MEN'S SKI CROSS
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MEN'S SKI CROSS #1521
Bastien Midol - France
Day Twelve of the Olympics
So yesterday I said I was a nonfiction writer, and then I'm just chilling out eating the endless amount of 7 layer dip I have to consume twice a day from the Superbowl to try and get rid of it. I guess when I made it I thought I was having a party or something. Who knows. I made WAY to much. And then it hits me. I said what? LOL No, it's fiction! I write fiction!
I make stuff up! And end each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, with tons of conflict, ect. Like Ozark if that helps you. Nonfiction? That's like dudes who spend six years doing research on Uboats or the Plains Indians and sell 500 copies, or better yet, your a professor and you make your students buy copies. I don't know. I don't even read nonfiction.
But it's OK if you do!
Anyway! Welcome
Also, I went to pull images from my imgbb account, and the whole album is freaking gone! I guess I got some bot got me on some Olympic CC strikes and they cleaned me out to make it easy or something. Like even my own stuff. WHAT! Well I hope you saw them the first time around, because I'm not going to reup those this week, that's for sure. So on my new one, I set everyting to private with links now and hopefully that will be that.
So today I thought I would keep everything way shorter to give that a try.
HA! It was like such an exciting drama filled day! Way to much crazy stuff going on in these USA hate filled Olympics.
BTW, this just in late, the Mens Curling team beat Denmark 7-5 and are on to the Semifinals and off to play Great Britain with Sweden playing Canada, and the winners and losers will face off for the medals. So it could be Canada and the USA playing again for something!
Probably bronze though as we both went 5-4. In other words, we are both the underdog in this!
So we got to the Women's 1500M short track sprint. And they showed us everything too!
They skate 7 to 8 skaters in three Semifinal heats. We had someone in each heat. In Semi heat one American Corinne Stoddard, who apparently skates specifically because she wanted to go to the Olympics, her words, proved that's a crappy reason. She skated 13.5 laps in the rear and came in 6th out of seven, and she goes home with a broken nose from the 500m, and a gift bag. Enjoy Corinne.
I would rather blow it by moving way out, way to early, then skate to lose, but that is just me.
Semi Heat 2 and American Kristen Santos Goes to the front, hangs out, looking good, Schulting of the Dutch takes the lead, and Santos gets taken out by Japan who gets hit by Hungry. Kristen does not advance to the A finals for reasons unknown, and she's done. What shame. Instead she goes to the B finals, and takes second, or 9th overall, right behind the same Japanese girl who knocked her out. SMH! Terrible!
Semi Heat 3, American Julie Letai got in because someone from the Uk dropped, she hangs out in the rear, four laps to go, Korea breaks out to the front hard, Julie still is sweeping up their dust, and Min-jeong of Korea and Yutong of China leave that dust as they skate into first and second in a photo finish that sees Korea first, with a new Olympic Record. She is good! Real good!
The women's finals, unlike the men who had ten, has the basic seven. FYI, only China and South Korea have ever won this event since it's inception.
Their off, the two Koreans take the early lead, but with 11 to go, Yutong of China goes off like a rocket and takes a huge lead! Huge! And Schulting of the Dutch try to follow! And then her coach waves her off, and with 9 to go, they are all back together again. It was like 6 seconds of wide eyes and heart stopping action!
8 laps to go, all is calm before the storm. 3 to go? Chaos! Min-Jeong of Korea, Fontana of Italy, Yutong of China, and Schulting of the Dutch just unload. It's a who's who of women's speed skating. Skating royalty. An all star cast looking for three medals between four people. It's a very fast pace, lots of action, then China falls off, way off, and when it's all done it's Korea gold, then Italy and the Dutch, with Italy and the Dutch separated by just 0.003 China takes last. I guess her coach shouldn't have waved her off. Good luck with that call when the party offical comes for answers. Once more the Korean/China dominance reigns.
On to the Mens' 5000K Relay Finals
20 skaters from 5 countries going 45 laps at up to 3gs on the corner. For reference, that is NASCAR on the turn, or a space shuttle launch!
Korea, China Italy, Canada, and ROC take the Ice. Sloppy Ice. It is rough and beat up from the previous rounds. Were talking snowcone time! The USA meanwhile does not even have a freaking mens team for this, or hasn't been to the finals? Can't remember exactly, but it's since 1992 on one of those? What! SMH! Come on USA!
Korea, Canada and ROC out early, with Italy and China hanging out in the rear. First 25 are nice and calm as everyone rotates on in.
15 to go and China moves up to third! Will they make a bold move? Yup! China's skater trips on a blade of Ice and they are out! They still finished, but in 5th.
9 to go and Canada and Korea take over with Italy and the ROC fighting in the rear for bronze. By six to go that gap is nice and wide. Four to go and Canada tries to shake off Korea, but the Koreans are hanging tough. Two to go however and Canada seems to break away. It's not much in reality, like half a second, but on the Ice that is huge. Across the finish line it is Canada Gold, Korea Silver and a photo finish for Italy and the ROC, with Italy taking Bronze! Very exciting stuff.
Canadas Charles Hamelin gets his seventh medal and 5th gold.
We then get the Women's 4x6km Biathlon Relay. Similar to the men yesterday, it is 20 teams, four women per team, three laps each, two shooting stations, one up, one down, five bullets, three extra, and a penalty lap of 150m for any targets still standing.
