This morning is a good time to wake up as an American. Because look at what happened overnight! Remember when I wrote yesterday that ending up fourth would be a fantastic end scenario? Let’s bump that hope up to third! Now let’s see how we got here.

Women’s Big Air Snowboarding

Jamie Anderson threw down a Cab Double Cork 900 but Anna Gasser of Austria nailed a Double Cork 1080 on her final run to take home the gold. Everyone knows that doing it cab-style doesn’t quite make up for the extra rotation….duh. But this brings Jamie up to 2 medals this game and 3 all time (2 gold and 1 silver) so not too shabby at all.

Women’s Alpine Combined

So this race starts with a downhill component and finishes with a slalom run and I think was the perfect passing of the guard for US women’s skiing. Lindsey Vonn was the leader after the downhill, her traditional strength, but missed a gate in slalom and officially has a DNF in what she claims will be her last Olympic race. Mikaela Shiffrin was 6th after the downhill and put up the 3rd best time in slalom to combine for the silver medal. She is only 22 right now and has some Olympics left. You would have liked to see them both medal in the final race but storybook endings rarely happen, especially in a sport like downhill skiing, so this was probably a bit more realistic passing of the guard from Vonn to Shiffrin.

Men’s Freestyle Skiing Halfpipe

David Wise had some technical issues in his first two runs and had one run left to get more than 20 points when teammate Alex Ferreira was in the lead with 90. He landed 4 amazing tricks, launched his ski poles in celebration, got the gold and celebrated with his family.

And just because there is so much else going on that I know silver medalist Alex Ferreira is not going to be getting much attention today here is a picture of him and an article focused on him.

Women’s Hockey

This is going to be everywhere when you wake up so I’m not even going to try to add anything. You just need to watch the shoot-out, know the intense rivalry between these two countries goes back decades and be happy that the US team of amazing hockey players finally brought home the gold. And that everyone is going to be talking about Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson’s deke that she named “Oops, I did it again”.

Now it’s time for some quiche. Good Morning America. Be proud of your athletes today, they had a stellar night.

Women’s 2 man bobsled team of Elena Meyers Taylor and Lauren Gibbs brought home the silver. They only lost by .07 seconds to the German team. I think they really wanted to bring home gold as Taylor won bronze in Vancouver and Silver in Sochi but still did us proud.

And also an important thing to note, with all of these medals the overall count is finally getting closer to where it should be. If we can end up fourth I would say disaster averted. Not a bad start to Wednesday.

Because guess what other team event came home with their first medal? Women’s Speed Skating Team Pursuit. I love this event because we’ve got a team event in something that is usually so individualized. And when they get super in-sync it’s just a really cool visual.

So the U.S. was up against the Dutch in the semifinals. It’s not based on time to get into the finals but winner moves on so they knew they didn’t have a chance and rested Brittany Bowe to save her for the bronze medal match.

We started out incredibly strong, fell apart near the end but held on for the well deserved medal.

You should watch the women’s gold meal match as well. Japan coming out of nowhere in the last two laps to take back the lead and bury Netherlands with a new Olympic record. Watching the two teams you can tell that this is Japan’s jam. Netherlands probably focuses a little more on the individual events and Japan knows they can crush this event and it shows.

The men’s hockey team’s journey came to a close early this morning as the USA lost to Czech Republic in a shootout. Our best men’s hockey moment at Sochi came from a shootout but these games it is arguably reversed. Without the NHL participating we had a mix of young players and veterans that were never able to really mesh together. They’ll have to leave it up to the ladies to bring home the hardware and the glory for the USA.

But they do happen on snow….

Because Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins just won the first ever gold medal for USA in cross country skiing in the sprint relay. They really did save the best for last after some disappointing earlier races. You could tell when they were sprinting down the homestretch who was the hungriest for gold and we got it. And just want to clarify that these two athletes have had amazing seasons and were not necessarily underdogs in this race. It’s just a miracle in general that we got our first women’s Olympic medal and it was a gold.

There is something to say about our first medal being a relay because you know US winter athletes do….?

Also chest bumps for cross country gold medals, new American Olympic tradition.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfdjnnLFiCg/?taken-by=teamusa

Evening. I’m running out of intros so….

But while doing some research I found this hilarious video of what happens when your blade breaks off in a performance in 1999, it’s worth a watch until the end.

Women’s Short Program

So what’s up with the arms straight up in the air thing for jumps? I feel like that’s new but not sure about that and does it add extra points? But I’m taking a firm stance now that I think it’s cool and I’m all for it.

Here are the spellings of the two Russian skaters that everyone keeps mentioning. Yevgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova. I’m not sure which one is which but as soon as I figure that out I’ll try to clarify.

Bradie Tennell is first up to skate in the competition and the U.S. She fell on her first jump but she seems to have recovered well. Her music selection is from a famous Korean movie, I don’t hate this strategy of being relatable to the hometown crowd. I would probably give extra points for the Band of Brothers intro but there’s always next time.

Mirai Nagasu also starts out with a fall but brings it back with her second jump combo.

Karen Chen does the exact same thing to bird calls. Maybe she was inspired by Johnny Weir’s recent hairstyle choice?

They end up 9, 10, 11 (ducks fly together) which is really out of medal contention considering who is at the top of the scoreboard but if they skate clean free programs they will be able to move up in the ranks.

