Monobob Gold and Skiing Wipeouts

Hello and welcome to Sports Illustrated's Daily Rings.

I'm Dan Gartland here with Mitch Golddich.

Mitch, we talked about it being a lighter day, but I tell you what, never a dull day at the Olympics.

Yes, we did say today would be a lighter day, but I believe I said something to the effect of, well, something will come up because it always does.

Today, I think this afternoon.

It was one of the craziest stretches we've had in any day with just like 5 events happening at once where I'm just like, desperately scribbling down notes on all of them and just like interesting things kept happening.

I'm looking at my notes from like 6 o'clock this morning.

I wrote things down that I just don't even remember seeing at all.

Just that's how many things happened today.

Um, so yeah, wild, wild day 10.

I think we should just dive right in.

Yeah, you mentioned, you know, hectic afternoon, but I wanna start in the morning with the, this is probably the most memorable part of the day was that men's slalom on the alpine skiing, uh, really fascinating results there.

So, as a refresher for folks who might have forgotten after the, the, uh, giant slalom events, this is one of those ones where they do 2 runs.

First one was super early in the morning, it's 4 o'clock in the morning, and it was really crazy conditions there.

Uh, the snow was falling pretty heavily, and it was just carnage out there on the course.

Um, 40, well, I have the number here in front of me, um, there were of the uh 93 skiers who started the race, 49 of them did not finish, more than half, and so, um, it was just nuts how, like, you know, they just kept dropping like flies.

Finally, we get to the second run.

More drama ensues.

Uh, Lucas Pennero Broughton, by the way, he fell on his first run, the defending gold medalist in the, in the giant slalom.

So, uh, we're expecting a new gold medalist here in the technical event.

The leader at that time was another uh, was a Norwegian, another dual national Norwegian born in America, raised in Norway by the name of, um, Otley Lee McGrath, and he, he was first place after the first run , in good position after everybody else goes down.

He's going last in the, uh, in the, in the 2nd run here.

He misses a gate, he skis out, and then he has, like, just this really stunning, um, I don't wanna call it a meltdown, it seems, but just like a really display stunning display of emotion where he takes his skis off, he throws his pole, his poles, he throws, he, he then climbs over the orange safety net, he starts trudging through this, like, loose packed snow in his snow boots, he's falling and uh like the camera zooms out and I'm Like, where the hell is this guy going?

And he just kept walking until eventually he reached, like, the edge of, like, a wood line, uh, you know, the edge of the woods, and he lays down in the snow on his back, just, you know, staring up at the sky, puts his hands over his face at one point.

It was a really unbelievable scene and just a, just a really incredible show of emotion from him.

Yeah, tough to watch.

So you say through his pole, we should say, I mean, he launched it like a, like a javelin thrower.

It's hard.

I don't want to make fun because this is a brutal situation.

I mean, a lot of people who lose, you, you see how they handle it and you say, OK, yeah, like that's how I would react too.

I mean, this guy was set up to win a gold medal, um, and then went to.

Who did not finish totally off the podium.

You know, it is one of those things where people are going to have fun with it.

Like I did see people were, um, all over social media sharing pictures of like Richie Tannenbaum, uh, when he, uh, like takes off his shoes and his socks at the on the tennis court, uh, in the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, but like you just have to feel so bad for this guy, um.

I, I saw more of his backstory that I didn't see until, uh, that I didn't know about until after, but, um, apparently his grandfather had just died, um, like I think the day of the opening ceremony maybe, and so I said on the broadcast it was even during the ceremony.

Oh wow, yeah, so that's awful lot, and I think cause he, he skied in an earlier event in these Olympics, and so I saw some old quotes where I think even then he had said this was like one of the toughest weeks of his entire life, which is like so brutal, um.

Uh, you know, on top of this, I, I mean, you're, you're thinking, probably in his mind, he's thinking like, oh my God, I'm gonna win the gold medal, and it's gonna be this amazing thing for my family and this horrible week that we're all going through, and then for it to end the way that it did on just such a treacherous day.

We've been talking all Olympics, how it's just such a, you know, roll of the dice that some days the weather is beautiful, and we've got, uh, the bright sun and shirtless cross country skiers and then Some days we've got, um, you know, fog and you can't see anything down the mountain and blind turns and half the field wiping out and we've had snow affect different events and , and just to see this.

I mean, you know, it was the same conditions for all those guys right at the end there, but, um, you know, man, you just, uh, you miss one gate, and this is just one of those events where it's not like the downhill where if you have sort of a wobbly turn, you at least have time to sort of recover, um, and get back into it.

It's like if you miss a gate, you're just out and the gates come so quick in this event that it's just really tough.

Yeah, I mean, so it was, the weather was clearer for that second run, so the weather was not to blame for him skiing out, um, but yeah, the first one was really brutal, and, and, um, so, uh, McGrath and Broughton, Penniro Braden, they're actually close friends from their time together on the Norwegian national team before Peniro Braden switched to the, uh, the Brazilian side.

Um, so, you know, that, that, you know, gotta feel bad for, you know, the two of them having this really terrible result.

Um, there were some quotes from some of the fellow competitors, um.

About, about the scene with McGrath.

This one here from uh Henrik Kristofferson, another Norwegian who ended up winning the bronze.

He said, that's allowed, this is sports.

What are sports without the emotions?

And I thought that was, you know, it seemed like all the competitors, they, they kind of felt that, uh, this is just , you know, look, he's, he's well within his rights to, to have this reaction because it was just such a brutal way to lose, you know, after having such a great first round, he's got a decent cushion.

They're going into the 2nd run and then just, you know, couldn't, couldn't finish it.

It was, it was, it was rough.

Yeah, that, that image of seeing him like sitting by that orange fence reminded me a little of Mikaela Shiffrin 4 years ago, um, when she had a couple races that she didn't finish, and sometimes you just need that time to cool off and, and I get it.

I saw that he did, um, actually speak to the media like 2 hours later, and he, he said to himself, like, you know, hey, I just needed a little time to cool off and be by myself and, and certainly it's understandable with everything going on.

Yeah.

Um, so Andto the Yule actually did win, right?

I mentioned Kristofferson when he got the bronze.

Uh, it was a goal for Luis Maillard of Switzerland, uh, and, uh, Austria's Fabio Gastrain, he won silver.

So Maillard, the, the Swissman, he now has 3 medals at these Olympics, one of each color.

He'd won the bronze in the giant slalom, and the silver in the team combined.

Great Olympics here for Switzerland in alpine skiing.

Um, so, Austria is the all-time leader in alpine skiing medals.

However, Switzerland is next, so Austria's got 128.

Switzerland is next at 75, that's entering these Olympics.

Um, Switzerland has now, they're now in the, in the lead with 9 medals in 2022 and 8 so far, uh, this summer, so they , they're, they're now on pace to lead twice in a row.

Uh, the only other time that Switzerland has led the medal table in alpine skiing was 1988, so a real heater for the Swiss alpine skiing team, uh, they're, they're really on a roll here.

Yeah, I had, um, I had a couple other sort of random notes about, uh, this event.

I don't know if you have any other thoughts on the medalist that you wanted to get out before I move on to my, OK, so, um, the one thing that I wanted to make sure I said today, we've been talking about the drones and how cool they've been for, uh, like a bunch of different events, including at the sliding center, um, and basically all over the Olympics, it feels like we're seeing the drones.

