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The speed skating mass start is ... interesting. What with its neutral first lap, periodic sprint laps, and combination of points and time to determine qualifiers. I'm only on the semi-finals, and I'm curious to see the final. I'm guessing the sprint laps won't matter as much because all that matters is the last lap?

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Did anyone see the crazy squirrel zip in front of the snowboarder on one of the ladies snowboard giant slalom 1/8 final? The squirrel ran right in front, changed direction, then ran back right behind the board. I thought it was going to get squashed and the blood and guts would either slow down or wipe out the boarder. Nope. She kept perfect focus and won her race. Unbelievable!! 

 

How one earth do you train and mentally focus for these kinds of distractions?   :smilielol5:     

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Did anyone see the crazy squirrel zip in front of the snowboarder on one of the ladies snowboard giant slalom 1/8 final? The squirrel ran right in front, changed direction, then ran back right behind the board. I thought it was going to get squashed and the blood and guts would either slow down or wipe out the boarder. Nope. She kept perfect focus and won her race. Unbelievable!!

 

How one earth do you train and mentally focus for these kinds of distractions? :smilielol5:

Oh my, didn't see that but I can imagine given the kind of squirrel tag we have between cars and those things here! Yikes!

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Did anyone watch the exhibition skating event? It was incredible! I really loved the ending. That is what the Olympics is about, I think. Athletes truly loving the sport, and respecting your competitors and enjoying working together. I'm trying to picture the Big Air version of this event. ;)

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Did anyone watch the exhibition skating event? It was incredible! I really loved the ending. That is what the Olympics is about, I think. Athletes truly loving the sport, and respecting your competitors and enjoying working together. I'm trying to picture the Big Air version of this event. ;)

 

We watched it, and it was just so lovely. It's so much fun to see the athletes from all over the world taking pictures together, too!

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The speed skating mass start is ... interesting. What with its neutral first lap, periodic sprint laps, and combination of points and time to determine qualifiers. I'm only on the semi-finals, and I'm curious to see the final. I'm guessing the sprint laps won't matter as much because all that matters is the last lap?

 

Finally got around to the finals, and yup, it's just as weird as I imagined. The intermediate sprint lap points don't even matter (like Who's Line Is It Anyways!).

 

Apparently if any player gets lapped, they're immediately out of the race, and I wonder if someone could push themselves hard for several laps and lap everyone else who's being cagey and hemming and hawwing about not wanting to lead? Then they'd have the gold locked up and be able to finish the race at whatever pace they wanted. I think that'd lead to a change in the rules pretty quickly.

 

Overall I find the mass start to be odd and not really my cup of tea. 

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It's been eight pages of Olympics discussion, so I'm not sure, but have we talked about Norway's Marit Bjørgen (a cross-country skier) yet? This was her fifth Olympics, and she won five medals in PyeongChang (two gold, one silver, and two bronze), bringing her all-time Olympics medal total to 15 and making her the most decorated Winter Olympian ever! She's almost my age, a mother, and she's still killing it in one of the most physically demanding sports at the Games...how have I not heard way more about her?!? She's absolutely incredible!!!

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Did anyone watch the exhibition skating event? It was incredible! I really loved the ending. That is what the Olympics is about, I think. Athletes truly loving the sport, and respecting your competitors and enjoying working together. I'm trying to picture the Big Air version of this event. ;)

I didn't watch the skating event.

 

But I really think that ALL snowboarding events were like 'exhibition' style events. They all hung out together, high fived each other after a good run, and seemed to really have a low-competitiveness thing going on. I think that's just generally true of snowboarders, across the board.

 

I was just watching a short clip today, on FB, of an interview with Mark McMorris and he was talking about this very thing. He said that in between events, at the cafeteria or whatever, other athletes were all grouped together with their own nation but the snowboarders all hung out together. He said in snowboarding you're not competing against just one guy, but trying to do your own best rides.

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I taped last night's skating "gala" I think it was called. Haven't watched it yet. I will tape the closing ceremonies, but will probably just watch on mute and FF a lot and look for shots of the Olympians coming in and in the stands. 

 

I enjoyed the games, but I am more disappointed in NBC than ever. I have never forgiven them for Missy Franklin's gold medal spoiler. Grrr. Anyway, they reached a new low with the coverage this time. I just read that NBC will cover the games until 2032. I thought it was just 2 more years. Ugh. 