When NBC rolls in it's the second group of women on, shooting station four of eight, and Italy is out front followed by ROC, Germany, and Sweden bunched up behind and France and Norway even further behind them. The leads shoot good, Norway looks shaky and shoot eight to hit three, and has to take two loops, which is devastating already at this point to Norway. Meanwhile the Swiss are already out of it with their lead having been carted off for reasons unknown.
Oh, by the way, forgot to say this, it was -3 at the Mens yesterday! Like one degree from being canceled! Crazy! It's pretty cold here too and you can tell that can be a problem when reloading. I think it's just plain old cold in China right now. Which is good. Because it's the Winter Olympics.
It's now third skiers on and were on the sixth of eight shooting stations. Italy and Sweden come in, still in the lead and shoot clean, ROC does well and follows out just behind, while Germany takes two extra shots, and that's not good, and this leaves them 35 seconds behind. Normally five shoots should be take about 30 seconds BTW.
Seventh shooting station and Italy has fallen off somehow! Keep in mind they are on their last skier for the race, and these powerhouses of the snow have great anchors. Sweden shoots clean and is gone. ROC Too. Germany has one miss and is gone and Italy manages to shoot clean and is now in fourth with Norway and France trying to catch up, and everyone else? Way behind!
Finally it's the eight and final shooting station. Sweden skies in with a 30 second lead now and ROC right behind. ROC needs Sweden to miss. The do! They miss one. But just one, and by the time ROC starts shooting, Sweden is out of the station and skiing on home to victory. ROC has just one miss. German just one as well. Italy, Norway and France though are right behind Germany and looking to go for bronze if they can shoot well and get going! But in the end it is all for not at this point. 20 seconds back is a lifetime. It might as well be an hour. Sweden takes the Gold, ROC silver, and Germany comes in 13 seconds ahead for the Bronze followed by Norway, Italy, and France. Italy who had looked so good for three skiers, finishes off the podium, due to a weak anchor and poor shooting. What a shame! The USA finishes in 11th 4 minutes and 47 seconds behind. Terrible!
NBC Hockey Hype! Yeah!
NBC Guuuuuuu Hype!
We then get the Mens and Womens team sprint Classic Style!
We start off with our best chance at a medal with the women. We won the surprise gold four years ago in Korea, and that was with same teammate here Jessie Diggins, who is now joined by Rosie Brennan, and they took second in the Semi Finals, so I'm thinking this might be OK!
So it's ten teams, two people each, six laps, 0.9 miles each for a five and a half mile race. Each teammate alternates on each lap. Got that? Good! This whole event should take about 20 minutes plus change. BTW this is the one where you ski in lanes, but they have like three to four lanes at any time so it's all good, and then there are plenty of times to go freestyle to pass.
There off and American Rosie goes out into the slow snow and hangs back at first, conserving a bit of energy and biding her time. On the first exchange we are looking good! It's Finland, Norway, ROC and the USA in fourth with Sweden just behind. Very tight.
In round two American Jessie moves to the front right away, but everyone hangs tight. Coming back into the third exchange with Rosie, it's Sweden now, USA, Finland, the Swiss looking to make waves, and ROC and Austria also looking to make a statement.
Rosie moves out and looks good. Going up a hill Norway breaks a pole and it takes a good eight seconds to get another. Doesn't sound like much but it does matter. Rosie does great and coming on in off her second go it is Finland, Germany, ROC, and the USA just 0.9 seconds back followed by Austria and Sweden right behind. France is next and is 20 second back now.
Jessie Diggins now goes again and with six still in it. Jessie moves to the front with Sweden right behind and looking to break out. Finland is hanging tough, as well as the ROC and Germany. They come into the fifth lap with it being Sweden, Finland, and the USA in third just 2.5 back, followed by the ROC, Germany at 3.6, and the Swiss now as far back as 6.7. It's starting to open up.
Rosie on the fifth of six legs, and her last run, and does great, and takes the lead for quite awhile, but eventually gives way to faster skiers, and then Finland and Sweden start to try and take over, followed closely by the USA, ROC and Germany just a few seconds right behind, but seconds are feet here so it is starting to look a bit bad. But when they come into the last exchange we still look really good here. It's Finland, Germany, with the USA in third and just 2.2 behind, and ROC 2.9, and Sweden 3.7, so it looks like anyone's race!
American Jessie Diggins takes the final lap, and she has a gold from four years ago, so this could be a repeat. She looks really good and digs deep, and for a while it is the top five boxed on in together! What a tight race! Jessie is trying hard and you can tell that she really wants it. Getting another gold in this would taste good and even a silver or bronze would be nice hanging around her neck. But alias, it is not to be today. Jessie is tiring fast and she is falling behind with each step and today, well it's just not going to be her day to day.
As they go up a hill she starts to fall way behind and that is going to be it for her. The top four break away and start to fight it out among themselves. Soon they hit victory lane and it's super tight to the final line with it going Germany, Sweden, ROC and Finland finishing just on the outside by under four seconds. Team USA Women finish twelve seconds behind in fifth. Jessie is so tired that she looks punch drunk when Rosie picks her up off the cold hard snow for a hug. Tough match! But valiant effort. I applaud them!
