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

Quite like to see more Ice Hockey. Really would watch NHL loads if it was broadcast here.

I used to watch it sometimes when I lived in the Czech Republic as it's a big deal there (also they have a world cup every year!) but always had trouble seeing where the puck was, which made it confusing.

I did go to a game once when I was in New York once - well, I had to go to Long Island to see it.

... too many onces.

I used to watch it sometimes when I lived in the Czech Republic as it's a big deal there (also they have a world cup every year!) but always had trouble seeing where the puck was, which made it confusing.

in the 1990s, one of the networks in the US experimented with having a little flaming LSD trail so you could see the puck. It wasn’t very popular.

Curling curling curling

Sadly Eve Muirhead has retired. Not sure why, she's only 35.

Feel like American athletes are going to be given a hard time by crowds and this is going to be one of the big stories of the games, we all know why.

Curling curling curling

just saw something on instagram, that all olympic curling stones come from the same uninhabited Scottish island that has a certain kind of granite or something

they're not cheap!

Ailsa Craig, the name of which was the bane of my life for many years.

I saw a clip of ski mountaineering on the Japanese preview show last night (I am in Tokyo) - that looks entertainingly bonkers.

https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/winter-olympics-penis-injections-concern/

ski jumpers doing whatever it takes

I'm not sure I could write so legibly

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/41e4d9605a6dd5e070851fb2dd2a470412a840e7/0_0_1752_2168/master/1752.jpg

(it's 'fuck ice' written in piss in the snow)

must have been a ski jumper that did it

Usually I love watching the Olympics but there’s pretty much no way I can stomach it this year

yup this is not a good year for rah-rah U-S-A chanting patriotism

yeah.. feels like the most political olympics since 1980, and least as far as the U.S. is concerned. Kinda feel bad for the athletes, they've been training for years and now will likely be booed on the podium

I sincerely hope they're booed but I wouldn't say it was a certainty by any means.

I'm thinking that if US athletes -- or perhaps even more appropriately their handlers as such, whoever they are, as well as NBC in general -- aren't reading the room, that's on them. (And if any fans there mouth off along the way, that's REALLY on them.) 2028 may be the real challenge for even clearer reasons, albeit I think there's a good chance that a certain president may well be given the late António Salazar treatment by then.

any USA Olympic athlete who directly speaks out against the present administration risks being excluded, sent home, and blackballed by the USOC -- losing all the future subsidies they might be provided to train and compete for the games. but qualifying for the team is (supposedly) based on measurable performance in competition, so I hope a few of them take that risk.

apparently there are already Italian anti-ICE protesters

Notable, FWIW (universal, who knows). Quoting the post: "With the winter Olympics starting today in Italy, US athletes are being asked (by foreign journalists) how they feel about what ICE is doing. Short answer, they are not happy and are ashamed as we are."

https://bsky.app/profile/kamimagic.bsky.social/post/3me7s4noz5k2r

US entrance is getting cheers but I have to say, Ukraine's entry was very notably louder/longer.

This goes way back here. Ambushed by unexpected emotion last night. My wife was talking about how much she loved figure skating, and I asked her if she had ever seen what Sarah Hughes accomplished in the 2002 Winter Olympics. She had not, so I started describing it to her. I was at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio City with a friend of mine eating dinner, and on the TV they were showing the figure skating competition. Sarah Hughes went on, and it was sort of an unassuming entry in a lot of ways, she was not one of the major stars heading in, nor remotely considered favored for a medal. But as she performed her routine, the restaurant started to just collectively go quieter and start to watch her, and you would hear these muttered exclamations as she would execute a certain move or another. And the whole thing ended with this absolutely spectacular flourish. At which point the entire restaurant spontaneously burst out into applause. It was this purely sincere moment, representative of something particularly good and decent, and maybe dare I say the last time I was a bit patriotic? As I was telling the story, I felt myself just growing unexpectedly emotional about it, just thinking about it, and then I pulled the clip up on YouTube and practically had to excuse myself to go into the kitchen at the end because I was a bit choked up. It is the only time, and I’m counting the Cubs World Series victory, that I’ve ever been emotional watching any sporting event. If anyone here has not seen that performance, I can’t recommend it enough.

It was a remarkable moment. I remember her reaction afterward being this unaffected explosion of joy.

Ha and I look WAY upthread and I very much talked about it then!

Yes, I vividly remember watching it at the time. If I'm remembering right, she was the third-string American, so still way up there in terms of the difficulty of her routine, but not likely to make the podium. And then everyone else just started to choke. There were some falls, and one skater after another started playing it safe and turning what were meant to be triples into doubles, and it was overall looking like a disappointing showing for everyone. So when Sarah Hughes went out there with this program packed with triples, we were all kind of waiting for the "another triple coming up... aaand she doubles it" that we'd been hearing again and again. And then she just did her whole routine, those triple-triple combinations, flawlessly, as if people hadn't been crashing and burning all around her. It wasn't just the skating that made it an amazing moment, it was this astonishing calm and self-possession amid all the drama, and coming from someone no one had thought very much about up to that point.

This is all from memory so I may be getting some things wrong but that was my impression at the time.

good stories. i don't remember this at all and you'd think i would have since i was in salt lake city at the time! but i must have been totally absorbed in something else, likely school.

There is no reason US athletes should be held accountable for the actions of their government. Good that they cheered the team and booed the US VP, that's exactly how it should be.

One word for Franjo blowing out the competition to win the downhill yesterday, fully deserved, and this intense competition between the Swiss-Italian teams has been very exciting. I'll watch the women in a moment - the Swiss chances are slim but Malorie Blanc won the last downhill in style (her first!) so we have at least one outsider.

US B. Johnson takes the lead with jersey n°6. Not academic, was not following the line very often, but took at lot of risk and is 1.10 ahead of Raedler and Brignone.

Lindsey Vonn falls within the first 10 secs, does not look good. It was her 16th start in the Olympics. She's 41 and was skiing without the ligament in her knee. Real shame, sounds like the end of her career.

Johnson still ahead, Emma Aicher the only one who came close at 0.04. Few can still get the gold. Best chance is for Sophia Goggia.

Helicopter flying away. Chilling images.

