Group 2
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MEN'S SPEED SKATING 500 METERS #1515
Group Two
Day Six of the Olympics
This time during the Olympics is kind of always weird to me because they have been on long enough that that watching them everyday is now my normal daily routine, but there not even half way complete, so there isn't that sense that they are going to be over anytime soon, so I still am excited about what all is to come still, where as next Thursday I'm going to be like "Oh no, I better soak it all up because it's four more years till I get to watch this again." Maybe that's just me.
This Russian doping scandal is also interesting because you have so many elements that are normally not there. Normally they compete, get caught later, and then stripped of the medal. But with this, we know she did it, yet she still hasn't fully competed. Also she's 15, and the Olympics actually treats 15 year olds differently then everyone else, as they do acknowledge the reality that someone under sixteen is most likely been lead then leading. And then you have the fact that she is the front runner, as well as the pro doping country she comes from, political intrigue, ect. It's all very unusual.
So naturally it got weirder when her own countries anti doping RUSADA suspended her, and then she appealed and won, because of course she did as clearly this is all for show, and now the IOC is appealing her suspension in Russia, which is weird because why not just suspend her themselves and then she could appeal that? Instead she has a hearing with International Testing Agency which I guess will settle it all.
So what does that all mean? It means they need to suspend her or look dumb and corrupt is what it should mean. No one trusts any of these people the way it is. Russia, China, and the IOC continue to have a policy of "rules for thee but not for me" and everyone else has to play a different game. Personally I give it a 50/50 either way.
I also noticed this trend last summer at the Olympics to now have these "mixed" events. Men and women. So it should come as no shock that we got Mixed Relay Luge so that Germany could pad there medal count.
And surprise! They did!
The announcer started off by going "Are you ready for some fun!" and I thought "Sure, do you have any?" And he was all like Luuuuuuge!
Mixed Relays is where you have two singles and double and at least one has to be of the opposite sex. You then do all three runs at once and have to hit a pad for the next team to go. The Slovenians crashed, but didn't crash far enough, so they failed to hit the pad and were out.
The Americans made up of Farquharson, Mazdzer and De Gregorio and Hollander were looking good until the doubles hit the wall and we know how this goes, Germany took the win beating Austria by .080 seconds. Natalie Geisenberger won her seventh medal and is now Queen Luger with more medals then anyone else all time. Latvia got the bronze, and the USA finished 7th out of 13 so that's not to bad I guess.
NBC then for the second day straight told us about a gold win, instead of just showing it, or keeping their big mouths shut. Thanks NBC!
And then they did this Ester Ledecká story where, if you might remember, she won both the slalom snowboarding and the Super G by 0.01 four years ago, which is crazy as she isn't really a great skier? Remember that. Well NBC desperately wanted you to, so they filmed her getting two large cones of Gelato as a Simile or Metaphor, I'm not 100% sure of the difference, but it meant she had to eat two cones now! Then then told us she was a kick boxer and a windsurfer and maybe blew up an asteroid to save Earth. In short, she's awesome I guess.
Anyway I knew that didn't bode well for the USA because I've been around long enough on Flat Earth to know that when your own countries network is hyping up a non American, it means the medal wins that night are going to be lean. See how that works.
NBC then actually showed the whole Mens snowboarding cross, unlike the women's' where we just saw the finals, where we won gold, which would have been great, if we had won the mens as well! But we didn't!
We had three in the semis which sounded good, but Dierdorff made a quick exit when he crashed and took out a guy from Germany and then Baumgartner lost too and that dude is 40, so you could see his whole career flash before his eyes when it was all done. It was pretty surreal to watch because he was wrecked looking and he was fighting back tears as you can imagine and vowed with a shaking fist that this was not the last time we would see him. "He would fight on!" he proclaimed, but yeah, I think this is the last time were going to see him. I'm not sure I have ever seen a 44 year old snowboarder from America in the Olympics. The Romanians now and then have someone who is like 50 and still doing gymnastics, but not the United States.
