As an arrogant American, that is what I feel like we are watching so far. Realistically, I understand it is early and a lot will still happen, but it just doesn't feel like we, as a country, are putting our best foot forward so far.
It all started so well. Sage Kotsenburg won an unexpected gold in Men's Snowboard Slopestyle. Ashley Wagner performed well, Gracie Gold performed very well, Meryl Davis and Charlie White dominated and the rest of the US Figure Skating Team did their part to earn a bronze medal. Jamie Anderson met expectations and won gold in Women's Snowboard Slopestyle.
Then things started to fall off a bit. Bode Miller dominated training in the downhill, then finished a disappointing 8th. He actually blamed the sky. (I understood the explanation, but it sounds funny.) J.R. Celski failed to medal in the Short Track 1500. Both Men's and Women's Curling teams lost their first two matches. We failed to medal in Men's Moguls. (Where have you gone, Johnny Moseley, our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo. Woo woo woo.) That hasn't happened since 1994. Kikkan Randall was one of the favorites in Women's Cross Country Sprint Skiing and she failed to get out of the quarterfinals. Sophie Caldwell had the best finish ever for an American in a Cross Country Skiing event, but still finished outside the medals.
We had a few good results mixed in. Devin Logan surprised with a silver in Skiing Slope Style. Erin Hamlin made history with a bronze in the Women's Luge, becoming the first American to win an individual luge Olympic medal. Kate Hansen finished a solid 10th and wowed the world with her warm-up dance moves.
Then the bottom dropped off. Shaun White, the face of snowboarding, failed to medal. Shani Davis, overwhelming favorite to win the 1000 in Long Track Speed Skating, failed to medal. The Women's Hockey Team lost to Canada. Julia Mancuso failed to medal in the Women's Downhill. Sadly, none of that compares to what happened in Women's Curling.
I was home sick yesterday, with a sick child. I watched a lot of Olympic coverage, as well as several episodes of Phinneas and Ferb. Rebecca Lowe was the studio host during the early afternoon. Al Michaels took over for her in the late afternoon. Rebecca is from England and told Al she was going to the US-GB Curling match, instead of the pairs figure skating short programs. She gave a brief analysis of curling (experienced US Skip v. young, hotshot GB skip) before the two made a bet on the match. I can't wait to see what she says to him today. She has every right to shove her butt in his face and tell him to kiss her ass.
I believe it is necessary to give a quick rundown of curling. The game has ten rounds, called ends. In each end, each team throws (meaning slides across the ice) eight stones, alternating with each other. The idea is to get the stones closer to the middle of a target (called the house) than your opponents. For every stone in the house that is closer to the middle than your opponents closest stone, you get a point. Only one team can score in each end and sometimes neither team scores. There is a strategic reason for that which I won't bore you with now. Scoring two points in an end is a big deal. Anything more than two in an end is incredible.
Here are the complete scores for Olympic curling up to the USA GBR - Women's match:
Men:
Ger 8 - 11 Can
Den 4 - 7 Chn
Sui 5 - 7 Swe
Rus 4 - 7 GBR (9)
Swe 8 - 4 GBR (9)
Can 4 - 5 Sui
Den 11 - 10 Rus (11)
USA 4 - 7 Nor (9)
Can 6 - 7 Swe
Nor 9 - 8 Rus
GBR 7 - 6 Ger
USA 4 - 9 Chn (8)
Women:
Swe 6 - 4 Gbr (9)
Sui 7 - 4 US (9)
Chn 2 - 9 Can (7)
Rus 7- 4 Den
Kor 12 - 7 Jpn
Rus 9 - 7 US
Swe 3 - 9 Can (8)
Sui 7 - 6 Den
Chn 7 - 5 Rus
Den 3 - 8 Jpn (8)
Kor 6 - 8 Sui
If the match is just over, you can concede. If it is tied after 10 ends, you keep going until someone wins. The numbers in parentheses above tell you the number of ends played in that match. If there are no parentheses, it was a typical 10 end match. The NBC Olympics website is annoying, so I did not carefully analyze each match, but I glanced, and the most number of points I saw in any end was 3, which I saw 3 or so times in 23 matches, consisting of 226 ends.
The British "Skip", meaning team leader and 4th thrower, is a 23 year old, fairly attractive superstar named Eve Muirhead. I am intrigued by Eve and shall hereafter call her The Heartbreaker. I call her The Heartbreaker, because she has the looks to break some hearts, and what she did yesterday broke many a US curling fan's heart. (FYI - she definitely looks better when playing, I was unable to find many good pictures of her. Watch a match if you are interested.)
Curling is a sport of general curiosity in the US. The comparisons to shuffleboard are not too far fetched (although I am sure a true curling enthusiast would be offended by that comment) and it is somewhat (or perhaps more than somewhat) mocked as an Olympic Sport. Most Americans don't understand it and don't care. That's fine. I enjoy it for the strategy and the yelling. Often when a player throws their rock they start yelling. The Heartbreaker is a big yeller. I don't understand what they are yelling, in English or other languages. I enjoy curling, but apparently I don't speak it.
Eldest had a school assignment to learn about a Winter Olympic Sport and give a presentation to his class. This was all accomplished in school (no homework) so I didn't help him with the assignment. Upon seeing the match yesterday, he was interested both because it was curling, and because he knew who the US "skip" is from his research. Luckily, he wanted to play on the computer rather than watch the match. Eldest does not handle losing in any form well. If Eldest had watched yesterday's match, he definitely would have yelled mean things at The Heartbreaker, and probably would have cried. The Heartbreaker would have earned her nickname in my house.
