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Winter Olympics, where small countries can win big!


BigFatCoward

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The 2-Man Bobsled tie was pretty awesome, especially since it happened the last time Canada won a two-man bobsled gold. 

The ice dancing was about what I expected. Virtue/Moir on top, the french couple in silver, and then either the Shibutani team or one of the other top five couples in bronze. 

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I still don't know why China was penalized during the women's 3000m relay, short track. 

This used to be my favorite sport at the Winter Olympics.  Now I just see it as something where the results depend too much on luck and the whims of white grandpa judges.

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Something really peculiar happened in the speed skating team pursuit. The way this competition works is that three skaters from the same team all run the race together and the time that counts is that of the third skater to cross the finish line. Obviously, you're never going to get three individuals who are exactly the same so there's a lot of strategy regarding which skater leads the pack (and thus suffers more from the air resistance) and the like. For example, during one of the qualifying runs, it was obvious that towards the end, one of the Dutch skaters couldn't keep up so they moved him to the middle to minimize the wind and the guy behind him kept nudging his rear (which is a legal move). This maneuver cost them in the sense that they were leading and wound up either second or third, but since the first four qualify, it still worked out.

The South Korean women's team, on the other hand, had a rather different approach:

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South Korea finished seventh in the 500m team pursuit heats on Monday, failing to qualify for the semi-finals.

Kim Bo-reum blamed team-mate Noh Seon-yeong for their poor performance.

"We were skating well," said Kim. "But the last skater [Noh] couldn't keep up and we had a disappointing score."

Fellow skater Park Ji-woo added: "I was very shocked when I crossed the finish line, because that's when I realised Noh was not with us."

The South Korean public, being rather well aware of the subtleties of speed skating, refused to buy the idea that skaters at the highest level could be that incompetent and started a petition:

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"It is a clear national disgrace that such people with a personality problem are representing a country in the Olympics.

"We are petitioning that Kim Bo-reum and Park Ji-woo forfeit their rights as national athletes and be banned from international competitions including the Olympics."

 

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Two more golds and one each of bronze and silver for Norway last night (unless I missed something). 

We're having a very high conversion rate from favourites to medal winners in this Olympics. 

I absolutely love watching speed skating, and think it's a pity that it's not a bigger sport internationally. It is perhaps the most hypnotically aesthetically pleasing sport in existence. 

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4 minutes ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Two more golds and one each of bronze and silver for Norway last night (unless I missed something). 

We're having a very high conversion rate from favourites to medal winners in this Olympics. 

I absolutely love watching speed skating, and think it's a pity that it's not a bigger sport internationally. It is perhaps the most hypnotically aesthetically pleasing sport in existence. 

I was watching short track at the beginning of the Games and couldn't believe I'd never really watched it before. I was hooked! Why couldn't they have had that when I was a kid? I would have loved to do that. Instead I was stuck with figure skating. 

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8 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Ignore the above.  

i don't know how hard curling is, but this has to be shot of the championships, though it will only be viewable in the UK. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-olympics/43136511

Certainly very impressive, I stayed up watching that, and it was a very tense game. Poor Anna Sloan just couldn't find her groove for most of the match.

Also Canada has a player called Miskew, who despite her name is very accurate,

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4 hours ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Two more golds and one each of bronze and silver for Norway last night (unless I missed something). 

We're having a very high conversion rate from favourites to medal winners in this Olympics. 

 

Apart from Johannes Thinges Boe. Who I thought would win at least 3 if not 4. His Individual gold notwithstanding this has been a disappinting games. Though he was very good in the mixed relay, unfortunately the women screwed up. They do have a very good chance in the men's relay. 

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15 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

i don't know how hard curling is, but this has to be shot of the championships, though it will only be viewable in the UK. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-olympics/43136511

We did curling at school (at the same rink where Eve Muirhead would first learn the sport, coincidentally), I was hopeless at it but it did give me some appreciation for how hard even the relatively mundane shots are.

It is an impressive shot, I think as in something like snooker the shots get harder to pull off the more stones are involved. Knocking out the reigning World and Olympic Champions is a great way to qualify for the semi-finals, pity the men's team completely messed up their last match although they've still got a tiebreak match that could see them through.

 

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