XXV Olympic Winter Games, Milan Cortina 2026 (More Again)

Ski mountaineering is the only new Winter Olympics sport, and the first medals are being hashed out today. 

Wikipedia casts ski mountaineering as another offshoot of the military-patrol tree which also yielded the biathlon branch. (All-time medals leaders in military patrol, which was officially competed only once, at Chamonix 1924: 1, Switzerland 1 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze; 2 Finland 0 gold, 1 silver, 0 bronze; 3, France 0 gold, 0 silver, 1 bronze.)

At least in the events they are showing on USA Network this morning, this is a three-minute deal of skiing uphill and then downhill. You start out in front of a big grandstand of fans like they throw up at a fancy country club for a golf major. First, you navigate the "diamond section" by filing into one of two lanes through a maze of obstacles. Then you go up some stairs, and then you go down a twisty, rampy path back down toward the grandstand. The whole deal has the feel of something that rich kids would figure out on the fly for one last competitive rush after their moms texted them to get back to the clubhouse for $40 chicken strips (i.e. Bro, you've gotta go through the landscaping on the way up and tag the fountain at the top, and you've got to do at least one jump on the way down ... Ready! ... Go!).

I don't envy the TV people who are tasked with both introducing me to a curious sport like this and emotionally investing me in the competitive landscape basically all in the same breath. There has been a good bit of talk about the precision required in equipment changes, even when heart rates are very elevated, and just how treacherous the course really is ("It never looks as steep as it actually is!"). It doesn't help NBC, of course, that Team USA isn't much a medal threat in today's events. But rest assured, they said, that the American dude is actually more of a distance guy, which better positions him for some other, presumably longer event Saturday. The juice they are really trying to squeeze is ski-mountaineering juggernaut Spain, which has won only five Winter Olympics all time, none at Milan Cortina and only one gold ever, at Sapporo 1972.

For me, though, the star of today's show is the snow. It is thick and beautiful over Bormio this (my) morning (their afternoon). Milan Cortina 2026 is down to three days and change of competition. I've enjoyed so much of it so far, and I'm going to enjoy every last second of it that I can--ski mountaineering and whatever else--through Sunday night. 

Spoiler alerts in the comments ...

XI Olympic Winter Games, Sapporo 1972

The Internet Is Amazing™, really. I don't know how it took me this long, but I just came across Sports-Reference.com's Olympic Sports site. And I am disappointed to discover the following:

We are sorry to inform you that due to a change to our data licensing agreement we are shutting down our Olympic site sometime in the future..  

The providers of our dataset are working with another publisher to create an extensive site chronicling the history of the Olympic Movement. We will provide information here when that site is available. 

But I am heartened to read that was posted Dec. 16, 2016, so I'm hopeful plans changed or something.

In any event, for however long it is available, this site looks very good. I ran across it after being charmed by the floppy plastic "FINISH" sign and nearby traffic in the background of the following YouTube discovery:

Our new rings-head friends at Sports-Reference.com have an excellent and detailed report on this race, which begins thusly: "The cross-country relay was expected to be a close duel between defending Olympic Champion Norway and the reigning 1970 World Champion, the Soviet Union ..." Spoiler alert: Americans Tim Caldwell of Brattleboro, Vermont; Mike Gallagher of Yonkers, New York; Larry Martin of Glennallen, Alaska, and Mike Elliott of Durango, Colorado, finished 12th.

Here’s how the overall medal standings came out at Sapporo 1972:

1. Soviet Union 8 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze

2. East Germany 4, 3, 7

3. Switzerland 4, 3, 3

4. Netherlands 4, 3, 2

5. United States 3, 2, 3

6. West Germany 3, 1, 1

7. Norway 2, 5, 5
8. Italy 2, 2, 1

9. Austria 1, 2, 2

10. Sweden 1, 1, 2

11. Japan 1, 1, 1

12. Czechoslovakia 1, 0, 2

13. Poland 1, 0, 0

14. Spain 1, 0, 0

15. Finland 0, 4, 1

16. France 0, 1, 2

17. Canada 0, 1, 0

And by the same sorting (golds, then silvers, then bronzes), here were the winners by sport at these games: alpine skiing, Switzerland; biathlon, Norway and Soviet Union; bobsleigh, West Germany; cross-country skiing, Soviet Union; figure skating, Soviet Union; ice hockey, Soviet Union; luge, East Germany; Nordic combined, East Germany; ski jumping, Japan, and speed skating, Netherlands.

