Previewing Every 2026 Winter Olympic Sport

Hello and welcome back to Sports Illustrated's Daily Rings, SI's Daily Olympics podcast.

I'm Mitch Golddich here as always with Dan Gartland.

Gart, we haven't talked to each other once in the last year and a half.

How have you been, man?

Oh, I've been fantastic.

I've just been prepping for Milan 2026, nonstop.

It's been my entire focus for a year and a half, so I'm ready to get going here.

Yes, I'm excited.

Um, I wanna say hi to our, uh, returning listeners.

Hopefully, many of you were, uh, excited to just wake up and see a teaser in the feed announcing we were coming back.

Um, and also hello to all of our new followers and listeners.

Um, I guess we should probably start by sort of telling people what they can expect from this show throughout the Olympics.

Um, but yeah, the two of us hosted, uh, a daily.

Olympics podcast during the Paris Games in 2024.

I also hosted a previous version of the show back in 2016, but, uh, I'm excited to say this is our first time doing the Winter Olympics daily podcast.

So there will be a lot of new ground to cover, a bunch of new sports to talk about, uh, things that I'm sure we will learn along the way.

We, uh, have both done our homework and studied up to be ready for this, but I think we're, we're, we're gonna have plenty more.

Uh, we'll have some experts coming in.

Um, but yeah, today is gonna be one of our favorite shows where we are literally gonna, uh, preview every single sport.

There are 16 of them.

We're gonna give you, uh, sort of the, the 101 level, how they work, what are the different events, things like that.

We'll give you some top storylines, names you should know, but I think with this episode, people should be ready, uh, for all you, uh, hopefully there's stuff for the sickos, but also all you casuals.

This will be a great one to get you ready for what you're gonna be watching the next 3 weeks.

Yeah, I've done a ton of research on everything from ice hockey to the new sport of ski mountaineering.

So, we're covering all the bases here.

I am very much ready for the Winter Olympics.

I look out my window now and I see over 1 ft of snow.

So I'm in winter mode.

I'm feeling good.

I'm ready to hunker down for a long cold winter and, and just sit in front of my TV and watch the Olympics with you, Mitch.

All right, I'm ready.

We will be watching separately, and we should say, by the way, from the United States, I think we'll both be basically living on, uh, Milan Cortina time from the.

The East Coast of the US, um, but yeah, so thanks everybody who has already joined us.

And I guess if we could do a quick housekeeping, we're very excited.

If you want to, uh, subscribe and tell your friends and leave some ratings and reviews to juice the algorithm and all that good stuff.

We're also gonna have every episode on YouTube every day.

So for those of you who like watching podcasts , here we are.

We've got our fancy camera equipment set up and, uh, we're ready to go.

It's gonna be fun.

So I think anything else to share or should we hop right into some sports previews, Gart?

No, Mitch, we have so many sports to go over.

I think we got to get to it .

All right, so we are going in a little bit of a random order instead of alphabetical, we just thought this was a nice way to flow.

Hang on one second there, actually, before we get to alpine skiing, this is Mitch from the Future Interrupting.

So during the Olympics, we're gonna be taping every day, right when the events conclude, you'll have the most up to-date information.

Unfortunately, we did pre-record some of our preview content so that we could get it to you early and conduct some interviews.

So, uh, the big news here on Friday is that Lindsey Vonn crashed in her last downhill race before the Olympics, and she did have an injury today.

Um, so we are still waiting for the latest on that news.

You may already know more than we do, um, but she did say on Friday that she's still hopeful she'll be able to compete in the Olympics.

Anyway, you will hear us talk about Lindsey Vonn in our alpine skiing preview, um, but that conversation already happened, so we just wanted to give you this update.

And now back to the preview podcast.

Um, so I will get things started with one of the marquee events of the entire Olympics.

Let's talk alpine skiing, which is always very popular and definitely has a chance to produce some real stars.

There will be returning stars you've definitely heard of.

Uh, so let's get right to it.

There are 10 medal events, which, uh, works out to 5 each in men's and women's.

Those events are the downhill, the super G, the slalom, the giant slalom, and the team combined.

So these are your classic timed skiing events.

I know we're gonna have other types of skiing, cross country and jumping and freestyle.

Uh, these are the classic.

Uh, they go down the hill, they go around gates in some cases, uh, they get to the finish line.

So there are two that are considered speed events, which are the downhill and the super G, two that are technical events, the slalom and giant slalom, and then the 5th 1 is a team combined.

So, what to expect a little bit.

Uh, the downhill is the fastest event.

They can go up to 80 miles an hour, which is ridiculous to me as a non-skier.

It is terrifying to watch.

Uh, I constantly am worried they're gonna wipe out.

Um, you'll see them get airborne a little bit on the course, um, and that is sort of, uh, that's like the fastest one, and then they sort of, um, there's like a, almost like a spectrum where it winds down like the length of the course and how many gates they have to go through and how much time they have in between gates, uh, as you get to the more technical ones.

So the super G stands for super giant slalom.

It's still very fast, but it's a shorter course with more frequent gates .

The, uh, then they get to the slalom, which is, um, Basically it's like every second, it's like really hypnotic to watch it cause you're seeing them just going like gate gate gate gate gate all the way down the mountain, uh, and then the giant slalom is a little bit more wide open.

Um, so, and then I mentioned the team combined.

The way that works is there will be teams of two, where they'll have one skier doing a speed event and one doing a technical.

So, let's talk big names.

I mentioned you will be familiar with them.

First off is Mikaela Shiffrin.

She is now 30 years old, and this is her 4th Olympics.

Uh, people probably remember last time she raced in 6 events and she actually failed to finish in 3.

I went back and watched some of those videos again this week.

It was really tough to watch her reaction right after it happened.

It was a huge story.

Um, and so this time.

She'll be competing in the slalom, the giant slalom, and in the team combined.

Um, she's coming in on fire, which you should know.

She won 7 World Cup slalom events this season.

She's a favorite to win gold.

Uh, it would be a huge story.

I'm sure people would view it as a, a redemption story, given everything that happened in Beijing in 2022.

She already has 2 gold medals and a silver.

Two more golds would tie the Olympic record.

Uh, speaking of big names, we've got Lindsey Vonn, who is now 41 years old.

She retired in 2019, which to give you a little context, that is a year before Philip Rivers retired and everybody raved about him coming back.

Uh, she had a partial knee replacement, uh, but she's back.

She won her 84th career World Cup win in January.

Um, she won gold in the downhill in 2010 and has other bronze medals, uh, and they are basically two of like two all-time greats, and what's really cool is they could actually team up together in the team event, which would be like dream team stuff, uh, it would be very fun to see them together.

Uh, a couple other names , uh, quickly.

Breezy Johnson, uh, is a speed specialist, and she is the reigning downhill world champ, uh, and we could also see her in the team event.

She's 30, but missed the Beijing Olympics with an injury, um, did compete in 2018, but looking for her first medal.

Uh, the US men's alpine team is a little less successful, um, historically, but they bring back, uh, Ryan Cochran-S Siegel, who won a silver and Super G in 2022.

And there's a uh , a man named Marco Odermatt, who is nicknamed the Swiss Blade, who has 4 consecutive overall World Cup titles, 3 world championships.

He'll do speed and technical.

Um, so yes, lots of skiing.

We'll be talking about this one a lot, I'm sure, and, uh, you don't have to memorize it.

We'll be giving refreshers every day on like what's coming up.

Uh, so yeah, run through a lot.

I, I don't know if I'm going to be that in depth.

On every single sport, but it feels like alpine skiing is a big one.

No, yeah, that's, that's one of the big ones.

The Lindsey Vonn thing is, is, I think one of the most incredible stories of these Olympics.

Like you mentioned the Philip Rivers comparison.

Philip Rivers is not going downhill at 80 miles an hour, you know, it's like, at her age to be doing that after a long layoff to come back and do this thing that's like, honestly, death defying is, is incredible.

And especially at this particular course.

that they'll be having the, the women's alpine skiing at.

We'll get more into that when we talk about some of the venues, but this is an iconic course where there's this really like, um, it's a terrifying section that passes between two rocks.

So, um, you know, you'll be seeing Lindsey Vonn, 41 years old, you know, after coming off out of retirement and going through this, this rock shoot, and, uh, you know, it's, it's gonna be really a sight to see.

Yeah, Vaughn and Schiffer, they are going to be must watch every single time they're on the slope, and we will definitely make sure everybody's updated on exactly when those races are going to be, so you can watch them.

So I've got freestyle skiing, which is, you know, kind of a sister sport, right, to the alpine skiing, but this is the one, it's a, it's a really, they put a lot of things under the freestyle skiing umbrella.