I thought they were particularly helpful in the, uh, In this race, in the slalom, because I think it's like the first time that I got that really good depth perception on how far away the gates are from each other.

And, uh, you know, this is always, it just looks so fast, like how quickly they hit the gates.

And it felt like with the drone in particular, we got a new angle.

They were talking a little bit on the broadcast about the gates being, I believe , like 34 ft apart in certain spots, which they do.

In like 8/10 of a second.

Um, and so I just wanted to give a shout out to the drone operators.

I feel like that's been a huge story and, and online, people are talking about it and I saw like a segment with Mike Tirico in the primetime one night talking about it too, and I, I know a lot of people have really enjoyed them, but I thought in, like, in this race in particular, it was great.

And then I don't think we've mentioned this for any of the, uh, any of the alpine skiing we've watched, but I also love this, uh, thing where they show you the team rating.

And they, and they actually like put the transcript of it up on the screen before the skiers go.

Um, and so I don't watch F1 at all, but I believe this is also common in F1 where you get to like listen in on what they're talking about.

But, um, a sport like this where there's just so little visibility and the weather changes, and sometimes the weather is different at the top of the mountain than it is at the bottom.

And it's just fascinating hearing them talk about, um, like, you know, hey, here's what you need.

To know on this turn, or here's what it's like here, do that, and they're getting that like very last minute advice.

Um, I have just come away from these Olympics with a, a much greater appreciation for all of the alpine skiing.

And , um, part of that is I, I think you and I are both maybe just like watching things more closely.

I feel like I'm watching a lot more closely than I have in years past because of this podcast.

Um, but I feel like between the drones and the radios, um, I just have, have come away really enjoying it.

Yeah, the team radio thing is interesting because, you know, sometimes you're like, you're, it's interesting to hear like when which Swiss guys get their info in French, which are in German, and, you know, sometimes you're like, there's there are some teams like, it's not an English speaking country, but the information is being delivered in English, you're like, what's that about?

Um, but on the topic of multiculturalism, I wanted to bring up some of these smaller nations who had a really interesting result.

I, I thought 3 men who did did something at these Olympics nobody else has done.

So that's Ireland's Cormac Comerford, Ukraine's Dimitri Shapiuk, and Israel's Barnabas Shulos.

They are the only three skiers on the men's side to compete in all 4 alpine disciplines, the downhill, the super G, the giant slalom, and the slalom.

Um, all 3 of them finished all 4 races, which as we.

Saw today, not a given, especially on the, on the slalom course where the conditions were really bad, but they all made it successfully down the mountain in all their races, not missing any gates.

Um, now, the best finish was Shula's twenty-sixth place finish in slalom.

So these are not medal contenders.

Um, but you know, it's, it's an instance where The bigger nations, right, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, um, the US, where they're sending the full complement of the maximum of 20 skiers on their team.

They've got to pick and choose, you know, which ones are gonna be in which event.

For these countries, you know, they just have the one guy, maybe there's, there's another one who has, you know, a specialty discipline, uh, so they get the opportunity to race them all, even if they haven't done it on the World Cup circuit.

Um, so I thought it was really interesting.

See these guys and if, I'm not sure if this is gonna be the clip we pull out for YouTube, but I am wearing my, uh, County Dublin Gaelic football shirt in honor of Cormac Comerford, who is from Dublin, who trains on a dry ski slope there.

I had to look up, they mentioned this several times on the broadcast, dry slopes, and I was like, what does that mean?

I looked it up, it's like a plastic hill, and you see people skiing on it.

It seems like, you know, look, if, if you're a If you're a skiing fan who, who loves to hit the slopes and you live in a place like Ireland that, you know, is not cold and is generally pretty flat, you go to these, uh, artificial ski slopes and you ski on, on dry land.

But, uh, it's amazing that a guy like that can make it from there to the Olympics, and not only that, but complete all four races, which only 2 other guys did in this entire Olympics.

Yeah, I'm picturing now the cool runnings, of course, when they're doing the bobsled down the mountain.

I guess we could do plastic slopes and have skiers from Jamaica too.

Wait, I, I want to make sure I heard you correctly.

So you said they, they were the only 3 who, uh, who attempted all 4 races and they also happened to finish them all, or they were the only 3 who, who successfully finished them?

Were they, were there others who, uh, attempted they were, they were the only 3 who, who were in all 4 because.

Like the field for the slalom, and they got down.

All 3 who attempted it also finished every race.

Yeah, that's cool.

Correct, yeah, the field for the slalom is quite large.

It's like over 90 people, like, as I mentioned before, whereas the downhill, I think it was like more like 30.

So, um, it's the fact that like they were selected to compete in the downhill is, is pretty interesting, um, you know, there's super competition there, so yeah, but then they happen to also be in the, in these more technical races as well with the larger fields .

All right.

Well, while we're on the topic of, uh, some skiers who are not medal contenders today, that leads me in very well.

We got, uh, this was, uh, I heard from one of our podcast listeners named Kim Cox, who was checking in from the West Coast, uh, saying a little tough to watch, uh, some of these things live.

I don't know if she's been checking out that midnight curling that I've been hyping up for all of our Pacific Time Zone, uh, listeners here.

But she, she said she wanted to, uh, mention, she wanted us to mention AJ Guinness, the.

Greek skier who had a ceremonial run down the course today, and she says, that is totally what the Olympics are all about.

I did not see this, so I went to look it up after.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find video of it because, uh, just the way the world works.

If NBC doesn't put up the video on social media, it can often be hard to find.

And I went into their, uh, like their peacock list of highlights and he was not listed, but I was able to read about this.

So I will, uh, tell you what I read about a ski race I didn't see.

Um, but basically, he is, uh, he, he, uh, and I got a lot of this from a story that I saw from Yahoo.

Um, he gave Greece its first ever winter sports medal with a surprise, uh, silver at the 2023 World Championships.

And so he lined up today at the starting gate, but then stayed away from the gates and just waved to fans and coaches on his way down.

Uh, and had these great quotes.

Uh, he said, being able to end it, he said, this is the end of his career.

This is, this is the end, this is the end of my career.

Uh, being able to end it, kicking out of the gate to become an Olympian, something I've never done before, something magical.

I'm a kid who grew up in Athens.

I spent 16 years in Greece and grew up 200 yards from the ocean .

To be able to stand here today, everything ski racing has given me in life.

If you could have told 10-year-old AJ and his parents, they would have never believed it.

Um, and basically he said he's had 10 surgeries, he's been able to come back every time, but this one he couldn't manage.

Uh, I had surgery a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately, they cut the nerve or something , something wrong happened.

It got to the point where I couldn't fight it anymore.

The pain was overwhelming.

Um, although it was a tough decision to make, it was the right one.

Yeah, I just, I love this story too.

Somebody qualifies, you know, you wait your whole life to qualify for the Olympics, and then unfortunately you're taken out by an injury.

I mean, we saw Lindsey Vonn, who has been in a bunch of Olympics, but she still said, hey, I'm gonna compete and give it one last chance even after I tore my ACL, um.

To see this guy in this event, uh, who clearly means something to Greece with the, uh, the winter, the Winter Olympic sport medal, not at the Olympics, but a, a winter sports medal, um, and to give it one final run.

Yeah, I imagine that was a really cool moment for him and for all the fans to be there and watch him go down and and wave on his way down.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I love how these kind of overlooked stories, they, they do get that shine at the Olympics and, and, you know, ways that they, they wouldn't in in other sports.