But, of course, our old friends at Wikipedia note:

The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.[24] Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.

#SMH ... upon further review, congratulations, Switzerland.

Previous reports:

-- I Olympic Winter Games, Chamonix 1924
-- II Olympic Winter Games, Saint Moritz 1928
-- VIII Olympic Winter Games, Squaw Valley 1960
-- XII Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1976 
-- XVII Olympic Winter Games, Lillehammer 1994
-- XXII Olympic Winter Games, Sochi 2014
-- XXIII Olympic Winter Games, Pyeongchang 2018

HP! Long May She Wave!

There's going to be a little 1972 NFL draft party at my house this weekend, and I wish you all could come.

The 1972 NFL draft took place Feb. 1 and 2 in New York, and so, starting tonight, I plan to pull out cards for the draftees from my year-by-year Topps collections and sort them into their teams. I actually don't much plan to write about this activity at the HP because I'm still enjoying a little rest, relaxation and regrouping after the Super Bowl VI deep dive. I'm enjoying thinking about some things I hope to write about at the HP in the next several months, and here are some of those things:

-- The XI Olympic Winter Games are Feb. 3-13, 1972, in Sapporo, Japan.

-- The XXIII Olympic Winter Games are Feb. 9-25, 2018, in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

-- The 2018 Ohio Valley Conference men's basketball tournament is Feb. 28-March 3 in Evansville, Indiana.

-- The 2018 Conference USA men's basketball tournament is to be played March 7-10 in Frisco, Texas.

-- The 2018 St. Elizabeth Healthcare/KHSAA Girls’ Sweet 16® State Basketball Tournament is scheduled for March 7-11 in Highland Heights.

-- The 2018 Southeastern Conference men's basketball tournament is March 7-11 in St. Louis (?!?).

-- "Selection Sunday" for the 2018 NCAA men's basketball tournament is March 11, and the tournament is scheduled to start March 13.

-- The 2018 Whitaker Bank/KHSAA Boys’ Sweet Sixteen® State Basketball Tournament is scheduled to take place March 14-18 in Lexington.

-- The 1972 NBA playoffs begin March 28.

-- The 1972 ABA playoffs begin March 31.

-- The 2018 major golf tournaments are April 5-8 (Masters), June 14-17 (U.S. Open), July 19-22 (British Open) and Aug. 9-12 (PGA Championship).

-- The 1972 baseball regular season starts April 15.

-- The 2018 NBA Finals (possibly pairing the Washington Wizards against the New Orleans Pelicans) start May 31.

-- The NFL 2018 Hall of Fame Game takes place Aug. 2.

-- The XX Olympic Summer Games will be Aug. 26-Sept. 11, 1972, in Munich, West Germany.

-- The 1972-73 TV season begins in September.

-- The NFL 1972 regular season starts Sept. 17.

-- Christmas 1972 and Christmas 2018 both take place on Dec. 25.

Finally, I just want to say that this "mayoneggs" recipe from the February 1972 Good Housekeeping looks very intriguing. I think I might try to write more about food, books and music this year.

And, as always, I look forward to posting pictures of the tree in front of my house and following Kentucky news, and I look forward to reading and commenting on whatever else pops up on the site. I love the HP. It's one of the great joys of my life. Thanks, Go Heath, for founding it, and thanks, Matthew, for maintaining it, and thanks, family, for supporting me in playing in this clubhouse so often.

The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

After "Kentucky, February 27, 1971," I'm probably going to have a new No. 1, but here's my Jet Soul Brothers Top 20 this (freakin') weekend 1971:

Meanwhile, way down in Bowling Green on Feb. 27, 1971, ...

I'm looking forward to a happier trip than a couple of weeks ago to Murray ...

Hooray for TV ...

Less than a year now to Sapporo 1972 ...

I can't imagine how excited I would be if two guys from Muhlenberg County came on TV and opened a whole show reaching millions of homes with a song they wrote about Bowling Green! But that's exactly what happened Feb. 28, 1971, with the Everly Brothers' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it must've been just an absolutely thrilling moment for 8-year-old Ray Harper!

And I wonder if he watched the NBA game earlier that afternoon, too.

By the way, it's district-tournament time around Kentucky ...

Per the Tilghman Bell ...