So you have those X Games type events, right, the halfpipe, the slopestyle, and the uh big air where they're doing tricks, right?

But then there's also the , um, so included in this, there's there's 15 total medal events, right?

So there's those I mentioned.

There's also the aerials, which is the one, that's the one where they don't do, they don't use poles, they just go up a ramp and flip and twist, and it's kind of like the Winter Olympics answer to diving in a way, you know, where they're doing these highly technical moves, right?

Um, very precise, um, that's the aerials, and then you have also the moguls, which is the, the bumps, and then the ski cross, which is the, um, The, it's like a race with obstacles and any sport that has cross in it, the snowboard cross, there's a, there's a, the BMX cross in the Summer Olympics.

These are all always super, super fun.

Uh, that's what I'll be looking forward to for sure.

Well, may I say, sorry to cut in.

The kayak cross was one of our favorite events back in the Summer Olympics one.

Yeah, so yeah, there you go.

So, uh, there's a new event this year, there's a few, a couple of new events across the games, and there's one in freestyle skiing, it's dual moguls.

So it's, um, two skiers going down the hill at the same time.

And they are head to head.

It's a knockout format.

It's kind of similar to the parallel giant slalom and snowboarding, where people are going down, you know, one against another, whoever finishes first, they advance to the next round.

So, that'll be an interesting little, little wrinkle in terms of uh new events to watch here.

Um, for people who are, who you should keep an eye on, um, it's a, like we said, it's an enormous, uh, list of events here, so keep it kind of brief.

But, um, Eileen Gu, the American athlete, she's, um, she was born in, sorry, American born, she represents China, but she was born in the US.

Um, she won gold in Beijing in the big air event and then silver in the slopestyle.

She's only 18.

It was a real sensation at those, at those games in, in Beijing, uh, 4 years ago.

Um, another potential teenage phenom.

15-year-old Indra Brown of Australia, she's gonna compete in the halfpipe.

She's viewed as kind of a fringe medal contender, and again, at only 15, pretty amazing.

Um, and then in terms of the halfpipe as well, the one reason that, that an athlete like Brown might have a better chance of medaling is that France's Tess Leeux, who won silver in 2022, she's gonna miss this year's games.

She's out with a concussion, she suffered in March, so nearly a year ago, she's still dealing with these concussion symptoms, and, um, released a statement a few weeks ago saying, yeah, I wish I could be there, but she's just still not, not that far along in her recovery and needs to skip the games.

Um, on the men's side in slopestyle, American Alex Hall, he's the defending gold medalist and we're back again looking to defend that medal.

Um, so a real, a chance for him to, to repeat there.

All right, and I did forget, uh, how much I enjoy hearing you, uh, share your French accent there with some of these names and, and locations and other things.

So I, I, I hope our listeners had the same experience I did hearing that just bring back fond memories.

So that's good.

Yeah, I nailed it on test, didn't I?

All right, well, we're still in skiing mode, so let me tell everybody about cross-country skiing, which I will say I have a new appreciation for.

I went cross country skiing for the first time in my life, about a year ago, and I was terrible at it.

There were some uh brief moments where I felt like it was the fastest I had ever traveled doing anything, and so I cannot believe that they actually go down the hill at 80 miles an hour cause all I did was the, uh, cross country version.

These people are crazy.

And I'm excited to watch them, but anyway, that's enough about me.

I think we should hear about the, uh, actual Olympic athletes.

Uh, I, I like the cross-country skiing.

I actually was watching a lot of it, uh, just YouTube highlights in my prep for this.

It's, it's exhausting for the athletes.

This is one of the sports where they will just all collapse into a heap when they get past the finish line, and you'll just see all of them laying there just like totally spent, uh, which also I think gives you an appreciation.

For how hard they go, uh, and how far and how long.

Um, so yeah, there are, uh, 12 medal events in cross-country skiing, which is 3rd most of any sport.

Only the freestyle skiing and the speed skating have more.

So that is, uh, 6 men's events, 6 women's.

One big change this time around is that they have made all of the distances the same for the men's races and the women's races, which were different for a long time.

They have evened those up.

Um.

There's a lot going on here.

There, there are 6 events in each gender, but it's not like they just have 6 races with 6 different distances.

They have different types of techniques.

They have mass starts and interval starts.

Uh, so I will try to break down a little bit, uh, some of the basics here .

Uh, so first, let me explain the two techniques.

There's classical and Freestyle.

So, pulling from NBC's website here, classical is the traditional striding technique.

It can be compared to running on skis.

Then the freestyle, which is often referred to as skating, is more of a push out and glide motion where the skier makes lateral movements relative to the direction they're traveling in.

So the classical is when you're gonna see the skis basically set in those parallel grooves, and they're just going straight down the line in the grooves.

They'll have multiple sets, so you'll see skiers next to each other, you'll see them sometimes hop from one track to the next one if they're like stuck in a bad lane, I guess, whereas freestyle is much more out in the open.

So the events, there's the 10K freestyle, which I've also seen just called the individual, um, that's a 10K 6.2 miles.

They also have a sprint, which is of course that's just about a mile long.

There's a uh team sprint, which is on the same mile course, but they'll have teammates alternating laps.

There's the skiathlon events where they will actually do a 10k classical, followed by a 10K in the freestyle, and that's a mass start event.

They'll have a relay with four skiers, uh, each doing legs, and then they have the 50k mass start, which is 31 miles longer than the Olympic marathon in the Summer Games.

Um, and, uh, yeah, so those are, so I guess I sort of ran through them all, but I'll say, you know, the 10K, it's a pretty simple concept where it's an interval start, and they all start, uh, someone starts every 30 seconds, and so you'll see then the best time wins, um, whereas some of them are more like mass start where it's really the first person to cross the line, uh, is gonna win the gold medal.

Um, the mass starts are great, it's just like chaos cause obviously, uh, it's not like.

You know, when you're running a marathon or running on the track, you're trying not to bump into anybody.

That becomes a lot more difficult when you have skis that are out in front of you.

I don't know how long the skis are.

I probably should have looked that up, but obviously you have to be careful with your spacing to not knock people over, and there are rules about not obstructing people and, uh, you know, making sure you're, uh, handling the course correctly if people sometimes get off the course.

Um, the, yeah, the, uh, the ski athlon is awesome.

I loved watching that.

Um, the mass dart, like I said, it's just kind of like chaos, and you'll see them in the grooves and they break out of the grooves for a little bit to like jockey for position when they get to the next one.

It's a very, uh, auditory experience watching it cause you'll just hear the clanging of like the poles into the ground and like the skis and everything.

Um, I mentioned the 50 km, which is a long distance.

The women did 30k in Beijing.

Um, but I've got some times here just to give you an idea from the 2025 World Championships, the top men finished in 1 hour and 57 minutes, and the women finished in 2 hours and 24 minutes.

So again, longer distance than a marathon, just totally exhausting.

They will, the Olympics sort of treat this like the marathon of the Winter Olympics, where it's on the final weekend.

Um, so the women's 50K is actually the final individual event.

The only events that take place after that are the hockey and curling gold medal games.

Uh, Norway is incredible.

They have 129 medals all time.

The US, the US has 4, so they're 129.

Um , this is also a sport where there's a lot of crossover between the athletes in different events, so we will get to know some people over the course of the Olympics.

If there's a favorite who wins or a surprise, uh, underdog who wins, we will then get to see those people again in future events, which is fun.

Uh, get ready to hear the name Johannes Clabo.

He has 7 Olympic medals and 5 golds.

Uh, the records are 12 and 8.

He's already tied for the second most.

Uh, Brian Cazeneuve, who is SI's, uh, amazing medal predictor for every single event , predicts that he'll get 3.

Golds and a bronze, so he has a chance to really rack up a bunch of medals.

He, he's, his Olympic medals are in sprints and relays, but he also won the 50K at the world championships.

So it's like if the top marathon runner in the world was also like winning 800 m races on the track, he's just like great at everything, so that'll be a lot of fun.

And where is Clabo from?

Uh, he is from Norway, which I've mentioned the country that is dominant and, and excellent, yeah.

Um, so again, we'll get to see him, and then I mentioned that the US has 4 medals all time.

I should say Jessie Diggins has 3 of them.

Uh, she has one of each color, including a gold in the team sprint in 2018, and then 2 medals in 2022, and she will be back in a few events.

Um, the US men have a 50 year drought, but, uh, Gus Schumacher and Ben Ogden have a chance.

They have both medaled in international competition.

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot to take in there.

I mean, I, the, the times, right, it was interesting to me how like the times for that uh 50k are almost kind of similar to a marathon, right?

Obviously, breaking the two hour marathon limit is like one of those great sports quests, but, you know, people are getting close.

