffed animal, while her compatriot Sasha Trusova was furious at winning silver after performing five quads:

Astonishing postscript to a chaotic women’s event. Sasha Trusova awarded silver medal after historic five quad performance. “I will never go out on the ice again. I hate this sport.” (To coach Eteri Tutberidze): You knew everything. Everyone has gold medals. Only I don’t.” https://t.co/TqNCYsrfyn

— Eoin O'Callaghan (@EoinOCallaghan) February 17, 2022

None of them are 18 yet and I suspect we won't see any of them again next Olympics. it's all just really sad

i haven't watched it yet (i guess we will, painfully, tomorrow night) but i wonder if some part of valieva realized that choosing to not win was the better path.

instituting an age floor of 18 wouldn't cure the sport but it would be a decent start.

This Winter Olympics has made me realize I really like curling. It has that (often maligned) element you find in baseball where there’s 13 seconds of action in between longer cerebral bits of planning/anticipation/strategy. I guess that could apply to many sports but baseball came to mind first.

Thanks to the curling the *UK are actually going to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.

(*i.e. Scotland)

gb had 5 in the last two but before that there were lots of 0s and 1s

we do much better in the winter paras

https://www.nme.com/news/music/watch-olympic-ice-skater-alexandra-trusova-skate-to-the-stooges-i-wanna-be-your-dog-3164601

I Wanna Be Your Dog in the Winter Olympics skating competition via a cover from movie Cruella. Trusova skated to it

wouldn't be in favour of age restrictions. the female medalists in skateboarding at the summer olympics looked to be having a p great time. lydia ko was wrecking fields on the lpga as an amateur at the age of 14.

Great curling semi final win for, er, 'Britain' lol

Nicola Sturgeon should, er, strike while the iron is hot and rush through that legislation for IndyRef2

wouldn't be in favour of age restrictions. the female medalists in skateboarding at the summer olympics looked to be having a p great time. lydia ko was wrecking fields on the lpga as an amateur at the age of 14.

Skateboarding and halfpipe (and other X-Games type sports) are so very new to the Olympics with a very different kind of sporting culture so it won’t happen in the near future at least, but they might become institutionalised enough for countries to eventually emulate the same kind of development tactics in figure skating and gymnastics - preferring younger, smaller and lighter athletes that can pull off ever more difficult tricks. golf is different in that sense too.

The only sport I follow really closely is tennis which has at least put in limits on when minors can turn pro and how many competitions they’re allowed to play per year in order to avoid early burnout or permanent injury - this was in response to Jennifer Capriati, who openly struggled after exploding on to the scene at 13. There will always be child prodigies in every sport and yeah they’re fun to watch but too often, there aren’t any safeguards to make sure their bodies can handle it long-term, or that they’re emotionally equipped to handle the demands of professional sport, or that they’re not being exploited by adults whose abuses get brushed aside because they get ~results

yeah figure skating and gymanstics both seem to be pretty toxic in similar ways.

women's final was about as uncomfortable as i could possibly imagine. valieva was obviously rushing, extremely strong "i don't want to be here" vibes. just awful for her. she never should have been there.

for trusova's part, it sure seems like they convinced her that if she landed all 5 quads she'd win. she did, and you could tell that in her mind she'd nailed the program, but she's a truly awful artistic skater. that left poor shcherbakova, who was excellent, and no one from her own team cared as they dealt with the above fallout from their more favored skaters.

i do not expect any of this to change anything about how russian skating goes about its business, but it really sucked.

one slippy shoe, one grippy shoe...

suck it Hungary.

(we do, of course, order the medal table by medal colour rather than total medals when it suits us)

wheelchair curling is a bit more combatative than the normal kind, seems to rely less on pixel perfect stones (understandably)

gold for uk in your first paralympics must be kinda tippy. and the one-run format seems a bit brutal.

sitting slalom looks like fun, in those little pods.

the american snowboard-cross rider has mountain bike shock absorbers built into his custom racing leg