As you can see from the scores above, the typical winning score for a 10 end match in the Olympics is 8-9 points. In 12 of the 23 scores above, the winning team failed to score more than 7 points. As you know from my general description, scoring 2 points in one end is very good, 3 is very rare and more than 3 is unheard of. However, in theory, the maximum points that can be scored in one end is 8. This means you have put all 8 of your stones in the house claoser than any of your opponents stones. Keep in mind, you are allowed to blast your opponents stone off the house. Yesterday, in the 4th end, The Heartbreaker and her British teammates put up 7 points. Seven. Points. In one end. Enough to tie or win half the matches up to that point. In one end. I didn't even think that was possible. Embarrasing doesn't even begin to describe an end where the other team wins 7 points. That is way more than a bobble in US skip, Erika Brown's twizzle. That's a downright avalanche. And, yes, 7 points in one end is an Olympic record.
Well, I got that off my chest. Thanks. I should have talked about the weather or how great it is just to be an Olympian. I should have done my greatly anticipated, You Are Beautiful, post, and WOW do the Winter Olympics give us some high quality material for that post. I didn't. I had to complain. Maybe my Anti-Diving Insider is rubbing off on me. Hopefully our Olympians are having fun and will take some inspiration fron Devin Logan and Erin Hamlin. If not, I will continue to bitch about our failures, but I am not alone. The Austrians and Russians complained endlessly four years ago.
Reflections on What Has Happened (Focus for this will be on US sports and medals, but we will touch on other stuff as time permits)
1. Not a lot of medals to talk about. I've already covered our failures and successes. We need to consider changing the title of this section.
2. Biathlon remains the best spectator sport of Sochi 2014. Putting it at night under the lights was brilliant. Ha-ha. That's almost clever.
3. Time change is brutal. I found out the result of everything I was going to predict for today except Nordic Combined, which I have already predicted. I was wrong on everything, so that is a good thing.
4. The problems during cross country skiing yesterday were apparently the result of high temperatures and melting snow. Hmmm...perhaps holding the Winter Olympics in a summer resort city was a bit misguided. Or, people were hoping to turn cross country skiing into demolition derby. It was exciting to watch.
5. Martin Fourcade won the Men's 12.5 K Biathlon Pursuit. I generally don't root for French people, but this dude is good and was fun to watch. Biathlon Pursuit is a competition where you start in the order of your finish in the Sprint competition. So if you win the Sprint, you start first in the Pursuit. This was made up by someone trying to win more medals.
6. How do you tie in a competition when you are moving 80 mph?
7. Bob Costas is being possessed by a demon. I don't care what they are saying about an "infection", he is becoming evil. Lauer did well sitting in for Costas, except for the silly Willis Reed reference.
Predictions Recap
1. US gets bronze in Men's hockey, gold in Women's. - Pending
2. Shaun White wins his 3rd gold medal. - WRONG!!!
3. Ashley Wagner shocks the world with a bronze. - Pending
4. Mikaela Shiffrin becomes the darling of these games. - Pending, but Gracie Gold's performance in the Team competition suggests this may turn out incorrect. Not to mention Kate Hansen.
5. US beats Russia in both total medals and golds. - Pending, but improved yesterday, despite my whining.
6. I will watch more biathlon than anyone else in America. - Pending, but so far, so good.
7. Newfound US dominance in Nordic combined will continue. - Pending, and giddy because it starts today.
8. Putin will be on TV more during these Olympics than Kate Middleton was in 2012. And that's a bad thing, because Kate is much more fun to look at, for everyone except my Baltic States Insider. - So far, so good.
9. US Women shock Russia in curling. WRONG!!!
10. US Men's curling defeats China. WRONG!!!
11. Vladimir Putin makes a move on Meryl Davis. Pending
12. Yulia Lipnistkaya gets confused for a lost child and almost misses the Women's Short Program. Pending
13. Erin Hamlin will win the first ever medal for the US in luge. Correct
14. See Shaun White prediction above. See WRONG!!! above, as well.
16. Washington DC comes to a grinding halt on Thursday from snow. Pending, but so far, so good. Schools closed activities for tonight, and not a flake has fallen.
Predictions
1. Middle does not become the 5th of 5 family members to get sick this week. (Yes, that is a hope more than a prediction, but positive energy into the universe.)
2. Russians win Pairs Figure Skating. Germans get Silver. US finishes 6th.
3. Two medals for US in Women's Snowboard Halfpipe.
4. 3-1 win over Slovakia in Men's Hockey.
5. Bjoerndalen fails to get his 12th medal in 20K Biathlon.
6. Women come through in curling v. Japan.
What to Watch For
1. Does Bob Costas return from his studio hiatus caused by an infection growing across his face?
2. Two words...Nordic. Combined.
3. Men's hockey begins.
4. Potentially historic snowstorm in southeast US. We have more winter weather than the winter Olympics.
5. More Short Track and more Cross Country. See if you can tell the difference, other than the mushroom helmets.
Random Fact of the Day
The distance from Sochi to Moscow is approximately 1007 miles. The distance from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City is approximately 688 miles.
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