It's, it's great to see people get a little bit of attention for their accomplishments even if they're not, uh, you know, winning events.

All right, well, you said that the uh downhill skiing was probably your favorite thing that you saw.

I'm gonna go in a slightly different direction because I think my favorite thing that I saw all day was on the bobsled track.

We've been talking for a couple days now following this uh Mono Bob event, which yesterday had 3.

Americans in the top 5 and in great medal position, and then I'm guessing anyone listening to this has already seen and heard the results, uh, and maybe even watched the, the replay or caught it live, but , uh, Ilana Meyers-Taylor, a gold medalist finally in the, uh, Mono Bob and GART, this is just an awesome moment.

Yeah, it was, I mean, like you said, uh, I didn't get to watch this.

I was watching a few different other things.

I caught like bits and pieces of it, but like you said, trying to break through, win that gold medal, and she finally got it, uh, you know, not another, not to spoil anything, but another American got bronze, uh, and, you know , and of course, a German and silver.

So, uh, you know, we've been talking all all Olympics long about that German dominance on the sliding track, and so it's nice to see the US kind of break that streak.

Yeah, so I want to give sort of the play by play cause how this happened was, uh, was sort of amazing.

Um, I'm sure a lot of people were like tuned in or we'll see the highlights from the 4th heat, but we gotta talk about the 3rd heat, cause the way this works is they do 4 runs and it's cumulative time, cumulative time for all of them.

So for heat 3, they went in order of the standings, and the leaders went first.

So it was uh Nolte from Germany, and she goes down first and bang, track record right out of the chute.

So then coming up right after her was Elena Meyers, Ilana Meyers Taylor, and she comes in and another track record, she tops Nolte by 700 of a second, and then Callie Humphries, Kaylee Humphries, who was the defending gold medalist.

In this event, she comes down third and ties Ilana Meyers-Taylor's 59-08.

So literally the first three runs of this heat are all track records, um, and of course, the US is, uh, inching closer to the gold medal stand.

Um, they also had Keisha Love in there.

Um, she was, uh, a little bit behind the others, and so she was like sort of falling out of medal contention a little bit.

Uh, I mean, she was in it cause especially the way the sport works, you can have like one bad turn and lose like half a second.

Um, but it was pretty clear that, uh, that we had the two Americans who had separated themselves and then Nolta was still in there.

Um, and then, yeah, coming in for, uh, for the 4th, uh, we did not see any track records.

The time was a little bit, the times were a little bit slower, but, um, yeah, it was really just dramatic, uh, seeing, uh, Kaylee Humphries post her very good time, and then Myers Taylor comes in after her , and she posted an even better time, and then you're waiting to see Nolta and, uh, and.

Wondering if she's gonna keep her time ahead and she's like a little bit shaky and the commentators are very helpful, leading us through, you know, how people are doing.

Um, and then to see the results and Ilana Meyers Taylor, just the emotion that she had, uh, after it was announced that she was going to be an Olympic gold medalist finally, uh, at the age of 41, uh, competing in her, this is now 5 separate Olympics she's won a medal in, uh, and she has 6 total medals, which ties her with Bonnie Blair for the most of any US Winter Olympian.

Um, and so she's had like an unbelievable career already, and then just this is the capstone on top of it to keep going at this, uh, you know, in the sport at 41 and finally be a gold medalist.

It was pretty unbelievable.

Yeah, super fun sport here, a great way to like kind of whet the appetite for the bobsleds or first bobsled medal, rating at the men's mono Bob as well, and then the uh the, the two men and the 4 man and two women, 4 women.

Um, so yeah, like, great to, to get you really rare raring to go for some more bobsled action.

And yeah, like you said, the, the Myers Taylor, her story is fantastic, waiting forever for that gold medal, now here at age 41, finally breaks through, you gotta feel good for her.

Yeah, I meant to say this, um, running through the, the orders of the finish and everything, she won by 4100 of a second.

So, if you were like obsessing over all 4 heats and how people are doing and, and watching them, you know, each checkpoint it comes up with like, OK, so and so is ahead by 1200 and now 200, and now behind by a little bit, and, and just every 100 of a second matters.

She wins it by 4.

I have a few more stats about her.

Um, so I mentioned the 6 medals, uh, ties Bonnie Blair, I should say Bonnie Blair has 5 gold medals.

So I think people still consider her the most decorated, uh, US Winter Olympian , uh, and, and obviously all the, you know, those are incredible achievements as a speed skater, um, but still 6 medals total does tie that.

Um, she is now the, uh, second black woman to win a, a winter individual gold after Erin Jackson, um, who we talked about, the speed skater who won last time around.

Um, Matt Norlander of CBS, I saw him point out that she is the oldest ever Winter Olympic individual gold winner, again at 41 years old.

Um, Ken Childs, our guy who is, uh, who came on and did our preview episode.

For the sliding sports.

He had some, uh, extra context on her season, and he, uh, posted on Blue Sky.

It's worth pointing out that this was her worst season possibly ever.

Not only did she not podium, she was rarely in the hunt due to a back issue that started earlier in the season.

The couple of weeks off before the games gave her time to get healthy, and this is the end result, Mono Bob Gold.

Um, you mentioned she has a great story.

I saw a lot of people sharing this.

She has, um, Two young sons who are both deaf, and one of them has Down syndrome, and she, you know, obviously travels the world for all sorts of competitions and has talked a lot about traveling with her kids and being a mom and being an athlete and balancing everything.

And she's just this amazing story.

I was thinking after it happened, I was like, she's like a perfect candidate to be the flag bearer at the closing ceremonies.

And then I googled and looked it up.

She was already the flag bearer.

For the US at the 2022 closing ceremonies, which I had forgotten even before she was a gold medalist, and now she has a gold medal to her name.

But, uh, just like a perfect cherry on top of an amazing career and cementing herself as a Winter Olympics legend and it was just, you could see it too, just her reaction, uh, when she won it and, and seeing the emotion come over her and, and thanking all of her, you know, her army of people there helping her and her support system.

It was just such a cool moment.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I missed some of that backstory and it's, it's great for you to, to provide it for all of us here, um.

Any more on that if we move on to some hockey?

Uh, no, let's move on to hockey.

Let's do it.

Yeah, so, so this, so, uh, as we're recording here, the Canada-Switzerland game just ended.

We thought we were clear to record and, and then Switzerland got a late goal.

We said wait a second, I'll just plow ahead.

It's not like they're gonna give up another, but, um, I guess, yeah, we'll start with that Canada game because it just did end.

It was, uh, this is the, the 2nd of the two semifinals.

The Swiss, uh, Sweden lost to the US, or we should probably makes more sense to phrase, frame it from a US perspective when they say the US beat Sweden earlier in the day anyway, um, so yeah, so Canada beat Switzerland 2 to 1, uh, outshot them 46 to 8, uh, just a real, a real shellacking there, but Switzerland did manage to get one by and make it a little bit interesting there at the end.

The earlier game, not as interesting.

US beat Sweden 5 to 0.

It's the fifth straight shutout for Team USA.

Their goal differential now 31 to 1.

They've scored at least 5 goals in every game.

Uh, they had 5 different goalscorers today.

They have 15 players now have scored a goal, and uh Hannah Bila of the US, she leads the way, she has 4, most of the.

