Saturday, February 12, 2022

XXIV Olympic Winter Games, Beijing 2022 (Halfway Done)

I never really know how this works. It's either "Day 8" or "Day 9" of 16, 17 or 19 official days of the Winter Olympics. Whatever, here are the medal standings as of 11:05 p.m. Saturday in Beijing:

1. Norway 8 gold, 3 silver, 6 bronze
2. Germany 7, 5, 1
3. United States 5, 5, 1
4. Netherlands 5, 4, 1
5. Sweden 5, 2, 3
6. Austria 4, 6, 4
7. China 4, 3, 1
8. Italy 2, 5, 4
9. Japan 2, 3, 5
10. Slovenia 2, 1, 2
11. Switzerland 2, 0, 5
12. France 1, 6, 0
13. Canada 1, 4, 8
14. South Korea 1, 2, 1
15. Finland 1, 1, 2
16. Australia 1, 1, 1
17. Czech Republic 1, 0, 1
T18. New Zealand 1, 0, 0
T18. Slovakia 1, 0, 0
T20. Belarus 0, 1, 0
T20. Spain 0, 1, 0
22. Hungary 0, 0, 2
T23. Belgium 0, 0, 1
T23. Latvia 0, 0, 1
T23. Poland 0, 0, 1

Also: 


 (Comments flow.)

Previous reports:

41 comments:

  1. And now it's about 10:20 p.m. Sunday in Beijing, and we're down to our last medal event of the day--the women's 500-meter race.

    We've got that on Channel 6. We've got Team USA leading Germany, 2-1, in men's hockey on USA Network. And, on the phone Peacock app, we've got the Shusters leading China, 7-5, in the ninth end of men's curling. We live in a glorious age!

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  2. The first medals awarded Sunday afternoon were silver for Norway and bronze for France in cross-country skiing, men's 4x10km relay, and gold for Switzerland, silver for Slovenia and bronze for France in alpine, men's giant slalom. River Radamus, a 24-year-old from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, finished fourth in the alpine event.

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  3. Then we had some biathlon: Gold and bronze for Norway and silver for Sweden in the women's 10km pursuit, then gold for France and silver for Norway in the men's 12.5km pursuit. No one from Team USA finished among the top 25 in either of these biathlon events.

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  4. #BREAKING: ERIN JACKSON, 29-YEAR-OLD FROM OCALA, FLORIDA, JUST MOVED INTO GOLD-MEDAL POSITION IN THE WOMEN'S 500M SPEED SKATING! TWO SKATERS TO GO ...

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  5. ERIN JACKSON WINS GOLD! ERIN JACKSON WINS GOLD!!!

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  6. Ouch. China stole one from the Shusters in the ninth. It's 7-6, Team USA, in the 10th.

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  7. Still 1:42 to go in the second in the hockey, still 2-1 ... I really need the intermission to get here so I can collect myself ...

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  8. Shusters have hammer in the 10th, so we should be OK here. But we really need this win; otherwise, Team USA will be having to dig out of the same 2-4, round-robin hole we had to dig out of in men's curling when they miraculously won gold in Pyeongchang 2018 (I still can't believe they won that thing).

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  9. United States 2, Germany 1, through two periods in men's hockey, and Team USA will begin the third with a man advantage because of a German penalty.

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  10. Four stones to go for both rinks and nothing in the house ... that's fine ...

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  11. Three stones to go for both, and now China has a rock in the third, white ring ... NERVOUS! ...

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  12. Two to go; China's rock remains, as Team USA clears a high guard ...

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  13. Japan took the silver in women's 500m speed skating, behind ERIN JACKSON OF OCALA, FLORIDA, WHO WON GOLD!

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  14. China throws a very high guard in the men's hockey, and then Shuster calls timeout and comes back to clear the house with his penultimate throw. Tenth end ...

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  15. With its last throw, China curls a stone to the front boundary of the second, red and third, white rings. It's buried behind their high guard, and now Shuster is curling toward the button from the other side ... AND HE MAKES IT! SHUSTER MAKES IT! TEAM USA HOLDS OFF CHINA, 6-8! "A GUTSY WIN FOR JOHN SHUSTER AND TEAM USA!" says one of the NBC curling commentators.

    Team USA is 3-3 in the round robin, one out of final-four position in the loss column.

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  16. OK, back to earlier in the afternoon, we had some short-track speed skating: gold for Netherlands, silver for South Korea and bronze for China in the women's 3000m and gold for Hungary and bronze for Canada in the men's 500m. Team USA qualified for neither of those medal races.

    I really miss Apollo Ohno. That guy was great.

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  17. OK, and then we had ERIN JACKSON'S BIG WIN IN THE WOMEN'S SPEED SKATING. WAY TO GO, ERIN JACKSON!