Women’s 2 Man Bobsled

Humpries and Meyers. Great first run for the USA putting them at the top spot. Great USA chant as well from the stands. Greubel and Poser. Not far behind in 3rd. They just showed Jamaica as well which is pretty cool. But I’m pretty sure the camera guy is showing the fathers of all the athletes in the second after they cross the finish line but not showing the time yet because they mostly look a little confused and sad when I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite they are actually feeling.

Women’s Short Track Speed Skating Relay

I forgot how amazingly crazy and chaotic and fun to watch this event is. Near the end people just start popping out of nowhere to get pushed and you have no idea what is actually happening. How do the athletes even know what’s going on?

Women’s Downhill Alpine Skiing

Lindsey Vonn won a bronze. Maybe not exactly what she hoped out of these games and this event but from the interview she gave you can tell how much she loves this sport and how hard it is going to be to walk away. They showed a montage of all her worst crashes and her numerous injuries. The fact she still goes out there and gives it her all says something about her as a person and a competitor.

Get ready for some gifs….

USA Men’s Hockey defeating Slovakia 5-1 and heading into the Quarterfinals

Shib Sibs taking bronze in ice dancing.

The half-pipe skier that opted out of doing any tricks….

Men’s 2 Man Bobsled not getting close to any medals but still having hope for 4 Man

But the Canadian team that tied for gold….

US Men’s Curling starting a redemption story by defeating top teams Canada & Switzerland

And last but definitely not least, Brita Sigourney winning Bronze in freeski halfpipe

(I just discovered this ostrich and will probably use it at least 4 more times before these games are over…just warning you now)

Let’s check the medal count:

Oh boy, we are not doing so hot. But Norway just dominating everyone. And what makes this even more impressive is that it’s not like the Netherlands dominating speed skating or Germany receiving most of their medals so far from Biathlon and Luge. Norway is spreading out their medals.

I just watched them win men’s team gold in Ski Jumping (way to go Robert Johannson, also someone at NBC snuck in a mustache ride joke…let’s see how long that one lasts) and the men’s 4x10km cross-country relay.

In that race, Johannes Høsflot Klæbo was the anchor leg and barely looked like he was trying half the time. There was a hill named after him on the course because he is known to crush people on uphills near the end of a race. That’s the kind of dominance they are executing in some of these events.

So let’s take a look at the culture and geography of Norway and see if we can find any clues to their success:

Fjords: a long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs highly common in Norway. Just look at that. Isn’t it beautiful? Imagine having that in your backyard. Wouldn’t you feel super peaceful? Maybe have some inner peace going on?

Which we learned from Kung Fu Panda is the secret to Kung Fu and I imagine is important in things like Ski Jumping and shooting in biathlon. So that’s one plus for them. But do you know what doesn’t bring inner peace?

Trolls. I know there have been some very troll-positive movies recently (Trolls & Frozen) but let’s look at the historical trolls. A troll is a class of being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human beings. They aren’t always promoting being yourself to find love and can be dangerous to humans sometimes. And look at the events Norway is winning, perfect sports to escape or combat invading trolls. So ancient people in Norway needed to learn how to keep themselves safe leading to the development of the….

Viking Culture. The athletes from Norway are able to channel centuries of Viking mentality of no fear, winning at any cost and dominating their opponents. Imagine being a direct descendant of Eric Bloodaxe, Sweyn Forkbeard or Bjorn Ironside. There’s probably some sort of secret handshake that activates their viking superpowers. But they’ve learned to channel the bloodlust into goldlust.

So there you have it. My speculation on why Norway is doing so well. I’m not exactly sure how we can channel some of their techniques (look at the Grand Canyon a lot and start a war with Bigfoot?) but maybe the US athletes should start hanging out with them a bit more. They could at least get some free eggs.

Our favorite unofficial correspondent is back on the scene at the Olympics. Let’s see some of her activities:

On Russian Curling Doping:

She’s obvi hanging out with Tara & Johnny

On the US Women’s hockey team:

Pointing out that people ran out of teddy bears to throw:

And enjoying local culture:

Also Nick Kroll was at the opening ceremonies doing some sort of art project…I have no idea. Sounds contemporary.

To loop back to this event, we’ve got two important things that happened.

Nick Goepper won silver. He won silver in Sochi and threw down an amazing final run to win the silver medal in Pyeongchang. Especially since in these Olympic games every medal counts for our total.

Gus Kenworthy Competed as himself. He did not have the finals performance he wanted and was unable to put together a full run. Who knows how much his injuries had to do with it. I’m sure the pressure also didn’t help. But for me at least, him casually kissing his boyfriend afterward on camera was the biggest takeaway. Adam Rippon is having an important moment but what 12-year old Royer probably could have used watching Nagano in 1998 was probably more of what a happy relationship could look like:

But enough of the feelings, Bobsled is on. Back to dudes in spandex.

Remember when I casually wrote “how would you even dope in curling?” Welp, one of my favorite Russian athletes just got accused of it. Alexander Krushelnitsky, the bronze medal pairs curler, failed his A-sample drug test with Meldonium. There are already rumors of it being sabotage which I guess could be true since how dumb would you have to be to try to dope at these Olympics as a Russian athlete? I really hope Anastasia didn’t know about this. I rooted for you both. Please don’t disappoint me.