It's got to suck to do sometime your whole life and then at 40 you have to start over with something new? Crazy.
To me anyway. Not to you if that is or was you.
Jake Vedder did well in his first run. He was replacing someone who got hurt and couldn't make it to China, so he was here on just two weeks notice and he is young and it showed. He came out of the gate hard but got beat on the second turn and drifted back and almost fought back, but ended up .16 behind in 3rd. Apparently though they all have to then snowboard again a small finals to determine 5th through 8th for some weird reason, I mean who cares, right? Not sure why they do that but he ended up 6th over all. It was cool race though because we got a POV wreck between two people and that was fun to watch someone smash into someone else, as if it was you doing the smashing. Like VR snowboarding or something.
In case your wondering, it was Austria, Canada, Italy with another Austrian in forth. Apparently this is the first medal in this event for Austria ever, and Italy's first for a guy, so good for them I guess.
Then we moved on to Women's Cross country and this race is bizarre. There were 98 racers and they leave at 30 second intervals and go two laps or 6.2 miles, but you have to stay in a pre made groove, or your disqualified, but you don't really have to either! ?
You see, because there are times when there wasn't a groove, and then you also have to pass, right? Like they are always passing, so the person in front has to get out of the way, but now there losing time. Right? So at some point your starting order screws you over? Right? See my point here? I mean it's kind of dumb IMO. And it does matter! Norway's Terese Johaug won by just 0.4 seconds. And then there was just 0.10 between third and fourth. So if you had to move out of the way even once, you might have lost because you were near the end, but the person behind you was on their first lap, so that's why they passed you. Am I wrong on this?
And as per usual, these coaches are all over the place just screaming at them. I mean this course was thick with coaches. Like hundreds. And they are running along side them and screaming and yelling and screaming, and yelling. It's actually really nuts. Does screaming at them really help? I can scream pretty good. Can I be a coach in Nordic skiing? I think I could do really well at this. Maybe that is my ticket to the Olympics. I can scream at some hot Swedish skier. I like the sound of that.
By the way, cuz I know you really are wondering, we ended up in 8th, 13th, 24th, and 32nd. Which is pretty good I think. But then again, all I know about this sport is you yell a lot, so you probably shouldn't trust my opinion on this.
Anyway, later we finally got to see the Mixed freestyle Aerials that NBC went ahead and spoiled and I was wrong about Big Air because this here is actually gymnastics in the air. You basically launch off a 14 foot ramp straight up 50 feet and then only land forward because your on a hill. These people are out of there freaking minds!
I guess this is China's big thing as they said they have 53 world cup wins and the USA has only 9. Our three were two youngsters and an old man so I don't' think they were thinking about the gold, but China had a spill in round two and that opened up the door for us. America ended up with the Gold and was happy, Canada got the Bronze and was happy, and China got the Silver, and were not happy. They looked like they had some splannin to do later on to some communist official on why there contributing to a pretty low medal count for the host nation. Hopefully they don't go missing like Peng Shuai
The last two events were no bueno for America, but I kind of figured that.
Ester Ledecká who won her third Gold in Salolm snowboarding on Tuesday already did not win this Super G after all. Maybe it was all that Gelato she had to eat. Nor did Mikaela Shiffrin either. But Mikaela did stay up and got 9th and you could see that made her feel really good.
I had mentioned about all of the constant showing of her skiing out by NBC and apparently so have others. Not to mention that interview I talked about a few days ago. Well going into this she had actually said she wasn't going to do anymore interviews because it upset her as well. But then she finished, and found her smile again and did one anyway.
It's amazing how you can come in thinking that you might win five golds, and maybe thinking that just three golds would be settling, and then ski out twice in your main events and then all of a suddenly your just happy to finish hard and that's your victory. She definitely looked to be in a better head space so that's good. I mean you can't let a few bad days define who you are going forward. She's to talented for that so hopefully this is just her career low point and that low point is over.