NBC does Shawn White interview. He said he came back to the USA and right to Super Bowl 56. Awesome! I would too! Says he is going to reach out to Micheal Phelps to look for some advice for "What now". Speaking tour dude! I done told you! He also says he might learn the Piano and or Salsa dancing. HAHA! Sure you will dude! Sure! Calm down there buddy. You are not doing any of that! Just keeping it real. He says he might travel and hit some resorts as well. There ya go! That sounds more like it. Good luck Shawn, you deserve it!
My mom said Dancing with the stars! She is serious.
Now it's the Mens turn. Same thing 2 men, six laps, 3 medals for the taking.
So what do you want? The good, the bad, or the ugly? On the bad, we were sixth in our heat of three heats, and only got in on time.
But on the good, that time was sixth overall out of all the teams! Yea! But oh, if we were sixth in our group, that means we are sixth behind the top five. 
So we will be sixth? Is that how that works? 
It's Ben Ogden and John Schoonmaker for the US team. Ogden is off, he hangs back. Strategy or just slower you decided! ROC takes the lead but overall they are taking it easy for now. Cat and mouse. A chess game. Very Ruuuuussian. They said the men take more time before making a break in the finals, but had tons of broken ski poles in the Semi's when jockeying for position. USA makes a move to fourth, ROC drops back, France to last.
It's Norway, Canada, Italy, Finland, Sweden, ROC, Switzerland and then the USA at the first exchange. We may be in eighth right now, but it's just one second back. Very tight. Schoonmaker now takes over and makes the bold strategy to fall way back to the rear. What? Oh! The front is done with cat and mouse and now it's all cat. The front starts pushing off and Schoon watches them go.
Bye!
NBC cuts off and takes a break to show other stuff.
Like Guuuuuuuuu!
And finally NBC brings us back! It's eight out in front, and none of those eight are the USA. At the fourth exchange or into Ogdens final ski we are 9.7 seconds back, which seems really, really, really far, with Austria behind even us.
Four to five now start to break on off from the pack. It's like three then quickly behind that two more. We find out that Bolshunov of ROC has never NOT gotten a medal in the Olympics when competing. Ever! He is six for six! This guy does not know how to lose. But will he today?
Final exchange! Schoonmaker takes off second! From the rear! It's a big fight between Klaebo of Norway, Finland, ROC, with Sweden and Canada falling behind. These guys are fighting hard back and forth. It's a dog fight on skies. They all really want it badly and this continues into victory lane. It's a sprint for the finish line and they cross in the order they came into it. Norway, Finland, and the ROC. Alexander Bolshunov now has seven medals in seven events. The youngest to ever get seven at just 25 years of age.
But how does he look on his Wiki page! Meh. Not to horrible, but moisturizer dude! Moisturizer! Da Moisturizer? Da? Just saying.
Klaebo of Norway is also 25 and just got his seventh medal I think, as well, but only his fifth gold, so what a loser! And he hasn't won every event he has ever been in. Like a loser!
The USA came in ninth almost 30 seconds back. Not great! But we did beat Austria by like 47 seconds, so Yea! We'll take it.
And that was all like just the Afternoon! Crazy! Lot's of fun!
Whew!
So the Evening opens up and it's Guuuuuuuuu!
We get the Men's Individual Aerials Finals.
We had three into the Semi finals, but then lost Eric Laughran at some point who finished at 12th. When we came in it was the final jump and the order was ROC, Switzerland, American Christopher Lillis, China, Ukraine, and then American Justin Schoenefeld. So reverse that and were off, one jump, winner take all!
Oh BTW, you can only do each jump once, the Quintuple is the best anyone can do, because I guess no one can manage six rotations. Yet! And the first place ROC athlete Llya Burov has already done a quintuple. Also, it's like air 20%, Form 50%, and landing 30% times the difficulty. So bottom line, don't fall on your landing! Scoring explained HERE in case your interested. I was!
American Justin Schoenefeld goes, up, a quint, falls, and into first.
Ukraine goes, quint, falls, but does better, and into first
China's Qi Guangpu goes. Super high! Quint! Great landing! Crap! Into first!
American Chris Lillis, our last hope! Chris already has a gold from these games when we edged out China in mixed! Although everyone on the team has one, so, so does Justin! But Chris did get a 135 in that! He's up, quint, falls, into 3rd behind Justin. It was not to be!
Swiss go, way up, sloppy landing, but holds on, barely, knocks American Justin off the podium. Now it's just down to who gets what.
They speculate if Burov has another quint up his sleeve. He can do five twists, but has to do it different. They mention that few would have two in their repertoire. He probably wishes he did. He plays it safe instead with a "Quad Twisting Triple", and lands in bronze. He falls to the ground and punches it when his score comes in like a toddler. Because he is happy or sad? Either way it's just sad IMO. Way to go Ruuuuushia! China now has double gold for both the Women's and Mens in this event. Two more home town hero's. Enjoy I guess.
It then occurs to me. "Nonfiction? What?" Never!
Let's move ahead to Women's Alpine Combined. When we last left off, I called it the Nordic, and no, this is the Alpine, and Mikaela Shiffrin skied the fastest in the trials with Gelato junkie Ester snowboarder Ledecka in 5th I think. We also have for the USA Isabella Wright and Keely Cashman in this. You have to ski the downhill and then the Slalom. I thought two but I guess the internet lied to me again. Weird, because the internet rarely lies.