Most on the team and tied for most in the tournament.

Um, just, yeah, a great performance for them.

They've been so good throughout the, throughout these games, throughout the past couple of years, in fact, just really on a, on a tear, uh, best team in the world, it should seem.

Um, I mean, it took like, they're really dominating.

Sweden took Sweden 11 minutes to get their first shot on goal, just like, really killing it.

Um, and that sets up a, a, a huge, um, gold medal game, US versus Canada on Thursday, really excited for that one.

Yeah, so I've, I've got a few, uh, stats here also.

The US outshot Sweden 13 to 2 in the first period.

Um , I didn't realize it took 11 minutes for their first shot that had some context, but I, I did see, so then they were only up 1-0.

Um, the, the second period though, Sweden was getting a lot more shots on net.

I believe they had 12 at one point.

I don't know if they added any more .

Um, but it looked like the game was a little bit closer and then the US just piled it on, uh, winning the second period 4-0.

They scored goals 34, and 5 in a stretch of under 3 minutes late in the second period.

So it was one of those where it felt like it was a game and then all of a sudden it wasn't.

Um, you know, I guess, I guess the first period was dominant enough that maybe people didn't feel that way, but it felt like.

Like Sweden was at least hanging around, um, until they weren't.

You mentioned, uh, the shutout streak is now 5 consecutive games.

That is the, uh, the longest shutout streak in Olympic hockey history, uh, for either men or women.

It is now at 331 minutes, 23 seconds and counting.

Um, Sweden actually had a very long shutout streak of their own.

We've talked about how they had a very good goal differential playing in that Group B.

Sweden had a streak that got to 211 minutes until it was snapped, uh, in this game by the US, um.

The previous long streak, uh, I want to make sure I have this right here, that the US broke .

The previous long streak was by the US men.

It was 245 minutes back in 1924.

So it's, it's a, uh, that's a long time, over 100 years.

And then the, uh, the previous long in women's hockey, uh, and also the previous long, uh, by anyone this century was the Canadian women's team, uh, 199 minutes in 2002.

So, Not just dominant, but like really dominant we haven't seen in a very long time.

And um we've got the matchup.

We knew US Canada were heavy favorites and we expected that would be the gold medal game and that was the one that everyone wanted to see.

The, you know, they have played already and the US did win that one pretty handily, but, um, you know, I think we all wanted to see this matchup in the gold medal game and, and we're gonna get it, but then they have a chance to really, I mean, they keep winning every game 5-0 or worse.

So, you know, if they do that again.

People are talking about like the Dream Team and some of the US women's basketball teams that have been , uh, just dominant and, uh, you know, they have a chance to really put themselves up there with some of the greatest teams we've ever seen.

Sometimes it's a little bit, uh, scary to, you know, give a, uh, it sounds like hyperbole almost to say that and like, who am I to talk about, like, you know, over 100 years of Olympic history, but I think there's always some recency bias and, and depending on what the, the outcome of the gold medal game is and the final score maybe, I think people are gonna have some of those conversations.

Yeah, and I think it's, it's looking pretty good for the US in this gold medal game, even though Canada, like, you know, they're the top two, but it's really the US is at the top right now.

Um, this is gonna be the 195th all-time meeting between these two teams.

It's pretty cool.

Um, the US has won 7 in a row, uh, and 8 of the last 9, including a 5.

0 win that we saw earlier in the Olympics in the preliminary round.

Um, and so they, they both won, 5, sorry, 7 Olympic medals, the US and Canada, but Canada's got 5 golds compared to only 2 gold for the US.

So a chance here for the US to narrow that gap.

And also on the other side of the bronze medal game, gonna be interesting because Uh, Sweden and Switzerland, both, you know, not really uh consistent medalists in this sport, at least on the women's side.

Um, Sweden, I think has two medals, I think it's like 02 and 006, and then, um, Switzerland only has one.

They, they won a bronze in 2014.

So, uh, whoever wins theirs would be really happy to get a medal, uh, cause it's been a long time coming.

All right, well, speaking of , uh, some team sports, uh, sliding things around on ice, are we ready to move on to our uh daily curling update?

Yeah, please lay it on me.

All right, tough day today.

So, uh, only one game, uh, one curling match for Team USA, and, uh, thought it was gonna be an easy one, but I mentioned on yesterday's show that, uh, the US women.

to take care of business, uh, against a, a previously winless team Italy, and they lost this game, uh, pretty handily.

It was, uh, they were down big early, or well, they, well, Italy sort of just kept like tacking on points, like, I think they had 3 steals in a row and they just built up a lead.

And, uh, yeah, this is when it ended up, it was, uh, 7-2 after the 9th, and then they conceded.

Um, so the US women have fallen down to 4 and 2 in the standings, and now probably need to win two of their last 3 games, uh, to make the playoffs.

I think they're still in playoff position currently, but their road to the playoffs got a lot tougher today.

Yeah, that's a, that's a tough, you know, like you said, it when only 4 teams advance, you really, I mean, every game is so, so important, and they seemed so, so well set up after that 4-1 start, and now, yeah, it gets a little hairy, and, um, but, you know, I think, look, if they played so well earlier in the tournament, you maybe you throw out the one today and say, all right, that was a fluke, you know, let's get back to our winning ways, but Yeah, it makes it makes it a little more, uh, a little more difficult.

Yeah, just to give you an idea of how much Italy has been struggling in this tournament, they, uh, they went ahead 1-0, and the commentators announced that that was the first time Italy had stolen a point the entire tournament in their sixth game, which is, uh, kind of unbelievable, but I, I did, there was one other thing that was really interesting in this game for anyone.

who watched it that I wanted to talk about here.

Um, cause we've spent so much time talking about controversy in curling and accusations of cheating and poor sportsmanship and, uh, you know, people telling each other off across the sheet.

Uh, there, there was, we saw it here, um, we've been talking about like, boy, it's amazing that they don't just like run into the stone while they're, uh, you know, trying to Slide down one end to the other and, and they like sweep where the, the stone is in between the broom and their feet and they're sweeping back and forth and they don't hit it.

Well, we did actually see, uh, that situation for the US here.

It was in the 7th end with 4 rocks to go each.

And it was an important moment in the game because the US was down 4-1, and like, this was one of their last good chances to really get back into it.

Um, and as the US was, uh, going down, um, the broom just kind of got caught in the ice and, uh, like on, uh, like a sweep back and forth, uh, it just like didn't move the way it was supposed to, and it just kind of like clanged into the stone a little bit.

Um, and so it led to this very interesting scene.

We've talked about how, um, this is like the, uh, one of those sports.

Where there's sort of a gentleman's agreement and you, there's an honor system and you call your own violations, and there's not a ref unless one of the teams starts cheating and then you ask for a ref and then World Curling puts out a statement about it.

But most games are not like closely reffed, they're just talked about by the team themselves.

So what happened here was the, the US and Italy teams were just like discussing together what to do.

And protocol here is you just kind of put it where you put the stones where you think they should go and based on like, well, this is probably what would have happened, which is very interesting because there's obviously there's skill involved in curling the stones.

So it's hard to be like, well, this is what would have happened because, you know, I'm so good at sweeping, I would have put it here.

Um, but they, uh, they were, you know, the mics, the announcers had laid out so you could just like hear what they were talking about, um, and I guess because this It was inside of the hog line.