We finally got to the big show of the evening and even though I was Siked for it, I kind of knew it probably wasn't going to end with Shawn White holding gold on that podium one last time.
If you didn't watch it, you missed out. The Japanese team is amazing and went big on every run and while they couldn't alwasy keep it together, and we saw plenty of wipeouts, you just knew it was only a matter of time before one of these Japanese kids would put it all together.
Round one was crazy though. The judges were stingy at first, no free rides and American Taylor Gold got a 81.25 and Shawn got a 72 and was clean on his run and looked good. Ayumu though did a Triple Cork and you knew that was bad. He didn't' finish his run, but it didn't' bode well. And everyone was looking good out there. Unlike some sports where someone is just way better then everyone else, everyone had a shot tonight. Valentino, Scott James, Jan Swcherrer, all of the Japanese, everyone just looked so amazing.
Shawn got a 82 in the second and lots of people wiped out, so that gave everyone including him some hope. But then Ayumu did his triple cork again and put up what they called the best run ever... and got low balled with a 91.75. Which set off the announcer badly. He was so pissed off by it. I thought he was going to lose it. Seriously. I mean I thought he was going to pop a vein or something. And I get it. It was a weird score. But it did leave the door open for Shawn so the drama was still there. For like ten more minutes. In the third there were enough wipe outs that you thought he might medal, but enough good runs that still put him into fourth, but just couldn't hold on and wiped out on his final run.
He said his 35 year old legs were giving out. No doubt. I mean one of these guys was sixteen. It's crazy he is even doing it at all. And then Ayumu did the triple cork for a third time, and everything else you can humanly do, and got a 96 and that was it. Game over.
It was very heartfelt to see how emotional Shawn got. Much like with Baumgartner in Cross, this is it and he knew it before he even got his goggles off. I know everyone thinks they will end like Tom Brady, old and successful, but even Tom didn't make it to just one more Superbowl. He overstayed the party by a hair and maybe Shawn did too. But I was happy to see him one more time, even if it meant not seeing him win one more gold. I know those tears were not all tears of joy. Some were lot's of pain that didn't end where he wanted it too. But some of them were joyful I'm sure too. But also lot's of pain. Both I guess?
I mean he has to be thinking in that very moment "what now"? College? Coaching? I mean what do you do when your a 35 year old ex snowboarder? Those endorsement deals don't last forever. Do they? I guess he'll become a motivational speaker or something. Isn't that the in thing. Get 25 grand a pop to spout off hollow platitudes to office workers and then sign some autographs. I pray he hopefully will never end up on Celebrity Autograph Row at Comic Con, hawking his signature and picture for 65 a pop next to Lou Ferrigno and Brent Spiner. Ever been to one of those? Terrible!
Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to call today hateful. It was like one gold and redemption and tearful goodbyes. And I'm fine with that. But I did just find out that our Mens Hockey squad is all college kids. WTF? This is horrible news to me. Were not winning this! I've seen this show before and it ends in misery. And don't talk to me about 1980s Miracle on Ice. That's not happening twice in my lifetime. I wish them luck and will hope for the best but I guess I'm gonna have to put all of our dreams of "Ice Soccer Gold" on the Women Team. Hopefully they won't let my mild interest in hockey down.
I hope you all have a great day. Bye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IJeMEcGcHM&t=2m47s
Shawn Whites Final Run and Ayumu Hirano Gold Medal Run!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a37XmDCErzY&t=3m32s
Emotional Shawn White
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN_qrLVddS8&t=3m10s
Nathan Chen's Medal Ceremony. Check out the Chinese flipping the flags! I love it!
No wind though again. Very disappointed in you China.
Surprise Gold for America!
Shawn Whites Swan Song!
Mikaela Smiling Again!