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  18. So that's all the medals for Sunday in Beijing, and here are the updated standings:

    1. Norway 9 gold, 5 silver, 7 bronze
    2. Germany 8, 5, 1
    3. United States 6, 5, 1
    4. Netherlands 6, 4, 2
    5. Sweden 5, 3, 3
    6. Austria 4, 6, 4
    7. China 4, 3, 2
    8. Switzerland 3, 0, 5
    9. France 2, 6, 2
    10. Italy 2, 5, 4
    11. Japan 2, 3, 5
    12. Slovenia 2, 1, 2
    13. Canada 1, 4, 8
    14. South Korea 1, 2, 1
    15. Australia 1, 2, 1
    16. Finland 1, 1, 2
    17. Hungary 1, 0, 2
    18. Czech Republic 1, 0, 1
    T19. New Zealand 1, 0, 0
    T19. Slovakia 1, 0, 0
    T21. Belarus 0, 1, 0
    T21. Spain 0, 1, 0
    T23. Belgium 0, 0, 1
    T23. Latvia 0, 0, 1
    T23. Poland 0, 0, 1

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  19. And now Nathan Smith of Tampa, Florida, scores in men's hockey, and Team USA leads Germany, 3-1, with about 16 minutes to go in the third period! A victory or tie here advances undefeated Team USA to the medal round, and a win means a bye to the quarters.

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  20. It's 11 p.m. Monday in Beijing, and they're playing The Who's "I Can't Explain" in Beijing's Wukesong Arena!

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  21. This is during a break to reset for a faceoff in the third period of a women's ice hockey semifinal, in which Team USA leads Finland, 2-0.

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  22. Winner will play--shocker--Canada for gold at 12:10 p.m. Thursday in Beijing/10:10 p.m. Wednesday in Madisonville. Six minutes, 32 seconds to go in this semi ...

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  23. With 26 seconds to go, Finland scores. It's now 3-1, Team USA.

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  24. With 4.7 seconds to go, Team USA scores into Finland's empty net: 4-1.

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  25. Ice hockey

    History per Wikipedia: “The sports of bandy and ice hockey are often confused particularly in regards to their early histories and relationship to one another. Ice hockey's initial development was influenced by a variety of games and sports which, with the exception of activities in which the North American indigenous participated, were imported from countries existing outside of the North American continent. The game of bandy and its informal varieties were the only games in existence involving the use of ice skates and two opposing sides and became an important predecessor. Bandy had been imported to North America but only in the manner of informal, recreational play and would not have a set of its own formal rules developed and codified until 1882 in Britain, less than ten years after ice hockey had begun developing its set in Canada in the 1870s. Initially called "hockey on the ice", bandy would not receive the name by which it is known today until the 1920s to help avoid confusion between itself and ice hockey. While bandy was developing in Britain, the Canadian city of Montreal, located in the province of Quebec, became the centre of the development of contemporary ice hockey, and is recognized as the official birthplace of organized ice hockey. On March 3, 1875, the first organized indoor game was played at Montreal's Victoria Skating Rink between two nine-player teams …”

    First Olympics: Antwerp 1920, which was a Summer Olympics, and then at Chamonix 1924, the first Winter Olympics

    All-time medals leaders through PyeongChang 2018: Canada 13 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze; United States 4, 11, 2; Sweden 2, 4, 5

    So far at Beijing 2022: So it’ll be Canada-United States for the gold (with Finland and Switzerland playing on Wednesday for bronze). This will be the fourth-straight women’s tournament and sixth of seven all time in which Canada and Team USA will play for gold. Team USA won at Nagano 1998 and PyeongChang 2018. Canada won at Salt Lake City 2002, Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014. (Canada also won gold at Torino 2006, beating Sweden, and the United States won bronze.)

    The playoffs in the men’s tournament start tomorrow. Team USA won all three of its games in the Group A preliminaries, earning a bye—along with Finland and Sweden—into the quarterfinals. The Americans will play either Germany, the defending silver medalists, or Slovakia at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday in Beijing/10:10 p.m. Tuesday in Madisonville.

    I keep forgetting to capitalize the "C" in PeongChang.

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  26. Late last night in Madisonville/at midday today in Beijing, after the Super Bowl, Team USA took gold and silver in the women’s monobob in bobsleigh! It was gripping. Elana Meyers Taylor of Oceanside, California, got to the top of the leaderboard and then had to withstand the charge of a Canadian; then she yielded the top of the medal stand to an ex-Canadian team member, Kaillie Humphries of Calgary, Alberta.