So they do the downhill and it is going good. We were Mikaela Shiffron 5th, Keely Cashman 7th, and Isabella Wright 15th out of 24. Great right! Wrong!
There was eight ski outs and a full on DQ. And all three of our Americans were in those eight! Of course they were! DNF! Did Not Finish!. A trifecta of DNF! SMH! Mikaela sat there on the slope again, but not as long. I have no idea what she is thinking in that moment. She did talk, and wasn't as devastated I will say. It's amazing how that happens. You can get used to anything including not finishing. I guess all she can really do is just finish her Olympics in the team event the best she can, and move on, and hope that four years from now, things are going better. Of course when 1/3 of the people DNF, clearly the snow has to fairly share some of the blame. For whatever that is worth. Results HERE!
BTW, they talked about that equipment and that suit is 1000 bucks and you use it once! Insane! And they all wear a high tech airbag vest. Were talking seven sensors, GPS, 3 gyroscopes, accelerators, ect. It can to 1000 calculations per second and deploy in 17 milliseconds! Crazy what we have now!
Oh yea, and remember how I told that gelato junkie and two time gold winning snowboarder Ester Ledecká to stay in her lane a few days ago and stop skiing, despite having a third gold in skiing! Remember that! Uh!
She got fourth in this! Terrible! To me! I look dumb again!
Two more to go! And they are both hateful as F!
First up, it's Guuuuuuuuuuuu!
Or as others call it Women's Freestyle skiing Half Pipe Qualifier
NBC gushed, gushed, gushed for Gu this evening. In fact they asked her to marry them, and she said.. maybe. Which aint to bad! She is after all their queen bee, and now that Mikaela Shiffrin has buzzed on off, NBC is determined to let us know that! Go Guuuuuuuuuu!
I'll just give you the broad strokes on this one. Even NBC told us to screw off to the USA Network if we wanted to see the back half of this qualifier. We had four coming on in out of a field of 20. Two runs each, top 12 in. We got three in. Americans Brita Sigourney, Hanna Faulhaber, and Carly Margulies, in 8th, 9th, and 10th respectively. Devin Logan just outside at 13th. Boo!
Look, you can go here and check out the top scores going into the finals if you want. HERE What it will tell you is this. Guuuuuuuuuu!
Eileen Gu of China is looking great. She had by far the biggest score of the night and looks amazing. Like over 10 points better then American Brita's best, and the only one do go over 90 at all, with a 93.75 and a 95.5. Those are massive numbers and this here is hers to lose. And that is that! And there is little we can do about that! Damn!
Rachael Karker of Canada came in second. Kelly Sildaru of Estonia, the other women to do the same three events as Gu, came in third, and is also looking great, and also figures to medal. I mean it's could be a dog fight for the Silver and Bronze maybe. I think any one of the top 12 can get it done, including the Americans. I really do. But it's going to be tough. Kelly trains on a trampoline and has a bronze from Slopestyle. Karker from Canada is the 2021 Silver World Champ. Guuuuuu the gold from the 2021 World Event. In forth place is Zoe Atkin has the 2021 World Bronze, so there you are. Our people have done some stuff too though. Feel free to click through. Very easy to find if that interests you. Finals are on the 19th.
And finally the Women's Hockey game. What can I say? We lost 3-2. It is what it is. Can't go back and spike the locker room punch at this point. Of course when they put up a "fun fact" that of the most points ever scored in a single Olympics by a women, two of those women are in this game, for Canada, I kind of knew it was going to be a long shot to win. I'm just fine that they kept it close.
Good for them! In fact, as such, I'm just going to call this a victory for the USA. A moral victory, but a victory none the less. Good for the USA! We win!
Have a great day! Bye!
Congratulations on the Silver!
Off my TV from waaaaay back!
Terrible!
Kelly and Guuuuuu!
Shawn White!
Bastien Midol - France
Day Twelve of the Olympics
So yesterday I said I was a nonfiction writer, and then I'm just chilling out eating the endless amount of 7 layer dip I have to consume twice a day from the Superbowl to try and get rid of it. I guess when I made it I thought I was having a party or something. Who knows. I made WAY to much. And then it hits me. I said what? LOL No, it's fiction! I write fiction!
I make stuff up! And end each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, with tons of conflict, ect. Like Ozark if that helps you. Nonfiction? That's like dudes who spend six years doing research on Uboats or the Plains Indians and sell 500 copies, or better yet, your a professor and you make your students buy copies. I don't know. I don't even read nonfiction.
But it's OK if you do!
Anyway! Welcome
Also, I went to pull images from my imgbb account, and the whole album is freaking gone! I guess I got some bot got me on some Olympic CC strikes and they cleaned me out to make it easy or something. Like even my own stuff. WHAT!
Well I hope you saw them the first time around, because I'm not going to reup those this week, that's for sure. So on my new one, I set everyting to private with links now and hopefully that will be that. So today I thought I would keep everything way shorter to give that a try.
HA! It was like such an exciting drama filled day! Way to much crazy stuff going on in these USA hate filled Olympics.
BTW, this just in late, the Mens Curling team beat Denmark 7-5 and are on to the Semifinals and off to play Great Britain with Sweden playing Canada, and the winners and losers will face off for the medals. So it could be Canada and the USA playing again for something!
Probably bronze though as we both went 5-4. In other words, we are both the underdog in this!