Wondering if she broke her leg - sounded like a lot of pain.

I saw the quote “my ACL is 100% gone”, I had to look away at that point. As someone who has had a ligament snap and reattached (tibialis anterior in my case), I’m in awe that she started and also having flashbacks to the pain.

Madness they let her compete at all.

I just watched Sarah Hughes's 2002 performance and as I'm sitting there with tears in my eyes I for some reason scroll down to read the comments, the third of which is simply "trash". I'm not even mad, that's hilarious.

I completed missed it back in 2002 - the Olympics has uploaded the whole show, all four hours of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLC8k54zdHc

Hughes does a double-triple jump at 03:10:30, and then again a minute later, at 03:11:30, the second time better than the first. She goes apeshit at 03:51:55 when they announce that she's the winner, although the camera keeps cutting to Irina Slutskaya, presumably the favourite.

Why do so many figure skaters go into politics? Is it the thighs? Thighs, and intense focus. Perhaps that's all you need. A solid, stable base.

NBC’s coverage once again a shameful mess of insight-free pablum combined with a melange of some of the worst advertising ever conceived, so bad that it overshadows everything around it, especially the Google Gemini effluent.

Rodger Sherman’s SPORTS! daily Olympics newsletter is ten thousand times better than our domestic television, and I am thoroughly unsurprised.

am pulling hard for esther ledecka of czech republic to get double gold in snowboarding and super-g skiing again like she did eight years ago. she’s still got it apparently. as a reminder she turned up in the super-g in china with somebody else’s skis, after all the coverage had switched away because she was running with the nobodies, and she shocked the world - and herself - by beating absolutely everyone. she absolutely goes for it, almost comes off the track. soak up the way the commentators start realising what she’s doing, and her reaction after she looks up at the leaderboard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke0bRzCWz1c

Olympics television coverage, at least for the US audience, has been progressively degrading into sentimentalized overhyped sludge since the late 1970s.

snowboard slalom finals were this morning

she didn't win

some of the races were very close

As long as we're reposting old clips, Franz Klammer's 1976 downhill run at Innsbruck is still the most exciting 2m15s of television I've seen. 50 years later I still vividly remember it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0VrDnlPhTI

Phew, Matteo Rizzo’s skate getting Italy a team bronze, that was lovely.

Franz Klammer in his yellow suit <3

czech republic still kicking ass in snowboard slalom at least!

Lol, I think I had never seen footage from the 70s. This is properly hilarious, the position in the air during the jumps, not to talk of the landings, rarely in the speed position, looks like pure survival to keep contact with the snow and hold the line. Amazing the strides that equipment has made. Almost makes you wish you could see the modern guys on those unwieldy long skis with no carving.

Even so ... I was amazed at how steady his upper body was, like the skis touching the ground seemed incidental.

On that video, the ground seems deliberately unprepared to maximize the chances of the racer ending up in a tree. The modern slopes are F1 racetracks in comparison - with an army of guys with shovels, watering the snow the night before to build ice etc.

In terms of security in the world cup, some of the current discussions revolve around find creative ways to make the skiers go slower. Which is a little bit of a contradiction, but basically they go at speeds expected of a motorbike when their helmets look appropriate for a bike.

I unironically love the Olympics and would love to stop normal life to watch them and really elevate them as a rare and exciting thing for all the flaws of the systems. But it's SO difficult to access the coverage and it's SO BAD. I've been complaining about it for literal decades because I remember sitting in a long-ago rental apartment trying to put in my parents' cable subscription number to be allowed to watch online, and failing.

I'm sure it has to do with their investment in broadcast and/or cable tv subscription services but does it seem like they're 20 years behind in leveraging online viewing opportunities?!?? I always said if there was GOOD coverage I would pay! There's still no "good" coverage, if good means fewer ads and more contiguous coverage of events instead of edited montages and highlights.

the BBC coverage has been really good imo.

i have an ish with a lot of pundit talk around the big sporting events - solo sports in particular seem to attract this mash-up of Business Psych 101 and lumpen nationalism that just grinds me down. this hasn't been notably worse than usual i think

FWIW, I've been basically doing what I did for Paris 2024 using Peacock -- avoid any package/prime time presentations, minimize rah-rah main sportscaster exposure, stick to replays (I pay to avoid ads anyway but this further ensures it, and I am long past caring about spoilers as such), and sometime luck on the fact that, for instance, you can get the venue feed replay for the figure skating and there's zero announcers at all, a delight. Obviously this can't always work and every time I hear a "USA" chant I get a little annoyed, but it's been four days now and I haven't seen one soppy soft-focus up-close-and-personal segment while I've seen things like that Rizzo moment I mentioned and the German dude who won luge having a really lovely moment while his team and supporters cheered his win, plus all the individual curling matches I could ever want. Good stuff.

At least Andrew Cotter isn't commentating, for some reason I can't quite put my finger on I hate that guy.

there was a former olympian luge...ist? who was describing what it's like to do it, and how you have to relax, and sense this deep connection between all of your body parts and the ice, with the sled as the medium, and she explained it so well. televisually luge is pretty boring - like fencing, where you just can't see what is actually happening to affect the outcome. I'd never heard anything even close to as descriptive and it made the luge actually come alive for me in a way i'd never clocked before

Lizzy Yarnold, from 17:00 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002r8dk/winter-olympics-2026-live-day-2-bbc-two-evening-featuring-womens-big-air-qualification

Luger iirc? :D

I love watching luge I'm told even when they don't crash they're all getting concussions from the accumulated effects of impact and vibration (which is apparently called "sled head.")

the BBC coverage has been really good imo.

Almost great. There are two things really bugging me:
- massive spoilers on iPlayer (“Von Allmen Wins Gold”, “Muir Safely Into Final”)
- No daily highlights show, which has always been my go-to Olympics programme and perfect breakfast viewing the next morning

But bearing in mind in some countries you have to pay to watch pretty poor coverage, I’ll take it.

But in other words, Ned not otm for once haha.

