Winter Olympics 2010, Vancouver

[Anonymous]

Anyone see the Nordic Combined 10k xc yesterday... Awesome sprint between Jason Lamy Chappuis, Johnny Spillane and Alessandro Pittin.

Great race as was the 1500m short track the night before. I love the Olympics...except for that figure skating thing.

 

[pedaling squares]

Great race as was the 1500m short track the night before. I love the Olympics...except for that figure skating thing.

Now that sport needs a makeover. Incredible talent, huge athleticism, but you can't get anywhere unless you prance around like a princess. I don't understand why 'artistic' has to mean butterflies and moonbeams. And the judging... enough said.

 

[Bala Verde]

Great race as was the 1500m short track the night before. I love the Olympics...except for that figure skating thing.

Crazy how those 2 Koreans gifted Ohno a silver medal. On their way to sweep the podium, the last bend, and they knock themselves out of the race. Great result for Ohno though, record setting.

Men's 10k biathlon was exciting too, especially with the turn of the weather. Lots of misses on the shooting range.

Today, xc, snowboarding and alpine skiing... yum

and curling...

 

[Moondance]

Men's downhill starting soon, weather permitting. Always the blue riband event, IMO. Really torn between rooting for Didier Cuche and Michael Walchhofer. Both fantastic veterans with distinguished careers lacking only a gold medal at the Olympics. Although I'd put my money on that young upstart Carlo Janka taking the gold.

 

[flyor64]

Speaking of bad weather...that horrendous rain-sleet-snow-sludge **** that absolutely dumped smack in the middle of the 10K biathlon sprint yesterday was...interesting.

4 misses for Ole Einar was bad juju to say the least...

 

[Bala Verde]

Cologna, Bauer, Piller Cottrer, Hellner...

Northug is certainly out of contention.

Interesting to hear that, according to the commentator, the 'italians always have the capacity to rise to the occasion during these special events'

 

[zapata]

Cologna, Bauer, Piller Cottrer, Hellner...

Northug is certainly out of contention.

Interesting to hear that, according to the commentator, the 'italians always have the capacity to rise to the occasion during these special events'

Awful to see Hellner cracking like that. Not a pretty sight. Northug, to be fair, has never won a 15km free individual start, I think. Look for him in the mass starts..

 

[Oldman]

Men's downhill starting soon, weather permitting. Always the blue riband event, IMO. Really torn between rooting for Didier Cuche and Michael Walchhofer. Both fantastic veterans with distinguished careers lacking only a gold medal at the Olympics. Although I'd put my money on that young upstart Carlo Janka taking the gold.

The sleeper has awakened...Bode Miller is coming back. Excellent ride for Didier DeFago...the one of his life.

 

[Moondance]

The sleeper has awakened...Bode Miller is coming back. Excellent ride for Didier DeFago...the one of his life.

Bode was riding really well. He owned the first half of the race, but then started to lose time without really making any significant errors to speak of. Poor conditioning maybe? Partying with Canadian models this time? He'll do even better over the shorter distances then if that is the case.

Defago of course has the minor upset, but let's not forget that he won both the Lauberhorn and the Hahnenkamm in back-to-back weeks a year ago. That's a serious achievement.

 

[Oldman]

Bode was riding really well. He owned the first half of the race, but then started to lose time without really making any significant errors to speak of. Poor conditioning maybe? Partying with Canadian models this time? He'll do even better over the shorter distances then if that is the case.

Defago of course has the minor upset, but let's not forget that he won both the Lauberhorn and the Hahnenkamm in back-to-back weeks a year ago. That's a serious achievement.

Yes but Defago has to be on Cloud Nine+ considering he's been laboring in the shadows of his teammates after those achievements. I can't imagine the party that man should be having!

 

[9000ft]

Miller wasn't sure if he was going to retire or not until mid summer and didn't start serious training until then. I'd guess that a lack of conditioning did indeed cost him the gold.

 

[cartman]

Meh, best norwegian in at number 28 in the 15 km XC event. Now they blame the skis http://www.adressa.no/sport/ol/article1445576.ece

Some heads are going to roll if this continues, for too long have the coaches been hiding behind Northug, while the other guys have been poor. There's a huge amount of talent in Norway, look at the sprint team. They are usually a big part of the field in sprint finals and they work with the same material.

I'm glad to see people acknowledging nordic combined, it's a great sport. Hope it's not just for the olympics, last season was fantastic with lots of close sprint finishes.

If you want to see more of it after the olympics, you might want to check out nrk.no

They broadcast (on the internet) most if not all of the XC, Biathlon, Ski jumping, Nordic combined, Speed Skating events and quite a few alpine skiing events. I checked their website a few months ago and I seem to remember that if you're in a country that doesn't have a channel that shows the event, you should be able to watch it on nrk nett-tv. Also, if you are in the eurosone, you should be able to view all the olympic broadcasting they send.
Of course, it's norwegian commentators, but it probably beats not seeing the events, barely

 

[Oldman]

Miller wasn't sure if he was going to retire or not until mid summer and didn't start serious training until then. I'd guess that a lack of conditioning did indeed cost him the gold.

Watching the run and listening to his comments it was a minor matter of line selection in the last 3 turns. Bode and Defago also avoided some slow snow that Didier Cuche tracked through and promptly lost .4 seconds in the flat light. The Whistler course was not near as demanding as Wengen and Kitzbuhl. We'll see how the Super Combi goes today but it is the Olympics and anything seems to happen.

