2026 Winter Olympics - follow along and discussion thread

The Game Room
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Question for anyone who’s watched Nordic Combined (something I’ve never seen before this year)…what’s even the point of the ski jump portion when they have to go 10K cross country? I mean, if he starts way back, obviously he doesn’t have a chance, but a deficit of a few seconds or even a minute doesn’t seem to make any real difference. Furthermore, the announcers hinted that it’s actually a disadvantage to be in front because then the other skiers can draft off of you. I saw someone take a huge lead on the first lap, then literally right after the commercial break he was in 9th.

Also, do you think short track speed skating is so popular despite being a wild chaotic melee with a severe risk of injury where results are usually pure luck, or because it’s a wild chaotic melee with a severe risk of injury where results are usually pure luck? As a sport, I put it about a half step above Wipeout; I honestly don’t understand how it made it to the Olympics at all. This is the one event where I shake my head when a contest doesn’t have a horrific crash or weirdo ruling. I still remember the fallout over Apolo Anton Ohno’s maybe-kinda-overselling of that Korean’s foul, and I swear the drama reached the level of Charles and Diana. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the appeal of trainwreck sports (I’m convinced that’s the only reason anyone watches NASCAR anymore), but I learned very early on that I cannot develop any kind of rooting interest.

Mahaloth - This will be the first time I get to watch the Winter Paralympics, so I’m going in completely blind; no idea what the events are like or who the ones to watch are. Sounds like fun! :grin:

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10K of skiing for most of the athletes takes between 24 minutes for the best skiers to 33 minutes for the last few. The athlete who came in 10th in the jumping started the skiing with a 1:05 penalty. Drafting isn’t going to make a huge difference and you’ll need to expend a lot of extra energy to catch up to the lead skiers. A deficit of a minute is a big deal

The medalists in the event finished 5th, 2nd, and 7th in the jumping. The guy who won the jumping portion finished 15th. His ski time was 2:30 slower than the gold medalist.

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Thank you! :smiley:

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Russia (6 athletes) and Belarus (4 athletes) will participate in the 2026 Paralympics under their flags. Ukraine and several European countries have already said they will boycott the opening march-in of the athletes.

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Paralympics opening ceremony today and the USA sled-hockey team starts tomorrow. Last Olympics, Jen Lee allowed ZERO goals the entire Paralympics. Can he do it again?

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Watching women’s Biathalon.

I’m surprised to see so many Brazilian athletes. Not only is Brazil not a major player in the Winter Olympics, but the people in the Paralympics are:

  • disabled to a certain degree
  • skiing and shooting

It’s not a country I picture having a huge winter program for its disabled athletes.

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25 seconds into USA Sled Hockey, Italy scores.

For perspective, USA allowed ZERO goals the entire last paralympics.

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And following this, USA scores 3 goals to go up 3-1 very quickly.

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Half-way through this game, USA is up 8-1.

I think we might win.

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Found this video about doubles luge. Yeah, I was as skeptical as you when I first saw it, but apparently it’s completely legit and everyone involved takes it seriously. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it to exist other than a tremendously strong drive among a lot of jocks to be a part of a team (the same reason there’s so much noise about adding 4-woman bobsled every time). For now I’m at “amazed anyone can do this without seriously injuring themselves” level, much like I used to be at for gymnastics.

Been trying to squeeze in some Paralympics in the meantime. The first event is chair ski biathlon, which is definitely in the “amazed anyone can do this at all” camp for me. Imagine this: Strapped to a bulky metal sliding chair, you have to ski around a very long undulating course which is also slushy (I still think winter sports in March makes no sense), then, heart pounding and completely out of breath, fall on your side (while still being bound to, I remind you, a very heavy and unergonomic chunk of unyielding metal), put down your poles, roll onto your belly, grab a rifle, fire at five teensy weensy bitty targets, then put back the rifle, grab your poles, get your chair back under you somehow, then repeat the whole process…ENTIRELY WITH YOUR UPPER BODY. Much like Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile, I give all the accolades to the first person who proved that such a preposterous physical achievement was possible.

