2018 Winter Olympics, PyeongChang

[Pricey_sky]

Re:

Is Elise Christie incredibly unlucky or the biggest choker in Olympic history? I dont know enough about speed skating to comment.

I did think the former, I’m now beginning to think the latter. Yesterday she almost seemed too relaxed then left herself in a bad position, forcing her to try a a stupid pass which may have injured her for the 1000m on Tuesday.

 

[ToreBear]

Re: Re:

That surely is impressive, but that's just a different era. In the modern era winning gold in two pretty different sports in one olympic games is something unheard of.

This one is really impressive. Victor Chukarin from Soviet Union fought in an artillery unit in 1941. He was wounded and got into nazi concentration camps for 4 years. In 1945 he returned home weighting 40 kg at 24 years. He got 11 Olympic medals including 7 golds in 1952 and 1956.

Now that is impressive!

 

[Brullnux]

Re: Re:

Is Elise Christie incredibly unlucky or the biggest choker in Olympic history? I dont know enough about speed skating to comment.

I did think the former, I’m now beginning to think the latter. Yesterday she almost seemed too relaxed then left herself in a bad position, forcing her to try a a stupid pass which may have injured her for the 1000m on Tuesday.

I agree. Speed skating isn't my forte but using track cycling knowledge, I'm pretty sure when you're the favourite (or at least 2nd) you shouldn't hang back in 5th place. Fontana in the heats has the better tactic of just coming to the front and staying out of trouble.

Mind you, looking at the results over the last year or two, I'm also beginning to think Christie's world championship domination was a bit of a fluke. Christie is still very good, don't get me wrong, but Choi is a class above everyone and the Canadian girls also get better results. She's still top5 but maybe not the out and out favourite the media has made her out to be. She also needs to learn to stop tempting fate by keeping her mouth closed before the Olympics.

 

[Singer01]

Bit of a down day today. Any chance of a surprise in the ski jumping team event? Looking at the individual competitions it should be Norway's to lose.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Impressive 500m speed skate today.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Bit of a down day today. Any chance of a surprise in the ski jumping team event? Looking at the individual competitions it should be Norway's to lose.

No, as it turned out.

I managed to successfully predict the entire top 6, except I got Germany and Poland the wrong way round, as I thought Freitag's run of undercooking it in the biggest events would continue, forgetting that they'd probably move him off the final leg given Wellinger's form here in Pyeongchang.

 

[Norbea]

Re:

Impressive 500m speed skate today.

Impressive win by Lorentzen. Especially since he cut off half his leg two years ago.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Bit of a down day today. Any chance of a surprise in the ski jumping team event? Looking at the individual competitions it should be Norway's to lose.

No, as it turned out.

I managed to successfully predict the entire top 6, except I got Germany and Poland the wrong way round, as I thought Freitag's run of undercooking it in the biggest events would continue, forgetting that they'd probably move him off the final leg given Wellinger's form here in Pyeongchang.

To be fair it was less about Freitag not choking than about stoch being extremely late on his last jump.

Btw, this is the first team event at a major championship since 2003 in which Austria didn't win a medal. They won 9 gold medals in a row from 2005 to 2013, then won silver in 2014 and 2015 and bronze last year. The era of the "superadler" as the ski jumping team was called by Austrian media has finally come to an end.

 

[Norbea]

Re: Re:

Bit of a down day today. Any chance of a surprise in the ski jumping team event? Looking at the individual competitions it should be Norway's to lose.

No, as it turned out.

I managed to successfully predict the entire top 6, except I got Germany and Poland the wrong way round, as I thought Freitag's run of undercooking it in the biggest events would continue, forgetting that they'd probably move him off the final leg given Wellinger's form here in Pyeongchang.

To be fair it was less about Freitag not choking than about stoch being extremely late on his last jump.

Btw, this is the first team event at a major championship since 2003 in which Austria didn't win a medal. They won 9 gold medals in a row from 2005 to 2013, then won silver in 2014 and 2015 and bronze last year. The era of the "superadler" as the ski jumping team was called by Austrian media has finally come to an end.

Stöckler seems to have given the Norwegians the team-winning formula. The Norwegian squad actually has 4 jumpers, pluss one reserve, who all are capable of climbing the podium, but somehow all of them also lack what it takes to actually reach top of it, unless it is a team event.

 

[search]

Freitag's performance today was good though. And Stoch has struggled to get two good jumps in a row together for weeks now, the individual competition was more of an exception than today. Tande's performance was exceptional today btw, easily the strongest, and in the end him and Stjernen were the ones securing the win for Norway, which was a bit of a surprise tbh

 

[Singer01]

Jesus Christ, Christie got disqualified again, how is that even possible?