Been enjoying the freestyle skiing today, great variety of spectacle and skill

> the BBC coverage has been really good imo.

it changed after 2012 because discovery+ bought the rights. bbc now gets to broadcast two channels and can only put things on iplayer that they've broadcast. previously they could make everything available, even the 30 minutes of dead air between fencing bouts, with arty overhead shots of the piste.

but as to in orbit's point, here in the UK, if you're a discovery plus subscriber, you can still get pretty much everything. and i think one month's subscription would cover the entire thing, currently 7 live streams. i am agin it, obv, being a competitor, but it's available for cheap (lol, £4 a month).

you won't have ed and tim and jenny doing the commentary though

Yeah the Discovery deal has really turned it back into a “catch it live or you’ll miss it” affair on the BBC which I perversely enjoy.

I've quite enjoyed the old-skool vibe of the BBC coverage, but working from home makes it a lot easier. Though the curling skipping channels earlier to accommodate Pointless can fuck right off.

Also when I went to watch red button coverage of curling instead of big air the other night, iPlayer had the two streams mislabelled so I ended up wondering when they were going to switch to the curling instead of the big air I wasn't wanting to watch.

Anyway, the 90s rhythm dance ice skating was fun to watch, but seriously USA, a Lenny Kravitz megamix?

ailsa did you know you share a name with the island which is the source of all Olympic curling stones? Ailsa Craig is a 200 acre island formed from two types of granite which form the body of the stone and the gliding surface underneath.

I think she knows all too well.

She is Scottish after all.

There’s a clue in the fact that she talked about it herself in this thread a few days ago xps

Namesplaining, the best of all splainings :-)

oops, my apologies, it was new knowledge to me!

i know people say this every four years but the mixed doubles curling was pretty great today (sorry britishes). i don't really understand the nuances, but the nbc/peacock announcers were actually good (and canadian, of course)!

also learned, per wikipedia, that the swedish woman curler was inducted into the swedish curling hall of fame at age 21 (!)

don't know a great deal about women's ice hockey -- apart from canada/usa generally finishing 1-2 and other traditional hockey nations occasionally putting up a bit of a fight -- but the japan-italy game today was high-level. (also one of the japanese players is 4'9"!)

the drone cameras on the downhill skiing are fantastic and really point out how fucking insane those ppl are. someone put together a supercut of just the women who crashed on this course in 2024 and it is eight minutes long.

this dude is doing recaps and stuff -- probably american-slanted, but not entirely -- that are free and seem pretty good: https://sports.beehiiv.com

Rodger Sherman’s SPORTS! daily Olympics newsletter is ten thousand times better than our domestic television, and I am thoroughly unsurprised.

ope, sorry. still not sure how to feel about the D in his name tho

(iirc he quit the ringer a couple years ago so he could go on a very intense college football roadtrip? seems like an iffy career choice, but good for him)

Totally agree about the drone cameras on the downhill skiing. Dizzying speed!

We just booked a week’s skiing at Easter. Wonder how many others have done the same after watching the plimpics.

I watched the Women Big Air yesterday, aka being in your very early 20s, probably from Japan, and doing a lot of turns while grabbing your snowboard 6 meters in the air. It was cool. Kokomo Murase won gold after being judged extremely harshly on her second jump. The commentator was questioning if the judges had not been deceived by how easy she made it look. No matter, she did it again on her 3rd, landing perfectly this time, and grabbed a justified win.

For those interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxjgcOfqTR8

Jesus Christ what Jesper Tjäder is doing on skis (freeski slopestyle). And it's not even the top score.

So many mistakes on the first rail that disqualify their run, it's really a shame. Apparently they have to take risks because the track is a little on the safe side. Italians changed the design, supposedly for economic reasons.

tormo frostad is almost as good a name as torstein horgmo

Super frustrating

Harrington's run was great so happy for him, bronze medal.

Love an underdog victory. Go Austria 2!

there should be a medal for 4th, made of tin or something

Curlers don't wear skates? Just sneakers? Shit I could do that, I'm pretty good at skee ball

there should be a medal for 4th, made of tin or something
― koogs, mardi 10 février 2026 14:42 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

We call it the chocolate medal

> Curlers don't wear skates? Just sneakers?

one grippy shoe, one slippy shoe. it does look effortless the way they glide, but if you had two slippy shoes you'd get nowhere fast.

My husband has taken up curling since the last Winter Olympics and is very useful at explaining what is going on. It was good this afternoon (BBC commentary) when they were on about how you can end up playing alongside Olympic guys down your local club, because turns out he's played against Bruce Mouat's brother before, and I think Eve Muirhead was playing at the club the first time he turned up and he was all "wtf have I let myself in for".

Team GB finishing 4th at everything right now.

I actually think we’re going to come away from this one with no hardware now.

team relay speed skating is insane.

I always wonder if people in 4th place get a glowing letter from the Olympics committee they can frame or something

Really lovely mixed doubles curling medal matches, that's for sure. Great win for Sweden there right at the end.

team relay speed skating is insane.

There can’t be many people who’ve won a medal at two separate Olympics in their home country. Torino 2006 and Milano Cortina 2026, wow.

There can’t be many people who’ve won a medal at two separate Olympics in their home country. Torino 2006 and Milano Cortina 2026, wow.

Oh that's a great fact, must try to investigate to look for others.

moguls is some bollocks

I wince when I consider the state their knees will be in when they reach their 40s.

it annoys me that it's categorised as 'freestyle skiing' along with slopestyle, big air and halfpipe but it's just a bumpy hill.

doubles luge, it's not exactly glamorous. is the person on the bottom doing anything or are they just ballast / cushioning?

saw chinese halfpipe snowboarder Jiayu Liu crash this morning

it looked fairly innocuous compared to various downhill wipeouts but it took like 15 minutes to summon the sled and get her out, and i don't think she moved at all in that time

ugh

i guess i understand that big air is “bigger,” but slopestyle looks 85% as big, equally rotational, and in hang time, and is 3x per run, and is integrated also with jibbing. let’s just fucking end big air and get on with the show.

i’ve heard big air referred to as “spin to win”

Didn't see Brignone, but this Super G is looking tough. From the US team, only two girls made it to the finish line, at the bottom of the ranking. Incredible that Federica Brignone will get the gold medal when she has literally just returned from a serious injury.

It's actually the first time that I see girls stop their race midway because they have completely lost the trajectory and are so out of it.