 

It has been fun discussing the games here with you all. Thank you, Katy for starting this thread. 

 

 

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I taped last night's skating "gala" I think it was called. Haven't watched it yet. I will tape the closing ceremonies, but will probably just watch on mute and FF a lot and look for shots of the Olympians coming in and in the stands.

 

I enjoyed the games, but I am more disappointed in NBC than ever. I have never forgiven them for Missy Franklin's gold medal spoiler. Grrr. Anyway, they reached a new low with the coverage this time. I just read that NBC will cover the games until 2032. I thought it was just 2 more years. Ugh.

 

It has been fun discussing the games here with you all. Thank you, Katy for starting this thread.

Until 2032??? I need to move to Canada for BBC coverage.

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I just watched most of the closing ceremony.  Did anyone else think Lindsey Vonn looked like a complete fool riding around on someone's shoulders and pumping her hands in the air like the crowd was cheering for her?  Umm, Lindsey, you are 33 years old, which is about 30 years too old to be riding on someone's shoulders, and no one was paying any attention to your carryings on, much less cheering for you.  

 

And I wasn't feeling the K-Pop routine, but the rest of it was awesome.

 

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It's been eight pages of Olympics discussion, so I'm not sure, but have we talked about Norway's Marit Bjørgen (a cross-country skier) yet? This was her fifth Olympics, and she won five medals in PyeongChang (two gold, one silver, and two bronze), bringing her all-time Olympics medal total to 15 and making her the most decorated Winter Olympian ever! She's almost my age, a mother, and she's still killing it in one of the most physically demanding sports at the Games...how have I not heard way more about her?!? She's absolutely incredible!!!

 

Yes, she is amazing. I love how you found the correct spelling of her name in Norwegian!!  :hurray:

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I just watched most of the closing ceremony. Did anyone else think Lindsey Vonn looked like a complete fool riding around on someone's shoulders and pumping her hands in the air like the crowd was cheering for her? Umm, Lindsey, you are 33 years old, which is about 30 years too old to be riding on someone's shoulders, and no one was paying any attention to your carryings on, much less cheering for you.

 

And I wasn't feeling the K-Pop routine, but the rest of it was awesome.

I’ve always suspected more than a few athletes are drunk during the Closing. I’ve never been able to warm up to her, but I always prefer an underdog, anyway.
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I taped last night's skating "gala" I think it was called. Haven't watched it yet.

 

A little background behind the music Tessa and Scott skated their exhibition performance: It's "Long Time Running" by the Canadian band The Tragically Hip, who's lead singer recently passed away from brain cancer. Tessa and Scott made this performance a tribute to Gord Downie. I cried through the whole thing. Just so touching for Canadians. 

Edited by wintermom
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I’ve always suspected more than a few athletes are drunk during the Closing. I’ve never been able to warm up to her, but I always prefer an underdog, anyway.

 

That actually occurred to me later--it would explain why she was acting like she was in a totally different party than everyone else.  

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I just watched most of the closing ceremony.  Did anyone else think Lindsey Vonn looked like a complete fool riding around on someone's shoulders and pumping her hands in the air like the crowd was cheering for her?  Umm, Lindsey, you are 33 years old, which is about 30 years too old to be riding on someone's shoulders, and no one was paying any attention to your carryings on, much less cheering for you.  

 

And I wasn't feeling the K-Pop routine, but the rest of it was awesome.

 

I've seen many athletes from different countries riding on each other's shoulders at Closing Ceremonies through the years...I think it's just a thing. Not discounting the possibility that alcohol is involved, but I also think some people do it to get a good view/have fun/celebrate.

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My dc and I are really hoping that there will be some TV coverage of the Paralympics. I'd love to watch some of these amazing athletes. 

 

We have DirecTV, and discovered just yesterday that one of the Olympic channels we've had available during the last two weeks is an all the time channel.  I guess it frequently airs favorite matches, games, moments, stories, etc.  We're hoping it will carry some of the Paralympics as well.  We can't afford to suck away two more weeks of our lives being glued to the TV, but it sure would be fun to be able to see some of the events! 

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If you're dealing with Olympics withdrawal, Cool Runnings is available on Netflix  :leaving:

 

 

Great idea! I want to watch Miracle again too. 

 

 

Once while I was watching figure skating on CBC, I saw a graphic like this one of the triple Lutz - triple loop jump. This is what I meant above about the commentators/network providing a little instruction. 

 

/rant

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