Sochi Olympics open thread

[Beathag]

Love the Olympics - Summer or Winter.

Norway is excelling, as usually.

Love the Dutch on speed skates.

But there are some events in which the scoring eludes me.

[ebevan91]

The USA has been pretty disappointing in these Olympics so far. A few of our best athletes are injured, or had to withdraw for some other reasons. And of course everybody else (who isn't USA) seems to have gotten better over the past 4 years. The summer Olympics is where we really shine, though.

[Fez]

The USA has been pretty disappointing in these Olympics so far. A few of our best athletes are injured, or had to withdraw for some other reasons. And of course everybody else (who isn't USA) seems to have gotten better over the past 4 years. The summer Olympics is where we really shine, though.

Disappointing? We're still tied for fourth in the medal count (or in fifth, depending on how you count it), which is very nearly what we usually got in recent history (First/Third in 2010, Second/Second in 2006, Third/Second in 2002, Fourth/Fifth in 1998, and Fifth/Fifth in 1994). We're never the unstoppable medal machine that we are in the Summer games: always First no matter how you count it (except the '08 games where China had more gold medals), and usually by a wide margin.

And there's not too many speed skating events left, so we'll overtake the Dutch in the medal count soon enough.ETA: Okay I just looked at the events list, and actually are still a bunch left, but still, there's a lot more other sports' events that haven't medaled yet.

[baxus]

@Fez:

i'm not saying u.s. team is having a bad olympics, but some of the events where they usually got some medals or even dominated already took place and u.s. team came up short of their usual medals lot.

for example, men's snowboarding halfpipe must be considered a disappointment for the u.s. team since they won no medals in it for the first time since snowboarding was introduced to the olympics.

on the other hand, there are events where u.s. team didn't come in their full strength, like women's alpine skiing where lindsay vonn would definitely be considered a favourite for some medals had the injury not ruled her out.

with all that in mind, games are not even at the half way mark and there will be a lot of opportunities for athletes to live up to the expectations or surprise us, for better or worse.

[3CityApache]

Yesss! Justyna! Kowalczyk! She just won a gold medal with the broken bone in her feet

[Wicked Woodpecker of West]

That was absolutely cool. She just destroyed Norwegians...

[3CityApache]

After six days of Olympics in Sochi, the number of gold medals won by Poland in Winter Olympics history, increased by 100 percent.:D

[ebevan91]

Disappointing? We're still tied for fourth in the medal count (or in fifth, depending on how you count it), which is very nearly what we usually got in recent history (First/Third in 2010, Second/Second in 2006, Third/Second in 2002, Fourth/Fifth in 1998, and Fifth/Fifth in 1994). We're never the unstoppable medal machine that we are in the Summer games: always First no matter how you count it (except the '08 games where China had more gold medals), and usually by a wide margin.

And there's not too many speed skating events left, so we'll overtake the Dutch in the medal count soon enough.ETA: Okay I just looked at the events list, and actually are still a bunch left, but still, there's a lot more other sports' events that haven't medaled yet.

Ok maybe I take back what I said. We're only 1 behind Norway now. :cool4:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals

[Fez]

@Fez:

i'm not saying u.s. team is having a bad olympics, but some of the events where they usually got some medals or even dominated already took place and u.s. team came up short of their usual medals lot.

for example, men's snowboarding halfpipe must be considered a disappointment for the u.s. team since they won no medals in it for the first time since snowboarding was introduced to the olympics.

on the other hand, there are events where u.s. team didn't come in their full strength, like women's alpine skiing where lindsay vonn would definitely be considered a favourite for some medals had the injury not ruled her out.

Yeah there's been some disappointments, like Shani Davis coming in eighth in 1,000m speed skating, but there's always some individual disappointments. And there's plenty of other events where team USA doing fine, and dominating the new ones, like Slopestyle.

Ok maybe I take back what I said. We're only 1 behind Norway now. :cool4:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals

Sweeping an event is always fun.

