Your PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics anticipation thread!

France got gold in the women's moguls (as they often do)

Oh I missed a gold in women’s moguls! But still. Yay Anaïs Bescond!

Another French biathlon medal, a gold this time, though it’s no surprise, it’s Martin Fourcade, our flag-bearer at the opening ceremonies.

on boss les bosses

korean womens hockey team in two games:
outscored 16-0
outshot 102-27

did they at least rack up some penalty minutes?

some notes

1. The streaming replays are great. You get the whole event, PLUS, they are all apparently presented by antipodeans, and all sports are better with an Australian or Kiwi doing the talking. Our Roku has paid for itself so many times over, but especially during these Olympics (and we're barely into it). Oh and the replays don't permanently fill 1/3 of the screen real estate with static overlays typed up by an intern.

2. Luge coaches are some dour motherfuckers. If you go slower than the current 2nd best time, your luge coach will make a face like you just ran over his flower bed.

3. Women's Luge is the exact opposite of professional League of Legends. How do I know this? Because the South Koreans recruited a German to play for them.

4. My Olympic sport in the "why would anybody ever fucking want to do that" category is anything involving cross-country skiing. Fuck an endurance sport that also happens to be in the cold. And the biathlon, where you have to stop and control your breathing while you try to load and shoot tiny bullets one by one, and then go back to endurance racing? All these people are nuts.

also these kids on the snowboards at the Olympics have grown up in a world that has always had snowboarding at the Olympics.

biathlon is amazing, those athletes are uber-humans

let us have a moment of silence for the destroyed knees of all mogul skiiers

also: i have decided that i like individual figure skating but i can’t get with couples skating

I think if your knees can be destroyed you quickly get selected out of a career in moguls. The people you see moguling at these things have different knees than you and me

hmm that seems otm.
it hurts my knees to watch them

i don't know anything about snowboarding but i know that chloe kim is incredible at it

also: i have decided that i like individual figure skating but i can’t get with couples skating

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, February 12, 2018 8:44 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ice dance can be good if you just give yourself over to how beautiful it is and stop trying to figure out who's good at it. pairs sucks tho. they put you in pairs if you can't hack it in individual skating.

america, not content with building red gerard, has built chloe kim

swear to god, the MIT labs have some answering to do

that wasn't even meant to be a Boston Dynamics reference but

no idea why you're blaming snowboard cyborgs on beantown. colorado has three national labs in boulder alone, plus the renewable energy lab outside denver and the aerospace r&d center in colorado springs.

uhhh my dudes chloe’s from Cali, let’s give the west coast some credit for her badassery

she was made at JPL obv

Chloe rules, all is well.

Gee this super combined looks so simple and safe! *crashes immediately*

Omg mindblown that I’ve been figured out https://t.co/G2UMxxPlAR

— Mirai Nagasu (@mirai_nagasu) February 12, 2018

Stina Nilsson!

Gah, moving the end of the men's halfpipe qualifiers to a different channel at 3am is a dick move. Nobody's following it live and the people who care enough to video it aren't there to change the channel.

Spoilers on the news is annoying me too.

that Luge crash was about as bad as i've ever seen.

What. Is. Shaun. White.

this is amazing

never in doubt lol

wonder if the other dudes hate him. crazy he only did 5 hits compared to their 6.

The documentary the Crash Reel painted White as a coldhearted competitor - ie cut off his friendship with Kevin Pearce when Pearce became a rival

but snowboarding culture is so much abt having fun and broing out that steely-focused competitors stand out & seem like freaks so maybe it’s hard to keep friendships in that world when u decide to be serious about yr career idk

i def get the feeling it’s like winning the only thing that makes him happy? whatever, dudes pretty fkn good at it so whatever works

that being said he does give off a douchey vibe & it is kind of weird to see him really only interact with his “posse” behind the scenes

sorry that was a bit too shaun white .xls than was needed lol

He’s fkn amazing to watch tho. Jesus Christ.

lol i've been looking into this and find myself sympathizing w/shaun white. pretending to be friends with people is terrible; focusing on winning is not. the idea that there's anything special about snowboarding culture does not ring true.

not sure i get douchey vibes completely. just seems like theres something there. hes incredible, no reason he wont be back in 4 years.

Well...there was this, apparently.

https://deadspin.com/here-are-the-penis-pics-that-lena-zawaideh-says-shaun-w-1785367526

ok, that doesn't seem great

yeah there’s also that

btw super not clicking that link

def comes off as a jerk there

btw Ayumu Hirano is a FREAK

Scotty James too 🇦🇺

fuck that was a great final
i love snowboarding

hell yeah. watching it now. this is awesome.

wonder if the other dudes hate him. crazy he only did 5 hits compared to their 6.

― they call me melo gelo (Spottie), Wednesday, 14 February 2018 04:19 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc Hirano's best run only had five as well

was just gonna say. the people doing 6 hits aren't going as high or as long.

the between-heats videos here in england said that shaun had mellowed since losing in sochi. he stepped back a bit then got a new trainer and he's been actively nice to fans and press recently. probably realises that this is his last olympics. the helmet throwing triumphalism was a bit much this morning though (quickly followed by him saying 'can i have that back?')

(does he still skate in the x games? i first noticed him there, i think, when he was 17 ish (oh, internet says snowboard X in 2000, skateboard X in 2003, but the uk coverage was always sketchy))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wwi3E1hrVk

That lovely daft Swiss fella who was mumbling all sorts of wonderful 'for USA, for China, for Korea, for Russia, dot the world!' nonsense before his run...well, he also threw his helmet in celebration (and ended up coming like sixth)

...becoming my Athlete Of The Games in the process

Not helping

https://deadspin.com/shaun-white-brushes-off-sexual-harassment-lawsuit-at-pr-1822988245

man i know i was hating on pairs the other day but now i'm sucked in; figure skating is no question the best of the fake sports

Great gold medal performance in the pairs and Shiffrin begins her rampage with her own.

i am excited for snow cross weee