When we've talked about the hog line, it's usually been like where you're releasing it, but there's the hog line on the other end of the uh sheet when things are coming into the house.

Um, but because it was inside the hog line, I think Italy had some latitude to just kind of say like, you know, hey, this is what it's gonna be, we're gonna move it here.

Um, but, uh, I, I caught some of this conversation.

The woman on Team Italy said, what do you think?

And Tabitha Peterson, the skip for the US, said, I'll let you decide.

And the one from Italy said, no, no, we can decide together.

And it was just this like very nice moment of sportsmanship, um, and then they just sort of like worked together to put the stone, uh, I think they had to, they moved that one and like one other one, and they just like put them where they thought they would be, and everyone was good with it, and they were like, OK, like let's just pick back up from there and then.

And they just continued in the middle of the end.

Um, and then Italy ended up, I guess, um, you know, ball don't lie, they did, uh, pick up another point in that end, uh, to go up 5-1 and then ended up winning.

But, uh, yeah, it was just like fascinating to watch that play out cause we had talked about it being a situation that sometimes comes up.

Uh, but then after all of the sort of sportsmanship issues we've seen pop up.

Curling, they're all like, they're fighting each other, um, and here it was just this like excellent sportsmanship, and so it's just funny to see that contrast.

And I don't know if part of that was because Italy was, uh, previously 0 and 5 and is not in contention to get out of, to be in the medals, but still, you'd think they want a fair competition forever and they don't want to just like hand the US some points when they don't need to, but it was just interesting to see that all play out.

Yeah, it's it the, the, the particular situation here is interesting, right, because as you mentioned, Italy down in the standings, up big in the games, but, you know, and, and it's kind of the middle of the end, the middle of the, the, the round, so, you know, so to speak.

The fact that it's called an end makes it very difficult to talk about.

Um, anyway, it's the middle of the end, right?

It's not like the, the last throw, and you're like, jeez, what the hell are we gonna do?

Like, you know, there's still an opportunity cause like, there's so many, you throw those last 4 rocks and it's like, they're, they're all gonna get bounced around anyway, and it's like.

If one, you know, it's kind of, there's a little bit of chaos there anyway, where it's like, you know, you put one here and then it gets bounced around the outside and the inside, and, you know, you don't know where it's gonna end up.

So, um, there's a lot to be decided by those three rocks where, like, putting it, you know, half a foot to the, to either side uh of where it would have ended up without being interfered with is You know, not really gonna be a big difference, but yeah, they're lucky that it occurred in a relatively low pressure situation because if it was like, you know, imagine this , theoretically this could happen like the final end of the gold medal game on the last rock, and then, you know, you have a, a real, a real problem on your hands.

Yeah, I think, uh, I think the future of this sport at the Olympics is going to be with referees and officials in some form.

It feels like that is necessary and, and there's been enough attention on it that, uh, you know, I, I can't imagine they won't have some sort of system in place, but I don't know if that's it's curling culture, I guess, and, and I think that's one of the things that people who, who participate in the sport and are really into it.

I think it's one of the things they're proud of that they are able to self-police, but, uh, yeah, I don't know, tough, it's tough.

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Got just a couple of things left, we can probably move through a little quickly.

Um, I, the, the big air, uh, women's skiing was today, and that was, uh, I mean, I, I was, I was interested in this partially because it was delayed due to heavy snow.

We saw heavy snow impact a lot of other sports, uh, on the mountain today, but, um, this is a fascinating result.

I should just mention off top, Megan Oldham of Canada, she won gold.

Um, this is Canada's 2nd goal of the Olympics, um.

We, uh, we were expecting the, the medal, the, the podium to look like, uh, Oldham, who, who had qualified first, Eileen Goo, who would have qualified second, and then Mathilde Grimaud, the, uh, Swiss woman who had, uh, who had won the slopestyle gold that she qualified, I believe, 3rd for this event.

But Grimaud, she ended up having to withdraw from the event because she fell during training, hurt her hip.

Uh, she had a teammate as well who fell and hurt, I think, a leg or something.

So, a couple of Swiss people who fell had to withdraw from the, the event.

Um, so Grimaud is off the podium, out of the event, in fact, uh, opens up the door for a couple more, you know, uh, contenders to, to assert themselves in the standings here.

Um, Guo, uh, she won silver, we should say, and like, you know, she had a, a really good first run, she got a 90 on her first run, had a kind of a wonky landing on the second, has that situation that we love, where she's got that one last run, gotta put down a big trick to get into medal position.

Uh, she was really, really good, but it was only in '89.

She came about two points shy of Oldham as the leader.

Um, but she seemed really happy , I thought, to win the silver.

She was, you know, like, hugging her coaches, you know, she's a big smile on her face, um, you know, we talked about how some of the, like, I, kind of similar to how Chloe Kim was winning silver.

In the halfpipe, um, but Kim was expected to be a gold medal contender there in the halfpipe.

This, the big air in the slopestyle, not really goos events.

She won silver as well in the, in the slopestyle.

Um, she's more of a halfpipe specialist, and so she'll, you know, she's glad to get a silver here, then move on to the halfpipe and, and really assert herself there.

Um.

Yeah, I did, did you see any, any of these runs cause they were really fantastic.

I did, and that, yeah, that jumped out to me too, how happy she was.

She, she knew it immediately, like right away after she landed, she knew that was like good enough for a podium and, and she was all smiles, but um, yeah, the , uh, the final run, um, sorry, was it uh It was Oldham.

Yeah, she had, yeah, so that that's what she had an opportunity.

Yeah, yeah, that's what, yeah, I was making sure I had the right person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, she, she, yeah, so she won and she had like that we've talked about the concept of the glory run, um, when they sort of go in and celebrate.

This was awesome because she knew she was the last competitor to go and she knew her scores from the first two were good enough to, to hold up, um.

And instead of just like taking it easy and saying, OK, I already won the gold.

Let's enjoy this, she tried to land a, uh, a trick that had never been landed in competition before, according to the announcers, which was a 14-40 with a, a grab also.

I don't, sorry, I don't have all of the exact technical terms, but that's, that's what they were saying.

But I'm just amazed watching them, some, some of them, um, for some of the tricks, they go down forwards down.

The giant ramp, and some of them, they go down backwards, and I just can't believe it that they do that.

And like watching her go down the ramp backwards, like when she's already, uh, won gold and she's just tried a new trick, like, good for her.

And that's just, I think that's, uh, the nature of this sport.

They all have a little bit of a, a bravado and say, I'm gonna land some trick that nobody's ever seen before.

I'm gonna do this cool thing that I was planning to do for my 3rd run.

Um, but yeah, that was awesome.

And then I also want to talk about the bronze winner, uh, Flora Tabanelli of, uh, Italy wins bronze.

She is 18 years old, and she tore her ACL in November.

I know we talked, we talked about Lindsey Vonn and just how unbelievable that is, and, um, to tear your ACL and then compete, uh, so soon after it and Lindsey Vonn, it was like a week after, um.

This is, you know, 3 months, but still, I mean, she tore her ACL 3 months ago, and she's a teenager and she just goes out and wins a bronze medal at the Olympics.

It's unbelievable.

Yeah, she, so she tore ACL like I said in November, and she had been like tabbed as Italy's great hope for a medal in this event, you know, as of like a couple of years ago, in fact, even though she's only 18, she won uh both the slopestyle and the big air at the 2024 Youth Olympics.