So we got to the Women's 1500M short track sprint. And they showed us everything too!
They skate 7 to 8 skaters in three Semifinal heats. We had someone in each heat. In Semi heat one American Corinne Stoddard, who apparently skates specifically because she wanted to go to the Olympics, her words, proved that's a crappy reason. She skated 13.5 laps in the rear and came in 6th out of seven, and she goes home with a broken nose from the 500m, and a gift bag. Enjoy Corinne.
I would rather blow it by moving way out, way to early, then skate to lose, but that is just me.
Semi Heat 2 and American Kristen Santos Goes to the front, hangs out, looking good, Schulting of the Dutch takes the lead, and Santos gets taken out by Japan who gets hit by Hungry. Kristen does not advance to the A finals for reasons unknown, and she's done. What shame. Instead she goes to the B finals, and takes second, or 9th overall, right behind the same Japanese girl who knocked her out. SMH! Terrible!
Semi Heat 3, American Julie Letai got in because someone from the Uk dropped, she hangs out in the rear, four laps to go, Korea breaks out to the front hard, Julie still is sweeping up their dust, and Min-jeong of Korea and Yutong of China leave that dust as they skate into first and second in a photo finish that sees Korea first, with a new Olympic Record. She is good! Real good!
The women's finals, unlike the men who had ten, has the basic seven. FYI, only China and South Korea have ever won this event since it's inception.
Their off, the two Koreans take the early lead, but with 11 to go, Yutong of China goes off like a rocket and takes a huge lead! Huge! And Schulting of the Dutch try to follow! And then her coach waves her off, and with 9 to go, they are all back together again. It was like 6 seconds of wide eyes and heart stopping action!
8 laps to go, all is calm before the storm. 3 to go? Chaos! Min-Jeong of Korea, Fontana of Italy, Yutong of China, and Schulting of the Dutch just unload. It's a who's who of women's speed skating. Skating royalty. An all star cast looking for three medals between four people. It's a very fast pace, lots of action, then China falls off, way off, and when it's all done it's Korea gold, then Italy and the Dutch, with Italy and the Dutch separated by just 0.003 China takes last. I guess her coach shouldn't have waved her off. Good luck with that call when the party offical comes for answers. Once more the Korean/China dominance reigns.
On to the Mens' 5000K Relay Finals
20 skaters from 5 countries going 45 laps at up to 3gs on the corner. For reference, that is NASCAR on the turn, or a space shuttle launch!
Korea, China Italy, Canada, and ROC take the Ice. Sloppy Ice. It is rough and beat up from the previous rounds. Were talking snowcone time! The USA meanwhile does not even have a freaking mens team for this, or hasn't been to the finals? Can't remember exactly, but it's since 1992 on one of those? What! SMH! Come on USA!
Korea, Canada and ROC out early, with Italy and China hanging out in the rear. First 25 are nice and calm as everyone rotates on in.
15 to go and China moves up to third! Will they make a bold move? Yup! China's skater trips on a blade of Ice and they are out! They still finished, but in 5th.
9 to go and Canada and Korea take over with Italy and the ROC fighting in the rear for bronze. By six to go that gap is nice and wide. Four to go and Canada tries to shake off Korea, but the Koreans are hanging tough. Two to go however and Canada seems to break away. It's not much in reality, like half a second, but on the Ice that is huge. Across the finish line it is Canada Gold, Korea Silver and a photo finish for Italy and the ROC, with Italy taking Bronze! Very exciting stuff.
Canadas Charles Hamelin gets his seventh medal and 5th gold.
We then get the Women's 4x6km Biathlon Relay. Similar to the men yesterday, it is 20 teams, four women per team, three laps each, two shooting stations, one up, one down, five bullets, three extra, and a penalty lap of 150m for any targets still standing.
When NBC rolls in it's the second group of women on, shooting station four of eight, and Italy is out front followed by ROC, Germany, and Sweden bunched up behind and France and Norway even further behind them. The leads shoot good, Norway looks shaky and shoot eight to hit three, and has to take two loops, which is devastating already at this point to Norway. Meanwhile the Swiss are already out of it with their lead having been carted off for reasons unknown.
Oh, by the way, forgot to say this, it was -3 at the Mens yesterday! Like one degree from being canceled! Crazy! It's pretty cold here too and you can tell that can be a problem when reloading. I think it's just plain old cold in China right now. Which is good. Because it's the Winter Olympics.
It's now third skiers on and were on the sixth of eight shooting stations. Italy and Sweden come in, still in the lead and shoot clean, ROC does well and follows out just behind, while Germany takes two extra shots, and that's not good, and this leaves them 35 seconds behind. Normally five shoots should be take about 30 seconds BTW.
Seventh shooting station and Italy has fallen off somehow! Keep in mind they are on their last skier for the race, and these powerhouses of the snow have great anchors. Sweden shoots clean and is gone. ROC Too. Germany has one miss and is gone and Italy manages to shoot clean and is now in fourth with Norway and France trying to catch up, and everyone else? Way behind!