Um, so it seems like it's, it's just a few minutes off from the marathon timing and those, those women's times are also pretty close to elite women marathoners as well.

So interesting little comparison there.

And it's cold, man.

They do it they're out in the cold for two hours.

Yeah , yeah, yes.

So I've got ski mountaineering, which on the surface, it might look a little bit like cross country to to the untrained eye.

So, this is a brand new sport.

Um, I'll, I'll get to the comparison in a bit.

This is a brand new sport.

Uh, making its Olympic debut this year.

It's been contested obviously in world championships previously, but managed to fight its way onto the, the program this year.

Um, it's known colloquially as Skimo, and I love that name.

I think that's the way we'll be referring to it going forward.

Ski mountaineering is a, is a mouthful.

Skimo, you know, just rolls out the tongue a little bit better.

So, you're gonna have 33 medals awarded here as a men's and women's sprint race and a mixed relay.

Now, I should explain what the sprint races are.

So, they could, they consist of two segments.

There's an ascent and a descent.

So, at first, the skiers climb uphill , kind of similar to, it looks a little bit like cross country, except cross country skiing is like, mostly flat.

Mitch, you mentioned you went cross country skiing last year.

I went a few years ago with my wife in Vermont snowshoeing at a cross country ski facility.

We had a great time, you strap on these shoes, you basically hike through uh the woods, you know, go and eat your lunch, this little picnic table and go back, you know, it's a good workout, right?

Next year, we're in a different part of Vermont, and we decide, oh, this place has has snowshoeing as well.

Let's go do that.

But this place was a ski mountain, and we didn't realize that their, their snowshoeing trails were just going up the mountain.

So we made it about a third of the way and we said, we're not having fun, and we turned back down and we had a beer.

So, in the ski mountaineering, what they do is they climb up the hill, like my wife and I were doing that second time.

So, you're going up, up, up on these skis, it's really quite vertical.

So, First, you, you, you start at the, at the base of the mountain, you climb up, and then you reach your first transition zone.

Now, this is gonna be some stretch of more rugged terrain, either um some loosely packed snow, or in some cases, some of the courses have just straight up stairs.

So, you take your skis off, and there's an order in which you must take your skis off and like where you put your poles and what you do first and yada yada.

So, you take the skis off, you throw them in your backpack.

This might be the only Olympic sport with a backpack.

So you throw it on your back, and then you continue going uphill, again on foot.

They call this boot packing, cause you're just wearing your ski boots.

You continue to climb, you reach another transition zone, where you put your skis back on, continue to climb, then you reach the summit, at which point things get really, really fun.

So what they do here is as they transition to go downhill, they all, they, they are transitioning, so I should mention, when they go up the hill, they have these strips of material on the bottom of the ski, they called skins.

They're like uh some kind of a goat fur that allows you to go up the hill without sliding back down.

Now, when you're gonna be racing down the hill, you need to remove these skins, and in a sport like this where the transition time is really, really important, right?

If you take 5 seconds of your transition, you're gonna win.

If you take 30, you know, nobody, nobody ever sees you again.

So, the fastest way to do this is to keep your skis on, bend down, grab the bottom of the skis where the skins are, and then you jump and rip your arms back, and you tear, tear off the skins all in one motion, you stuff them in the front of your shirt, because again , there's rules about the order in which you do the transitions, but also, like, you can't just leave your skins, you know, on the ground for some other guy to trip over, so you stuff them in the front of your shirt.

And then it's a straight, you know, downhill ski race at the bottom.

Not, not, you know, downhill in the Olympic, you know, in the, in the alpine skiing setting, right, where you're going 80 miles an hour, but it is, it is a, a downward slope you're, you're going, and then, you know, whoever reaches the finish line first wins.

Now, that took a long time to explain, but the event itself takes only 2.5 to 3 minutes, the sprint race does.

Um, so it, it falls in line with these newer sports that we've seen the Olympics introduced in recent years, right?

The rugby sevens, the, uh, The skateboarding, break dancing, where it's like, the events themselves, they're really quick.

And, you know, I think it's, it's important, you know, obviously, people have shorter attention spans these days, but also, even if they didn't, you know, it's, it's a good way to, you're, nobody's gonna really invest in a two hour, you know, people, if, if, if the cross-country ski , you know, marathon was a new event, people wouldn't really tune in, right?

But now that this is a newer event, they're, they're finding ways to, to get people involved and saying, oh , I'm only gonna watch, you know, it's, if it only takes 3 minutes or so, like, I'll, I'll tune in and watch that.

Um, by comparison though, the, um, the mixed relay event, they're doing multiple circuits of the course.

Uh, that takes more like 30 minutes cause you have a man and a woman from each country who are, you know, they're doing a relay.

Um, the interesting thing about that is, Each competitor completes multiple laps of the course, which requires at one point, putting the skins back on the bottom of the skis, a transition that takes quite a long time.

And if you mess that up, then, you know, again, you're in trouble.

So, there's a lot to like here.

Um, I'm really excited for this.

I think it's gonna be a fun event.

Um, it's really grueling.

You mentioned, you know, how, how tough the, the cross-country looked, you know, this is just, you're going really uphill, like , I've seen some camera angles where you're like, this is really, really tough, and, you know, without those skins on the bottom of your skis, you'd, you'd be sliding back down really quick .

Um, in terms of the US, you know, we, we always try to look at things through US lens a little bit.

So, the US did qualify for this event.

It was really touch and go there.

They waited until, like, the very last minute, they got two racers in the event.

Um, one of them is Cam Smith on the men's side.

He's a 13-time national champion.

And on the other side on the women's, there's Anna Gibson, she's 26, she's brand new to the sport.

She was originally a Team USA mountain runner who was recruited to try Eskimo by Smith.

Um, she's from Wyoming.

So she has some, you know, winter sports experience and also is an elite endurance athlete.

And so Smith said, hey, you'd be good at this.

She said, All right, I'll give it a try.

And then they won a World Cup event in Utah in December.

Um, and that punched their ticket to the Olympics.

And so, you know, not only is it's going to be a cool sport, but you're gonna have some Americans taking part as well.

Sounds awesome.

Very excited to see it.

I think this is gonna be one where people see it on TV and they're like, what on earth is this?

The clips of them removing the skins from the skis.

Uh, and I also just have to say, chuckle to myself a little bit, you talking about, uh, dwindling attention spans as we sit here, uh, dropping what is quickly becoming a ninety-minute podcast episode, but you, we'll, we'll get going a little bit, but you could split it up over a few.

A few days, uh, you can listen to us on 1.5 speed, uh, but yeah, this is, uh, I, I love that we're going in depth.

I love that.

This is, this is why we're doing it.

I think this is a, this is a lot of fun, uh, for me to learn from you and, uh, from for everybody to learn here and get some fun facts.

So, uh, so speaking of some fun facts, let me tell you about not just biathlon, but the history of biathlon as an Olympic sport.

Uh, biathlon combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

And I saw that it debuted in 1960, which surprised me, because this feels like one of those sports that's like an ancient thing, and I was a little surprised that they didn't have it until 1960.

Digging a little further, there was a sport called Military patrol in 1924.

And so if someone asks you, hey, what's your favorite Winter Olympics event, you could say, oh, I love the, the, uh, military patrol in 1924.

Um, then they had that in three subsequent Olympics, uh, though not consecutive.

That's where they had troops of 4 with an officer, an NCO, and 2 privates, and they would ski and shoot.

Um, so anyway, now we have biathlon, which, uh, it still sort of feels like an ancient skill.

It's like of a time when you would have to, you know, like shoot a moose and then ski away, I guess, but, but it has survived.

Like we've talked about modern pentathlon in the Summer Games as sort of like, uh, you know, preserving ancient skills when like these five sports together once upon a time made sense.

Um, but, uh, we can move on to the modern version.

Uh, another thing I like about this is you will see them shoot the guns and then they sling the gun over their shoulder and carry it with them while they're skiing.

They, they look like Bond villains basically on the course.

Um, no backpack though.

No backpack.

I don't think so.

I don't, I don't know, uh, I'll have to take a closer look.

They're not like, they're not jamming it in a backpack, that is true.

Um, I will say, and probably said this two years ago, I don't love the shooting events in the Summer Olympics.

Um, I prefer archery to shooting just like as a visual, but I can get behind this one.

I enjoy this more, I think.

Um, part of it is, uh, so first off, they're not shooting at targets with bull's eyes, they are shooting at, there's like a row of 5 white circles that they shoot, and when they hit.

One, like a cap pops up and covers the, uh, the circle, which is a fun visual, but I also like that, uh, you know, they're skiing and so sometimes they're shooting standing up and sometimes they're laying prone on the ground, and you can see how heavy they're breathing cause they just like also skied around this course.