[Grip]

Saw Sweden-Czech Republic yesterday, been looking forward to the hockey starting. Cant wait for Sweden-Finland!

[Mark Antony]

Getting up at 630 to see the USA mens score 7 goals was totally worth it, Awesome stuff.

[ebevan91]

Getting up at 630 to see the USA mens score 7 goals was totally worth it, Awesome stuff.

Score was 3-1 when I woke up.

[balefired-ed]

Very well balanced team for the US again, hopefully we can beat Russia in a tough game on Saturday.

Russia is my number 2 team in this tournament, considering they have four Jackets on the team. Can't believe Varlamov, as good as he is, got the start over the number one cop on the force, though.

[Seli]

Ok maybe I take back what I said. We're only 1 behind Norway now. :cool4:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals

Only because the NBC don't know how to count properly :D

Dutch TV knows better, first sort by gold medals, subsequently by silver, finally by bronze, actually ignore the total.

1 Germany 7 2 1 10

2 Canada 4 4 2 10

3 Norway 4 3 6 13

4 Netherlands 4 3 5 12

5 USA 4 2 6 12

6 Switzerland 3 0 1 4

:P (http://nos.nl/os2014/uitslagen/medailles/per-land/)

[Tempra]

Only because the NBC don't know how to count properly :D

Dutch TV knows better, first sort by gold medals, subsequently by silver, finally by bronze, actually ignore the total.

1 Germany 7 2 1 10

2 Canada 4 4 2 10

3 Norway 4 3 6 13

4 Netherlands 4 3 5 12

5 USA 4 2 6 12

6 Switzerland 3 0 1 4

:P (http://nos.nl/os2014/uitslagen/medailles/per-land/)

We have this discussion every olympics. I don't buy the idea that 1 gold is more impressive than 99 silvers.

(Although, I do agree that Germany's current medal tally is the most impressive.)

[Fez]

We have this discussion every olympics. I don't buy the idea that 1 gold is more impressive than 99 silvers.

(Although, I do agree that Germany's current medal tally is the most impressive.)

What about a 1 Gold = 3 Silver = 7 Bronze conversion rate? If corresponded to a point system, that'd give us a leaderboard of:

Germany 56

Norway 43

Canada 42

Netherlands 42

USA 40

Russia 33

Swiss 22

Austria 19

China 18

France 16

That looks reasonable to me.

[Maltaran]

Sorting by golds is traditional, sorting by total was adopted by the US in 2008 in order to keep themselves on top if the table.

[Tempra]

Sorting by golds is traditional, sorting by total was adopted by the US in 2008 in order to keep themselves on top if the table.

Uh, no. Where on earth did you get that idea?

Here is an article from 2002:

Inspired by competing at home, the American team is set to sow its biggest harvest of medals ever in the Winter games. But even that is not enough for USA Today, the country's biggest-selling newspaper, which is printing a table based on the total number of medals won rather than golds. Using that format, the US, with 10 medals won, are second behind Germany. But in the official list distributed by the IOC, Norway are top having won five gold medals compared with the Americans' three.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/feb/15/usa.olympicgames

Here is the tally from 1998 (note the US is lower than Austria despite having more golds):

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/events/1998/nagano/results/standings.medalstan.html?mobile=no

The US has organized the medal table by total medals for along time.

[BigFatCoward]

Ok maybe I take back what I said. We're only 1 behind Norway now. :cool4:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/medals

maybe, but Norway are having a pretty bad Olympics, they have only won 1 out of 5 golds in the biathlon (at last years world champs they won 8 out of 11) and the cross country team is not performing as well as would have been expected (though they have still won 3 golds so far), they will probably pick up a lot of the remaining medals.

[3CityApache]

As far as I can tell in Europe it was always traditionally sorted by gold medals.

I don't buy the idea that 1 gold is more impressive than 99 silvers.

But it is. Our legendary ski jumper Adam Malysz who never won olympic gold has recently admitted, that he would gladly exchange his four olympic medals (three silvers, one bronze) for one gold that Kamil Stoch won in Sochi.