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).
Notes: What a mustache and what a character (he know all about bears). He has given some solid sound bites about the culinary quality of the snow. He’s probably not having the Olympic performances he wanted (17th in the men’s combined) but he’s having fun and also importantly, he’s collecting a lot of pins. Pins go back to the first modern games in 1896 and have slowly become a collector’s item and also one of the athlete’s favorite past-times during the games. Swapping and collecting pins and Bryce (just like his mustache) does not disappoint.
I don’t think I’ve touched on Chloe Kim yet and this is the first time I’ve watched her. She definitely lives up the hype. She’s also got a great story. Papa Kim would drive her 6 hours in the middle of the night to get her to Mammoth Lakes to ride. Whole family making incredible sacrifices to get her to this moment. She also has a lifetime supply of skittles as well so there’s that. She is only 17 and just blew away the competition. 98.25. And Arielle Gold for the bronze giving the US 2 medals.
Casual almost perfect final run.
I want to give a shout out to Kelly Clark as well, she has been in the Olympics since 2002 when she won gold. If you saw her final interview she seemed so down to earth and happy to still be competing.
Curling Bronze Medal Match
And remember Anastasia & Alexander? They won bronze today. I’m kinda excited for them and yes, I know they are OAR superfans. But as luger Chris pointed out, the individual athletes from opposing countries probably have a lot in common and a lot of compassion for each other as athletes devoted to their sports. I enjoyed watching them play as the first thing I watched this Olympics and I’m glad they got a medal as clean athletes from Russia. And for some full circle fun, Matt Hamilton fell in their opening match and Anastasia got a little chuckle. In this bronze medal final Anastasia fell right before getting her bronze medal.
And while there have been various satisfaction levels of NBC’s overall coverage (especially during the day) I will say their social media coverage has been pretty on point. They found knitting coach:
For today’s medal winners there are 2 things I wanted to address. How all of the gold medal winners names from today are exactly what you would expect from someone from their country. And the stuffed animals. I addressed it with Red a bit but some more questions and answers have happened since this morning. So in honor of those 2 things here are pictures of all the winners with their new stuffed animal!
Biathlon – Mens 10K Sprint: Arnd Peiffer, Wolfenbuttel, Germany
Simen actually led a Norwegian sweep with Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Hans Christer Holund.
Women’s Moguls: Perrine Laffont, France
They are still fully in Mogul mode, look at the form.
But unfortunately a very disappointing event for the US. We had 4 in the finals and walked away with no medals which we hadn’t done since 2006.
Men’s Luge Singles: David Gleirscher, Hall in Tirol, Austria
Much more casual stuffed animal pose (oh, hey Chris)
Men’s Slopestyle Snowboarding: Red Gerard, Silverthorne, Colorado
I would say general confusion on what to do with a stuffed animal more than anything else
Men’s 5000m Long Track Speedskating: Sven Kramer, Heerenveen, Netherlands
I think this is more of “Three-Peat, still got it, I don’t know what this tiger is doing in my hand and I don’t even care”
So WTF tiny stuffed animals and no medals?
So no one panic, there are still medals being given out but it is traditional for the winter Olympics to have a nightly ceremony for all sports when the medals are given out. In an ode to ancient Greece they used to give out some sort of bouquet of flowers reminiscent of a victor’s olive wreath. But in a push for sustainability in 2016 they got rid of the wreaths and switched to small statues of the Olympic logo. They said the flowers weren’t meaningful to most athletes and the statues would be something they could keep forever. I guess the same thing goes with the stuffed animals…sure. No way 84% of those stuffed animals don’t end up as chewed up dog toys, in their kids yard sale pile or traded for pins in the village.
Johnny & Tara – ok, getting a little more out there with the outfits. Not sure what is going on around Johnny’s neck but if he’s letting loose with his words he might as well let loose with the outfits as well.
I already wrote about Luge but it’s good to see that some light exercise band work is good to stay limber between luge runs.
Moguls, got to ask. Why are there fake tiny moguls at the end? What is their purpose? And again, very disappointing that the US didn’t medal or even make it to the finals. Maybe if we had a cheering section like this they would have done better.
This is one of the wildest things I have ever witnessed with my own two eyes!! A North Korean cheer sqaud at the Olympics 😱😱😱 pic.twitter.com/ijJysVGLXf
Everyone be on the lookout for the tall Russian coach with the red scarf and the bowl cut. He is very creepy and always lurking around somewhere.
Adam Rippon, here we go. He said he is going to sneak attack the competition so let’s see it. He talked a big game. He came through for the USA. That’s what you get Mike Pence for tweeting at him. You only fired him up even more. Score seemed a little bit low but we’ll see where he ends up.
Notes: I think he puts together an overall strong mustache presentation together that goes with his home country, hairstyle & sport. There is something very old-fashioned about ski jumping and this mustache goes perfectly with his ability to say “Good Day” and launch himself 100 meters into the air.
We’ve got our first medal of the games and it’s a gold (duh, because we’re awesome). He is a snowboarder and shredded a lot of gnar on his second run and is now an Olympic Gold medalist. But let’s take a closer look at his final run to see what secrets to success we can find.
Hugs
He gave all his coach/support crew/random bro entourage hugs before his final run. Nothing like hugging it out to calm the jitters and nerves (that’s a screenshot, sorry, you can’t hit the arrow to resume).
