For all your extremely amateur coverage of the Olympics, mediocre attempts at being witty and original takes, overuse of GIFs and Memes & other random thoughts (and probably some handsome Olympians along the way).
RIGHT NOW (February 15 at 2:22pm) the country medal count order is exactly as I predicted! And I’m honestly a little surprised. We’ve had a good amount of disappointments but we still have the third most gold medals! There are still a lot of medals to be won so definitely a lot of opportunity for some shakeups. What might be the biggest story though is Norway, as expected, is at the top of the medal table but I feel like they were expecting to have more medals by this point. Not quite as dominant as everyone expected.
If we are seeing a spreading out of medals across more countries I’m all for it and I think a great thing for the future of the games. As long as they are all playing fairly (cough, cough Russia cough, cough).
I have to admit I’ve been a little disappointed in the Curling Tournament because no team (that I’ve seen at least) is continuing the tradition of Crazy Pants. Maybe someone is saving it for the medal round for maximum effect but Norway brought their pants A-Game to previous Olympic Games.
2018 was a strong pants year
BUT, I think I might have just found the Pants Successor. Ilia Burov of Russia is competing in the Men’s Freestyle Skiing – Aerials and I’m very impressed. Lots of different patterns, lots of different colors, looks especially good while he is flying through the air. Kind of like an 80s snow party in pants form.
As long as they aren’t secretly doping pants I’ll give them a 10.
Gold Medalist Lindsey Jacobellis was joined by another veteran of the sport, Nick Baumgartner, for Snowboard Cross and they brought home the gold! I don’t think anyone has called them old directly but all of the media loved combining their ages to passively-aggressively call them old. I’m a little disappointed they don’t have to physically hand something to each other like a proper relay but it was still fun to watch Nick have a lot of emotions while watching Lindsey bring home the gold.
Freestyle Skiing – Mixed Team Aeriels
(Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
Chris Lillis, Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld combined their high flying, twisty-turny, flippity flips on skis for a gold medal. You can watch some highlights here. But serious question, why did the Chinese dude that landed, did a front flip and landed that as well not get extra points for that? Some other people look like they bounce their butt off the ground on their landing, seems like the easier option to me. I do like how they all seemingly add some extra waves in the middle of their jumps just to say hi. It’s a nice touch.
F* You Russia. That’s it. That’s the message. You know what you did and what you were doing and how to get around the rules by doping up a minor and now there are no medal ceremonies for the clean athletes as well? I’ll let GAYLE take it from here:
Olympic pins are an INCREDIBLY hot commodity in the Olympic Village. In addition to dancing during an opening ceremony I would love to get in on the bartering system. People apparently trade pins for EVERYTHING.
I don’t have much experience with bartering but I’m ready to pretend it’s the 1500s and there isn’t a trustworthy monetary system. As long as there isn’t a Taco Bell because they would be able to commit Highway Robbery for what I would give away for some Cheesy Gordita Crunches.
She just won gold in the women’s speed skating 500 meters. We’ve been struggling in speed skating in general, she almost didn’t even make it to the games but now she’s fulfilling her dream of inspiring a new generation of speed skaters as the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the sport and the first US woman to win a gold for decades.
You would think there isn’t much you can do to revolutionize a sport that is going in a circle but apparently, we found it? The team pursuit event involves 3 skaters from each country trying to get across the finish line as quickly as possible.
Traditionally, teams will rotate who is in the front. When the person leading, taking the brunt of the wind, gets tired they fall to the back of the group. The US finished last in 2018 and looked towards one of the most inspiring forces of nature to figure out how to not suck as much.
THE MIGHTY DUCKS. Well, bird flight patterns that inspired Coach Gordon Bombay as well.
The US speed skating think tank realized the amount of time teams take transitioning the leader is incredibly inefficient for wind dynamics and maybe there should be just 1 leader the entire race. And boy howdy has it been working well. They dropped 4 seconds off their best time ever and have the world record.
What helps make this successful is the two dudes behind the leader can physically push/support the guy in front. It’s not the crazy pushes you see in short track but enough for the leader to be able to maintain a pace they wouldn’t ever be able to do on their own. Joey Mantia and his tree-trunk thunder thighs are usually the lead for Team USA and I have no clue how anyone is capable of keeping up with him…or not scared/smitten if he was right behind you pushing you to go faster.