And so I think that adds to a lot of the skill factor.

I mean, obviously, that's, you know, that's part of the challenge for them.

Um, but I think it's, uh, you know, and I, I mentioned the noise at the cross country skiing.

This is also, I was watching like a mass, um, starting event where they were like laying down and like 12 of them are shooting at the targets, and you just hear like clang, clang clang and like caps, and there's like a fun graphic on the, uh, screen letting you see when people had, uh, made a successful hit.

So there's just a lot going on here and it's kind of a, a hectic sport that's fun to watch.

Um, 11 events here, there's 5 men's, 5 women's, and 1 mixed relay.

Um, the distances here are a little different for men and women, but the five events are the same.

There's an individual, a sprint, a pursuit, a relay, and a mass start.

So the individual is the longest race.

It's 20k for men and 15k for women.

They'll do 5 laps around the track, plus 4 shooting stations, uh, in between the laps.

Twice they shoot standing up, twice they shoot prone, and they add 60 seconds for each target that you miss, and then use that to calculate the fastest time, fastest time wins.

So, the sprint is a shorter race, and you only have 3 laps and 2 times that you're shooting, but instead of a 62nd penalty, they actually ski an extra penalty loop that's 150 m.

So, I like the idea of the penalty loop.

It's like a little humiliating in the same way that in hockey, like going to to the penalty.

Penalty box is humiliating a little, or supposed to be .

Um, I also just imagine it's very demoralizing, like while you're skiing, you have to think about how you missed the shot, and instead of just like adding on the time, there's like a penalty where you're exerting yourself even more in a sport where again, like, it's all cumulative and the fastest time wins.

Um, the pursuit race is slightly different.

It takes all the competitors from the sprint, and they start in the order they finish with the top sprinter going first, and then they're being pursued in the pursuit, you get it.

Uh, they have 5 laps and 4 times that they're shooting, and instead of focused on time, this is just the first person to cross the finish line.

So I like that that's like how the setup works, uh, and the events, uh, you know, relate to each other that way.

Um, the relay events, there will be 4 athletes per team, 3 laps each, the penalty loops are back in place, so now you're doing penalty loops and your teammates are watching you.

How demoralizing is that?

Um, the mass start, there are 30 athletes going at once.

Um, and yeah, I mentioned the 1st 3 that I talked about are interval starts.

The relay is like a simultaneous start.

The mass start is really like everybody's going, um, they do 5 laps, they have penalty laps, first person to cross the line wins.

Um, the US has never won a medal in biathlon, but, uh, Campbell Wright could be the first.

He won silver in the men's 10K sprint and pursuit at the 2025 World Championships.

Um, I feel like that would be a huge story, any American to be the first to medal in a given sport is just gonna be a huge thing.

Um, he has a cool story.

He's 23 and was actually born in Rotorua, New Zealand, uh, where I went on my honeymoon.

Uh, you, you told stories about skiing with your wife, so I'll give a shout out to my honeymoon, uh, in New Zealand.

Um, he competed for New Zealand at the Junior World Championships and in the Beijing Olympics.

Um, his parents are Americans who had emigrated there, and he's a dual citizen, um, and he now competes for Team USA.

Uh, the men's field is wide open with the retirement of the Norwegian Bow brothers, who have 8 Olympic gold medals between them, but they are gone, so the field is open.

Um, the top American woman is Deirdre Irwin, who finished 7th in the 15K in Beijing.

And, uh, the last thing I'll add is, and, and I think you mentioned this for the alpine skiing, but this, this venue is also, this is like a regular stop on the circuit.

Um, so, um, uh, it's another sport where like familiarity with the course is helpful, um, and I'm sure everybody like studies up.

This is one where they don't have to study up as much cause, uh, top competitors are here.

I think it's like an annual stop.

Um, so I know we're gonna do some specific venue talk a little bit later in the week, um, but this is one that the, uh, the athletes are very familiar with.

Yeah, you mentioned the, the shooting aspect of it.

I think the part of the what that part of what makes it interesting, uh, in biathlon is that it's outdoors, right?

And it's in the winter.

So sometimes people are, they're having to deal with snow and wind and, you know, the conditions can make it a challenge as well, which is, which is more exciting than in the Summer Olympics where it's indoors or, or even the archery is outdoors.

It's not, not as much of a factor, but yeah, having to deal with that weather and like you said, the, the heavy breathing, it adds a certain level of, of, uh, challenge to it that makes it more interesting than I think than the summer version.

Yeah, and I do think we will be on weather watch for a few of these events.

Um, I know like the alpine skiing is one where if it's too windy, they'll move stuff.

Um, it's sort of like if you remember how tough the surfing was to follow when they had it in Tahiti last time around, where it was like every day we were checking in on the wind and the size of the waves and, um, you know, I think it's possible that, uh, that schedules will get adjusted.

So that, that's just another reason people are gonna have to listen every day because we'll do our best to tell you what's coming up.

You, you can't just print out the schedule on day zero and then hope that that holds you all the way through.

When I did my venue research, I saw that one of the alpine skiing, they're using two different mountains.

One of them in one year recently, they had to cancel the World Cup event there because there was too much snow.

I don't know if there's gonna be too much snow this this year, but, uh, that is also a possibility that the snow sports can be impacted by having too much snow.

Yeah.

Oh, how are the Winter Olympics?

Uh, too much snow.

So , speaking of snow sports and mountain sports, I've got a snowboard.

Um, there's 11 events here.

I think you can, I have kind of, like we said with freestyle skiing, how there's like a million sports in this one umbrella, um, and they're all quite different.

I've kind of informally grouped them into 22 groups here.

There's the racing and the tricks.

And so the racing ones are the parallel giant slalom and the snowboard cross, right?

You mentioned the, the cross sports where it's like a kind of a race with obstacles, and then the parallel giant slalom where you're going down the mountain, um, side by side with the competitor whoever reaches the bottom first, they win.

Uh, and then tricks, you know, these are the ones that you're familiar with.

These are the big air, the halfpipe, and the slopestyle.

Um.

In the parallel giant slalom, a huge story in 2018 in Pyeongchang was Esther Ledeka, the Czech woman who became the first person to win gold in two different sports at the same Olympics, when she, when she, I'm sorry, she won the skiing super G and the snowboard slalom.

Uh, she's not gonna get a chance to repeat that feat this time around, because, like we mentioned, the different venues here, so the snowboarding and the, um, men's alpine skiing are taking, taking place in the same region.

The women's alpine skiing is at a different mountain, 4 hours away, and the finals of Ledeka's 2 events are taking place only 2 with a 2 hour difference.

So it's physically impossible for her to make, uh, both events.

And it's really a disappointment for her.

She was hoping to be able to, to repeat that history that she made in Pyeongchang.

Um, I have a quote here from Olympics.

com.

She said, I cried a bit a few times about it, but we did the best we could.

I understand that it's not easy to coordinate the program, but I believed it could be done.

I'm the only athlete who was qualified for the event in two sports for the 3rd time.

So I was hoping they would take that into account.

And the committee just, you know, they, they didn't do that.

They could have made it on a different day or whatever, but they, you know, they just decided for whatever reason to make the schedule the way they, the way they did it, and um she's out of luck.

So, that's too bad.

Um, in terms of other, uh, snowboarding legends, you might know the name Lindsay Jacob Ellis, the American who was an icon in snowboard cross.

She finally won her first gold, uh, last year in Beijing.

She's retired now, but she'll be part of the NBC broadcast team for the snowboard cross event.

So, um, get to hear her voice and obviously she'll have some great impact, uh, great insight into the event, uh, coming from that perspective.

Um, other big stars, Chloe Kim, the American, right?

She's the star in Halfpipe.

She's seeking a 3rd straight gold medal.

Mitch, I wonder, I learned this in my research.

Are you aware, as our, uh, as a senior editor on NFL team, she's dating Miles Garrett?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, this is, this is a thing.

This is, I had no idea.

I, I, I was googling, you know, her results, and then there was like a quote from her about Garrett breaking the sack record.

I had no idea.

So that was a fun thing that, yeah, no, there were clips of her.

Um, yeah, I mean, if you think.

Uh, training for the Olympics is grueling.

How about attending Cleveland Browns football games in person?

Truly, she did this season at times.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, uh, another American to watch, uh, Red Gerard.

You may know his name from the 2018 Olympics.

He was 17.

And, uh, this is his whole family was got out there that those Olympics.

Yeah.

Yeah, so this is a funny story, right?

So, so Gerard, he won gold in the slopestyle.

He was 17.