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Still have about a hundred recordings to go, but I’m zapping through a lot of stuff I find boring or have seen enough of, so it shouldn’t take too much longer. (I don’t think I’ll have anything more to say about the Paralympics.)

To anyone who watched the women’s 4 x 7.5K cross country relay, settle a little internal debate I have: Did the second Swede’s mishaps wreck the team’s chances as much as USA repeatedly insisted it did? They got silver! For a while I didn’t think they’d make the podium at all, and they beat everyone except Norway, which is always super-doimnant in cross country! And it wasn’t particularly close! While completely wiping out and breaking a ski binding is certainly a big mishap, 30K is a lot of distance! Look, I just don’t want that poor second-legger to get forever saddled with the “goat” label when there’s enough damn pressure as it is and there’s an excellent chance it ended up not harming them at all.

Oh, as for the Brazilian who won giant slalom (the first ever South American to win a Winter Olympics medal): Nice milestone, nothing more. He spent most of his life in Norway, so he’s had plenty of opportunity to learn the art of the slopes. We’re not talking an Aussie turning into a short track speed skating juggernaut here. All accolades to him, of course, but honestly the best thing about it is that we don’t have to talk about it anymore.

Well, getting to bobsled soon. Come on, more-irrelevant-than-ever Jamaican Bobsled Also-Rans! :grin:

(If there’s no objection, I’d like to talk about the World Figure Skating Championships here when it begins March 26. I don’t think that deserves its own thread.)

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USA Paralympic sled hockey is on the way to finish the clean sweep of hockey for the USA. Mens, Womens, and now Para if they win the final.

It would be, get this, the fifth straight gold for USA in paralympic hockey.

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Three silver medals for Team Canada in ice hockey. Men, Women, Para.

Three gold medals for Team USA. Men, Women, and now Para sled.

No overtime needed for the sled team. 6-2 victory.

First nation to sweep all three hockey events for winter.

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Is there any push for women’s sled hockey in the Paralympics?

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The game is co-ed as it is, but I don’t think many women are on the team.

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Aaaaand, I’m done. Whew, a lot faster than I anticipated. Things like ski cross and aerials (the one with all the “full”-s :grin:) are fun to watch for a while, but after a while it becomes pretty much the same stuff all the time and I’m not interested in going through every competitor in every stage. Would’ve preferred more slopestyle, or even biathlon. This was the first time I’d ever heard coaches shout instructions to the aerialists, which I thought was kinda funny given that they’re in the air for about four seconds. It was like a baseball manager instructing a second baseman and shortstop how to turn a double play.

Didn’t see the Jamaican Bobsled Team. In fact, the only thing I could find was this one video that said they missed the cut for the final run, and a couple Snoop Dogg segments. Now, it doesn’t surprise me that they’re still not any good (it’s a heavily equipment-based sport, for one, and they’ll never be able to afford top equipment). But guys, the novelty was gone by 1992, and now NBC suddenly realizes that there’s no more story here and lets it drop? Seems a bit sudden to me, especially after that gold in something or other. Adding insult to injury is that the Brazilian bobsled team (I’d be utterly gobsmacked over that if I were still, oh, about eight or so) got shown, and their time was far from disastrous. At some point we’re going to just have to accept that everyone wants a piece of the pie and hot-weather countries going to absurd lengths to be here is just the way things work now.

All right, catching World Figure Skating Championships coverage in four days! Here’s a preview! Wow, this looks like it could be the most wide-open race ever, can’t hardly wait!

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Is that on Peacock?

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March 26-28 on USA, and also March 28 primetime on NBC (I’m fairly certain it’s just going to be their usual Reader’s Digest repeat, but I’m recording it just in case).