Finally it's the eight and final shooting station. Sweden skies in with a 30 second lead now and ROC right behind. ROC needs Sweden to miss. The do! They miss one. But just one, and by the time ROC starts shooting, Sweden is out of the station and skiing on home to victory. ROC has just one miss. German just one as well. Italy, Norway and France though are right behind Germany and looking to go for bronze if they can shoot well and get going! But in the end it is all for not at this point. 20 seconds back is a lifetime. It might as well be an hour. Sweden takes the Gold, ROC silver, and Germany comes in 13 seconds ahead for the Bronze followed by Norway, Italy, and France. Italy who had looked so good for three skiers, finishes off the podium, due to a weak anchor and poor shooting. What a shame! The USA finishes in 11th 4 minutes and 47 seconds behind. Terrible!
NBC Hockey Hype! Yeah!
NBC Guuuuuuu Hype!
We then get the Mens and Womens team sprint Classic Style!
We start off with our best chance at a medal with the women. We won the surprise gold four years ago in Korea, and that was with same teammate here Jessie Diggins, who is now joined by Rosie Brennan, and they took second in the Semi Finals, so I'm thinking this might be OK!
So it's ten teams, two people each, six laps, 0.9 miles each for a five and a half mile race. Each teammate alternates on each lap. Got that? Good! This whole event should take about 20 minutes plus change. BTW this is the one where you ski in lanes, but they have like three to four lanes at any time so it's all good, and then there are plenty of times to go freestyle to pass.
There off and American Rosie goes out into the slow snow and hangs back at first, conserving a bit of energy and biding her time. On the first exchange we are looking good! It's Finland, Norway, ROC and the USA in fourth with Sweden just behind. Very tight.
In round two American Jessie moves to the front right away, but everyone hangs tight. Coming back into the third exchange with Rosie, it's Sweden now, USA, Finland, the Swiss looking to make waves, and ROC and Austria also looking to make a statement.
Rosie moves out and looks good. Going up a hill Norway breaks a pole and it takes a good eight seconds to get another. Doesn't sound like much but it does matter. Rosie does great and coming on in off her second go it is Finland, Germany, ROC, and the USA just 0.9 seconds back followed by Austria and Sweden right behind. France is next and is 20 second back now.
Jessie Diggins now goes again and with six still in it. Jessie moves to the front with Sweden right behind and looking to break out. Finland is hanging tough, as well as the ROC and Germany. They come into the fifth lap with it being Sweden, Finland, and the USA in third just 2.5 back, followed by the ROC, Germany at 3.6, and the Swiss now as far back as 6.7. It's starting to open up.
Rosie on the fifth of six legs, and her last run, and does great, and takes the lead for quite awhile, but eventually gives way to faster skiers, and then Finland and Sweden start to try and take over, followed closely by the USA, ROC and Germany just a few seconds right behind, but seconds are feet here so it is starting to look a bit bad. But when they come into the last exchange we still look really good here. It's Finland, Germany, with the USA in third and just 2.2 behind, and ROC 2.9, and Sweden 3.7, so it looks like anyone's race!
American Jessie Diggins takes the final lap, and she has a gold from four years ago, so this could be a repeat. She looks really good and digs deep, and for a while it is the top five boxed on in together! What a tight race! Jessie is trying hard and you can tell that she really wants it. Getting another gold in this would taste good and even a silver or bronze would be nice hanging around her neck. But alias, it is not to be today. Jessie is tiring fast and she is falling behind with each step and today, well it's just not going to be her day to day.
As they go up a hill she starts to fall way behind and that is going to be it for her. The top four break away and start to fight it out among themselves. Soon they hit victory lane and it's super tight to the final line with it going Germany, Sweden, ROC and Finland finishing just on the outside by under four seconds. Team USA Women finish twelve seconds behind in fifth. Jessie is so tired that she looks punch drunk when Rosie picks her up off the cold hard snow for a hug. Tough match! But valiant effort. I applaud them!
NBC does Shawn White interview. He said he came back to the USA and right to Super Bowl 56. Awesome! I would too! Says he is going to reach out to Micheal Phelps to look for some advice for "What now". Speaking tour dude! I done told you!
He also says he might learn the Piano and or Salsa dancing. HAHA! Sure you will dude! Sure! Calm down there buddy. You are not doing any of that! Just keeping it real. He says he might travel and hit some resorts as well. There ya go! That sounds more like it. Good luck Shawn, you deserve it! My mom said Dancing with the stars! She is serious.
Now it's the Mens turn. Same thing 2 men, six laps, 3 medals for the taking.
So what do you want? The good, the bad, or the ugly? On the bad, we were sixth in our heat of three heats, and only got in on time.
But on the good, that time was sixth overall out of all the teams! Yea! But oh, if we were sixth in our group, that means we are sixth behind the top five. So we will be sixth? Is that how that works? It's Ben Ogden and John Schoonmaker for the US team. Ogden is off, he hangs back. Strategy or just slower you decided! ROC takes the lead but overall they are taking it easy for now. Cat and mouse. A chess game. Very Ruuuuussian. They said the men take more time before making a break in the finals, but had tons of broken ski poles in the Semi's when jockeying for position. USA makes a move to fourth, ROC drops back, France to last.
It's Norway, Canada, Italy, Finland, Sweden, ROC, Switzerland and then the USA at the first exchange. We may be in eighth right now, but it's just one second back. Very tight. Schoonmaker now takes over and makes the bold strategy to fall way back to the rear. What? Oh! The front is done with cat and mouse and now it's all cat. The front starts pushing off and Schoon watches them go.
Bye!
NBC cuts off and takes a break to show other stuff.