> i’ve heard big air referred to as “spin to win”

the women's is better for this reason, because it's more varied. 11 of the 12 men in the snowboard big air were mainly focussed on the revolutions.

(it's funny, though, that real life has caught up and surpassed SSX Tricky)

> integrated also with jibbing

the rails spoiled the ski slope mens.

The women’s Super G course was mad tough for the Olympics. Usually they design the course on the easy side so skiers from minnow countries have a chance of finishing in one piece.

I would argue the opposite, it makes no sense to attribute Olympic medals on slopes that are less competitive than your average world cup event. Apparently it was the case for the slalom the other day (in the combined team event though, which does not count the same), but also the moguls, I have heard that complaint a few times. So it's good that they have prestigious tracks like the Stelvio in Bormio and this one in Cortina d'Ampezzo.

The minnow countries will make it to the finish line alright, they go slower. They're in good company this time. Goggia, Aicher, Weidle-Winkelmann, Ledecka, Stuhec, Johnson, Bocock, Grenier are all top skiers with lots of experience.

i like the aesthetics of the ssx boards, slightly blunter, single ended. reminds me of those spitfires modified for low level flying.

same with the rifles, pared right down. mostly just a tube, looking more like lab equipment than a weapon.

There can’t be many people who’ve won a medal at two separate Olympics in their home country. Torino 2006 and Milano Cortina 2026, wow.

I looked into this using a database I found on Kaggle; it doesn't look error-free, but pretty good. Also, it only went up to and including 2016; everything after that I've just eyeballed (assuming e.g. that no Japanese medalists in 2020 won medals for another country on another occasion, or other such edge cases). I can find only one previous Winter Olympian who has done this: Swiss ice hockey legend Bibi Torriani, who won bronze medals at the St. Moritz games both in 1928 (when he was 16) and 1948.

In Summer Olympics, all examples I found were Americans who medalled both at the 1984 LA games and the 1996 Atlanta games:

Bruce Baumgartner, USA: one freestyle wrestling gold in 1984, one bronze in 1996.
Carl Lewis, USA: four athletics golds in 1984, one gold in 1996.
Karch Kiraly, USA: one volleyball gold in 1984, one beach volleyball gold in 1996.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee, USA: One athletics silver in 1984, one bronze in 1996.
Teresa Edwards, USA: One basketball gold in 1984, one gold in 1996.
Bruce Davidson, USA: One equestrian eventing gold in 1984, one silver in 1996.
Leslie Burr-Howard, USA: One equestrian jumping gold in 1984, one silver in 1996.

If we acknowledge the 1906 intercalated games, as is no longer customary to do, there are a couple of Greeks as well:

Ioannis Georgiadis, Greece: One fencing gold in 1896, one gold and one silver in 1906.
Georgios Orfanidis, Greece: One shooting gold and one silver in 1896, one gold in 1906.

This is the kind of ilx content I live for, thank you! The only one I could come up with from memory was Carl Lewis.

They asked at trivia last night: excluding Russia/Soviet Union, which six countries have won the most medals over both summer and Winter Olympics?

US, UK, Germany (which doesn’t include DPR), France, China, Italy; Canada is a surprisingly respectable 11th place, Australia a booming 9th considering proportional populations)

We guessed four out of six correctly— I overrated Japan— but my teammate insisted that we include Norway and I was shaking my head at him. Today I learn that yes Norway is the all-time medal leader for Winter Olympics, which, considering its population, is completely bananas

DPR = GDR; don’t know what my brain was thinking in when my thumbs made up that acronym

…but my teammate insisted that we include Norway and I was shaking my head at him. Today I learn that yes Norway is the all-time medal leader for Winter Olympics, which, considering its population, is completely bananas

https://sports.beehiiv.com/p/olympics-day-7-one-more-trip-to-the-pain-cave

Sorry but that figure skating free skate was funny as fuck. Absolutely delighted for the eventual medallists.

Yeah that was great. Especially their reactions!

France cheer squad at the moguls is, as ever, super organised, well prepared and well stocked with giant head cutouts.

bossin les bosses

*applause*

all the hype around Malinin in the men's free skate was a great illustration of the seamy side of Olympic sports. the kid is only 21. his whole childhood and adulthood life have been spent leading up to these 4 or 5 minutes, but that's essentially true of every competitor who skates for a medal. the big difference here was the hype. he was all set up. the big build up ensured that the gold medal was worth a lifetime of fame and many millions of dollars to him. he finished 8th.

the whole process is like high diving into a wood chipper and hoping to come out whole. watching him get mangled and spit out makes me appreciate simone biles even more.

big air qualifications makes for a long evening. 3 runs each x about 30 people

(3 x 27 = 81)

The heart rate meter on the American downhill skier's wife was wild

The downhill easily my favorite event so far. Thrilling stuff.

In the department of things that feel totally unnecessary but somehow kinda endearing for consistency of procedure: how in speed-skating, they ring the last-round bell after 100 metres of the 500 metres race.

pretty hardcore rooting against USA men's hockey (and while it was a gift, i own a mike eruzione 1980 team USA sweater). would have been awesome if they'd lost to denmark

do not like the tkachuks, don't like GM bill guerin being all MAGA, just terrible vibes all around

also what happened to auston matthews

it was the best of times
it was the worst of times

(gold in board cross, failed to qualify in slope style)

curling is the fucking cooking shows of winter olympics- inscrutably popular and 75% of available airtime. by which i mean fucking fuck olympic ice shuffleboard

a britishes did the commentary for the canada-france men's hockey game; first time i've ever heard 'argy-bargy' used in a hockey (or really any other) context

Lol

https://i.discogs.com/iamf7CqYRPMiClXz3sP_pLpVMxTPVNo0YLlhwAdk29k/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:496/w:500/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTQ3NzE0/NTktMTQwOTk2Mjc4/My0zNjUwLmpwZWc.jpeg

Only the first two guys had visibility on the slalom this morning, everyone was relegated far away. And Atle Lie McGrath, by far the best slalomer on the circuit, straddles in the second run, giving the Olympic gold to Loic Meillard. Cruel. McGrath started walking towards the forest in frustration. Gstrein and Kristoffersen are super deserving - only Austrian medal in alpine skiing !