Group Two
Day Six of the Olympics
This time during the Olympics is kind of always weird to me because they have been on long enough that that watching them everyday is now my normal daily routine, but there not even half way complete, so there isn't that sense that they are going to be over anytime soon, so I still am excited about what all is to come still, where as next Thursday I'm going to be like "Oh no, I better soak it all up because it's four more years till I get to watch this again." Maybe that's just me.
This Russian doping scandal is also interesting because you have so many elements that are normally not there. Normally they compete, get caught later, and then stripped of the medal. But with this, we know she did it, yet she still hasn't fully competed. Also she's 15, and the Olympics actually treats 15 year olds differently then everyone else, as they do acknowledge the reality that someone under sixteen is most likely been lead then leading. And then you have the fact that she is the front runner, as well as the pro doping country she comes from, political intrigue, ect. It's all very unusual.
So naturally it got weirder when her own countries anti doping RUSADA suspended her, and then she appealed and won, because of course she did as clearly this is all for show, and now the IOC is appealing her suspension in Russia, which is weird because why not just suspend her themselves and then she could appeal that? Instead she has a hearing with International Testing Agency which I guess will settle it all.
So what does that all mean? It means they need to suspend her or look dumb and corrupt is what it should mean. No one trusts any of these people the way it is. Russia, China, and the IOC continue to have a policy of "rules for thee but not for me" and everyone else has to play a different game. Personally I give it a 50/50 either way.
I also noticed this trend last summer at the Olympics to now have these "mixed" events. Men and women. So it should come as no shock that we got Mixed Relay Luge so that Germany could pad there medal count.
And surprise! They did!
The announcer started off by going "Are you ready for some fun!" and I thought "Sure, do you have any?" And he was all like Luuuuuuge!
Mixed Relays is where you have two singles and double and at least one has to be of the opposite sex. You then do all three runs at once and have to hit a pad for the next team to go. The Slovenians crashed, but didn't crash far enough, so they failed to hit the pad and were out.
The Americans made up of Farquharson, Mazdzer and De Gregorio and Hollander were looking good until the doubles hit the wall and we know how this goes, Germany took the win beating Austria by .080 seconds. Natalie Geisenberger won her seventh medal and is now Queen Luger with more medals then anyone else all time. Latvia got the bronze, and the USA finished 7th out of 13 so that's not to bad I guess.
NBC then for the second day straight told us about a gold win, instead of just showing it, or keeping their big mouths shut. Thanks NBC!
And then they did this Ester Ledecká story where, if you might remember, she won both the slalom snowboarding and the Super G by 0.01 four years ago, which is crazy as she isn't really a great skier? Remember that. Well NBC desperately wanted you to, so they filmed her getting two large cones of Gelato as a Simile or Metaphor, I'm not 100% sure of the difference, but it meant she had to eat two cones now! Then then told us she was a kick boxer and a windsurfer and maybe blew up an asteroid to save Earth. In short, she's awesome I guess.
Anyway I knew that didn't bode well for the USA because I've been around long enough on Flat Earth to know that when your own countries network is hyping up a non American, it means the medal wins that night are going to be lean. See how that works.
NBC then actually showed the whole Mens snowboarding cross, unlike the women's' where we just saw the finals, where we won gold, which would have been great, if we had won the mens as well! But we didn't!
We had three in the semis which sounded good, but Dierdorff made a quick exit when he crashed and took out a guy from Germany and then Baumgartner lost too and that dude is 40, so you could see his whole career flash before his eyes when it was all done. It was pretty surreal to watch because he was wrecked looking and he was fighting back tears as you can imagine and vowed with a shaking fist that this was not the last time we would see him. "He would fight on!" he proclaimed, but yeah, I think this is the last time were going to see him. I'm not sure I have ever seen a 44 year old snowboarder from America in the Olympics. The Romanians now and then have someone who is like 50 and still doing gymnastics, but not the United States.
It's got to suck to do sometime your whole life and then at 40 you have to start over with something new? Crazy.