Like Guuuuuuuuu!
And finally NBC brings us back! It's eight out in front, and none of those eight are the USA. At the fourth exchange or into Ogdens final ski we are 9.7 seconds back, which seems really, really, really far, with Austria behind even us.
Four to five now start to break on off from the pack. It's like three then quickly behind that two more. We find out that Bolshunov of ROC has never NOT gotten a medal in the Olympics when competing. Ever! He is six for six! This guy does not know how to lose. But will he today?
Final exchange! Schoonmaker takes off second! From the rear! It's a big fight between Klaebo of Norway, Finland, ROC, with Sweden and Canada falling behind. These guys are fighting hard back and forth. It's a dog fight on skies. They all really want it badly and this continues into victory lane. It's a sprint for the finish line and they cross in the order they came into it. Norway, Finland, and the ROC. Alexander Bolshunov now has seven medals in seven events. The youngest to ever get seven at just 25 years of age.
But how does he look on his Wiki page! Meh. Not to horrible, but moisturizer dude! Moisturizer! Da Moisturizer? Da? Just saying.
Klaebo of Norway is also 25 and just got his seventh medal I think, as well, but only his fifth gold, so what a loser! And he hasn't won every event he has ever been in. Like a loser!
The USA came in ninth almost 30 seconds back. Not great! But we did beat Austria by like 47 seconds, so Yea! We'll take it.
And that was all like just the Afternoon! Crazy! Lot's of fun!
Whew!
So the Evening opens up and it's Guuuuuuuuu!
We get the Men's Individual Aerials Finals.
We had three into the Semi finals, but then lost Eric Laughran at some point who finished at 12th. When we came in it was the final jump and the order was ROC, Switzerland, American Christopher Lillis, China, Ukraine, and then American Justin Schoenefeld. So reverse that and were off, one jump, winner take all!
Oh BTW, you can only do each jump once, the Quintuple is the best anyone can do, because I guess no one can manage six rotations. Yet! And the first place ROC athlete Llya Burov has already done a quintuple. Also, it's like air 20%, Form 50%, and landing 30% times the difficulty. So bottom line, don't fall on your landing! Scoring explained HERE in case your interested. I was!
American Justin Schoenefeld goes, up, a quint, falls, and into first.
Ukraine goes, quint, falls, but does better, and into first
China's Qi Guangpu goes. Super high! Quint! Great landing! Crap! Into first!
American Chris Lillis, our last hope! Chris already has a gold from these games when we edged out China in mixed! Although everyone on the team has one, so, so does Justin! But Chris did get a 135 in that! He's up, quint, falls, into 3rd behind Justin. It was not to be!
Swiss go, way up, sloppy landing, but holds on, barely, knocks American Justin off the podium. Now it's just down to who gets what.
They speculate if Burov has another quint up his sleeve. He can do five twists, but has to do it different. They mention that few would have two in their repertoire. He probably wishes he did. He plays it safe instead with a "Quad Twisting Triple", and lands in bronze. He falls to the ground and punches it when his score comes in like a toddler. Because he is happy or sad? Either way it's just sad IMO.
Way to go Ruuuuushia! China now has double gold for both the Women's and Mens in this event. Two more home town hero's. Enjoy I guess. It then occurs to me. "Nonfiction? What?"
Never!Let's move ahead to Women's Alpine Combined. When we last left off, I called it the Nordic, and no, this is the Alpine, and Mikaela Shiffrin skied the fastest in the trials with Gelato junkie Ester snowboarder Ledecka in 5th I think. We also have for the USA Isabella Wright and Keely Cashman in this. You have to ski the downhill and then the Slalom. I thought two but I guess the internet lied to me again. Weird, because the internet rarely lies.
So they do the downhill and it is going good. We were Mikaela Shiffron 5th, Keely Cashman 7th, and Isabella Wright 15th out of 24. Great right! Wrong!
There was eight ski outs and a full on DQ. And all three of our Americans were in those eight! Of course they were! DNF! Did Not Finish!. A trifecta of DNF! SMH! Mikaela sat there on the slope again, but not as long. I have no idea what she is thinking in that moment. She did talk, and wasn't as devastated I will say. It's amazing how that happens. You can get used to anything including not finishing. I guess all she can really do is just finish her Olympics in the team event the best she can, and move on, and hope that four years from now, things are going better. Of course when 1/3 of the people DNF, clearly the snow has to fairly share some of the blame. For whatever that is worth. Results HERE!
BTW, they talked about that equipment and that suit is 1000 bucks and you use it once! Insane! And they all wear a high tech airbag vest. Were talking seven sensors, GPS, 3 gyroscopes, accelerators, ect. It can to 1000 calculations per second and deploy in 17 milliseconds! Crazy what we have now!
Oh yea, and remember how I told that gelato junkie and two time gold winning snowboarder Ester Ledecká to stay in her lane a few days ago and stop skiing, despite having a third gold in skiing! Remember that! Uh!
She got fourth in this! Terrible! To me! I look dumb again!
Two more to go! And they are both hateful as F!
First up, it's Guuuuuuuuuuuu!
Or as others call it Women's Freestyle skiing Half Pipe Qualifier
NBC gushed, gushed, gushed for Gu this evening. In fact they asked her to marry them, and she said.. maybe. Which aint to bad! She is after all their queen bee, and now that Mikaela Shiffrin has buzzed on off, NBC is determined to let us know that! Go Guuuuuuuuuu!
