2014 Winter Olympics - Sochi

My friend with the Bronze medal as well! Congrats to him!

 

Oh Yeah!!!! Lizzy Yarnold just won Gold for Team GB in the Skeleton!!

Our first Gold of these games

 

I must admit that the Finnish ice hockey team's goal scoring efficiency is one of the best I've seen in a long time.

 

McLaren designed Skeleton no less

 

Hockey, Russia-USA - 2:3 (in overtime). Could be 3:2 if Tyutin's goal was counted. That's a scandal.

 

Yeah, the match was awesome, never seen so tense playing. Both teams were great. But that goal...

The American team couch said "We were lucky to have that goal uncounted".
Whatever, that wasn't a final or even quarter-final, and we still have a chance see the RF and US teams on the ice again... in the final.

The gold in the Men's Skeleton was really surprising, Tretyakov done really cool. With another gold medal today (Viktor An in short track), Russia raises on the 3rd place in the medal ranking.

 

I'll admit that I don't know much about ice hockey, but disallowing the goal was a bad call. It was apparently on the grounds that the net was loose, but watching in the minutes after the ruling, nobody made an attempt to tighten the net.

 

Watching the boardercross, and four girls crashed simultaneously over the line.

 

I've never really payed attention to the winter Olympics before, there's so many sport I want to try!

Also did anyone else find Elise Christie's disqualifications a little bit funny? She went off the track and then tried to ram back in taking 2 others out in the 500m short track final, and afterwards said "I was ahead, she hit me"

The next day she gets disqualified again in the 1500m for crossing the line off the track (she seems to have a problems with this!) And afterwards says "I don't know what I did, to be DQed yesterday was expected but today...."

Hang on. You said it wasn't your fault one day, and the next you say it is. A part of me wants her to be DQed from the 1000m too, for her poor sportsmanship.

 

The coverage in Japan certainly is lacking. They rarely show anything unless a Japanese person has a shot at a medal. Fortunately, you can watch live streams of other events on NHK's website.

 

Horrible accident in the two-man bobsleigh during practice: the Brazilian team went too high coming out of one corner, ran out of ice, and the entire sled was pitched into the air and thrown across the track while perpendicular to the ground, so the driver pretty much went head-first into the ice opposite. Then they slid upside down for about half the run at speeds of up to 100km/h. Fortunately, a medical crew was ready, and the Brazilians were okay.

You are allowed to get a bit physical in short-track. You can lean on another competitor or give them a bit of a nudge provided that you don't interfere with their line. A lot of competitors will expect it to the point where they incorporate it into their own skating.

But Christie's move in the 500m was clearly her fault. She pushed too aggressively to try and defend her position by leaning on the skater in front. She interfered with both their races, causing them to trip up. It was an unnecessary, panicky move, trying to defend a position when the smarter move would have been to concede second, bide her time and make her move a lap or two later.

 

a North/South Korea confusion again, just like in London.
Would be cool to see DPRK hosting Olympics

 

Looking at the way she performed in both races it's like she doesn't actually know how to do that sport! I seriously couldn't believe that she thought going inside the boundary of the track would be fine. I'm sure thats lesson one!..... when your 5.

It's really starting to become annoying, they keep announcing South Korean people as from the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' then go on to say how the next winter olympics is there FACEPALM.

They also did it in the snowboarding and skiing. Maybe they should get out and read a map!

But the olympics in Pyongyang would be an interesting one, they have already built the ski resort and you can bet he would spend all the countries money on the Olympics... ALL of it.

 

It's pretty obvious she didn't know she was outside of the boundary, it was only by one centimeter. I doubt you could tell while going that fast...Also, she'd want to leave a wide gap between her and the Italian as they'd already crashed in the 500m.

 

What's this rumor about the death of the person who was in charge of the Olympic rings at the opening ceremony?

 

Canada beats Finland 2-1 in overtime and avoids having to face Russia in the Quarterfinals! We also finally get a medal in downhill skiing, thanks to Jan Hudec's bronze in men's Super G.

 

A stupid one.

 

Another medal that we didn't win: the mens' boardercross. The event was cancelled due to bad weather, and will run tomorrow.

Am I a bad person if I want the Australians eliminated in the first rounds, just so that the media have to feel embarrassed about talking them up?

 

Let me guess - he was busted by KGB, knocked out with a vodka bottle, taken away to a Gulag camp, put against a wall and shot with an AK-47?

 

Had to laugh at the Australian commentators - they were ready to award the Australian competitors gold, silver and bronze before the mens' boardercross had even started, and in the end, none of them made the final. I found Alex Pullin's elimination particularly amusing - for weeks, we have been inundated with his name and image. He was the flag-bearer in the Opening Ceremony for no reason at all (he has not so much as finished an Olympic event) and this evening was billed as "his night". Even when the other athletes complained that he was getting a million dollars in funding when they were barely getting enough to make it to Sochi, the commentators criticised them for "not being fair to him on his night", even though two of them were competing in the same event and both of them beat him - he crashed out all on his own in the quarter finals.

The media needs to learn that our athletes don't go to the Olympics to win medals - they go to represent their country. If they win, then that is great. But if they don't, then they do not deserve criticism.

 

Australians falling
Australians falling everywhere

 

The Aussie guy in the aerials did well for a silver medal. Aided by crashes from the two Chinese guys. But huge respect to the guy who won the bronze - the was the most graceful and acrobatic crash I have ever seen.

 

Yeah, the Canadian press are like that as well. Figure skater Patrick Chan finished second after making a couple of mistakes in his program. Instead of congratulating him on winning a silver medal, they pressed him with stupid questions like "do you think you could have done more?" And "are you disappointed?". Even getting to the Olympics is a huge accomplishment, none of these athletes "failed" just because they didn't medal, although try telling that to the press.

On a more disappointing note, an article came out before the Olympics about the figure skating being rigged. The Russians would score the American Ice dance team high if the Americans scored the Russian team event high to ensure they both won gold (and kept Canada from doing so). The Russian team deservedly won, but the American ice dance pair had unusually high scores, while the Canadians were marked suspiciously low. As a few media people put it, it's sad when you can write about the outcome of an event before it happens.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/s...ating-deal-includes-an-odd-alliance.html?_r=0


Silver is still an excellent result for Canada, and I would hate to see them take away the medal from the US pair, but at the same time this kind of thing is despicable and doesn't belong in sport.

 

That chairlift is for two people...

 

And I switch to the news AND Poor poor Chumpy.
I love the fella, seems likeable and is the greatest boarder-Xer we've ever had, but what about Cam Bolton. The poor fella is in front in the semi, and gets taken out by someone who'd already took out 2 other competitors!