I have to admit I’m starting to agree with Hunt3r if only because the sheer amount of curling coverage has become stultifying. I usually begin every WO thinking yay curling!! But now I’m like wtf cares more sledding sports please.

My wife says the Canadian curling team are known cheaters and that's why Sweden set up that camera.

the most interesting part of curling is the shoes, which are mysteriously slippy or sticky

and look at me i’m talking about curling

i honestly thought the term 'monobob' was a joek

are the others duobobs and quadbobs now? I can really see no justification for the quadbobs, three of them push and them just hide and hope they dont flip

Commentator Stefan Renna on Swiss public broadcaster RTS sparked controversy during Israeli captain AJ Edelman’s second bobsleigh run at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, bringing up Edelman’s past social media posts supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including one… pic.twitter.com/TenlLtbRiw

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 17, 2026

... then afterwards mentions that they finished last

Thought that the UK media went a bit overboard about winning some gold medals - admittedly all on one day, which is certainly unusual - and it's a good thing and all that but there's dozens more events in the Winter Olympics than they're used to be, there was bound to be one or two the UK were good at!

a good thing? I'd be booing them all the way!

just more wankers to add to the New Years honours list! sorry I will leave this thread now lol

I thought our journalist made a good job of bringing up the inconsistencies of the IOC position, especially after the ban of the Skeleton guy with his helmet. It's a little worrying that a speech that is factual, informative, professional is reported on social media as bold or brave. The shift in standards is crazy - I don't think anybody here batted an eyelid.

I am catching up with the women’s big air skis and I’m a little in love with the flying Finn, Anni Karava. It’s all about wearing the number bib off the shoulder, really.

Also no branding on any of her kit. Just plain red skis, nothing to identify who made them. Nothing on the goggles band, helmet is plain. The off the shoulder bib may even be to hide the team Sponsor on the jacket.

the most interesting part of curling is the shoes, which are mysteriously slippy or sticky

One slidey, one grippy, and the grippy one has a slidey toe so you can scoot about on that one as well.

have I told you about the stones

Ok, she’s riding some hipster Swedish ski brand that only makes plain red ski. The no brand is th brand, nonetheless I’m sold.

Ok, she’s riding some hipster Swedish ski brand that only makes plain red ski. The no brand is th brand, nonetheless I’m sold.

have I told you about the stones
― assert (matttkkkk), mardi 17 février 2026 12:00 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Talk about rare blue rocks found on one Scottish isle all you want, it's still no excuse for watching Pétanque on ice.

the ice skaters look like 60s japanese aliens in those helmets

(which look like they've been especially designed with a ponytail notch)

So much pithy curling dislike here. I like it a lot. My favorite part is all the love strategizing that goes on, listening to players on mic doing active problem solving on the fly. You have to think 4-5 throws ahead in each end like you are playing chess, as well as predicting what your opponent will do.

Thought that the UK media went a bit overboard about winning some gold medals - admittedly all on one day, which is certainly unusual - and it's a good thing and all that but there's dozens more events in the Winter Olympics than they're used to be, there was bound to be one or two the UK were good at!

Team GB’s target was 4-8 medals and they’re falling short of that, not that anyone is mentioning it.

So much pithy curling dislike here

One thing I learned and am somewhat amazed by is that there is no official... it's 'self-officiated' by the players. Very 'backyard with your buddies' sport, that one

i did not know that and i am now a convert that is proper

Big air skiers' baggy trousers are not aerodynamic so they wrap tape round their knees and ankles. Really cool, dudes. Good look. Gnarly.

amazing final though. probably even more amazing if you know what's going on - not sure why the final 1620 rotation scored more than the 2160 before.

big air is amazing guitar shred of the olympics, gimme slopestyle-y shit

the ice refresh at figure skating rink in cortina isn’t a zamboni it’s like 12 little people with mops and buckets wtf is this? maybe that’s the zamboni family right there

one of the finnish women on their nordic relay team has the handle V Ryytty and first she just blew out the finn-o-meter in here.

i miss tuomas

I guess we can already hand Schifrin her gold medal and spare her the need of a second run. 0.82 on Dürr and 1 second on Rast on a 47 seconds race.

Interesting that Dürr and Schifrin took a different, more direct route on the combination in the middle

i missed the entire big air because i was watching ibsen's a doll's house. figured it was snowed off and didn't check.

Can't escape from those Norwegians.

Yeah I was bitter about missing the Big Air last night. First it said it was starting later due to snow, the live TV insisted on showing curling, and when I realized the Big Air was ongoing, it was already the third run, and immediately after they cut it to show the final point in curling (Swiss-Germany, who cares), and then it went on and they said "oh now it's too late to switch back, the Big Air is finished". Thank you for assuming we only care about our nationals.

Shame for Ohlund, Swiss medal for Rast.

OMG Lena Durr straddles on the first door !!

gate*

Switzerland suffocated by Finland in the ice hockey QF, but it's still 2-0 after the second period.

Nazgul the cross country dog is of course my new hero

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18/nx-s1-5718025/surprise-four-legged-olympic-competitor-wows-cross-country-fans

2-2, hard but deserved for Finland

Haven't seen a min of this lol but Canada Cze sounded like some game

Great little equaliser from Sweden!

Boo!

indeed

Quinn Hughes is the greatest player in the NHL

and you traded him away

Meantime, the Swedes and Canadians remain in their feelings:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DU0tp3bDD3b/

as someone who does too much terrible slow xc, schumacher's finish on the men's sprint relay today chasing klaebo was some sick sick sickass shit. i'm a little teary. ok not really but that is moving.

can't see that instagram thing, but as a canadophile (apparently a real word) i'm pretty disappointed with kennedy/the canadian curling team

he totally double-touched! and while that indeed had essentially no effect on the proceedings, if the swedes were trying to catch you cheating, well, they were right! embarrassing

I have found a new goal in life. I want to rise to the level of Olympic ski mountaineering step stomper.

I also caught up on the short track speed skating this morning which I have not being following. So this sport is a contest between those with the most Dutch sounding names vs those with the most Quebecois sounding names.