    These two have been near or at the top of women’s bobsleigh for more than a decade. Meyers Taylor previously won a bronze medal at Vancouver 2010 and silvers at Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018; Humphries, golds at Vancouver and Sochi and bronze at PyeongChang. Humphries won all of her medals for her native Canada until a complicated breakup with her bobsleigh team. Because she is married to a Californian, Humphries now competes for Team USA.

    And I’m glad because we really needed that gold medal in the standings.

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  27. Then, even later last night in Madisonville, we had the ice dancing in figure skating. This is usually not my thing, but maybe because we had had a really wonderful weekend in my house and the daughter had gone on to bed, and because today is Saint Valentine’s Day, I found the free-dance finals very romantic and exciting.

    Now, I don’t know how to evaluate any sort of figure skating, and the results here were apparently in line with what has been going on in competitions outside the Olympics the last few years. But I really did feel the U.S. pair who finished fourth--lovers Madison Chock of Redondo Beach, California, and Evan Bates of Ann Arbor, Michigan--were the best Sunday night. Whatever, the gold medal went to a French pair, and the bronze went to Madison Hubbell of Okemos, Michigan, and Zachary Donohue of Hartford, Connecticut. Both of those pairs were clearly great, too.

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  28. They also awarded medals in women’s aerials freestyle skiing and men’s team ski jumping in Beijing today. I don’t know yet how those came out. However, given that they’re showing the tape-delay ski jumping on USA Network right now while I should be getting my Monday-morning grind on, I don’t have a good feeling that the Americans broke through with their first-ever medal in this sport.

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  29. And now here's Chloe Kim with a few words about GrubHub ...

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  30. Yeah, I was right about the ski jumping.

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  31. Ski jumping

    History per Wikipedia: “Like most of the Nordic skiing disciplines, the first ski jumping competitions were held in Norway in the 19th century, although there is evidence of ski jumping in the late 18th century. The recorded origins of the first ski jump trace back to 1808, when Olaf Rye reached 9.5 m (31 ft). Sondre Norheim, who is regarded as the "father" of the modern ski jumping, won the first-ever ski jumping competition with prizes, which was held in Høydalsmo in 1866. …”

    First Olympics: Chamonix 1924

    All-time medals leaders through PyeongChang 2018: Norway 11 gold, 10 silver, 14 bronze; Finland 10, 8, 4, and Austria 6, 9, 10. I was wrong earlier—Team USA has medaled in Olympic ski jumping. Anders Haugen, who was born in Norway but emigrated to the United States in 1909 and opened a ski-jumping hill near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, won bronze in the individual large hill at Chamonix 1924 (but didn’t actually get his medal until 1974).

    So far at Beijing 2022: We’re all done. That men’s team large hill competition on USA Network until a bit ago was the fifth and last medals event of Beijing 2022. With two gold medals, a silver and a bronze, Slovenia wins the sport. Congratulations, Slovenia!

    Ski-jumping final standings at Beijing 2022:

    1. Slovenia 2, 1, 1
    T2. Austria 1, 1, 0
    T2. Japan 1, 1, 0
    4. Norway 1, 0, 0
    5. Germany 0, 1, 2
    T6. Canada 0, 0, 1
    T6. Poland 0, 0, 1

    (There is one silver medal that the Russian Olympic Committee is likely to be told to return in the next four years.)

    Team USA finished 10th (of 11, ahead of China) in the men’s team wingding. None of the individual competitors—men or women—finished in the top 35 of their events.

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  32. I'm not sure Court of Arbitration for Sport ever gets it right.

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    1. I imagine that's true, but it's the Russians who drive me cuckoo.

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  33. Mike Tirico is kicking off Channel 6's big prime-time Monday-night show with some tape-delay men's bobsleigh runs, and here are the medal standings through a little past 9 Tuesday morning in Beijing:

    1. Norway 9 gold, 5 silver, 7 bronze
    2. Germany 8, 5, 2
    3. United States 7. 6, 3
    4. Netherlands 6, 4, 2
    5. Austria 5, 6, 4
    6. Sweden 5, 3, 3
    7. China 5, 3, 2
    8. France 3, 6, 2
    9. Switzerland 3, 0, 5
    10. Italy 2, 5, 4
    11. Japan 2, 4, 5
    12. Slovenia 2, 3, 2
    13. Canada 1, 4, 10
    14. South Korea 1, 3, 1
    15. Australia 1, 2, 1
    16. Finland 1, 1, 2
    17. Hungary 1, 0, 2
    18. Czech Republic 1, 0, 1
    T19. New Zealand 1, 0, 0
    T19. Slovakia 1, 0, 0
    21. Belarus 0, 2, 0
    22. Spain 0, 1, 0
    T23. Belgium 0, 0, 1
    T23. Latvia 0, 0, 1
    T23. Poland 0, 0, 1

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