Um, he almost missed the event because up late night, he was up late the night before watching Brooklyn 99 on Netflix, and he overslept his alarm.

His brother called him, was like, where the hell are you?

Where are you supposed to be out here?

He wakes up in a, in a, a mad dash, he's running around his room trying to find his jacket, can't find his jacket, has to borrow a roommate's.

His roommate was a uh a skier, I believe.

So, he borrows the roommate's jacket, gets out to the mountain, his first two runs go terribly.

You can imagine, like, the kid's probably freaking out cause he's, you know, he's in, he's almost missed the thing and he's, you know, barely woken up.

Uh, first two runs went terribly, he's in last place after his 1st 2.

His 3rd and final run, he nails it, an amazing, amazing run.

You can watch it on YouTube.

I think we're gonna be talking about the Olympics YouTube channel a lot on here.

It's like they have a lot of good stuff on there.

You can watch his whole run, it's only like 2 or 3 minutes.

Um, perfect run , nails it, gold medal, and then, you know, the, the judges put the scores up and he lets out an F-bomb on NBC which, even though the broadcast was delayed by 30 minutes, NBC for some reason did not edit it out.

So, this guy becomes a legend overnight for this, this crazy story he had where he's, he's, it's a mad dash in the mountain, has this big comeback win, drops the F-bomb, Mike Trio's got to apologize.

Um, so, super fun guy.

He finished 4th, uh, last time around in Beijing, but he's looking to add another medal this time around.

He's only 2025, so, you know, still at the top of his game, he could be a threat here in the medal for sure.

Um, I will also mention a couple of, uh, non-Americans, some big stars, um, Ayumu Hirano, he's Japanese, so he won silver in 2014 as a 15-year-old, silver again in 2018, and gold in Beijing, back again looking for another medal in the, uh, the men's halfpipe.

And then another medal favorite in men's halfpipe is Japan's Ruka Hirano, who is actually not related to Ayumo, just two elite snowboarders from Japan who happen to have the same last name.

OK, I have a couple of athletes coming up who have uh same names as well, so we will get to, uh, we will get to some more of those.

Um, I'm gonna move on to, uh, what most people out there probably think of as bobsled, although a lot of the official language calls it bobsled.

Uh, I think very similar.

I was pretty militant in the summer about calling it table tennis and not ping pong.

I think I will be less militant on this and probably I will be OK calling it bobsled, but I will try to use the official bobsleigh, uh, when possible and when it seems appropriate.

Um, so the, uh, all three of the what are called sliding events, which are, uh, bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton, uh, take place at the Cortina Sliding Center, which is a famous venue that hosted the 1956 Olympics and multiple world championships.

The, uh, track is newly rebuilt in 2024, but it's on a famous venue.

Um, so bobsled has 4, I just did it, bobsled has 4 medal events, luge has 5, skeleton has 3, we'll get to those in a little bit.

Uh, but the 4 events here are the 2 man, the 4 man, the 2 women, and the mono Bob.

So mono Bob is a sport that was new to the Olympics in 2022, and spoiler alert, I like it.

Uh, the basic format, there will be 4 runs in 2 days.

Final standings are determined by aggregate time on the runs.

Um, on the final day, they'll have the sleds with the fastest times going last, so there's, you know, that dramatic, uh, style where it's like the, you know, the leaders just have to have a good run to keep their lead and , uh, sets up for an exciting final, uh, final run.

So all three of the bobsled, and I assume people know bobsled, it's, you know, it's the ice track and you're in the sled and you go down.

I think if you have not seen cool runnings, you've hopefully at least seen, uh, a clip of it or a meme or something, but, you know, they're basically, they're inside the sled where like their bodies are contained.

And their heads are sticking out and they're wearing helmets and they're going down the, uh, like an ice tube looking track.

Um, so in all of the bobsleds, bobsleigh events, they're gonna get a running start, uh, and then jump into the sleigh on their way down.

I love the four-man.

Uh, I do love Cool Runnings.

Our long, long time listeners who, uh, listened to, uh, the show when I did it with Alex Abnos in 2016, remember that the name of that show was Very Olympic Today, which is a quote from just like a total throwaway line in the movie.

But I can tell you I have had, uh, I don't know about many, I've had plenty of people, uh, like tweet at me, uh, in the years since, like, I'm watching Cool Runnings and I just figured out where you got this from when they just, when that line hits your ears, um.

But my, uh, my enjoyment of the 4 man is not just because of cool runnings.

It's also just, it's fun to watch them get into the sled at the top of the , uh, of the track.

It's like this really chaotic moment where they're just like, sort of one at a time, but also like interconnected.

A couple of them are going at the same time at the end.

Like all getting into the sled, it's a very coordinated, very practiced routine.

The start is really, really important, um, even though most of the race they're sliding around turns and steering and all that stuff, but like your timing getting into the sled at the top has such an impact on, uh, how you do going down.

Um, the monob Bob is also very impressive where, uh, the woman stands behind the sled, pushes it forward, and jumps in.

Then the, the two men and the two women, that's fun, but I just find it less interesting than the 4 man, where there's a lot more going on.

They have one off to the side and one in the back.

Um, so I think if I was rating them, how much I enjoy watching from the start, I would go, uh, 4 man first, Mono Bob second, and then the two men and 2 women, um, in in third.

Um, oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just saying like I saw, I, you mentioned the importance of the start.

I mean, I saw a video, um, when I was doing my prep of an American team at I think a World Championships.

It was the foreman and uh you say how important it is to all get in the sled.

Well, sometimes they don't.

I saw an American team where, you know, The guy, the 1st guy gets in, the 2nd guy stumbles, and then all of a sudden it's just the one guy, you know, sliding on the track by himself in a in a real bind.

So, it can go sideways really quickly and, um, you know, yeah, certainly, if you make it in cleanly, that's great.

If you make it in, you know, a little bit sloppily, OK, you can survive, but then sometimes, The sled keeps going and the guys stay behind and now you got a real problem on your hands.

That must be a lonely ride down the track when you're down there by yourself.

Um, times are measured out to the 100s of a second, just to give you an idea of how close it can get.

Um, Germany is a powerhouse in all of the sliding sports.

Uh, I mentioned Brian Cazeneuve has his medal predictions.

He has Germany sweeping the podium for both men's disciplines, and that is with the same three drivers winning gold in both events.

Um, the women's events are a little more open for Team USA.

I can give you a few names to know, and some of them.

People might remember, um, Kaylee Humphries, uh, she is 40 and has already medaled at 4 Olympics.

She started her Olympic career for Canada, um, where she went gold, gold, bronze in the two-woman bob, and then she, uh, moved over to Team USA in 2022 for the debut of Mono Bob, where she won gold.

Um, Ilana Meyers-Taylor is also still active.

She's now 41.

She has also already medaled at 4 previous Olympics.

She has 3 silvers and 2 bronze, and she took silver and monob Bob behind Humphreys in 2022.

Um, there's another American named Keisha Love, who was a track star at UNLV and had a gymnastics background.

She started bobsledding in 2020, and she had competed in only six races before she was in the Olympics in 2022.

She's now much more experienced and she won gold in the monob Bob in the 2025 World Championships.

Wow, that's, that's an incredible achievement.

6 races before the Olympics is, yeah, that I remember talking about that last time around, yes, and, uh, but , uh, you know, it's, hey, it's the plot of cool runnings.

You find athletes who have potential and you, you get them in a sled, and, uh, but yeah, that's, uh, it's cool that she, you know , obviously, uh, enjoyed enough to stick with it and has gotten much better with the experience .

So, yeah, some, some, some big names to keep an eye on.

I've got another sport where they go fast on ice is the speed skating.

But, I got a bone to pick with the IOC here.

So, I think much, so these sports are officially called speed skating and short track speed skating, but I kind of see it similarly, similarly to how, um, you know, until several years ago.

Uh , media outlets used to refer to the NCAA tournament and then the women's NCAAA tournament, and it's like, well, by calling one just the plainness of the NCAA tournament, you make it like the default and the other one seems like lesser by comparison, right?

So, SI and a lot of other places now are, are, you know, pretty vigilant in referring to the men's tournament and the women's tournament.

In that same way, I think we should be referring to this as long track speed skating and short track speed skating, cause like, you know, the , the long track isn't any more or less valid than the short track.

Why does the short track have to be the one that's That's differentiated.

So, the difference here is that the, uh, the long track is a 400 m track.

So that's the same length as a track and field track.

Um, so you'll be familiar with, you know, that kind of size.

Uh, the short track is 110 m.

It's about the size of an Olympic hockey rink.

So, if you're kind of visualizing in your eye, you know, how big those two, you know, compare to each other, that's, that's a good way to do it .