So there you have it, some speed skating KNOWLEDGE you can share with others, and be sure to tune in on February 15 around 2:30am for their next round. Because sleep doesn’t matter during the Olympics.
The US men are playing Canada right now, we are not having a great start. Both US and Canada are 2-2 so it’s a very important match for both teams in terms of their chances of getting into the medal rounds. The announcers just called it a “trainwreck” of a second end for John Schuster. So instead of fretting too much about what’s happening in this match, I’m going to show some pictures of some of the teams and say what type of role they could collectively get in the entertainment industry as extras.
Sweden – Doctors in a medical drama where everyone is a little too good looking to be realistic.
These are the cocky doctors, or maybe surgeons, that are a bit of a foil to the protagonist of the story. They are only by the books and can’t wait to clock out and go to the bar and tell people they are doctors while the protagonist of the story is still at work getting to know the patients and helping them overcome medical challenges, and also life challenges because they go the extra mile. Maybe the show is called CardioRx: Prescriptions for the Heart and it’s basically Chicken Soup for the Soul in tv show form.
Russia – Deatheaters in a Harry Potter Movie
Dude in the middle is clearly in the Malfoy family tree and the dude on the far left probably thinks the unforgivable curses should be taught alongside the ABCs. All of the teams have their arms crossed but they somehow figured out how to do it extra menacingly. Maybe they are the founders of Durmstrang Academy in a prequel that shows how all the schools of magic were formed? I would watch that.
USA – Commerical for a Men’s Health Product
Colin Hufman, on the far right, is really throwing me off here. He’s the alternate but just got subbed into the match and the USA just got 3 from a final amazing shot by John Shuster to stay in the game so I’m fully in support of him now. But as a group for the entertainment industry, I think their strength is how different they all look so they can appeal to lots of different people. They would be great in a commercial for some type of men’s product for guys in their 30s and 40s like erectile dysfunction pills, weight loss programs, a dating app for divorced guys or maybe hats that look good with any amount of hair you have left? Lots of possible product placements.
Great Britain – University Acapella Group
Their arm crosses and smiles/smirks seem to be more of a preparation to break out in a synchronized acapella version of a 90s boyband accompanied with very mild dance moves. They’re no One Direction but they make a good background group that is in a Pitch Perfect FreeForm tv show?
Italy – 2 MMA fighters, their 2 coaches and their crazy friend who is along for the ride
We’ve got 2 super tall dudes, 2 shorter dudes and the wild card on the far right. Do you know what that means? A montage of the hero of the story defeating two larger, more experienced opponents in his quest to win the money he needs to get his grandmother who raised him the surgery she needs to beat cancer and also rebuild her home for wayward children that suspiciously burned down the same time the hero of the story returned to his hometime after getting out of jail for a crime he clearly didn’t commit but he never talks about, maybe the wild card friend secretly had something to do with it? Obvi.
USA is still down 4-8 but has some momentum so let’s see if they can pull off some magic!
This is River Radamus. He was born February 12, 1998, in Colorado.
Have any guesses yet? Not that it will help you but he is known for crazy hair-dos to make sure he isn’t taking anything too seriously and is always having fun. Here’s another example:
Last Chance! A hint for you, he finished his first event at Beijing in 15th place in a time of 1:21.63.
DRUMROLL….ALPINE SKING. And his second event starts soon, Giant Slalom. Tune in at 9:15pm, River goes 16th to cheer him on.
Thanks for playing…this version of his hair is called “The Zebra”. I like that it’s a summer animal hair cut for the winter Olympics. PLOT TWIST.
UPDATE: Zebra Hair got a surprise 4th place! Just off the podium in a blizzardy race that saw 33 crashes. I hope he does giraffe for 2026 and gets a medal!
He’s out there crushing people into the back of elevators to assert dominance. Also, folks in China are turning their backs on Bing Dwen Dwen because it talked….and apparently, it’s an adult male voice and not the imaginary voices we had all individually made up in our heads. Probably the same as if Gritty started talking and it was actually a female child. I want Gritty to sound like a cross between Waluigi and Yoda.
But Summer Britcher (@summerbelle) is doing the right thing and appeasing Bing Dwen Dwen and even posted a separate time about how happy she was it joined her in the elevator.
Royer's Olympic Blog 