To me anyway. Not to you if that is or was you.
Jake Vedder did well in his first run. He was replacing someone who got hurt and couldn't make it to China, so he was here on just two weeks notice and he is young and it showed. He came out of the gate hard but got beat on the second turn and drifted back and almost fought back, but ended up .16 behind in 3rd. Apparently though they all have to then snowboard again a small finals to determine 5th through 8th for some weird reason, I mean who cares, right? Not sure why they do that but he ended up 6th over all. It was cool race though because we got a POV wreck between two people and that was fun to watch someone smash into someone else, as if it was you doing the smashing. Like VR snowboarding or something.
In case your wondering, it was Austria, Canada, Italy with another Austrian in forth. Apparently this is the first medal in this event for Austria ever, and Italy's first for a guy, so good for them I guess.
Then we moved on to Women's Cross country and this race is bizarre. There were 98 racers and they leave at 30 second intervals and go two laps or 6.2 miles, but you have to stay in a pre made groove, or your disqualified, but you don't really have to either! ?
You see, because there are times when there wasn't a groove, and then you also have to pass, right? Like they are always passing, so the person in front has to get out of the way, but now there losing time. Right? So at some point your starting order screws you over? Right? See my point here? I mean it's kind of dumb IMO. And it does matter! Norway's Terese Johaug won by just 0.4 seconds. And then there was just 0.10 between third and fourth. So if you had to move out of the way even once, you might have lost because you were near the end, but the person behind you was on their first lap, so that's why they passed you. Am I wrong on this?
And as per usual, these coaches are all over the place just screaming at them. I mean this course was thick with coaches. Like hundreds. And they are running along side them and screaming and yelling and screaming, and yelling. It's actually really nuts. Does screaming at them really help? I can scream pretty good. Can I be a coach in Nordic skiing? I think I could do really well at this. Maybe that is my ticket to the Olympics. I can scream at some hot Swedish skier. I like the sound of that.
By the way, cuz I know you really are wondering, we ended up in 8th, 13th, 24th, and 32nd. Which is pretty good I think. But then again, all I know about this sport is you yell a lot, so you probably shouldn't trust my opinion on this.
Anyway, later we finally got to see the Mixed freestyle Aerials that NBC went ahead and spoiled and I was wrong about Big Air because this here is actually gymnastics in the air. You basically launch off a 14 foot ramp straight up 50 feet and then only land forward because your on a hill. These people are out of there freaking minds!
I guess this is China's big thing as they said they have 53 world cup wins and the USA has only 9. Our three were two youngsters and an old man so I don't' think they were thinking about the gold, but China had a spill in round two and that opened up the door for us. America ended up with the Gold and was happy, Canada got the Bronze and was happy, and China got the Silver, and were not happy. They looked like they had some splannin to do later on to some communist official on why there contributing to a pretty low medal count for the host nation. Hopefully they don't go missing like Peng Shuai
The last two events were no bueno for America, but I kind of figured that.
Ester Ledecká who won her third Gold in Salolm snowboarding on Tuesday already did not win this Super G after all. Maybe it was all that Gelato she had to eat. Nor did Mikaela Shiffrin either. But Mikaela did stay up and got 9th and you could see that made her feel really good.
I had mentioned about all of the constant showing of her skiing out by NBC and apparently so have others. Not to mention that interview I talked about a few days ago. Well going into this she had actually said she wasn't going to do anymore interviews because it upset her as well. But then she finished, and found her smile again and did one anyway.
It's amazing how you can come in thinking that you might win five golds, and maybe thinking that just three golds would be settling, and then ski out twice in your main events and then all of a suddenly your just happy to finish hard and that's your victory. She definitely looked to be in a better head space so that's good. I mean you can't let a few bad days define who you are going forward. She's to talented for that so hopefully this is just her career low point and that low point is over.
