We’ve now got 2 Gold & Silver Duos for the United States and their sports both have a lot of fun new vocabulary to learn!

Alex Hall & Nick Goepper

Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Slopestyle

The Pretzel: When you are spinning in the air in one direction and reverse direction at the very end. This is what Alex Hall did to win gold. Watch Here. I’m honestly not sure how this is possible, especially with skis on. I can barely go from fast to slow while running.

Nose Butter: The announcers keep throwing out this word with no explanation and I finally had to google it. Here’s a full video but it’s basically when you put pressure in the “nose” of the skis, the front, and lift the middle and back of the skis off the ground and do a 180? I think at least. Someone might need to correct me on that.

Cannon: A rail or box extending off a jump at an upward angle. So it’s like they are getting shot out of a cannon and have more airtime for extra tricks. I think parts of the Great Wall snow recreations might technically be a cannon on this course. Or I’m just making that assumption in my head because the Great Wall probably had cannons at one point. It at least did when Matt Damon fought aliens from it….

Kaillie Humphries & Elana Meyers Taylor

Bosled: Monobob

Monobob: Starting with the most obvious word needing a definition. The Monobob is a bobsled for a single person. The driver has to push, steer and brake all themselves. I’m very confused why female athletes only get to compete in Monobob and Two-Person while male athletes do two-person and four-person. It’s like a weird form of sexism where they don’t think women should be going too fast in a four-person sled but also totally fine with making them do it all by themselves in the monobob. Let’s just let everyone do it with as many or as few people as they want.

Chicane: A sequence of tight serpentine curves. We all know who could have survived Game of Thrones if he only knew how to serpentine a bit….

Kreisel: German for circle; a curve that forms a circle by having the track cross itself. There are apparently only 7 active courses in the world that have one of these so it’s pretty exciting we get to see it in action. Maybe this is where they should make the Luge relay folks actually high-five each other.

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.

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.

A quick shoutout for two medals that I missed from the weekend, both involving teamwork!

Mixed Team Snowboard Cross

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

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:

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!