Your PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics anticipation thread!

VG I was referring to the details further down in the article where she got on the Hungary team via some ancestry.com crap, ran for governor of california, etc.

oh yeah that was pretty O_o

no way this lady sounds awesome

Croatia has by far the coolest looking bobsleigh livery

Commentator does read out at least two other competitions she's been in.

Eddie the eagle still dines out on his ski jumping...

Bah, keep missing Scotland the UK in the curling.

have we discussed Robert Johansson yet

amazing stuff on the two man bobsled results

imo Bode Miller is very bad calling skiing. so dry.

yeah his technical info is good but he’s hard to listen to for a long time, v flat

even his technical info is way too 'inside baseball' for me, he's gotta realize 95% of people listening dont know what he's talking about and dumb it down a hair. learn form weir and lipinski.

i love weir & lipinski, they are v good color commentary

whats the snowboarding color guy, i like him the best

but i always picture them rolling their eyes at each other like mean girls in high school when they talk abt other skaters

weir & lipinski i mean

even his technical info is way too 'inside baseball' for me

Miller is flat, but I like the wonkery...there's not nearly enough technical info in TV sports commentary for me. I want less inspiring heroic narratives and more "here is the little technical things that make this person that little bit better than that other person."

i dont disagree, i liked the inside stuff, just feel like he doesnt get it stuff across in an interesting or enlightening way

a little variation in voice would go a long way

the nz skipipe family is fun

Ivett Toth skating to a medley of "Back in Black" and "Thunderstruck" is my idea of absolutely fucking brilliant.

Yes! And Johnny Weir has the full Hunger Games up-do tonight, LOVE IT.

Toth was rad

What about the woman who chose the score from EWS though? And Johnny actually said “Really awkward moments like these are why sometimes I wish everyone just went out there and danced to Swan Lake.” Classic.

https://deadspin.com/bode-miller-is-the-worst-sports-commentator-who-ever-li-1823188620?utm_source=recirculation&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=wednesdayAM

I freely admit I stopped watching skiing coverage because of his dumb ass.

This part made me laugh and makes listening to him sound more fun than it is:

To hear Miller describe it, the outcome of an event like the women’s downhill—contested last night to his crushing, terminal disdain—has been determined by the time the skiers get out of bed in the morning, and possibly was determined by the time the youngest of them was born. The medal-winning runs happen because of a combination of favorable external conditions and fixed personal attributes over which the skiers have no real control or recourse and into which genuine insight is impossible. The early contestants post good times because they went early and did just enough not to squander advantages that all but guaranteed their spots on the podium, not because they raced brilliantly. The later contestants are wasting everybody’s time, because no matter how well they race the developing course conditions have doomed their efforts. You are watching the rote, bloodless recitation of a script written and published at the dawn of time. It’s like having the games narrated by Anton Chigurh, only without the enlivening possibility that he will murder someone.

matt chilton for the bbc, bombastic as he is, has been great fun. he had a particularly good moment in the esther ledecka race, after he'd been giving her a full-throated commentary all the way down, and she's stunned, in that famous moment we all know now, and she finally approaches the camera and all she can say, with a weird half smile on her face, is "no. no." and chilton, invisible, on voice-over - only we can hear him - replies directly to her, on our behalf: "yes. yes!"

didnt read the article but otm. last night one of the contestants was doing well (i think it was whoever got silver) and he was like "her skis must be running great" taking all credit away from the skier. what an asshat. add all this to his sexist joke about Anna Veith racing poorly cos she got married and i cant see a way he is invited back in 4 years

Big air snowboard qualifiers. Only half watching it tbh - if I miss a 1440 they'll be another one along in a minute...

(It's very slight as sport goes, but entertaining enough. And the second heat did step it up a bit)

Can I be mean & say it wouldnt be the Winter Olympics without Lindsey Vonn crying

sorry

but she always cries!!

heh, I thought the same. I am finding it a bit annoying, but that's the cynic in me. I mean, to cry *all the time*? That can't be right.

She did good though, and it was nice to see she was accepting of winning bronze instead of gold.

yeah, it can't be easy with all the expectations and pressure you put on yourself as well

Big air snowboard qualifiers. Only half watching it tbh - if I miss a 1440 they'll be another one along in a minute...

(It's very slight as sport goes, but entertaining enough. And the second heat did step it up a bit)

― koogs, Wednesday, February 21, 2018 12:28 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

big air is hella lame to me compared to how good it should be. and compared to big air skateboard/bmx

Snowboarding and skiing sports that are about 'tricks' or 'entertainment' instead of speed and have juries to decide the outcome aren't sports and don't deserve to be at the Olympics at all. /controp

boooo

Whereas I find people doing exactly the same as everybody else at a slightly different speed very dull.

This female snowboarder had to start first yesterday. She did an 'element' really well, but the jury didn't give her the maximum score, because, and I paraphrase "maybe someone after her will do it even better". Lmao, fuck that shit man.

xp It's all dull, but at least it's an objective way of deciding who's better.

And I rue the day X games started showing big air. It's very much a one trick pony. It's the kind of thing I always assume American TV companies have introduced because it leaves lots of advert time. (Or because American sports fans all have the attention spans of newts)

You've Americans posing as Hungarian to make it to the Olympics. Of course it's because of the said newt's attention span of Americans.

big air bmx is insane and awesome imo

The first person does seem to have a disadvantage, yes.

The luge commentator kept talking about how a lot of it was due to having the best equipment. Is that fair?

(didn't bmx / SK8 big air replace best trick? That's mostly why I took against it, I used to like best trick, it was more varied than tricks that were just BIG)

Equipment should be equal imo. How you treat it is a different matter though. I saw a report about the Norwegian squad having their own weather man in their midst, who's an expert on all things snow. He measures the snow on the slopes every day. Not sure what he measures. The snowiness of it idk. But they base how to wax the ski's or the boards according to his info, at any given time of the day. That, I respect.

The photo finish pics of the pointing at the finish line in ski cross tickle me.

It's tough as a judge to score events for which the factors that make up a strong performance are multiple, complex, and/or impossible to measure. You don't get to go back and lower the score you gave competitor A when competitors B through G do all the same things even better. The first athlete up is always at a disadvantage because judges have to leave room for the possibility of having to award higher scores later.

Lindsey Vonn going all out. Her run was so aggressive, it was stressing me out.

Hingham represent!

I'm going to be a total stereotype but I hope our Canadians girls wipe the US girls out into oblivion in this gold medal game (and for all the next gold medal games in history).

it's a great game so far!! so much speed on both sides

dammit, what a sweet tip

poulin is such a baller