The other way to differentiate them is the long track is the one that's dominated by the Dutch, and the short track is the one that's dominated by South Korea, and increasingly a little bit, you know, by China in some recent years, but, uh, historically South Korea, um.

The long track has 7 medal events per gender.

The distances are 500 m 1000 m, 1500, 5000, and then the men have a 10,000 m race, the women have a 3000 m, they don't do the 10.

Um, the races are like a time trial format, basically.

So, two skaters race at a time, but the best time wins.

Um, it's not, you know, somebody else can come on later and beat your time, even if you race them head to head, doesn't matter.

Um, and racers, the, the skaters only race once.

They skate one event and then hope their time sticks.

So, it's a really high pressure situation, um.

Since 2006, there's also been a team pursuit event.

This one is like, mesmerizing.

I was watching this to prep for for our podcast here.

I feel like I was gonna be hypnotized.

It's like, so, the way that it works is, there's 3 skaters, they're all, you know, together on the track.

Uh, and then the two skaters behind the lead skater, they put their hand on the back of the skater in front of them, and they are perfectly in sync going around the track.

And I watched, there's a video of a US team setting a world record in this event, I believe, at a recent World Championships.

Um, and just the way that they are like, totally, like, move for move, like they look like they are puppets on a string all together doing the same movements at the same time, the same stride length, and everything is just totally, totally in sync.

Um, it also leads to some, like we mentioned about the bobsled, some, you know, chaotic moments where if one guy messes up, he can take out the other two.

so that's a really, it's, it's gonna be a really fun one to watch for me, I think, um.

There's also another newish event added in 2018, the mass start.

So we talked about how, uh, these events are mainly just, you know, two skaters on the track at a time.

The mass start is 12 to 16 skaters, they're all going at the same time.

Um, and that, unlike the other ones, that is a semi-final race before the finals, so you'll have, you know, uh, the, the top skaters in each semifinal, they move on to the final for the chance to go for the medal.

Um, in terms of American athletes here, American Jordan Stowles, he's 21.

And is by at least one measure, the greatest of all time.

Now, I know that seems like a bold claim to make, especially for a 21 year old.

However, there is a stat, this is a Norwegian word, forgive me if I butcher it.

There's a stat called the Atacalender, which measures the skaters' best times in each distance, and then they use a, it's a fairly simple math formula, even for a guy like me who's not that good at math, I can, I was able to understand, you can look it up, it, it makes, you know, pretty good sense.

There's a math formula where they take your time in each distance, you they kind of combine them together and you get one number.

And Stowes is #1 in this ranking, uh, which means he's like the best all-around skater who's ever skated, really.

Um, number 2 is a Dutch skater named Patrick Roost, who is active, who will be one of Stolles' main, uh, challengers here at these Olympics.

And number 3 is, uh, the retired American great Shani Davis.

Uh, Roost won 2 silvers in Beijing.

Um, so, Stowes is gonna be one of the big stars of this.

I've seen, I saw like a commercial featuring him during Sunday Night Football, so, like, you know, NBC is leaning in on him, they know he's good, uh, he's fantastic.

I saw there's a great profile of him and, uh, he's from Wisconsin, great profile of him.

In a local paper that talks about how much he loves Texas Roadhouse and the, the, uh, the, the bread there or something.

So, he seems like a, a normal guy.

He's young, this is his first Olympics, or no, I, no, I'm sorry.

He was at the previous Olympics, but he didn't finish anywhere into the medals.

Obviously, since then, he's, you know, got on a tear and put together these really great times to become, like I said, the best in the world, uh, by that one measure .

Um.

The short track is very different.

So, I think another way we can, we can make sense of the difference here, uh, there's a 2014 New York Times headline from the, the Sochi Games, says, in short track speed skating, skill struggles to overcome dumb luck.

So, the idea there is like, we mentioned how in the, the long track, how they're, you know, two people on the ice at the time, they don't really interfere with each other.

In the short track, you know, they, they're, they're such tight quarters, they're starting all at the same time, they're all trying to get that inside edge and, and really try to get that, that best lane for, for the most of the, you know, most effective route.

Um, and there's crashes, and sometimes somebody behind you crashes and trips you up and, you know, you're in metal position and then, Too bad.

Now your, now your day is done and so there's rules and, you know , in terms of, there's a lot of replay review and, and determining uh who's at fault for the crash and who gets disqualified and who maybe gets another shot.

Um.

So, you know, that that's a a a big factor in these ones.

Um, the short track has 9 medal events, they're 500 m, 1000, 1500, and then there's a 3000 m relay for the women, a 5000 m relay for the men, and a 2000 m mixed relay.

Um, the short track is one that I'll be paying attention to, uh, because I actually went to high school with one of the athletes, Kristen Santos Griswold.

Uh, she competed in Beijing in five events in 2022, and she came just shy of a medal.

We talked about those crashes.

An Italian clipped her on the final lap of the 1000 m, she finished 4th.

Uh, so I'll be rooting for her, uh, you know, she, we did go to school at the same time.

She's 2 years younger than I am.

Uh, I have 3 siblings who are that age and they know her a little bit, but, uh, I maybe we'll get her on the podcast, that'd be fun.

Um, do you have a scouting report on, like, you know, how good is she in like calculus and biology and, uh, any other?

I don't.

I think she might have ran track.

I think that makes sense.

But uh, no, I don't.

I, Mitch, not to brag, but I was, I was kind of in the accelerated classes.

I was not in classes with people who were 2 years younger than me.

That would be a little embarrassing.

That's right.

Look at you now.

Look at this.

Yeah, your teachers are proud.

Yeah.

Um, so, the US is, this is really not an event that the US has done particularly well in these, these two combined events in recent years.

Um, Stows has a chance to make it to snap a really long US medal drought in, um, In the long track, the US has not won a medal in men's long track since 2010.

That was Shani Davis, like I mentioned.

Um, and the US only has two individual women's medals since 2002.

The US only has one individual men's or women's short track medal since Apollo Anton Ono in 2010.

That was John Henry Krueger in the 1000 m in 2018, who then went on to race for Hungary in 2022.

Um, so, some good contenders for the, for the Americans in these events, and uh hopefully they can bring home a medal for, uh, for the first time in a long time.

All right.

Well, I, I, uh, didn't want to interrupt you, but I will say, uh, your first comment at the very top about the calling the, um, speed skating the long track, uh, the big oval.

I will say, uh, and I don't think I mentioned this yet, but I, I did cover the, uh, 2018 Olympics in person for SI in Pyeongchang, and I was there, I was there primarily as an editor, so I saw, uh, six sports, uh, live in person.

I, uh, it would have been cool to get to more.

But I spent a lot of my time in the media center editing things and coordinating, um, but, uh, short track and, uh, speed skating are two of the events that I did see in person.

And I think the speed skating was the last thing that I saw.

And I just remember being floored at the size of the oval, uh, once I got into the building, which it sounds surprising because, you know, I've seen plenty of tracks, um, but like I got there and just for whatever reason, it, it just like stuck with me how big the place was in person.

Um, and even thinking about, like, you know, you think about a classic, like a high school where they've got the track around , uh, the football fields to give you an idea of the size, and, you know, I've covered the NFL, like you said, I've been to plenty of indoor football stadiums and seen big buildings, but for some reason, just like being there and seeing the size of the oval and watching them come down, um, and how fast they skate around it.

It, um, it was really cool.

So I, I love the short track also cause that's like the chaos and the fun nature of it and seeing them , they'll be like leaning down so close that they're like fingers touch the ice as they're going around curves, um, and they're possibly wiping each other out and everything.

But, um, but yeah, the long track, I just had such an appreciation for it, um, seeing how big the place was in person.

Yeah, I think so there was, we'll talk again about the venues, but there was talk of, uh, reusing an existing venue in Milan for the long track, but that's, um, it's an outdoor venue that would have to build a roof, but, um, to see that, you know, I, I saw a photo of it from above where you can really get a sense of how big it is, um, especially being outdoors, and that would have been a cool sight to see if they were doing it outdoors like, uh, like way back when, but, um, but yeah, even still indoors, it's gotta be a sight to see.

All right, moving right along.

I did bobsleigh already.

Let's talk about luge, uh, so trying to keep them straight if you don't remember the differences, luge is the one where they are lying on their backs.

They have a lot more of their body exposed on the track than inside of a bobsled.

Um, there are, there's singles and doubles, and the doubles, it basically just looks like they're lying on top of each other.

Um, the other thing to know about the luge is there's no handlebars and no brakes on the sled.

They really are just like shifting their body weight around and pressing against the sled runners with their calves and shoulders.

I was reading.