We finally got to the big show of the evening and even though I was Siked for it, I kind of knew it probably wasn't going to end with Shawn White holding gold on that podium one last time.
If you didn't watch it, you missed out. The Japanese team is amazing and went big on every run and while they couldn't alwasy keep it together, and we saw plenty of wipeouts, you just knew it was only a matter of time before one of these Japanese kids would put it all together.
Round one was crazy though. The judges were stingy at first, no free rides and American Taylor Gold got a 81.25 and Shawn got a 72 and was clean on his run and looked good. Ayumu though did a Triple Cork and you knew that was bad. He didn't' finish his run, but it didn't' bode well. And everyone was looking good out there. Unlike some sports where someone is just way better then everyone else, everyone had a shot tonight. Valentino, Scott James, Jan Swcherrer, all of the Japanese, everyone just looked so amazing.
Shawn got a 82 in the second and lots of people wiped out, so that gave everyone including him some hope. But then Ayumu did his triple cork again and put up what they called the best run ever... and got low balled with a 91.75. Which set off the announcer badly. He was so pissed off by it. I thought he was going to lose it. Seriously. I mean I thought he was going to pop a vein or something. And I get it. It was a weird score. But it did leave the door open for Shawn so the drama was still there. For like ten more minutes. In the third there were enough wipe outs that you thought he might medal, but enough good runs that still put him into fourth, but just couldn't hold on and wiped out on his final run.
He said his 35 year old legs were giving out. No doubt. I mean one of these guys was sixteen. It's crazy he is even doing it at all. And then Ayumu did the triple cork for a third time, and everything else you can humanly do, and got a 96 and that was it. Game over.
It was very heartfelt to see how emotional Shawn got. Much like with Baumgartner in Cross, this is it and he knew it before he even got his goggles off. I know everyone thinks they will end like Tom Brady, old and successful, but even Tom didn't make it to just one more Superbowl. He overstayed the party by a hair and maybe Shawn did too. But I was happy to see him one more time, even if it meant not seeing him win one more gold. I know those tears were not all tears of joy. Some were lot's of pain that didn't end where he wanted it too. But some of them were joyful I'm sure too. But also lot's of pain. Both I guess?
I mean he has to be thinking in that very moment "what now"? College? Coaching? I mean what do you do when your a 35 year old ex snowboarder? Those endorsement deals don't last forever. Do they? I guess he'll become a motivational speaker or something. Isn't that the in thing. Get 25 grand a pop to spout off hollow platitudes to office workers and then sign some autographs. I pray he hopefully will never end up on Celebrity Autograph Row at Comic Con, hawking his signature and picture for 65 a pop next to Lou Ferrigno and Brent Spiner. Ever been to one of those? Terrible!
Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to call today hateful. It was like one gold and redemption and tearful goodbyes. And I'm fine with that. But I did just find out that our Mens Hockey squad is all college kids. WTF? This is horrible news to me. Were not winning this! I've seen this show before and it ends in misery. And don't talk to me about 1980s Miracle on Ice. That's not happening twice in my lifetime. I wish them luck and will hope for the best but I guess I'm gonna have to put all of our dreams of "Ice Soccer Gold" on the Women Team. Hopefully they won't let my mild interest in hockey down.
I hope you all have a great day. Bye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IJeMEcGcHM&t=2m47s
Shawn Whites Final Run and Ayumu Hirano Gold Medal Run!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a37XmDCErzY&t=3m32s
Emotional Shawn White
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN_qrLVddS8&t=3m10s
Nathan Chen's Medal Ceremony. Check out the Chinese flipping the flags! I love it!
No wind though again. Very disappointed in you China.
Surprise Gold for America!
Shawn Whites Swan Song!
Mikaela Smiling Again!
Testing, one, two, three.
Everything I post is always in good humor and fun.
Unless I'm on my soapbox screaming out crazy, and then well......
Everything I post is always in good humor and fun.
Unless I'm on my soapbox screaming out crazy, and then well......
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