I’m pretty sure I saw a Wout van T’Boer beat out a Jean Jean Jacques Jean Dubois.

ok the women's hockey final was great but also it is a travesty that a gold medal game came down to 3-on-3 overtime

still better than a shootout, i suppose, but jeez

pretty even game but canada got away with failing to clear their zone *so* *many* *times* and somehow never paid for it

a remarkable 24 hours or so for hilary knight

shoutout to gen-z goofball alyssa liu who has been really fun to follow this figure skating season

The Comeback Kid! And so many facets:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2026/02/17/alysa-liu-teeth-winter-olympics/88699020007/

absolutely torched by the fact that she retired at 16yo then came back two years later and is now 20 ffs

god bless her tho

that routine was amazing

esp the spins

yeah she's an outstanding spinner. and macarthur park! it's joyous and fun.

also: "THAT'S WHAT I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT"

i just bumped into macarthur park and was just o_O “wait is this macar… ha ok”

Congrats to speed skater Jordan Stolz who had to settle for a silver when Ning Zhongyan of China set an Olympic record and got gold in the 1,500 meters. Stolz who already has 2 golds, still has one race left.

managed to find my way past curling and saw some ski mountaineering. it was very entertaining. 3 min of all out effort. in a snowstorm. climbing stairs in the Olympics. only drag was that a lot of the lead changes seems to happen in transitions where the athletes have to take off and out on skis. kinda sad that so much hinges on putting on the skis. still a great discovery and the first time this event has been in the Olympics.

that sounds like a thing that's becoming a pretty popular to do in europe - "ski de randonée". old school! hike up, ski down. sometimes instead of walk people have fur "skins" for their skis, i don't think they're actually made of fur anymore, but the angle of the hair would point backwards to get some purchase in the snow and you dont' slip while you're going up.

I've done some skimo irl and it's super fun but the Olympic races are much, much shorter than most races afaik. Maybe that's for TV's sake. Skimo is much bigger in Europe than North America.

The conditioning required to compete in this event is nuts.

The only other event with stairs I can think of is Unleash in Gladiators.

Nearly some Ice Hockey VAR there

pretty choked up about Alysa Liu, damn

yeah same

as someone who skis backcountry that— that was a “a transitions test during total oxygen debt” done in a mall parking lit where bros park their sprinter vans lol

lot

liu was so great. she seems to really understand how to be fucking kind and thoughtful and insightful about what this is about

she's such an anomaly in that sport. it's beyond refreshing and really speaks to how the whole sport operates in a pressure cooker.

I was thinking about the similarities between women's figure skating and women's gymnastics. in both sports young girls are sorted for talent very early and spend their whole childhoods submerged in the demands of endless practice, so they can compete for world championships before they turn 20. but at least in women's gymnastics the athletes always participate as members of a team, not just as individuals, so there's more camaraderie and mutual support, and team success can be had without all the pressure falling entirely on your individual performance.

I remember Carolina Kluft having a similar influence on heptathlon. Overnight it went from a cold, hard competition to a supportive love-in where they all took a lap of honour at the end of the seventh event to celebrate how bloody hard they had all worked. It was great to see.

Lots of close mens hockey games

With the exception of the current game

:-(

I remember Carolina Kluft having a similar influence on heptathlon. Overnight it went from a cold, hard competition to a supportive love-in where they all took a lap of honour at the end of the seventh event to celebrate how bloody hard they had all worked. It was great to see.

I have never reflected on this thing (and had no idea Kluft was instrumental), but I do remember decathlete Kyle Garland taking an early lead at the World Champs last year and being all "yeah but as long as I finish all ten events I'll be happy and y'know the other competitors are such great guys", and it gave really good vibes.

Legendary performance by Liu!!! And an Oakland native too! First bay gold medal women's figure skating gold since Yamahuchi, and Liu's waaaaay cooler.

Liu's whole comeback arc is amazing; one of those rare moments where the narrative the media builds around the star seems to be completely genuine and compelling. Before I really knew who she was, she stood out to me in all the shots of her with the team because she seemed so comfortable and at ease.

And I feel like Roger Livesey as Colonel Blimp saying this, but after three Olympics cycles of being told that the only way to compete with the Russians is to do what they do and break children's bodies and minds so they can do quads, it's incredibly refreshing to see a skater who came back of her own choice, without her triple axel, be the one whose grace and composure and all-around skating ability wins the day.

> The only other event with stairs I can think of is Unleash in Gladiators.

https://www.theworldsstrongestman.com/events/power-stairs

ski cross men's medals pretty much decided on a finger length. i wonder if there are regulations on which ski gloves you can wear?

but there's something disappointing with the ski cross - you don't get the bits where the course favours regular riders or goofy riders so there's less overtaking

plus it was snowing and that slowed everything down

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU-6OjrDDGD/?igsh=MWVpc2gxMzFiZTN2ag==

in defense of skimo, klaebo’s gear weighs like a 1/3 of theirs— but i’d still put money on klaebo in the same costumes. no matter what costumes they wear.

it was fun to watch him absolutely smoke nyenget on that final climb. seems like an interesting dynamic, where the other two norwegian skiers are almost certain he's going to have more in the tank at the end of a 50k race, but they're still gutting it out alongside him for two hours to get to that point and see.

Saw the Liu routines a day or two after the fact and am obsessed now lol

Eileen Gu now can get a bit more rest as the freestyle skiing halfpipe final has been delayed due to snow to Sunday morning 10:40 Cortina time (4:40 am et)

She said to NY Times -

“At this point, I’m exhausted,” she said after halfpipe qualifying Thursday. “And the thing is, no judge is giving me extra points for being good at rails. No judge is giving me extra points because I missed a training. I’m the only one in this field competing in one other event, let alone two, but I still have to compete against the best of this event.”

We caught up Liu's routines last night and what a joy to see someone express herself so fully and exuberantly, coupled with otherworldly skill and grace. I had something in my eye around the time the rhythm took off in "Macarthur Park". Also LOVED her coming off the ice, "that's what I'm fuckin' TALKING ABOUT!"

i feel mean about my feelin that quad god has zoolander vibe but that’s how it is

Hah, yeah. Liu closed out that section with kind of a compressed (yet ebullient) "Best Of" performance, yay.