Um, they, they start seated on the sled, and there are these like metal handlebars that are attached to the track up at the top, so they'll sort of get like a rocking start, like pushing themselves back and forth, like on, if you can picture like a rowing machine, um, where they, that's how they like build up momentum, and then they just propel themselves forward and start going down the ice.

They wear gloves that have spikes on them, and so, as they are getting started, they start sort of like paddling against the ice to help them build up momentum.

So you'll see them, they'll go back and forth on the bars, release , propel down, and then sort of like swat at the track 4 times, and then very quickly like tuck their arms in for the rest of the race down.

Uh, it's a fun start to watch.

There are 5 events.

There's a men's and women's singles, men's and women.

Women's doubles, and then there's a team relay, and the team relay is fun.

They have, uh, one representative of each of the others, uh, the four that I mentioned.

But what's fun about watching it is when your teammate gets to the bottom, they slap a gate overhead as they slide past it, and then that's when the next slide can start.

Um, and they go, women's single, men's double, men's single, women's double.

So it's fun.

They, you know, they cover all four disciplines.

Um, singles luge is going to be cumulative time in 4 runs over 2 days, which is just like bobsleigh.

Doubles is just 2 heats in 1 day, and the team relay is just 1 run on 1 day, you get 1 shot at it.

You talked about other sports that are like just a quick moment, although there's a lot of overlap, so it's not like that's your, um, only opportunity to be in the Olympics.

OK, Gart, I have a trivia question teed up for you.

Lay it on me.

I mentioned that Germany is dominant in the sliding sports.

So Germany is in 1st place for most luge gold medals all time.

Do you want to guess which country is in 2nd place behind Germany in luge gold medals?

Well, this is a total blind guess because I am not familiar with my luge history, but if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna make a guess, I'm gonna say maybe a country that's near Germany, maybe Austria.

That's funny cause I had in my head, I thought you were gonna guess Austria.

Definitely wrong.

Uh, do you want to guess again or do you want to give up?

Uh, is it the United States?

It is not the United States.

OK, OK, then I'm, then I'm gonna give up.

All right, good time to give up cause I don't think you were gonna get this one.

First place all time most gold medals in luge is Germany.

Second place is drumroll please, da da da da, East Germany.

So near Germany, in fact, you were, yes, that was, you were, uh, barking up the right tree.

West Germany and United Team of Germany also have some medals, but yeah, that just gives you an idea of how dominant Germany has been in its history in luge.

Um, of the three, luge is the one that the US has historically had the least success in.

Uh, Chris Mazder, people may remember, had a surprising silver medal in 2018, which was Team USA's first individual men's medal.

Uh, he and I then, uh, went snow tubing together in Korea for a fun little video, and he later went on to fame.

Uh, he was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars.

Um, there's Erin Hamlin also had a bronze medal in Sochi in 2014, which is the only, uh, individual US women's medal.

Um, some names to watch here.

Felix Locke won gold in 2010 and 2014, missed the podium at the next two Olympics, uh, that was in top five.

He is back.

There is a German doubles team where, uh, both of them are named Tobias, and they are nicknamed the Bayern Express.

Um, I think on the women's side, the US has a better chance at medals, uh, in singles, Emily Fischnoller and, uh, Summer Bricher, yes, Summer in the Winter Olympics.

I'm sure nobody has ever made that joke to her before.

Um, and there's a, uh, there's a doubles team of, uh, Chevron Forgan and Sophia Kirkby, uh, that our Brian Cazeneuve did pick to win a bronze medal, um, and he picked the US to win a silver in the team relay, which I think is thanks largely to the women where they have, uh, a better shot at a medal, so.

Could be some luge hardware coming home.

Nice.

Um, in a, on a totally different end of the spectrum, figure skating.

In, in typical daily rings fashion, you know, we're getting to the big ones toward the end.

We, we, we hook the people with the weird ones and then we get to the big ones last.

Um, so figure skating obviously is gonna be one of the main events, uh, to watch at these Olympics.

People love this one.

as a quick refresher, you've got 5 events.

There's the men's and women's singles, the pairs, the ice dance, and the team event.

Um, The singles competition is composed of two parts.

There's a short program and a free skate.

The short program comes first, and a small number of skaters are eliminated before the free skate.

Um, like in gymnastics, the team event comes first.

So, uh, you'll see the, the, the skaters compete as a team together and then later, individually.

Um, the headline here, this is the Elia Mallinon show.

Everybody loves Elia Mallinon, the quad god, the American, um, he's incredible.

So, he's 21.

He's born in the US to Uzbek Olympic skater parents.

He's the best in the world, like, simply put, best in the world, no question about it.

Um, it's a great story by Stephanie Epstein on SI about him, about his career, about his, his journey to the Olympics, about how his controversial omission from last, uh, last time's roster in 2022.

Um.

He has not lost a competition since November 2023.

That's how good he is.

Um, and how does he do it?

Well, they call him the quad god because he's the best at doing quadruple jumps.

He is, nobody can do these jumps as well as he does, uh, nobody does as many of them as he does.

He does more quad jumps quad quad jumps than any other of, any of his opponents per routine.

It's just, that's his specialty, um.

Three years ago, as a 17-year-old, he became the first in the world to complete a quadruple axle, and he's still the only athlete ever to land one in competition.

So he doesn't move, like, kind of like Simone Biles, he doesn't move nobody else can do, and good luck beating him.

Um, he also has a flair for the dramatic.

He always incorporates a backflip in his free skate.

This is a move that was only legalized in 2024.

He immediately said, I wanna do that, and he does it every time in his free skate.

It's a lot, a lot of fun to watch.

Um.

On the women's side, uh, the US is gonna be represented by, it's a, it's a three person team, so it's Alyssa Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabel Levito.

So, uh, Lou was the defending world champion in the singles event.

Uh, Glenn won the US championship over Lou just back in January, and Levito won the silver at the 2024 2024 Worlds and is the 2023 US champ.

Her unique first name, Isabel, it's not Isabelle.

Uh, it comes from Michelle Pfeiffer's character in the 1985 fantasy film Lady Hawk, a movie I had not heard of, but has decent reviews.

I may check it out when I have for free time between the Olympics.

Um, we haven't mentioned, as we've been talking, Russia.

Um, so Russia's fully banned from these Olympics.

Um, you know, they've been kind of like the Russian flag has been banned since Sochi, but there's been some, some kind of loopholes, right, where they're competing as the ROC or the OAR or there's other, you know, little, little loopholes to get Russian athletes in there.

This time around, just like in Paris, straight up, no Russian athletes are allowed to compete, Belarus as well, for that matter, uh, due to the invasion of Ukraine.

So, um, Figure skating is gonna be an event where Russia's absence is felt really strongly.

Um, Mitch, you mentioned the German dominance in liege, which is kind of a similar story in figure skating with Russia.

So, technically, the US leads the all-time medal table in figure skating with 54 medals, 17 of them gold.

But if you combine all Russian teams, that's Russia, the Soviet Union, the 1992 post-Soviet unified team, the ROC and the OAR, Russia has 65, so 11 more than.

Than American skaters.

Um, so that opens the door for some other, maybe some more Americans, even people from other countries to step in and, and win some medals here that otherwise might have gone to Russia.

Mhm.

So you did have a chance at the East Germany trivia question because you were in the.

I had some Soviet trivia in my notes, but didn't think to scroll down that far.

All right, um, yes, the figure skating is always huge, huge, and that's gonna be an event that like NBC just goes really heavy on.

You and I will be watching things live and posting things, uh, on social media about, uh, live stuff, and, and I think there will probably be nights when our podcast comes out before the primetime coverage is finished, and I think a lot of people will be watching the primetime coverage to see how the figure skating went down, um, a few hours after we have the results.

Um, I'm gonna do a skeleton now, which is the 3rd and final of the sliding events.

Skeleton, as opposed to bobsleigh and luge is the one where they go down headfirst.

There are a lot of insane things people do in the Winter Olympics.

This is definitely toward the top of the list for me.

Uh, let's just get a running start and then build up speed and dive onto a sled, uh, and then their arms are tucked, uh, back to their sides.

So it's really just their heads are out in front of them, uh, and sometimes they'll just bang into walls.

Uh, pretty nuts, fun to watch, uh, an exciting event, uh, going down the same track.

There are 3 medal events in skeleton.

There's a men's, a women's, and a mixed team event.

Uh, the mixed team event is actually new for this Olympic cycle.

It works very similarly to the luge event, um, but it's just two athletes per team, one man and one woman.

One key difference, uh, at least in the other, uh, mixed team relays that I watched at other competitions before the Olympics, uh, they do not bang the gate and then have the next teammate start.

I was watching the World Championships, and one teammate would stop and then there was like a short break before the next teammate would go down and do their full start.

