Ester Ledecka wins the parallel snowboard giant slalom! With her gold from the alpine Super G, she’s the first woman to win gold in TWO Winter Olympic sports!!!
Holy cow, she is amazing!! 
I am going to have a HUUUGE Olympics withdrawal… 
Yeah… I’m going to have to get up off my couch.
I THOUGHT that I would finally get to sleep at a decent time tonight since there were no events that I wanted to see but NO, I woke up at 5 minutes before curling was due to start. This match might cure my insomnia.
I’m working on my taxes while I watch… but it is close. They are measuring! It is a combo of geometry and engineering, the way they do it…And the US gets the point!
I see the OAR took silver & bronze in the men’s Nordic 50K. I bet those medals won’t stand long term – there is too much benefit in doping in cross country, and they haven’t done so well on World Cup. Alex Harvey from Canada was 4th, so maybe he will eventually end up with a medal. I was rooting for him.
Been reading some articles on the physics of curling while watching the gold medal match. Interesting. At 2:30 in the morning. LOL
Ha. NPR is live blogging the curling.
Ya, I really need to learn about curling. My patient’s 11 y o son had a reading assignment on curling. To everyone’s delight, he shared his knowledge with his family. For,a child barely passing school, what a win/win!
Curling is a little like baseball in that you can do something else while watching and not miss anything. And a little better in baseball in that you know when something will happen and you need to watch.
I haven’t been following along but Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir showed up in my feed. I watched their free dance… and then proceeded to spend the next hour or so binge-watching their routines. They are mesmerizing. I had never heard of them before today and now I feel like I was missing out.
Carry on.
What a shot to go up by 5 with 2 ends left.
Five straight wins for the gold. Nice.
Re amandakayak #521–A normal first part of the program is not “warm up,” I agree. But if you re-watch Zagitova’s long program, I think you will see what I am writing about. I would not go so far as to use “boring” to describe it, though some of the commentary does That’s not usually how skaters start out in the long program.
It would be interesting to run videos of the first halves of Zagitova’s program and Medvedeva’s program side by side, as well as running the second halves side by side.
My feeling is that if skating is purely an athletics competition–which I agree Zagitova won–why not have the skaters just skate with no excess motion in between jumps performed without music? More like half-pipe.
Normally skaters don’t throw all the jumps at the end - true. But…normally skaters did not raise their arms over their head until Medvedeva did. Then given the extra points due to the increased difficulty, more attempted to incorporate that variation. Some were able to - and you saw that not just with Russia skaters, but others, including Bradie Tennell. It involves relearning those jumps with a higher center than they were trained since they were kids. Some will be able to and some not.
In the short program - Zagitova (82.92) outscored Medvedeva (81.61). In the long - both ladies had same exact final score (156.65) - with Zagitova having higher tech components # and Medvedeva having higher “program components” (eg artistic). It was the short which won it for Zagitova. Not her putting all the jumps at the end of the long. As with the change in raising the arms on jumps, some skaters would be able to put all jumps to the end but I think many would struggle to have the strength and stamina to jump clean or jump at all. All that boring footwork and spins are not restful activities and then to throw all those jumps in without error at the end shows alot of strength (and likely youth). But I agree, Zagitova doesn’t have the drama that Medvedeva always brings. They are both beautiful to watch.
I kept wishing Medvedeva would goos in an extra jump…at the end…but she didn’t.
Agree…they are both great skaters.
Personally, i think the Canadian who placed third was the best of the lot…total package…in the long program.
Medvedeva is not the first to jump with her arm(s) over her head. I remember Brian Boitano doing it in the 1988 Olympics. I believe he was the first and some variation of the move is named after him.
As amazing as Zagitova and Medvedeva are, it’s unbelievable to think that Russian figure skating is so deep that Z and M may not even make the team for the next Olympics!
I gave up and went to bed when the curling was 5-5 last night. That was a mistake…
It was groundbreaking when Boitano held his arms over his head doing a jump in 1988. I believe it was called a 'Tano triple.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see different Russian skaters 4 years from now. We were all entranced by the Russian skater 4 years ago, but now she can’t even make the team.
Some years ago, I read a book that addresses the issues of artistry and athleticism in women’s figure skating–possibly Inside Edge or Edge of Glory by Christine Brennan. It’s been a while and the book is dated now, but the author (Brennan or someone else) mentions that Kwan had the jumps to complete with Lipinski when Kwan was younger, but in those years, more weight was given to artistry, which Kwan had not yet developed. Then by the time that Kwan had developed the artistry, she no longer had the all of the jumps that were possible for her when she was younger (smaller, lighter).
It’s not unbelievable for me to think that Zagitova may not make the team for the next Olympics, let alone Medvedeva. Zagitova will be 19. That has become old for women’s figure skating, because of the scoring system.
Men develop athleticism differently, although even among the men, one sees a trend toward younger and lighter skaters.
There is no doubt some cross-over point in muscle development vs. advantages of weight and height that will prevent a 5-year-old from ever winning the “women’s” Olympic figure skating gold medal. But I would not be at all surprised to see a 12-year-old win it, within 12 years. For the men’s competition, that is very unlikely.