Sunday, February 18, 2018

XXIII Olympic Winter Games, Pyeongchang 2018 (Day 10)

Only three events—two-man bobsleigh, men’s large hill team ski jumping and men’s 500m speed skating—are awarding medals today. I hate it when the Olympics starts to get less busy.

1. Norway 9, 9, 8
2. Germany 9 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze
3. Netherlands 6, 5, 2
4. Canada 5, 5, 6
5. United States 5, 3, 2
6. Sweden 4, 3, 0
T7. Austria 4, 2, 4
T7. France 4, 2, 4
9. South Korea 3, 1, 2
10. Japan 2, 5, 3
11. Switzerland 2, 4, 1
12. Italy 2, 1, 3
13. Czech Republic 1, 2, 3
14. Slovakia 1, 2, 0
15. Belarus 1, 1, 0
16. Great Britain 1, 0, 3
T17. Poland 1, 0, 0
T17. Ukraine 1, 0, 0
19. China 0, 5, 1
20. Australia 0, 2, 1
21. Slovenia 0, 1, 0
22. Finland 0, 0, 3
23. Spain 0, 0, 2
T24. Kazakhstan 0, 0, 1
T24. Liechtenstein 0, 0, 1
T25. Albania 0, 0, 0
T25. Andorra 0, 0, 0
T25. Argentina 0, 0, 0
T25. Azerbaijan 0, 0, 0
T25. Belgium 0, 0, 0
T25. Bermuda 0, 0, 0
T25. Bolivia 0, 0, 0
T25. Bosnia and Herzegovina 0, 0, 0
T25. Brazil 0, 0, 0
T25. Bulgaria 0, 0, 0
T25. Chile 0, 0, 0
T25. Chinese Taipei 0, 0, 0
T25. Colombia 0, 0, 0
T25. Croatia 0, 0, 0
T25. Cyprus 0, 0, 0
T25. Denmark 0, 0, 0
T25. Ecuador 0, 0, 0
T25. Eritrea 0, 0, 0
T25. Estonia 0, 0, 0
T25. Georgia 0, 0, 0
T25. Ghana 0, 0, 0
T25. Greece 0, 0, 0
T25. Hong Kong 0, 0, 0
T25. Hungary 0, 0, 0
T25. Iceland 0, 0, 0
T25. India 0, 0, 0
T25. Iran 0, 0, 0
T25. Ireland 0, 0, 0
T25. Israel 0, 0, 0
T25. Jamaica 0, 0, 0
T25. Kenya 0, 0, 0
T25. North Korea 0, 0, 0
T25. Kosovo 0, 0, 0
T25. Kyrgyzstan 0, 0, 0
T25. Latvia 0, 0, 0
T25. Lebanon 0, 0, 0
T25. Lithuania 0, 0, 0
T25. Luxembourg 0, 0, 0
T25. Macedonia 0, 0, 0
T25. Madagascar 0, 0, 0
T25. Malaysia 0, 0, 0
T25. Malta 0, 0, 0
T25. Mexico 0, 0, 0
T25. Moldova 0, 0, 0
T25. Monaco 0, 0, 0
T25. Mongolia 0, 0, 0
T25. Montenegro 0, 0, 0
T25. Morocco 0, 0, 0
T25. New Zealand 0, 0, 0
T25. Nigeria 0, 0, 0
T25. Pakistan 0, 0, 0
T25. Philippines 0, 0, 0
T25. Portugal 0, 0, 0
T25. Puerto Rico 0, 0, 0
T25. Romania 0, 0, 0
T25. San Marino 0, 0, 0
T25. Serbia 0, 0, 0
T25. Singapore 0, 0, 0
T25. South Africa 0, 0, 0
T25. Thailand 0, 0, 0
T25. East Timor 0, 0, 0
T25. Togo 0, 0, 0
T25. Tonga 0, 0, 0
T25. Turkey 0, 0, 0
T25. Uzbekistan 0, 0, 0

-- XXIII Olympic Winter Games, Pyeongchang 2018 (Day 5)

11 comments:

  1. Great news ... Team USA beat Finland, 5-0, in the semifinals of women's hockey. I watched most of the first period late last night Madisonville time, but I was scared to say anything here because I had a little old fear of the "live-blogging jinx" kick up. Anyway, I rooted along with the Americans to a 2-0 lead, but then I went to sleep. Anyway, they won!

