Oops, sorry, proofreading error. :smack:
No offense to Green Bean, but wouldn’t it be more appropriate to “Stone” her?
Got my haircut at noon. The shop had the Olympics on. They were showing short-track speedskating (something I’m mildly interested in as wife and kids used to do it.) For the entire time I was in the shop, they showed competition (with short ad breaks.) Astounding how different the coverage was than primetime.
(Yeah, I know I can search to see various competition instead of just watching primetime. However, I just don’t care enough about it to exert even such minimal effort. Stopped by the library yesterday and picked up 6 books - not particularly interested in watching ANYTHING on TV for the next week or 2! ;))
Interesting thing about Russia this go around. The Russian athletes are participating under the Olympic flag and are known
as the OAR-Olympic athletes of Russia. This is punishment for a doping incident in Sochi. Damn Russians just cannot be trusted.
The North Korean pairs figure skaters were the only ones from North Korea that qualified on merit and I just saw why–a very good performance, only a bit behind the Russians.
Well, not just “a doping incident at Sochi”–rather, a state-sponsored systematic program of doping over a period of several years. There were coverups galore, athletes instructed to take certain substances, drug tests tampered with, drug-riddled urine samples switched for “clean” ones, laboratories on the take, etc., etc. Not just a few athletes, not just during a brief period, but a sustained effort on the part of Russian higher-ups to beat the system and take home a few more medals. Pretty awful.
All that math just makes my head throb. I know the business about difficulty and points. Where’s the artistry and beauty supposed to fit? I mean, I know it’s a sport and not ballet or dance but we wouldn’t watch if it wasnt nice to look at, or at least I wouldn’t.
Got more stuff to say, but for now, just a quick question:
What the heck happened to replays? There have been so many great moments, spectacular feats, close calls, and I can’t remember a single one that’s been replayed. And every time something really awful happens (I just watched a complete train wreck of a wipeout in women’s luge), not only is there no replay but they spend about two freaking minutes showing nothing! Picking apart big moments is as much a sports tradition as high-fives; what is NBC doing here?
Curling ice isn’t Zamboni smooth like skating ice. It’s pebbled: the ice makers spray droplets of water on the ice so it has an uneven, pebbled surface, to help the rocks curl.
Personally, I call the things we play with rocks, rather than stones, but YMMV.
There are two parts to the score; technical and “Program component”. The latter includes “Skating Skills, Transitions, Performance, Composition, and Interpretation”. These are judged on a scale of 0 - 10 each, by each judge, and averaged by tossing out the high and low score awarded, then taking the mean of the others (nine judges). The component scores are very important; in the team competition, during the women’s free skate, as I recall the Italian skater, Carolina Kostner, almost finished third because although her technical score was low (59 and change), here component score was very high (74+); only the top performer, Alina Zagitova of Russia, scored higher in components.
Note that, in order to keep the technical and component scores close to each other, the component scores can be multiplied by some factor depending on the competition.
Men’s short program scores are kept as they are; free skate scores are doubled.
Ladies’ and pairs’ short program scores are multiplied by 0.8 (so 80 is a perfect score), and free skate scores are multiplied by 1.6.
Ice dancing is 0.8 for the short dance and 1.2 for the free dance.
I don’t know what version of NBC you’re watching, but I see replays all the time.
Was watching that on NBCSN. Seemed that they held off on showing replays until after the sledder’s well-being was ensured. In the meantime, there was no action to show. After what happened a few years ago, they probably didn’t want to risk re-running a death or serious injury to “pick it apart”
I don’t know what version I’m watching, but I’m in a constant state of befuddlement.
Shaun White. :smack:
The artistry and beauty is supposed to fit in the time machine that takes you back before 2002 or so and all the points scandals.
I wonder how the North Korean Hockey players feel about their team/teammates when so many of them are North Americans?
Ick. Korean women are thrashing Canada at curling. Stole 2 to lead 4-1.
Triple take-out! Beauty!
So more figure skating tonight.
I am skittish to say/ask this, what do y’all think about Johnny Weir?
Personally I think he’s crazy, quirky and funny. But the boys fashion sense kinda scares me.
Wow. Canadian team just gave Korea a steal of three at the end of the 9th.