 

[search]

Re:

Jesus Christ, Christie got disqualified again, how is that even possible?

I haven't seen it, but apparently the rules are enforced more strictly now, and some nations didn't adjust to that. China and Canada for example have seven or eight DSQs each already. Former Olympic champ Yang said "The penalties that China received show that we don't understand the rules well. [...] Many federations, including the International Skating Union (the world governing body for skating), have modified or adjusted the rules and a team must pay attention to the adjustment".

http://www.china.org.cn/sports/2018-02/20/content_50569848.htm

I don't know if the same applies for GB though

and regarding the "how is that even possible": today's women's relay was the fourth Olympic final in a row where either China or South Korea were disqualified (China in 2006, 2010 and 2018, South Korea in 2014) . And as Canada was penalized as well, the Dutch took Bronze by winning the B-Final (initially the race for 5th)

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

The British skeleton athletes (not talking about Froome here - skeleton as a discipline) are wearing suits that would make them a second faster compared to the suits of their competitors. Many believe these suits are not according to regulations, but the IBSF has given them the go-ahead anyway. Is it official British policy to always look for the edge of what is allowed (and sometimes go over it)?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/winter-o...inter-olympics-skeleton-suits-amid-questions/

I don't like it much. The athlete should always come before the tech - as big, rich countries will only extend their logistical advantage otherwise.

So you are implying a 'clinic' thing here?

 

[Brullnux]

Very fun women's downhill. Weirather to my eyes was the only one who had a completely clean run and yet ended up fourth as she wasn't aggressive enough - the course was pretty flat and easy (which initially I was actually quite annoyed about) so it created a really nice point in which everyone had to really give it everything to gain some speed and meant people put a lot on the libe. Not that it was that extremely easy, there were some nice rollers and jumps but compared to Sochi it was nothing. I think even I may have been able to do it at a decent speed.

I feel bad for Gut (again)

 

[Bavarianrider]

I really think that two Teams per Nation should be allowed in the Team sprint. I really don't see why this isn't the case.

 

[jmdirt]

USA Women Hockey! GOLD!

 

[Singer01]

Germany beat Canada at ice hockey, is that even legal?

 

[python]

^i was in transit when i learned the hockey shocker...hard to believe. will make a point of watching a replay some time

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Re:

Germany beat Canada at ice hockey, is that even legal?

Absolutely ILLEGAL!

Not only did the women lose the gold in a shootout, the Canadian men never even managed to get into the final. And then there was some kind of an upset in men's curling...

This is a devastating time to be Canadian, I'm sure.

 

[oldcrank]

Speaking of Canadians...
Just a comment on the sartorial splendour of our
Canadian cousins in the ski-cross. The lumber-jack
shirt look is my favourite style statement so far in
these Games. Well done, Canucks.

 

[Singer01]

So Norway have won the most medals ever at the winter olympics, but may not top the medals table, depending on how the medal table is ranked.
How should the medal table be decided? In my head its ranked by Golds, then Silver, then Bronze, but some countries do the total medals as a ranking system.

 

[jmdirt]

Ledecka! That's very cool to win Gold in two distinctly different sliding/turning events!

RE: Medal count/ranking: That's a tough one. On one hand total medals is important, but Gold is the ultimate goal so most Gold might be more important.

For Norway, 13 Gold and 38 total is the best performance by a country. I haven't studied the remaining medals up for grabs, but even if GER earns another Gold, IMO it doesn't make up for 10 less medals.

EDIT: It looks like NOR ended with 14 Gold, 15 Silver, 11 Bronze..39 total!

 

[Unchained]

Watching some of the cross country skiing events made me feel really, really fat and out of shape.. both men and women racers are fantastic to watch..a true motivation no matter what country the athletes are from..

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Re:

Watching some of the cross country skiing events made me feel really, really fat and out of shape.. both men and women racers are fantastic to watch..a true motivation no matter what country the athletes are from..

Ha, true dat! (Ten years ago I looked like a xc-skier, now I look more like an alpine skier. Oof!)

Anyhoo, I agree it's amazing to watch these elite athletes do their thing, right now I'm watching some replays of competitions I didn't get to see earlier. The Canadian ice dancers who won the gold were just so smooth, elegant, and beautiful, can't imagine anyone being able to outdo them.

And then this morning I watched a replay of the mass start speedskating, what the heck did I just see? I'm so confuuuuused! (Found a helpful link that explains the rules, it'll take a while for it to sink in, though. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/2018-pyeongchang-winter-olympics-mass-speed-skating-team-canada-interactive/article37836651/ )

I haven't seen the Closing Ceremonies yet because NBC hasn't aired them yet, but all in all I thought these Olympics were a-okay.