# 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 10, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985 "2014-02-10T17:31:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/1 "2014-02-10T17:31:32Z")
How is there not a thread about the Olympic Games already? Or am I just missing it? There is a thread in CS about the [opening ceremony](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=715179), this thread about [the uniforms](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=713801), and this thread about [NBC coverage](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=714992) but that’s all I’ve seen. No thread about, you know, the actual events taking place. In any case, the Dutch are cleaning up in the skating events (7 out of 9 medals so far, with two instances of all three medals going to the Netherlands). I felt like gloating but could not find the right spot! So here I go. [Een! Twee! Drie!](http://olympics.cbc.ca/videos/video/twin-brothers-michel-and-ronald-mulder-celebrate-their-gold-and-bronze-wins-for-the-netherlands.html) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/2 "2014-02-10T19:15:17Z")
Why is there a judging component on the ski jump? Presumably the “form” you are supposed to achieve is to make yourself as aerodynamic as possible. Therefore, whoever goes further did it better. What need for judges at all? Furthest jump should win. There’s also something a little weird about having the whole semifinals-finals thing for totally non-interactive sports like ski jump. Suppose jumper A sets the world record in his first jump, then breaks the world record again in his second jump, then in the finals has a good-but-not-great jump, while jumper B doesn’t get near a record ever but barely edges out jumper A in the finals. Why is that a fairer result than “everyone gets 4 jumps, throw out your worst” or something like that? I guess there’s a little less drama, but they could maintain the drama by doing repeated cuts to top N but NOT ignoring the times/scores from the preliminary rounds. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/3 "2014-02-10T19:22:05Z")
Iulia Lipnitskaia is amazing. Can’t describe it, just gotta watch her. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/4 "2014-02-10T19:32:55Z")
Why the disparity in distances between the men’s and women’s cross-country skiing courses? Men’s skiathlon - 30K, women’s - 15K. Are women still considered dainty wittew fwowers in Olympic sports? Is the women’s downhill run on a different (shorter) course than the men’s? ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/5 "2014-02-10T19:35:25Z")
Mostly I am just continuously amazed at Plushenko. The man is thirty one, at his fourth olympics, and still figure skating like a monster. I checked up on his entry in wikipedia and apparently he replaced one of his spinal discs with a synthetic one (!!). I didn’t even know you could do that. He must secretly be a robot. An awesome robot. ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/6 "2014-02-10T20:27:01Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Iulia Lipnitskaia is amazing. Can’t describe it, just gotta watch her. Yes she is. I’ve been struggling with all the fancy freestyle disciplines the first few days… mostly because I didn’t really feel the winners could be identified as ‘clearly’ being the best runs (as a non expert). The same with the men’s figure skating (Plushenko was the best… really?), until the small Russian actually left me staring in disbelief. For the rest I’m enjoying the skating:D and actually enjoyed watching Biathlon… I’m sure that’ll pass once they start going for longer distances. btw wan’t ‘slope style’ originally meant to be a slope with a bunch of stuff to do and just muck about in a ‘cool’ fashion… instead of three rails followed by three big jumps? ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/7 "2014-02-10T20:30:52Z")
Both US curling teams get underway with losses. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/8 "2014-02-10T20:58:47Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Why the disparity in distances between the men’s and women’s cross-country skiing courses? Men’s skiathlon - 30K, women’s - 15K. Are women still considered dainty wittew fwowers in Olympic sports? Yes, but much less than in the past. This will be the first Olympics with a women’s ski jump event. Some change takes an amazingly long time. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/9 "2014-02-10T21:34:52Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Yes, but much less than in the past. This will be the first Olympics with a women’s ski jump event. Some change takes an amazingly long time. I believe there was a quote from some idiot Olympic official in years past about how ski jumping would make a woman’s uterus fall out. Women’s moguls, however, have somehow been fine for over a decade now… And since I suspect this will be shown in Primetime NBC coverage tonight, I’ll go ahead and spoiler it Feel kinda bad about that Australian speed skater. They talk about him being the only speed skater Australia is sending, and he faceplants about 10 meters into his race ---
**Author:** ![Staggering\_Genius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/46a35a/32.png) [@Staggering\_Genius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggering_Genius)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/10 "2014-02-10T21:41:37Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Why is there a judging component on the ski jump? Presumably the “form” you are supposed to achieve is to make yourself as aerodynamic as possible. Therefore, whoever goes further did it better. What need for judges at all? Furthest jump should win. So the justification I heard is that there are many styles of ski jump, and some of the ones that’ll get the most distance are actually quite dangerous. For example, you can imagine that waiting until your nose is an inch above the slope before you put your skis down might get an extra meter or two of distance, but might also kill you if you’re a split second too slow. The fear is that if you leave players