 

[cartman]

Bit of clarification, what I meant to say was that you can watch XC, Biathlon etc events on nrk nett-tv throughout the season, november - march, not just during the olympics. As I'm sure most people here can watch the olympic events.

 

[ImmaculateKadence]

Meh, best norwegian in at number 28 in the 15 km XC event. Now they blame the skis http://www.adressa.no/sport/ol/article1445576.ece

Some heads are going to roll if this continues, for too long have the coaches been hiding behind Northug, while the other guys have been poor. There's a huge amount of talent in Norway, look at the sprint team. They are usually a big part of the field in sprint finals and they work with the same material.

I'm glad to see people acknowledging nordic combined, it's a great sport. Hope it's not just for the olympics, last season was fantastic with lots of close sprint finishes.

If you want to see more of it after the olympics, you might want to check out nrk.no

They broadcast (on the internet) most if not all of the XC, Biathlon, Ski jumping, Nordic combined, Speed Skating events and quite a few alpine skiing events. I checked their website a few months ago and I seem to remember that if you're in a country that doesn't have a channel that shows the event, you should be able to watch it on nrk nett-tv. Also, if you are in the eurosone, you should be able to view all the olympic broadcasting they send.
Of course, it's norwegian commentators, but it probably beats not seeing the events, barely

This was my first time paying close attention to the Nordic ski events. Those guys are insane! Definately my favorite events so far: great competition and close finishes. Living in Florida we don't get much exposure to that sort of thing .

 

[Big GMaC]

Having never been a follower of Winter Olympics, I am just curious to know what kind of physiology is beneficial to the speed skater, be it the 500 or the 5000/10000? how it compare to say runners or cyclists?

 

[Moondance]

Having never been a follower of Winter Olympics, I am just curious to know what kind of physiology is beneficial to the speed skater, be it the 500 or the 5000/10000? how it compare to say runners or cyclists?

Don't know about running, but in the Netherlands cycling is central to training for speed skating. In other countries i think less emphasis is placed on cycling, especially for the shorter distance skaters.

You do need to do significant amounts of power training, working weights etc., and work to build up more muscle mass. You also have to train pretty hard muscles groups that no cyclist would ever train, like your back muscles and obliques, and abs in general. In that sense I think physically speed skaters compare quite a bit to track cyclists, although noone is as ripped as a Chris Hoy.

This is a pretty Dutch way to train for speed skating, where 50-75% or so is not skating or inline skating (in the summer). I know for instance the US speed skaters pretty much train exclusively on skates or rollerblades, very little weight-work or cycling.

 

[Ferminal]

It didn't get any better in the biathlon for the Norwegians Bjoerndalen and Svendsen missing at crucial times.

 

[knewcleardaze]

The Olympics are the biggest scam in sports apart from Lance Armstrong. They stir up nationalism, get thousands of athletes to compete for free, con countries in to footing the bill to put on the games, and then scrape off billions of dollars in media rights that are funneled to a corrupt elite. The athletes should organize and demand a percentage of the money brought in.

You've summed it up completely. I lost interest when they allowed professionals to compete. It's nothing more than a profit driven, money grubbing grab fest. How odd. Call me a miserable old git. The Olympics were very entertaining when young athletes from around the globe convened every four years to compete. Television now has managed to move the dates around so there are Olympics every two years. And what is up with these X Games nonsense in the Games? I'm afraid I don't see things improving.

 

[Oldman]

You've summed it up completely. I lost interest when they allowed professionals to compete. It's nothing more than a profit driven, money grubbing grab fest. How odd. Call me a miserable old git. The Olympics were very entertaining when young athletes from around the globe convened every four years to compete. Television now has managed to move the dates around so there are Olympics every two years. And what is up with these X Games nonsense in the Games? I'm afraid I don't see things improving.

The very worst part is the fabrication of "drama" and the slaverous delivery of it. Someone stubs their toe and it's a basis of 1 hour broadcast time. The real athletic activity isn't compelling enough because the audience can't relate to physical activity anymore. We should call it the Oprahfication of the games.

 

[ak-zaaf]

Worst games ever?
Or is that a bandwagon thing?

 

[Moondance]

Worst games ever?
Or is that a bandwagon thing?

Well, they certainly haven't given the impression of being well organized. Maybe it's partially just a series of unfortunate events. Also the Francophone-Anglophone civil war seems to have broken out again, and that's never good.

 

[ak-zaaf]

And now everything goes wrong at the 1000m speed skating.
Pathetic.

 

[cartman]

And now everything goes wrong at the 1000m speed skating.
Pathetic.

Yep, not only did they manage to **** up the timings in both the men's and women's biathlon pursuit, now this. I haven't personally seen any more **** ups, but this seems amateurish.

Also, I know it's not the organisers fault, but this year's changes in the XC sprint set up really didn't help ''our'' boys in the final. Allthough I don't want to take anything away from the two russians, they were strong, I suspect it would've been closer race in the finals had the previous years set up applied. Allowing the participents of the first semi final rest almost twice as long as those in the second one doesn't seem perticularly fair to me. The winning time in the final wasn't that good, but the gaps to Hattestad and Northug were huge for a sprint.

 

[Moondance]

And now everything goes wrong at the 1000m speed skating.
Pathetic.

Yeah, and those were just the Dutch riders.

The timing system was horrible too.