Go Klaebo go! Norwegian cross country skier going for 6th gold. He does some training in the US as he can go around with recognition here while at home he’s a recognized star ( nbc Peacock announcer just said)

um in what sense is “athlete buys first set of skimo gear in Aug (and if she’s this good she better not have paid much), does her first race in Nov, is on the Olympic team in Feb, and skis to 4th pl” a credit to the seriousness and high level of competition of a sport? this isn’t a pro triathlete dropping into a regional bike race and riding away, it’s the fucking olympics.

alysa liu skated to pinkpantheress ("stateside") for the exhibition gala

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/feb/21/norway-klaebo-historic-record-six-gold-medals-winter-games

Just reading about this is frightening. Never mind watching it

Lol

10/10 insane caption. No notes. Perfect. pic.twitter.com/lwSZ6Hm4gS

— Bradley Stern (@MuuMuse) February 21, 2026

blink-reaction.gif

Furious start. US 1-0

Canada simply not scoring

Finally!!

us hit the post at the end there

twice!

hell of a game. keep waiting for playoff Hellebuyck to show up

How..

Incredible save

Totally blown how Canada haven't run away with this

And now a 4 min power play for the US. Oh dear..

Overtime..

Eileen Gu wins gold in the women's halfpipe earlier this am. JD Vance the other day grumbled loudly that she was skating for China and not US

That kid ain't celebrini now

US win. The worst team but Canadians had many more opportunities to win it before overtime.

The US goalie was incredible tho'

lol @ Gretzky being booed

What a moment with the Gaudreau sweater on the ice. This country is fucked up but that was beautiful.

Ok with Hughes praising the US hockey brotherhood after, but his other love the US comments not so good at this time

seen on bsky

I listened to an interview with Alysa Liu yesterday and I can see that the interviewers are unsettled by her and do not know what to do with her responses.
She challenges so much of what USians are taught about competition and frankly about how to live a life.

"I don't care about medals."
"I just skate because I like to skate."
"I take breaks and I enjoy my life."
"My friends and family are the most important parts of my life."
"I don't define success as winning."

She really is the coolest. I listened to a longish podcast interview she did before the games where at one point she was like "It's all about the skate not the medal, plus I'm also a fan of skating, so I love when someone else skates really well and wins" and I detected no lie

Jack Hughes seems like one of the good ones tbh: https://www.vogue.com/article/meet-team-usa-hockey-stars-and-brothers-jack-and-quinn-hughes

spoken out in favour of keeping Pride nights and rainbow tape

Men's speed skating mass start final, absolutely bizarre. They just handed the gold over with no contest.

my sister was a nationally-ranked figure skater from 1991-1996. i spent so many childhood mornings bored shitless in an otherwise empty rink while my sister salchowed lutzly around the ice before school. every evening for years we had to watch vhs tapes of competitors' performances. i hated the fucking sport, and i genuinely didn't see any beauty at all.

so imagine my surprise at turning on the tv and loving this year's performances. did i age, or did skating get kind of interesting?

you aged (and spent 30 years away from empty rinks)

I grew up in a skating house - my mom skated most of her life and often went to the nationals, my sister has been to the nationals the last several years - and all I have to say is "THAT'S WHAT I'M FUCKING TALKING ABOUT"

Cool article: What’s it like being your nation’s only Olympian? Multiple jobs, passport issues and vodka

i enjoyed that story, the inter-reliance of those singular teams

I think skating was also just really interesting this year. It had a whole dramatic arc to it, and a very distinctive set of characters, both likable and unlikable (otm to Hunt3r upthread who said Ilia Malinin is Zoolander), and the ending was really dramatically satisfying. (And just a little bittersweet, because I was actually rooting for Team Japan: they're so wonderful and Kaori Sakamoto and Yuma Kagiyama are such beautiful, expressive skaters, I wished they could have gotten to do their routines perfectly.)

not having any undernourished/over-trained russian skaters in top contention helped

I was also rooting for Kaori, such a gorgeous and consistently good skater, but really happy for Liu as well.

yeah there's no other way to say it, getting the russians out has made the women's competition infinitely better.

Mone Chiba is another one who didn’t seem to know (or care) it was a competition, she looked like she was having an absolute blast and her freeskate was like figureskating: the disco remix. afterwards she was like, ‘yeah, i lost a lot of points of on those incomplete rotations i guess, i’m still really happy tho!’ 🙂☀️🌈🦋

There was one Russian competing who was trained by the same evil coach who trained Kamila Valieva and the other recent Russian skaters, and who had a quad in her routine that she wasn't able to do. I felt bad for her, but it was also a relief to see her end up nowhere near the podium.

I dunno, maybe it was bad to exploit teenagers as national status symbols.

The radio had a piece on yesterday explaining how Australia got good at freestyle skiing and the answer is this place in Brisbane that got built in 2020.

https://sleemansports.com.au/facilities/brisbane-aquatic-centre/geoff-henke-olympic-winter-training-centre#accordion-a4ab3c43a6-item-f1d8815bc3

Previously athletes use to have to jump into a couple of muddy ponds in Victoria

https://www.snow.org.au/disciplines/water-jump/

https://www.freeski1.com/water-ramp-jumping

i dint realize that til this edition spain had only one winter games gold in 1972 wth spain?

Well, there was the ex-German Johann Mühlegg, who won three races in the 2002 Salt Lake City games, but who was immediately caught doping and disqualified.

And it appears Franco-era Spain may not have been so concerned about its Olympic profile in general; between 1928 and 1980 they won zero Summer olympic gold medals.

good for them

The USA women's hockey team have turned down President Trump's offer to join their male counterparts at the State of the Union on Tuesday night.

Both gold medal-winning teams have been invited to the event by the President after their stunning triumphs at the Winter Olympics but it now appears that only the men will be there.

The women's team won their gold before the men but Trump only extended his invitation when the men beat Canada 2-1 in overtime on Sunday, saying he'd be impeached if he didn't include the women's team too.

I can't think of anything more boring that sitting through Fidel Asstro's three hour blather

flava flav has invited the women's team to party with him in vegas; probably a much better time

Jack Hughes seems like one of the good ones tbh

think again

'Yeah, we're excited. Everything is so political. We're athletes.