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And more fun with USA programming. :angry: Okay, so they’re not airing the short programs…fine, their choice, it’s not like the World Championships are important or anything. Then, after I’d dutifully set recordings for all three of their airdates on both of my DVRs, along with NBC’s Saturday evening slot, it turns out that they decided, for whatever fragging reason, to squash everything after Thursday (the pairs free skate) into one ginormo megablock on Saturday, and apparently also move some stuff over to NBC, which, naturally, resulted in zapping everything after pairs. :woman_facepalming: Luckily I discovered this yesterday, so I was able to re-set everything and will get some semblance of comprehensive coverage of what USA laughably refers to as the second most important figure skating event of the season. I swear to Sanae E! never disrespects the sport like this…

Anyway. It’s always a guessing game during an Olympic year as to who finds Worlds important enough to be at their top form for it, and, more crucially, learned to pace themselves and rest properly. (I hoped that after Alysa Liu [wisely] skipped Four Continents that a month of recuperation would be enough for her, but the American superstar hype machine was just too much.) A lot of the pairs teams looked just plain tired, and at least a couple were barely going through the motions. I took the liberty of watching all 11 on the broadcast, taking scores, and making some quick notes.

In order of standing after the short program. Score for free skate / overall score.:
11 Katie McBeath & Daniil Parkman, USA, 115.18 / 179.60 - One of our two duos that couldn’t make the Olympics due to one of them (Parkman in this case) not having citizenship. Nothing special here.
10 Annika Hocke & Robert Kunkel, Germany, 128.76 / 194.11 - Did I mention how freaking sick I am of “Anything For Love”? I really am. Hocke’s “color the top to make it look like she has an exposed bra” thing was a questionable choice, but they’re not important enough for me to make a big deal out of.
9 Anastasi Vaipan-Law & Luke Digby, Great Britain, score not given
8 Karina Akopova & Nikita Rakhmanin, Armenia, 123.34 / 190.46 - Very conspicuous two-foot landing and a completely blown lift. They really looked out of it.
7 Alisa Efimova & Misha Mitrofanov, USA, 135.22 / 202.51 - Gold medallists at Nationals and Four Continents; very nice routine here overall, but a couple big mistakes by Efimova (hand down, fall) ended any shot at the podium.
6 Emily Chan & Spencer Akira Howe, USA, 100.89 / 169.91 - Bleah. :slightly_frowning_face: They were a last-minute replacement after Kam and O’Shea pulled out, and man, it showed. Chan did a step-out that prevented her from comboing into a double axel, took two painful-looking falls on throws, and then fell flat on her back on a death spiral. I seriously never saw anyone mess up a death spiral that badly before. Ugly, ugly routine.
5 Yuna Nagaoka & Sumitada Moriguchi, Japan, 139.58 / 209.13 - The first real medal contender. A bit off on the throws, but otherwise good.
4 Maria Pavlova & Alexei Sviatchenko, Hungary, 135.16 / 205.08 - Mostly solid but a massive step out and near-fall from Pavlova on a throw. Johny Weir was a bit critical about their artistry.
3 Lia Perreira & Trennt Michaud, Canada, 140.57 / 216.09 - One little mishap on a pair jump by Michaud; no major mistakes.
2 Anastasia Metelkina & Luka Berulava, Georgia, 138.96 / 218.41 - Very classy and elegant as always, but one fall on a throw and came apart a little near the end.
1 Minerva Fabienne Hase & Nikita Volodin, Germany, 148.55 / 228.33 - Yeah, they rock. :star_struck: Power, precision, grace, artistry, all in a near-perfect package (I say “near” due to an inexplicable pop by Volodin on a double jump).

Gold - Hase & Volodin, Silver - Metelkina & Berulava, Bronze - Perreira & Michaud. I always thought that the Germans would someday overcome their mental blocks and reach the top, but I didn’t think it would be this fast. I don’t like how “redemption” always gets overused (There’s no shame in Olympic bronze, dangit!), so I’ll go with “potential realized”. Much more positive. Rest of the podium shook out pretty much how it was supposed to.

And that’s pairs. If this is anything to go by, the rest of Worlds should be interesting, definitely a more fun ride than I anticipated. Get to it when I have the time!

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Do you know the results? In case not, I’ll spoiler this.

I was so happy Zingas/Kolesnikov medalled! I simply adore their Romeo & Juliet routine.