to their own devices, they’ll do increasingly dangerous jumps and landings to eke out a little more distance. To sort of save players from themselves, the solution was to put in a jury who would deduct points if you did anything crazy, like wait too long on the landing to put your skis down, so that there was nothing for a player to gain by doing dangerous jumps because they knew they’d lose anyway. That’s the idea, anyway. It doesn’t always work as intended. Like with [V-style](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-style) for example: “In the 80s, this style of jumping was considered inappropriate by the jury, and although it enabled very long jumps, judges awarded poor marks to those who used the style.” V-Style ultimately turned out to actually be safer than the dominant styles of the time. But it took 20 years before judges stopped style-stomping it into oblivion, even though it was clearly resulting in longer jumps. These days it’s basically the only style of jump you’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2014, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/11 "2014-02-10T22:28:15Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > And since I suspect this will be shown in Primetime NBC coverage tonight, I’ll go ahead and spoiler it > > Feel kinda bad about that Australian speed skater. They talk about him being the only speed skater Australia is sending, and he faceplants about 10 meters into his race Yeah, I felt the same way! I was excited to see an Australian at the start of a long-track skating event and I wish he’d done better. BTW, I am not going to wait to discuss things openly until NBC shows them on TV, and neither should anyone else. If people choose/need to wait for NBC that is fine, but they should have the good sense not to go into threads entitled ‘2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games’ until they’re caught up. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/12 "2014-02-11T16:17:06Z")
Oh. My. God. The US women just gave up a seven-ender. Somebody, make it stop. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/13 "2014-02-11T16:41:11Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Is the women’s downhill run on a different (shorter) course than the men’s? Typically, yes. As is women’s luge. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/14 "2014-02-11T16:50:16Z")
Props to Julia Mancuso in getting a bronze in the combined and winning the DH portion. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/15 "2014-02-11T16:53:05Z")
Women’s Hockey: US vs. CANADA My money’s on CANADA. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![PacifistPorcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PacifistPorcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PacifistPorcupine)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/16 "2014-02-11T17:07:18Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Oh. My. God. The US women just gave up a seven-ender. > > Somebody, make it stop. I watched that. It was quite the spanking until the US conceded. One question though, what were the numbers the US kept screaming while sweeping? ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/17 "2014-02-11T17:17:44Z")
> [@PacifistPorcupine](#): > > One question though, what were the numbers the US kept screaming while sweeping? I can’t listen to sound at work, but most likely they were weight calls. There are codes for weight: 1-3 for guards, 4-6 for top of the house, 7 for T-line, and 8-11 for back of the house. A higher number means the shot is going deeper. ---
**Author:** ![Bellhorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Bellhorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bellhorn)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/18 "2014-02-11T17:19:41Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > Both US curling teams get underway with losses. Sigh. Does that mean they “got swept?” Hey, both my parents were recreational curlers, so I actually know what’s going on. Since becoming an Olympic sport, have these events surpassed the Silver Broom(or whatever it’s called now) in prestige? ---
**Author:** ![PacifistPorcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PacifistPorcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PacifistPorcupine)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/19 "2014-02-11T17:21:38Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > I can’t listen to sound at work, but most likely they were weight calls. There are codes for weight: 1-3 for guards, 4-6 for top of the house, 7 for T-line, and 8-11 for back of the house. A higher number means the shot is going deeper. Well that’s what I thought for the talk before the throw, but they were yelling them as they swept. “Three, three four! Five! Five, six, seven! Eight, eight, nine! Ten.” At one point one even said “that’s either a six or a nine” which really confused me. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985/20 "2014-02-11T18:26:16Z")
> [@PacifistPorcupine](#): > > Well that’s what I thought for the talk before the throw, but they were yelling them as they swept. “Three, three four! Five! Five, six, seven! Eight, eight, nine! Ten.” At one point one even said “that’s either a six or a nine” which really confused me. Right, you call them as you walk alongside (or sweep) the rock, updating the skip as to how deep you think the rock is going. (It’s hard for the skip to judge this, because the rock is coming right at her.). As you get closer to the house your judgment should get more accurate. Not sure about the 6 or 9. I’d need to see it in context, and even then I might not get it! > [@Bellhorn](#): > > Since becoming an Olympic sport, have these events surpassed the Silver Broom (or whatever it’s called now) in prestige? Hard to say. As in so many sports, the purest and best competition might be at the single-sport world championship, but the general public watches and remembers the multi-sport circus of the Olympics. It’s a different animal. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2014-sochi-olympic-winter-games/680985.md?page=2)