I treasure your friendship
Winter Themed Camo over Comfy and Stylish Sweaters
I think we can all admit that Canada’s sweaters are legit. I would rock that all the time. But if we look at the podium wih USA on the top and Canada taking silver and bronze I think we can safely say that the sweaters aren’t gold medal worthy. Do you know what is? Winter themed camo. Canada came ready for the lodge and drinking spiked hot chocolate. USA came ready to snowboard down that hill like North Korea was invading and we needed to blend in with the natural environment. And it did the trick.
Looks like it could be part of Adam Levine’s Kmart collection…just saying
It was “Time to get Gerarded”
If you noticed the sign from his fan section, it was actually “Time to get Gerarded”. Unclear exactly what that means but I imagine it would have been hard for anyone else to win when it was actually “Gerarded” time. I think the rules are if you show up with the sign first you claim the time for your designated competitor so just another case of the early bird getting the worm.
plus cut-outs of your face can’t hurt
So there you have it. His keys to success (and probably being only 17 and having zero fear and a body that can instantly bounce back when he doesn’t land all of his insane jumps perfectly).
Also, a few questions for the ceremony:
-Has a 17-year-old snowboarding bro ever been this excited for a stuffed animal before?
-Why does the stuffed animal have such an elaborate carrying case?
-Why don’t the stuffed animals increase in size for the podium finish? Red should have a giant carnival prize sized stuffed animal that he can swing around the podium and “accidentally” hit the silver and bronze medalists in the face with.
The US has never won an individual men’s Luge medal. We’ve got a couple double luge medals (because we’re progressive).
Chris is currently sitting SECOND. YAY YAYYYY. He was fourth after the first 2 runs yesterday and absolutely crushed his third run this morning with the best individual run time of the games so far. He has gotten better each run and is in striking distance of gold. One more run to go!
4th and Final Run
Its only the top 20 guys now and they do reverse order.
-American Taylor Morris just did his final run. Solid games for him and he seemed happy with his overall performance. He narrowly missed out on making the Sochi team so I think he was just pumped to be in Korea.
-Now we get to watch the guys that are temporarily the leaders stand and wave at the camera until they are kicked out and have to do an overexaggerated frown and quick wave.
-Might as well post this now as the middle of the pack is going:
-And back to luge. So it is really F*in cold there and the ice is real hard and fast (insert joke related to the video above). These guys are putting some fast times down as they are getting some real good speed.
-DOWN TO 3!! Austrian Gerscher is going now. Good run so far but he just put a foot down. This is good for Chris. He takes the top spot but didn’t have a perfect run. He’s definitely getting a medal.
-USA chant has started. Love it. He looks ready and focused. HE’S GETTING A MEDAL!!!! And he’s sprinting into the stands to get a flag.
-Felix Loch’s last run will determine the medals. He Just fucked up. Oh shittttt. He’s not on the podium and Chris just got silver!!!!!!
That moment you realize you’ve won the 2nd medal for the US in 2018 and first ever in men’s single luge
What in tarnation is the skiathlon you ask? Well, it is like the biathlon for skiers. They do 7.5km in the classic style (think Norditrack movements) and switch skis and do it again freestyle where anything goes and it looks like they are about to tangle their skis constantly. Charlotte Kalla of Sweden won, no surprise there. But American Jessie Diggins got 5th which was the best U.S. finish in an XC ski event ever and this isn’t even her best event! Get some Jessie.
For this edition of medal winners we’ll take a look at pictures the official Olympic instagram used for each of the winners:
Of course she won, she doesn’t even look tired. I’ve looked worst walking to the bus on a warm day.
Biathlon is sneaky one of my favorite sports to watch. It’s one of those old military exercises that turned into a sport and is still going strong. This is the sprint so they just do 3 laps total and shoot lying down once and shoot standing up once. And if you miss one of the shots you do a penalty lap. The winner Laura Dahlmeier missed 0 shots. She took that second grade advice very seriously about taking your time and came out on top. Our top competitor had a cold she couldn’t shake….its flu season y’all, get that hand sanitizer out.
Really? This was the best picture? Couldn’t have waited 5 seconds for her to catch her breath?
So this one got a little crazy because there were 9 dudes competing because of so many penalties in the semifinals. That’s a lot of dudes skating around an ice rink at a fast pace. Lots of jockeying for position, quick skating the whole race and only one fall near the end. Lim Hyo-Jun came out on top. And just a small note (literally), the winner was 5’6 and the silver and bronze dudes are 5’8. So any guys out there that know they aren’t going to be a basketball player, check out short track speed skating.
Pure Olympic joy for winning on the home turf. I do feel kinda bad that the Russians/OAR superfans don’t even get a flag next to their name (look in the comments). At least throw them the Olympic flag.
If the king and queen of the Netherlands come to watch you better perform (even though I have no idea if they are like the Queen of England and more of a symbolic figurehead or their wooden shoes are the end all, be all). But either way, Carlijin Achtereekte, Ireen Wuest & Antoinete De Jong came through and swept the podium to continue their country’s dominance in the sport.
Is that a yawn or a battle cry? Kinda works either way because she’s bored with the competition or her battle cry worked and she scared them all off.
Embarrassing Olympic father gold medal goes to 22 year old luger Tucker West’s dad who manages his social media (?!?) and told the single ladies to reach out. Dear Mr. West, your son is the Olympic village…he’s going to do just fine.
Some early Olympic social media drama. Coin toss seems pretty fair to me when votes are tied for the US flag bearer in the opening ceremonies. Thought we could pretend to be a unified team for at least a day or two.
Ski ballet used to be a thing apparently….probably missed my calling. Jan Boucher is kinda my hero now. Would have had the boombox behind me blaring “We Belong”.
Royer's Olympic Blog 