And so people looking to her as a chance to really do the home country proud in these events this time around, tears her ACL, uh, she's debating whether or not to have surgery, ends up doing rehab at the facility of the famous, uh, Italian soccer club Juventus, which is also in the north of Italy.

Um, and she was hoping to do the rehab to avoid surgery, you know, it was successful enough that she was able to go out there on this, you know, kind of compromised knee and still obviously win.

Um, and also, we should also mention here, this is Italy's first ever medal in any freestyle skiing event.

So that not just these, the, the big air slopestyle, halfpipe, the X Games style stuff, but that includes the moguls and the aerials, the more traditional, uh, you know, those date back to I think 1988 was the first time they were in the Olympics, so they never won any of those or the ski cross.

So, uh, yeah, first, uh, Olympic ski, um, freestyle skiing medal for Italy, and it comes on from an 18 year old with a torn ACL.

Yeah, in front of the home fans, so we've talked a lot about just what an unbelievable Olympics Italy's having like across the board and everything.

Um, all right, we are, we are usually not good at lightning rounding through sports.

We just, I feel like we always, I still have like 6 other things.

I want to say very quickly because you mentioned.

The weather and the sport that was most affected by weather today was the, the, uh, super team jumping.

It's, it's in the ski jumping discipline, and I think they call it the super team event, but it's really just, I don't know where the super comes from, but it's just the team jumping event.

Um, and this one was also competed in like heavy snow, and they were talking about how, um, they actually, they had a, they had a brief delay at one point, and they, uh, they, I think they're saying on Gold Zone that the issue was not actually the snow, it was the wind, and they, they just had to wait for that to die down and the snow doesn't affect them.

So anyway, they're supposed to do 3 runs, and they had to stop competition in the middle of the 3rd run.

And instead of um saving it for a different day, cause I guess they have other events, the protocol here was they just reverted back to what the scores were after the 2nd run.

And so they just canceled it, they stopped in the middle.

I think there were only 3 countries left to jump a 3rd time.

They said, can't do it.

We looked at the radar, we're not gonna be able to get this in.

So they went gold for Austria, silver for Poland, bronze for Norway.

I can imagine being pretty upset if you either had a great run, uh, on the 3rd jump, or if, or if you want to see, uh, if you've got a chance, and it's like, you know, you've got one last chance to get on the podium.

Um, but I don't, I don't, I didn't see if any countries in particular were, uh, angered about being, uh, you know, I don't, I don't wanna say.

Screwed it.

I, I don't know if anyone got screwed.

I, you know, I, I, I think it's sort of was done in a way that made sense.

We will see if anyone has any complaints overnight and we can update you, update you on that, uh, tomorrow.

But, um, yeah, it's just an abrupt anticlimactic ending .

That is definitely for sure.

Yeah, it's a weird one.

It's, it's like imagine if, you know, at a golf tournament on Sunday, there's a hurricane that comes through, you can't finish the final round, and they go, all right, we'll just go back to whatever the score was at the end of Saturday's round.

It's, it's an odd.

It's an odd solution, but, um, you know, people seem, like I said, not terribly upset with it.

I, I can't imagine that this is the first time this has happened.

It's an outdoor sport where weather gets in the way sometimes.

There was a quote, uh, from one of the Polish, uh, skiers who were on the silver medal winning team, Kasper Tomasic.

He said, um, you know, talking about how odd it was, the way that it went down.

Quote, we couldn't celebrate right away after the last jump.

It was a little strange, but it's good that they canceled the third run and we could celebrate.

Um, we are happy, but I think we still can't believe that it happened.

Yes, that's, that's a fair way to look at it, I'd say.

Yeah, I, I think, um, last on my list is the figure skating, uh, this is the, the pairs event, we're paying less attention to this because the US not really medal contenders, but there's some interesting results here, we should just run through quickly.

Um, the leaders after the short program were the German team of Haas and Woloden.

Um, they had, they were in great position to, to win a gold.

All they had to do , you know, like Elia Allen a few days ago was just put down a solid run, but they had lost 7 points on some jumping errors.

Um, I believe they're both on the female member of the team.

They got bronze instead.

Um, the gold went to the Japanese teams Kahara and Miyura.

They were in 5th after the short program.

They had also, they had struggled in that short program where they're the 2 time defending world champions.

Maybe not defending them, but they've won 2 world championships, um.

So they had, they had a great, great, uh, free skate here though, and they really, you know, they nailed it, um.

They had a great reaction after their score came in.

I was watching this and they just really, you know, couldn't believe, wow, they rocketed up the standings from 5th all the way to 1st, and it held on.

It's, uh, it's in fact, Japan's first medal in the pairs event and it's a gold, unbelievable.

Um, I also want to show, or do you have anything on, on the Japanese?

I was gonna say I, I thought I saw somewhere that it was actually like the highest score anyone has ever had in the free skate since they switched to this scoring format, um, that, that was like how otherworldly their performance was that they, they scored that high.

Yeah, I missed that, but I believe that they, they looked fantastic.

Yeah, well, that also explains like why they were so pumped about that, right?

Um, but then the silver medal, that's a great story there as well.

It was the team from Georgia of Medalkina and Berluva Berilava, I'm sorry, sorry to all our friends in Tbilisi.

Uh, they won Georgia's first ever Winter Olympics medal .

Uh, so, you know, they, Georgia had actually only ever sent 49 athletes to the Winter Olympics, and so this is the first time they'd actually won a medal, um, really great showing by them.

That, that country has won 47 Olympics, uh, summer medals that included 13 gold, mostly in judo and wrestling, but these two finally came through and, um, you know, they had a great showing, uh, got through and, and, and won the silver medal for a historic medal for, um, Georgia.

OK, and, um, yeah, we will talk more about figure skating coming up because uh the uh women's individual program starts tomorrow and when we get into our uh preview of day 11, those are gonna be some of the most anticipated events, I think.

Um, I'm mostly through, I'll just give a quick shout out.

I watched a little bit of the short track and the, uh, women's 1000.

Uh, Chandra Velsebor from the Netherlands won.

Uh, so she's a double gold winner, uh, 500 and 1000, and, uh, the Dutch have won all four individual medals so far.

Um, and I was watching this and it was really interesting because, uh, she finished the race like inside of the track.

Um, and so like I, you know, we're all picking up new rules here every time and, and it seems very clear they have to, they can't cut corners on the track.

You see them all getting as close to it as they can in the short track where they're like, Uh, leaning their fingers on the inside around those like little like circular, like, not like discs, discs sort of like cones, um, but she was like inside of that on the final straightaway, and they were just like, oh yeah, that that counts, that's good, that's a gold medal for you.

Um, and that was just like an amusing thing that I saw at like whatever it was, like, I don't know, 6:15 in the morning, like while I'm still getting caffeinated and I was like, all right, I guess you could do that.

Short track is uh sure is something, um.

And, uh, yeah, that might be it for my uh other notes.

It's, you know, we'll get to all of it tomorrow.

It's, it's impossible to get to all of it.

Every day is just so full of, uh, you know, unbelievable things.

Yeah, we were trying, we're trying to get through them all every sport in the winter because there's not, there's fewer of them.

When we did this version of the summer, the summer podcast, it was like, all right, we're just gonna, we're gonna skip a bunch today.

Hey, we talked about that yesterday.