I'll just give you the broad strokes on this one. Even NBC told us to screw off to the USA Network if we wanted to see the back half of this qualifier. We had four coming on in out of a field of 20. Two runs each, top 12 in. We got three in. Americans Brita Sigourney, Hanna Faulhaber, and Carly Margulies, in 8th, 9th, and 10th respectively. Devin Logan just outside at 13th. Boo!
Look, you can go here and check out the top scores going into the finals if you want. HERE What it will tell you is this. Guuuuuuuuuu!
Eileen Gu of China is looking great. She had by far the biggest score of the night and looks amazing. Like over 10 points better then American Brita's best, and the only one do go over 90 at all, with a 93.75 and a 95.5. Those are massive numbers and this here is hers to lose. And that is that! And there is little we can do about that! Damn!
Rachael Karker of Canada came in second. Kelly Sildaru of Estonia, the other women to do the same three events as Gu, came in third, and is also looking great, and also figures to medal. I mean it's could be a dog fight for the Silver and Bronze maybe. I think any one of the top 12 can get it done, including the Americans. I really do. But it's going to be tough. Kelly trains on a trampoline and has a bronze from Slopestyle. Karker from Canada is the 2021 Silver World Champ. Guuuuuu the gold from the 2021 World Event. In forth place is Zoe Atkin has the 2021 World Bronze, so there you are. Our people have done some stuff too though. Feel free to click through. Very easy to find if that interests you. Finals are on the 19th.
And finally the Women's Hockey game. What can I say? We lost 3-2. It is what it is. Can't go back and spike the locker room punch at this point. Of course when they put up a "fun fact" that of the most points ever scored in a single Olympics by a women, two of those women are in this game, for Canada, I kind of knew it was going to be a long shot to win. I'm just fine that they kept it close.
Good for them! In fact, as such, I'm just going to call this a victory for the USA. A moral victory, but a victory none the less. Good for the USA! We win!
Have a great day! Bye!
Congratulations on the Silver!
Off my TV from waaaaay back!
Terrible!
Kelly and Guuuuuu!
Shawn White!
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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= win 30 WRZ$ each
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Still plenty of time left to play
FREESTYLE SKIING - MEN'S SKI CROSS - SPORTS CENTER #1521 HERE
CLOSES THURSDAY 2/17 9:45 PM Chicago (UTC -6) FRIDAY 2/18 3:45 AM GMT (UTC +0) FRIDAY 2/18 4:45 AM France (UTC +1) FRIDAY 2/18 11:45 AM BEIJING (UTC +8)c
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SPORTS CENTER CONTEST #1522
FIGURE SKATING - PAIR SKATING
As the Olympics comes to an end, we just have to do a Figure Skating contest. The odds for most of them so far have simply sucked, but now, we got a good one.
EARLY Saturday morning her, and later in the day in China, we have the Gold Medal in the PAIR SKATING - FREE SKATING
INFORMATION
We have a two clear favorites, and a couple of other Russians, then, the BOZOS
THE FAVORITE
Mishina/Galliamov - Russia 41.7%
CLOSE BEHIND
Sui Wenjing/Han Cong - China 36.4%
THE OTHER RUSSIANS
Tarasova/Morozov - Russia 25.0%
Boikova/Kozlovskii - Russia 15.4%
TOTAL = 40.4%
(If either of them wins, you win)
THE FIELD
ANY OF THE OTHER BOZOS
GOOD LUCK
What is it?
We are asking you to predict who will win the Gold Medal
How do you play?
To enter this contest, you will need to post the following:
PAIR SKATING
Pick either Mishina/Galliamov, Sui Wenjing/Han Cong, THE OTHER RUSSIANS or THE FIELD
EXAMPLE POST
PAIR SKATING
Mishina/Galliamov
Rules:
Just pick which group will win the Gold Medal, and you win
Only 1 post per person for this specific contest, any more and we will ignore the later posts and count your first post as your official entry.
Plus, we will probably send you a PM or post about how naughty you were
ALL PICKS MUST BE MADE PRIOR TO THE FOLLOWING TIMES:
SATURDAY 2/18 5:00 AM Chicago (UTC -6)
SATURDAY 2/18 11:00 AM GMT (UTC +0)
SATURDAY 2/18 MIDNIGHT France (UTC +1)
SATURDAY 2/18 7:00 PM BEIJING (UTC +8)
Any picks made after this deadline will simply be ignored.
Any edits after this deadline, and your post will be disallowed.
Reward:
If you guess correctly, you will share the 500 WRZ$ pool
So, it's easy. Just pick who will win the Gold Medal in the PAIR SKATING
And keep the discussion going
Don't forget today's contest... just under 7 hours left to go
FREESTYLE SKIING - MEN'S SKI CROSS - SPORTS CENTER #1521 HERE
CLOSES THURSDAY 2/17 9:45 PM Chicago (UTC -6) FRIDAY 2/18 3:45 AM GMT (UTC +0) FRIDAY 2/18 4:45 AM France (UTC +1) FRIDAY 2/18 11:45 AM BEIJING (UTC +8)c
For an index of open events and a directory of recent contest results, go HERE
If you are new to SPORTS CENTER or if you have questions, check out the Sports Center FAQ, go HERE
