Open Thread – Sochi Olympic Spoilers – 2/22
S-O-S!! Spoiler results are posted here
HOT. COOL. YOURS. Cool slogan for the Olympic Games, so don’t continue past the picture below if knowing your cool early results makes you hot.
Some of today’s events:
- Men’s Hockey – USA v. FIN at 10:00 EST for the Bronze
- Bobsled – Four Man
- Alpine Skiing – Men’s Slalom.
- MOAR speed skating, cross country and biathlon. Medal count is close, so we need Russia, Canada and Norway to sit these out.
Your moment of Zen: Kiira Korpi of Finland; Figure Skating
Her short program is performed to a Jeff Beck cover of “A Day in The Life”
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:11 AM ^
USA and Russia are tied with 27.
Nroway (25) and Canada (24) are right behind.
Go bobsled United States 1 and United States 2. Please.
Bronze in Hockey, too. I saw a stat on a TV in a bar last night, so I may be miss-remembering. US men have 2 hockey Golds, 8 Silver, and no Bronze.
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:18 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:43 AM ^
I will second this - thanks, MGoGrendel.
From a mod standpoint, I was a little leery of how the Olympics might go given some of the "mishaps" that took place during the London games, but these threads have been pretty straightforward and formatted quite well. Very good work indeed.
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:34 AM ^
NBC will still tape-delay a bunch of stuff in 2016. Events go on all day during the Olympics and they want to distill it all into a nice, neat prime-time package.
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:09 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^
I would not object to you continuiing "Your moment of Zen" until the next Olympics.
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:46 AM ^
The second best thing about that image collection is that "clean" is applied literally in more than a few.
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:40 AM ^
Petty petty students too. Could not here Canadian national anthem but saw American flags draped over the maize and blue Canadian flag and the USA chants. Enjoy 4th place
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
Full disclosure. I have dual citizenship. I know I shouldn't say it but I will anyway. Anecdotal evidence.
Anytime my uncle would hear the TV reporter say that there was a cold front coming out of Canada, he would invariably point out it probably originated in Alaska.
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:11 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:05 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 1:07 PM ^
Given yesterday afternoon's game, I hardly think you should have been surprised that college students at a sporting event wouldn't act in the highest order of proper etiquette.
Good on you, though, for really getting back at us Americans. The sting is palpable.
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:40 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
Is that an American vs. British English thing?
February 22nd, 2014 at 9:49 AM ^
Man have things changed (for the better I might add) since I was a kid with the Winter Olympics. Back when the Soviets ran the show the US was LUCKY to finish third in the medal count and that was a long, long way from first. It was a big, big deal for a US athlete to win a gold medal and we didnt fare too well overall.
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
The former Soviet Union is once again dominating the medal count with 39.
February 22nd, 2014 at 10:41 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^
Yes, there is a strong home field advantage in Olympic medal counts, but countries with strong, nationalized sports systems, or the legacies thereof, are still much better at identifying and nuturing talent and producing results. Most of the former SSRs only recently recovered the GDP they had under the Soviet Union (Ukraine still hasn't), they remain for the most part relatively poor and their populations are for the most part pretty small and in Russia's case, declining. Yet they perform pretty well compared to us with our wealth, infrastructure and size and diversity of our population.
Take away the "X Games" sports, which have only recently received much attention from countries with nationallized sports systems (e.g. China), and look at our medal count. Not pretty.
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:24 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:54 AM ^
The flip side is that we have a de facto Olympic training system at the college level. Very few countries give athletic scholarships to college athletes. Not coincidentally, the U.S. is strong in just about every Olympic sport that competes at the NCAA level.
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:58 AM ^
Very few countries charge students anywhere near what we do to study at college. Athletic scholarships are hardly relevant.
February 22nd, 2014 at 12:13 PM ^
It's not just that. American universities offer high-level athletic competition, something that pretty much no other universities in the world offer. U-M alone has trained many Olympic swimmers, other schools have a legacy of producing track stars, and so on. Other countries need direct government assistance to match what our universities already do. The main flaw in the system is that not all Olympic sports (particularly winter ones) can compete under the NCAA banner.
February 22nd, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
I wonder how much it helps though. How many olympic sports really benefit from the college training athletes receive? Right now I can't think of many, especially in the winter olympics--hockey to an extent, maybe skiing? In the summer there's track, swimming, gymnastics, crew, wrestling, maybe a few others? I feel like most olympic level athletes in the U.S. skip college to concentrate on the sport full-time. Michael Phelps, remember, never swam competitively for Michigan. So while our college system probably helps in a few cases, overall I don't think it has a very significant effect.
February 22nd, 2014 at 2:26 PM ^
Phelps was ineligible to compete for us, but he did receive coaching from Bob Bowman and competed against our other swimmers (some of whom also made the Olympics) while he was here. There are similar situations elsewhere. Baylor has produced medal winners in track in like six straight Olympics. The college coaches may not be miracle workers, but they're good enough to keep a high-level athlete on course for the Olympics.
February 22nd, 2014 at 2:19 PM ^
A kid from Idaho wins two golds for Russia. See Post 31.
Actually Reply to Post 21.
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:21 AM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^
February 22nd, 2014 at 2:17 PM ^
Vic Wild won two gold medals today as a Russian citizen. He was born in Idaho, married a Russian citizen and became a Russian citizen in 2012 after not making the US Team.
February 22nd, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
The US has seven athletes born in other nations competing on our team, tied with Russia and right behind Canada with nine.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/19/how-many-sochi-athletes…
February 22nd, 2014 at 11:15 PM ^
with increasing monopolies.. oops, I meant, globalization! you have to think global. We are all the same world now, skaters of different nationalities represent different countries that may or may not reflect their country of origin... no problem with that..... it was almost a curious blast from the past, that the still-subjective sport of figure skating has elements that make you say WTF...? and that was NOT, women take flight?.....
I do respect all the experts, who say that the new scoring system minimizes the problems, and that it's about technique. You accumulate the points, you win. Makes sense intuitively even if many viewers won't appreciate the techical elements. It's just difficult to understand where the "technical" elements are present or not in the minds of judges.
The S. Korean skater, Kim Yu-Na, has moved on, an Olympic Silver is not a bad consolation.
So if you are Russian with the home field skaing advantage... you can fall any number of times, which should tank the techical scores... and still place ahead of the US skaters... that's about technique and not politics?