Let's just skip it today.

So, uh, yeah, we, we're trying to do our best, but you know what, you know, we can't be too exhaustive.

I think we do a good.

Job covering the things that, that are the most interesting .

Um, speaking of trying to do our best, I do want to correct.

I, I, uh, I did make a mistake a couple of days ago and heard from a very nice listener.

I, I am totally fine with people, uh, pointing out mistakes.

I love to correct the record and I love when people are polite and, uh, appreciative when they are correcting us, which is very kind.

But we mentioned a few days ago, um, I read an email from a listener in Australia, or I think it was an Instagram comment.

Uh, someone from Australia, and I said, hey, anyone else who's, uh, listening from far away, let us know.

And I said, well, we're not gonna top Australia, but I heard from another Australian, uh, named, uh, Lachlan Hall, who reached out and said he is a , uh, a happy Australian listener.

Unfortunately, he pointed out that I accidentally misspoke a couple of days ago, and I said that, uh, Jalen Cough of the US won the dual Moguls over Jakara Anthony.

They were.

In the final against each other, but Jakarra Anthony won the gold.

And then it was the US with silver and bronze, Jalen Kough and Liz Lembley.

So I'm very sorry .

I, I apologize to all of Australia and, and especially our Australian listeners.

I did not mean to shortchange you, um, but I want to make sure we have that correct, uh, another gold for the Aussies down there and, and two medals for the US.

But, uh, I wanted to make sure I corrected myself because we, we strive to be accurate here at SI.

I think maybe in Australia, maybe the time difference allowed them to watch that live and so they had the advantage or something.

I don't know.

That may be true.

Yes, good, good, good to correct that .

Uh, yeah, we always want to make sure we get our facts right.

Absolutely.

We welcome all feedback and we still, we, it's been great hearing from you.

That is always one of my favorite things about this is hearing from people on all sorts of platforms and, and some of those Apple Podcast reviews are still coming in, which is nice.

Um, but thanks everybody, we, we love hearing from you.

Should we go on to tomorrow?

Let's go on to tomorrow.

Um, do you wanna go first here?

Yeah, so I, I don't know.

There's, there's several medal events.

Um, I guess we'll start with an early 11 that that I mentioned in our, in our preview episode, way, way, way, way back.

But, uh, the, the, uh, the speed skating team pursuit, this is gonna take place all morning.

Uh, it starts at 8:30, but the medal races begin at 10:22.

Um, they're gonna have an A final and a B final because they're pairings.

The A final is for the gold and the B medal is, uh, B final is for bronze, so only one team in that B final will end up getting a medal, so big drama there.

But, um, this is the one where it's like, it's, uh, 3 or I think it's 4 members of a team altogether, uh, trying, you know, you, your score doesn't count until the last member of the team, uh, you know, crosses the finish line.

So, previously, the strategy here was that uh teams would have, they take turns who was in the lead and and drafting.

But then the US actually pioneered this method where they're all touching each other's backs and and skiing as one unit.

I've mentioned it on the preview because it's so mesmerizing to watch.

They're in such perfect sync, it's incredible.

And the US men are actually the world record holder in favor to win the gold medal here.

Um , Jordan Stowles, the, the superstar, he's not on this team.

Uh, Casey Dawson, another top medal threat in the individual events, he is, however, so, um.

You're watching this, the US team on the men's side, and you're, hey, where's Stolz?

No, he's not on this one.

Don't worry about it.

But there's still a gold medal favorite.

Um, the US women's team, Brittany Bowe, the, the veteran, we've talked about her, she's on the women's team.

Uh, one of her final chances for a medal.

She's also racing in the 1500 m later this week.

Yeah, so I'm, I'm, uh, I'm glad you brought this up because I was gonna do the same.

I've been hearing more people talk about this, uh, strategy too on TV as these are getting closer and, and I watched their, um, quarterfinal, um.

Yeah, so the other thing that that the US did is like, I think a lot in the past, a lot of other countries would just sort of pick three skaters and put them together and say, OK, go win this, which sounds a little like the US relay teams on the track, uh, in track and field in the summer that have been criticized for not winning and not having good chemistry together.

And I think the US really took like a big picture look and said, Like, OK, let's nail the strategy.

Like, how are we gonna fix this?

And they picked athletes to actually focus on this because remember we talked, Casey Dawson was supposed to be in, um, I forget the just 10,000 or whatever,000, yeah, the longest race, and then he pulled out of that to rest for this, and it seems like the US really has athletes that are , uh, focused on this event being their specialty and, and as a team, um, and that's that group that.

Yeah, pioneered that strategy, like you said.

So I'm, I'm very excited to see them.

Um, it's, it's uh 8:30 is going to be the men's semifinal US against China.

And then 8:52 is going to be the women's semifinal US against Canada.

So yeah, I'm very excited for both of those races.

Yeah, it's be a lot of fun.

Like I said, it's like two or three full hours of racing, all that, all that really mesmerizing style.

So it'll be a good one.

Yeah, all right, well, I, uh, I mentioned this earlier, but, uh, not a medal event, but it's the start of the, uh, women's individual figure skating, which is really like one of the marquee events of the Olympics, I feel.

Um, so tomorrow at 12:45, we're going to see the short program, and then, of course, medals will not be decided until after the free skate, um, which I think is 2 days later, um, but this is gonna be just an excellent competition.

The US has a very deep and talented team.

They We have, uh, three competitors tomorrow who are all metal threats.

Um, we've talked about Alyssa Liu and Amber Glenn, and, uh, help me guard.

I'm forgetting the name of the, uh, third competitor, which I should have on the tip of my tongue, but I don't.

Uh, oh, I, I, I, she has a name inspired by an eighties movie.

I don't have it in front of me.

Um, but anyway, the US and Japan are both, um, really strong competitors, and I think like the top 5 could all be, uh, you know, like on the podium in any order almost.

Um, I believe Alyssa Liu is the, that's there you go.

Um, I believe Alyssa Liu is the defending world champ, but I know that Amber Glenn had a lot of attention on her also before the Olympics started.

So yeah, I think this is just going to be a great, some of these, um, longer skating programs, we've sort of focused it on the leaders and the top medal threats at the end.

I think this is one where you're gonna want to watch a lot more of them because I think, uh, there's going to be a lot of talent at the top that could be on the podium.

Yeah, that's gonna be a lot of fun.

I'm glad that, glad we get to see you tomorrow for the first time, um.

Big, big day tomorrow in men's hockey.

It's the playoff round.

So these are, uh, the teams that did not get byes to the quarterfinals.

These winners will go to the quarterfinals, uh, running through the, the slate real quick, 6:10 a.m. Germany versus France, Switzerland and Italy at that same time.

Czechia plays Denmark at 10:40, Sweden versus Latvia at 3:10.

The US gets the winner of that Sweden Latvia game.

Interestingly, France in that early game against Germany, gonna be without defenseman Pierre, Pierre Crignon, who was suspended by his own team after he fought Canada's Tom Wilson in the, uh, in the final group play match, uh, over the weekend.

Um, this is like fighting is like we've talked about fighting is not allowed in the Olympics, uh, the same way that it is in the NHL, and the French team, in fact, felt so strongly about, uh, his, his actions there.

We also talked about how Wilson's kind of a, a, a pest on the ice, has a reputation for being a bruiser and a, and a real, uh, nasty guy and a really talented player.