    Now we have Canada and the "Olympic Athletes from Russia, Which Cheated At Their Own Sochi 2014 Games (OARCheatedSochi2014s)" getting ready to play the second semifinal. Canada, of course, is expected to roll. The Canadians have won the last four women's hockey gold medals. There have only been five. Team USA beat Canada in the final at Nagano 1998, and Canada has won everything Olympicswise since then.

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  2. Imagine being part of a group of people who get together to have dinner and play, say, Milles Borne once every four weeks or so. And imagine on your turn to host all of your friends being so uncertain that anyone is going to like you or your home that you do a bunch of cheating in Milles Borne because you figure that, well, at least, these people (or maybe your kids when they wake up the next day or someone) will think you are really, really good at Milles Borne.

    Yeah, I can hardly imagine it either.

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  3. Switzerland, by the way, eliminated Russia in the quarterfinals of the Sochi 2014 women's hockey tournament, so at least we didn't have to scrub any of those medals. Of course, it stinks for Germany and Japan. They failed to advance from Russia's group to the medal tournament, and I'm sure they feel cheated after going to all of that expense and effort to train and get to Russia to play in the Olympics--I know that I would.

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  4. NBC Sports Network points out that Canada outscored its competition by 11-2 in its three preliminary-round games. The closest victory was 2-1 over Team USA. The Canadians lead this semifinal, 1-0, with about five minutes to go in the first period.

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  5. Team USA beat Canada in men's curling in 11 ends this morning. It was the first-ever American win over Canada in men's curling, and Shuster threw the last two rocks that clinched the victory.

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  6. They were not seemingly the hardest shots in the world--ease the American red rock past a yellow Canadian guard and in near the button to knock out another yellow and stop itself in the center--but Shuster had to execute them and do the same thing twice in a row. On TV (even tape-delayed). At the Olympics. With elimination from medal contention on the line. John Shuster, 35-year-old from Chisholm, Minnesota, did great.

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  7. Bowling is compelling on TV in part because the best bowlers in the world because their basic task is to do over and over and over again something that pretty much any of us who have played four or five games have lucked into at least once: knocking down all of the pins in one roll. I prefer watching golf on TV, but I do get it that bowling is interesting, too, in a unique way because it's a similar test of muscle memory but mostly without the variations of length, terrain, weather, etc.

    Curling puts an interesting spin on that bowling intrigue for me by adding the team dynamic. The people within a curling rink have to deal with each other's failure, success, haughtiness, discouragement, frustration, good and bad decisionmaking, etc. And TV has plenty of time and space to get right on top of their faces and hear what they're saying to each other. I've heard some people talking about TV sports being the original reality TV, and, to the extent that I agree with what they're saying, I think curling might be the best example of that.

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  8. The other thing is that, in the United States at least, curling does not to me to attract super-confident, super-competitive and super-precise people like Lindsey Vonn and Tiger Woods. Those people are attracted to America's more crowded sports arenas. Curling is going to select a cast of people who either can not excel or put themselves out there in earnest in those sports, even if they do love them. It's a very, very left-of-center situation. And that makes it interesting in a different way, too.

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  9. John Shuster broke down from the emotion of it all in his NBC Sports Network interview after the win over Canada, and I absolutely get that. His teammate, Tyler George, took over and talked about how tough the Olympics had been for Shuster and "there's a reason we've stuck with him all these years." It was a really sweet moment of unscripted, genuine, relatable emotion that you hardly ever see on TV--even reality TV.

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    Replies
    1. Gosh, I had forgotten about this moment. It really was terrific. Tyler George is doing NBC studio commentary at Beijing 2022.

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