'We're so proud to represent the US and when you get the chance to go to White House and meet the President, we're proud to be Americans and that's so patriotic.

'No matter what your views are, we're super excited to go to the White House tomorrow and be a part of that.'

You're so excited to go hang out with a pedophile rapist? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

"Everything is so political" is he's right, everything is so political, that's why people are pissed.

Also, I love pulling the "we're just athletes!" card in reference to...*checks notes* the Olympics

Nothing says "apolitical" than going to the *checks notes* White House

I guess they're so excited to eat reheated McDonald's they can look past the whole pedophile rapist thing, and the abducting and murdering of people by secret police because they "look foreign"

These players are utter trash and an embarrassment to our nation and to hockey. Sad!

And deciding to go to the White House after hearing Trump’s dismissive comments about the women’s team ( who have now decided not to go )

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:r6saz35hwwh2n4vrcuv3ylfe/bafkreidro7x7s4xry25cdxlg5bttuscb76g7dfoe7tt2tclc2bt36ywboa@jpeg

The NHL deserves to have China take away the Stanley Cup

Seeing Minnesota and Michigan aren’t part of that data set, the NHL number samples 5 players maybe?

lol right

Twenty members of the team made the trip to the White House, with Brock Nelson, Jackson LaCombe, Jake Oettinger, Jake Guentzel and Kyle Connor absent, per NBC News.

At least 5 didn't go

Supposedly 4 of the 5 men's players who didn't go were from Minnesota.

wow I fuckin bet, good for them

Been a Brock Nelson fan for awhile. His uncle and grandfather also won gold for the U.S. in hockey, which feels rather improbable

https://www.si.com/onsi/breakaway/colorado-avalanche/usa-brock-nelson-continues-family-legacy-olympic-gold-medal

So here Amy Goodman's talking to Jules Boykoff, who's written six books about the Olympics (says it's always been political, but Trump adds his own flava):

JULES bOYKOFF: But there’s also President Donald Trump who has politicized the games. After all, he punched down on Olympian Hunter Hess who just was explaining in a pretty nuanced way how he felt like he had mixed feelings about participating in these Olympics at this particular moment. Trump called him “a real loser,” unleashing a torrent of hate at Mr. Hess who said this was the most difficult period of his life. So the Trump administration has showed everybody—

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play Hunter in his own words, the 27-year-old USA freestyle skier speaking at a news conference at the Olympics.

HUNTER HESS: I think it brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think. It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of and I think a lot of people aren’t. I think for me, it’s more I am representing my friends and family back home, the people that represented it before me, all the things that I believe are good about the U.S. I just think if it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S. So yeah, I just kind of want to do it for my friends and my family and the people that supported me getting here.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Hunter Hess. Jules Boykoff, continue.

JULES BOYKOFF: That is significant for a number of reasons. One, when President Trump took to Truth Social to slam Hunter Hess as “a real loser,” he also mangled that very nuanced message that you just played for us. In the process, he unleashed a torrent of hate. The MAGA army has come after Hunter Hess really hard. Second, I don’t know how any of this fits with the Olympic spirit. I think it’s not too much to say that President Trump wouldn’t recognize the Olympic spirit if it came up and kissed him on the cankle. Third, the International Olympic Committee has been utterly silent when it comes to defending Mr. Hess. They just sat around and let him float in the wind.

Fortunately, numerous Olympians from around the world spoke up in defense of Mr. Hess. You’ve got Eileen Gu, the great freestyle skier who represents China, who said that he absolutely has the right to speak out. So did Chloe Kim, the superstar snowboarder from the United States who said the same thing. You’ve got a cross-country skier who even went as far as to say what Trump said was childish.

And it’s not just athletes who are defending Hess. Some of them have actually gone on the attack. You’ve got Kelly Pannek, who is a gold medal winner with the U.S. women’s hockey team, who explained how she was proud to be from Minnesota where people were taking to the streets to fight back against ICE and that she drew inspiration from them. You’ve got another curler from Minnesota, a guy named Rich Ruohonen, who said—he’s also a lawyer and he said what’s happening on the streets of Minnesota is disgusting and illegal and there is no gray area about it. So it has been a really interesting moment to have these athletes speaking out, and it’s a tribute to the social movements on the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to the U.S. figure skater Amber Glenn, the first openly LGBTQ+ athlete to compete in women’s singles figure skating at the Winter Olympics.

AMBER GLENN: It has been a hard time for the community overall in this administration. It isn’t the first time that we’ve had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now especially, it is not just affecting the queer community but many other communities. I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn’t have to before, and because of that it has made us a lot stronger.

cool:

Flavor Flav was quick to offer an alternative. "If the USA Women's Hockey Team wants a real celebration and invite… I'll host them in Las Vegas," the rapper wrote on his official Instagram channel. "Do some nice dinners and shows and good times. I'm sure I can get a hotel and airline to help me out here and celebrate these women for real for real."

In recent years, Flav has fashioned himself as an enthusiastic proponent of the Olympics, acting as an official "hype man" for this year's bobsled and skeleton teams. He also sponsored the U.S. water polo teams at the Paris Olympics in 2024, in part after learning how little women athletes earn.

"I actually love this for Flavor Flav," says Frankie de la Cretaz, an independent journalist who writes the queer-oriented Out of Your League newsletter. "For him, this really started when he got behind the women's water polo team during the Summer Olympics. And to be clear, the U.S. is one of the only countries that does not federally fund their elite Olympic and national team athletes. Many of them are funding themselves through sponsorships.

De la Cretaz likened the effort to crowd funding, and added that women athletes tend to be far more under-resourced than men.

Flav's public stand in support of the female hockey players is quite a turn, De la Cretaz added, for a celebrity who once referred to twin female contestants on his VHS reality show Flavor of Love as "Thing One" and "Thing Two." Over the past few years, Flav has supported female athletes consistently, they said, and not just during the high-wattage events of the Olympics. "He never does it in a way that feels demeaning or performative. And I have nothing but respect, actually, for the way he's shown up for women athletes."

states’ rights ftw

Incredible:

https://bsky.app/profile/brysonm.bsky.social/post/3mglouaijlc23

Nice.

Shooters shoot