Obviously he's on the Canadian Olympic team, but he's, he's known for being a jerk.

Um, so Coron sees his opportunity to, to go after a kind of a notorious character there.

Anyway, um.

France felt so strongly about his actions there, they went ahead and suspended him.

This is not coming from the AFC, it's coming from the French Hockey Federation, which released a statement that said in quote, uh, it constitutes a clear violation of the Olympic spirit and also undermines the values of our sport.

I don't know how much I believe that second part cause like hockey is like about fighting in a lot of ways, but, uh, definitely the Olympic spirit part makes a lot of sense, so he's not gonna be there.

I thought that was interesting that they decided to show him the door, even though it's probably gonna be, uh, just that one game, he is out for the rest of the Olympics.

Yeah, it almost makes you wonder if they told him, like when they gave him the spot on the team, they were like, do not fight , like, like we are not gonna accept that, that's like a zero tolerance thing.

And so cause, cause it feels like, you know, it's almost like being suspended for breaking a team rule, more so than like an Olympic rule, and you wonder if that was like one of the conditions of like, we know you're an enforcer, uh, a pest, uh, we know Dan Gartland called you a jerk, uh, but you're, you're gonna be on the team, but you can't fight.

A jerk.

Wilson's not being Wilson's not being.

I don't know this guy Corone.

He plays in France, in the, in the French league that nobody pays attention to.

No, no, Wilson is known for being, yeah, he was fighting the jerk.

He was fighting.

This is an injustice that he should be a lot like the jerk.

Yeah, OK.

Oh, I've done a total 180 now that I've heard.

I had not heard of either of these guys until I thought your theory was gonna be that they put him on the team specifically to fight Tom Wilson, which would have been, I think, not out of the question.

Huh, all right, an hour into this podcast, we're losing our minds a little bit here on, on, on day 10, uh, day whatever it is.

Um, OK, let's, let's talk more bobsled cause it was so much fun today.

Um, so, uh, we talked a lot earlier in the show about the mono Bob, didn't mention they also had the first two heats in the two-man.

Uh, a little less drama there because I can tell you Germany is in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

So, um, perhaps the biggest drama will be, uh, can Germany have a podium sweep.

Uh, although the team that is next in line, uh, to, uh, chase a spot on the podium is the US, um, Frankie Del Duca and Joshua Williamson.

Um, they were 4th in the 1st run.

6th in the 2nd run and 4th overall.

So, um, you know, we know Germany is so dominant in some of these sliding sports, although their doors have been open for other people to get on the podium, but, uh, they are currently in position of all three spots.

So, um, we're gonna have heats 3 and 4 tomorrow, um, and if you want to tune in, that's uh 1 o'clock Eastern for heat 3, and then, uh, 3:05 will be the start of heat 4, although remember they'll have people, um, the leaders will go at the end, um, but, but get started at 3.

We've got more Nordic combined tomorrow.

It's the second of the two individual events.

This is gonna be the large hill jumping.

We have the, uh, the normal hill.

It's the same distance on the cross-country ski side at 10 kilometers.

Uh, the jumping portion starts at 3:10 a.m. with the first round, second round at 4:00 a.m. The cross country starts at 7:45, uh, which is like a, you know, that's a good time to be awake for and.

That, that portion of the race only takes about 30 minutes.

I actually watched the , the whole thing the last time they did the, the normal hill portion.

So, um, you know, it's, uh, although, you know, look, uh, as I'm watching again, I'm gonna be thinking the whole time about Clabo, but, uh, I can contact the Norwegian Federation later about that.

But yeah, if you wanna catch some more Nordic combined, that's the final individual event.

They've got a team event later in the week.

All right, I'll give you the daily curling schedule.

And listen, if you're up at 3:10 a.m. Eastern for Nordic combined, you might as well get up at 3:05 a.m. to watch the US men play against China in curling.

Um, the US men are 4 and 2, tied for third, so, uh, all games are important.

They're gonna play twice.

China is early, early in the morning, and China is only 1 and 5.

So that's another like take care of business game, uh, should have it.

Uh, but as we saw with the women's team today, that's not always a guarantee.

Um, and then they have another game at 1:05 in the afternoon against Italy.

Italy's 3-3, so that should be a more evenly matched game, and uh potentially very big in the standings with only a game separating them.

Uh, and then the women are 4 and 2, which puts them in a three-way tie for second, um, and so they'll be looking for a bounce back game, uh, and a pretty important one also against a 3 and 3 team that's going to be Denmark, uh, at 8:05 a.m. The women's snowboard slopestyle finals at 7:00 a.m. The final run will be at 7:54 a.m. if you wanna get a little extra sleep, about an hour to run through those first two runs, but the, um, Americans aren't really contenders here.

They qualified at the back of the pack, 2 16-year-olds, but the top three qualifiers were were the three medalists in the slopestyle, I'm sorry, in the big air competition earlier in the week.

Um, that's Zoey Saday Sennett of New Zealand, Kokomo Morai of Japan, and Yunun Gunund of Korea.

Uh, so those are your names to watch there.

All right, and I think the final thing on my list, biathlon, the men's relay.

I'm, uh, I'm not gonna preview all the specifics, you know, everyone knows biathlon, Norway, France, Germany, some of these teams we've been talking about the whole time.

I think they're gonna be the medal favorites, but, uh, you know, wake up early and, and watch Gart's, uh, Gart's guy on the French biathlon team.

No, he's, he's Norwegian.

He's Norwegian.

Who's the, the French woman is the one who stole the credit card.

Yeah, the, the, the dreaded Sterla Holme Laride is part of the Norwegian.

He's Norwegian.

As soon as I opened my mouth and admitted to making one mistake, I feel like suddenly they just kept flowing out of me here, where we gotta, I need a, I need a regroup day.

I had a day like the US women's curling team here at the end.

To be fair, his actions are quite French, um.

Anyway, I got two more things in, in different varieties of skiing.

A medal event 1st, 1:30 in the afternoon, it's the men's big air ski final.

Uh, we saw all those really big scores of qualifying.

It seems like we're set up for a really exciting, uh, final run tomorrow.

And, um, the name to watch there is American Mac Forehand.

He was the top qualifier in a very different kind of ski tricks.

It's the ski.

Aerials.

This is, I kind of, I liked it on the preview to like, the Winter Olympics version of diving.

This is the one where they do like the really precise twists and turns and flips and yada yada.

Um, it's like, to me, it's like the classic like Winter Winter Olympic sport.

Um, but it's the first look at that tomorrow, first time we're seeing it in these Olympics.

Women's qualification begins at 4:45 a.m. the men's qualification at 7:30.

Um, the US looked decent here.

They won gold in the mixed team aerials in Beijing, but they've only had two individual medals on the women's side and have never have not won an individual medal on the men's side since Jarrett Peterson in 2010.

China just kills it here.

12 Aerials medals in the last five Olympics, so that's your team to beat.

Another thing that sport has in common with diving is that China is very good.

That's right, yeah.

All right, well, we're through day 10.

We've got 6 days left.

I'm still enjoying it.

I still think it's fun every single day waking up, seeing all this.

It's definitely fun talking about it at the end of the day with you every day, Gart.

So, uh, what do you say we do it again tomorrow?

Yeah, let's get out of here before we make any more mistakes.

All right, thanks everyone for listening and we'll, we'll talk to you again tomorrow.

All right, see you.