I thought their attitude after the competition bordered on strange. They just won a silver medal, and they were acting like their puppy had died or something.
I get that almost anyone who achieves that level of success in a sport is going to have a “First place is the only good result” attitude, but this seemed extreme.
And I thought the French couple was just a little better too.
They’ve spend their whole life in the pursuit of one ambition and came just short yet again of achieving it. I don’t feel like it’s a bad thing that they have strong emotions about it in that moment, nor unusual that they display their emotions. Art is human and human they are.
I’ve heard (sorry no cite) that Gold winners are the happiest, but after that it is Bronze “at least I/we medaled”. In that case, the most disappointed medalists are Silver.
Brian
I’ve heard that, too. Especially in team sports like hockey and basketball. Because you have to lose your last game.
USA only tied 1-1 with Latvia in men’s hockey. 2nd period.
Oh, USA scored three goals in about a 6 minute timespan. Way up now.
Ouch, now the USA is up 5-1. Four of those goals in about a 10 minute gameplay stretch. Absolute dominance after an only OK opening. Lots of very simple moves and for some reason, the Latvia goalie is blowing it. Then again, it is 33-12 shots on goal(usa ahead).
One again I’m impressed with XC skiers obviously giving their all and collapsing after finishing.
Pretty obvious Jessie Diggins’ ribs still hurt.
Brian
“I’ll have what she’s having”
I’m guessing none of us have every competed at this level, and the years of dedication and training it takes to get there, only to have your dream shattered by one stupid mistake, one wrong move that you never made before, or be outshone by a lesser competitor who at that moment turned in the performance of their life. I watched a downhill racer, heavily favored, lose a ski halfway down the course, blowing his chances for a medal. How do you mentally come back from that? If Chock and Bates wore sad faces when they had a mike shoved at them after only winning the silver, we can hardly blame them. They might even have been in something akin to shock.
I heard a news item that explained this. Since, unlike a marathon, you don’t know how far ahead or behind you are, you have to give it your all. It is a race to be the fastest, without knowing until everyone finishes who that was, so there is no “I am way ahead so I can relax” in the sport.
//i\\
What’s with the funny plushie the medalists get? Is there a story behind it?
I’m guessing it is one of the mascots: Tina or Milo - they are stoats.
Brian
I just saw all three podium Free Dances on YouTube. All I got to say…other than that they were exquisite 
, and Free Dance is so tonally different from Rhythm Dance that it’s practically a completely separate discipline, and I was genuinely surprised to learn that…is that if there was ironclad evidence that Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron didn’t deserve the gold, I sure as frack didn’t catch it. (Did you see that rotating dip? How the hell does he not collapse like a house of cards from that? 
) And just laying it out right now: If you want to pick apart each and every tick and tap and microerror and picostumble (gleefully ignoring that the judges don’t get to watch the thing frame-by-frame dozens of times, of course 
), you do it for EACH AND EVERY competitor or I’m not listening. You have a beef with favoritism, you’d better hold up your end.
It’s no secret that the Olympic gold is the only major achievement Madison Chock and Evan Bates haven’t won. Fact is, even for the greats, final tallies often have holes in them…witness the careers of Shaquille O’Neal, Pete Sampras, and Phil Mickelson. Opportunities, especially for quadrennial events, are limited and can pass by before they know it. So yeah, of course they’d be heartbroken. Shoving a mike right in their faces at the moment was crass, but that’s NBC for you. Putting up with network BS is just an occupational hazard for the American Olympian.
(In the middle of the men’s downhill right now, and it’s turning into a thrill ride. Nobody spoil anything! 
)
puzzlegal - While there were definitely some events in Paris that were strictly on CNBC, they were confined to the weekends, so I could set the preset to NBC then manually select the CNBC slots (my DVR can’t preset a program to more than one channel). While I did miss a few things, by and large I never had a problem watching what I wanted. What exists now is a jumble…one big selection on USA and lots of other shows on different channels which usually but not always are repeats. And I’m not even getting into the Peacock-only stuff. Yeah, it’s worse now than before.
I’d like to have CBC as an option in my cable package.
I love Chloe Kim. Sorry to see her only get silver but the half pipe winner deserved it. As far as the ice dancing goes, I thought the French couple won in artistry and I don’t have a problem with them winning.
Meanwhile I just happened to see this cross country sprint live. I see that sections of it have gone viral but I think it’s worth watching the entire race which is only about 6 minutes. The winner has got to be one of the most incredible athletes I’ve ever seen. He is the Usain Bolt of cross country.
BTW if you don’t want to watch the whole thing go to 2:38.
Also please excuse the Americocentric commentary.
Yet he almost blew it as Ben Ogden almost caught him there at the end.
I don’t have cable. And i don’t have a DVR. I had to buy something new to watch most anything I’m interested in at times that work for me. Well, there’s a lot more on YouTube than i expected, so maybe i didn’t, but i thought i did. I decided to buy a VPN instead of Peacock, which is the channel i could have purchased. There are issues with going the illegal, unsupported route. I don’t recommend it. And honestly, this year I’d probably have done fine with just YouTube (which i buy the premium version.) But i like the coverage, and at the end of the men’s free dance, the commentators were all about how exciting it was for the Canadian couple to win a medal. Very upbeat.
My favorite of the top 6 free dances was the Canadian couple’s, but i really don’t understand the technical aspects. The commentators would say, “oh, that’s a big mistake” and i couldn’t see what the mistake was. So I’m not qualified to second guess the judges. The commentators weren’t surprised by the scores, though. They thought it was very close between the top two, and we wouldn’t know who won until the judges had finished deliberating.
The Canadian dance was apparently not as difficult, but was skated perfectly. Maybe they were biased, but they did predict it was good enough for the medal before the scores came up. They showed clips during the wait and talked about how this was the kind of perfect execution that every skater and every coach dreams of.
Also, they said as the last five pairs skated out to warm up that there were two races we were going to watch, three couples were competing for the bronze and two for the gold.
I watched highlight reels of the super G last night. My God the women had terrible weather. But what a thrilling race.
) It doesn’t look like he does Nordic Combined nor Biathlon.Brian