So.

It doesn't have that like continuous motion that I really like about the, uh, luge mixed event, but still, it's a fun watch and, and, uh, builds in that extra like medal opportunity for people, um, and the countries that are well rounded and have people in both genders, um, have an opportunity to, uh, to show that off and bring home some more medals.

Um, men's and women's, it'll be 4 heats in 2 days again, um.

I didn't mention this earlier, but one reason they do it that way is to offset any variance in the ice quality.

There's definitely a lot.

I mentioned that, um, you know, they're measuring these down to, um, 100s, in some cases thousands of a second.

It gets that close.

And so really, environmental factors, the ice getting worn down, the humidity, um, like all kinds of things can impact the quality of the ice.

So I think they try to, um, it's almost like when you think about watching a Golf tournament where like sometimes it's raining in the morning, there will be like totally different conditions on the course in the morning versus the afternoon , and they might, uh, flip and have everyone change Thursday versus Friday, and sometimes there's just some luck to it.

Well, they try and, uh, basically have people go in different conditions, um, in the order, which I think helps sort of, uh, even out those kinds of factors, which should help the actual, uh, better skeleton racers and, and the other sliding sports, um, you know, rise to the top.

Um.

The order is based on world rankings, um, and, uh, from my reading, it looks like the ice conditions are better after the earlier runs.

Um, so anyway, we actually, we will have a sliding sports expert later in the week, so we will get to ask some, uh, follow-up questions, uh, for a lot more details on all of this, the technical know-how where, uh, you know, I'm a little bit out of my depth on some of the technical things, um, as you may be able to tell as I'm trying to talk about this stuff.

Uh, some stars to know, um.

Great Britain's Matt Weston has been dominant on the men's side.

He's won a couple of world championships.

Uh, on the women's side, there's a Canadian, Hallie Clark, who is 21 years old.

She's already the youngest female world champion in history.

She won when she was 19, and now she could become the youngest Olympic champ if she wins here at age 21.

Um, an American for you to know is Mystique Rowe, who won a silver in the , uh, women's race in the 2025 World Championships and won gold on the mixed team with Austin Florian.

They are qualified as a pair here, so she'll have a couple of medal opportunities.

Mystique is maybe the best name we've come across so far.

I like that one.

Yes , yes, I agree.

Mystique Row is good.

No offense to Summer, uh, but yeah, Mystique is good.

And the 2 and the 2 Tobiases, but yeah, I got 1 more.

I got 1 more team with the same name, but we'll get there.

OK, yeah, move right along to the ski jumping, so, um.

Ski jumping, is that like one of those classic Winter Olympic sports, right?

Um, you know, one of the things you think of when you think of the Winter Olympics, uh, it's been apart since the beginning.

So, uh, the competition is divided to normal hill and large hill.

I won't go on my, uh, long track, short track tangent here about what normal and large.

Anyway, um, so the normal hill is a 90 m ramp, and then the large hill is 120 m, um.

Now, the, this is something I learned when I was researching this, the women's ski jumping has only been part of the Olympics since 2014.

Um, this is one for whatever reason, they didn't have women do this until, until the 21st century, which seems a bit odd to me.

Um, but even then, in 2014, 2018, and 20202, uh, women only competed in the normal hill.

So this is the first time women will be competing in the large hill event as well.

So, we've talked about a couple of events here where, where it's gonna be the first time it's been, you know, an Olympic debut for an event.

Well, this is another case here with the women's large hill.

Um, Norway, like in the, uh, in the, uh, cross country skiing, has historically dominated this event.

Um, they've won 36 total medals, 9 more than any other nation.

Second most is Austria.

Uh, Norway, Austria, and Finland have combined to win 52% of all medals in this sport.

Um, the US is totally irrelevant in this event, just like, not a factor.

Uh, they've only won one medal, that was a bronze by a guy named Anders Haugen, who you might guess was born in Norway, so even when the US is winning, it's a guy who's from Norway.

Uh, he won a bronze at the very first Winter Olympics in 1924, and the US has never seen the medal, the, the podium since then.

So, uh, not gonna be a factor.

This one we wouldn't think.

Um.

Japan has 14 total medals.

It is the only non-European country to win any individual ski jumping medals in the last 100 years.

So, uh, really, this is gonna be, be Europe and especially, but actually, interestingly, not Norway's event this year.

So, there's a story that went kind of semi-viral last week or a couple weeks ago, um, from the athletic in conjunction with Pablo Torre's podcast about a scandal in ski jumping involving Norway and the skiers' crotches.

I will explain.

So, ski jumping is one of these sports where it's, it's all about precision, right?

And then aerodynamics and Teams are always trying, like in auto racing and a lot of other sports, they're always trying to gain these little edges, right?

And trying to to twist the rules and bend, bend, you know, little, little regulations here and there to get every advantage they can.

Well, in this case, uh, a Norwegian coach was busted altering the skiers' suits after they had already been approved by the governing body.

They added a stitch to the crotch that made, you know, kind of tightened it up in there and , uh, made them more aerodynamic.

And after a long investigation and a, and a, and a, you know, an appeals process and a court battle and all this, um, two, skiers, two jumpers, Marius Linddevick and Johann Andre Forfong.

Uh, they were handed 18 month suspensions.

Uh, so Lindvick is the reigning Olympic large hill champ, and Forfong won the gold in the team event in 2018, individual silver in the normal hill that same year.

Uh, two former coaches also suspended.

It's a big scandal in Norway.

Uh, the athletic story mentions how Norway prides itself not only on success, but on, you know, following the rules and doing things as they're supposed to be done, you know, playing the game the right way, as we might say in the US, um, and so it's a big scandal over there, um.

And as a result, the Norway is, is really having a down year in ski jumping.

Norway's highest ranked athlete in the men's World Cup standings is currently 14th, uh, and they have one woman, uh, Anna Odine Strom, who ranks 4th in the women's standings.

Um, but other than that, you know, she's really the only, uh, factor at these Olympics for Norway.

Um, she's also gonna compete in the Nordic combined, which I know we will get to in a second.

Um, so Norway's down year clears a path for Slovenia.

Slovenia is having a moment in ski jumping, coming on hot in 2022 , um.

So Domen Previc and his sister Nikka, they're both gold medal favorites in their respective events in the men's and women's side.

Um, Slovenia won 2 women's medals, 2 women's, yes, 2 women's medals in Beijing, a gold in the mixed team event, and a silver in the men's team as well.

Um, the oldest Previc siblings, so the Prevics, they're like this Slovenian, uh, ski jumping dynasty.

The oldest sibling, Peter, he has Slovenia's only two individual men's ski jumping medals, both of them in 2014.

So, um, Slovenia has a chance after performing very, very well in 2022 with these, these two siblings who are gonna be part of the team, who are part of this fantastic Slovenian ski jumping family.

They have a chance to make a real splash here and take, take advantage of Norway's absence, or not Norway's absence, but Norway's down here.

Mhm.

I have a, a bunch of flags on my bookshelf behind me as our, uh, YouTube viewers can see.

I didn't even think if I should maybe take down my Norway flag out of, uh, you know, but I don't know if that's, uh, in protest or out of embarrassment.

Is it, is it bad form for me to have a flag of Norway?

Behind me with the rest of Scandinavia.

I think eventually you might want to slide Slovenia up into that spot and then maybe move Norway down.

That would be my suggestion.

I'll check.

I don't remember.

I, I have to look at the, the box of flags that came in the mail if I have a Slovenia, but I'll, I'll make sure we get Slovenia on there, uh, before the opening ceremony.

All right, you mentioned the Nordic combined, which I'm gonna cover now.

I think we have 3 sports left, uh.

Now you may be asking, Mitch, we already have the biathlon, which I know combines two sports.

What, what two sports does Nordic combined combine?

And the answer here is ski jumping and cross country skiing.

So there are 3 medal events here, and controversially, there are no women's events.

We will definitely get to that in a little bit after I explain this.

The 3 men's events are the normal hill, the large hill, and the large hill team event.

Uh, the two hill events are both followed by a 10K like cross country skiing, uh, and then in the team event, they'll do the large hill and then take turns doing laps.

Uh, it's a little tricky to follow because ski jumping is measured in points and cross country is measured in time.

So I think you mentioned, you mentioned a different sort of conversion method in an earlier sport.

Uh, Nordic combined, we use something called the Gunderson method, which converts points into time.

Uh, the jumping will take place first and then how well they do in jumping determines the order that they start the cross country.

Um, and I also, I want to specify that the cross country takes place a few hours later.

It's not like the biathlon where one rolls right into the other.

You're not gonna see them do a massive ski jump, like an on-ramp into a cross country course, although that would be very cool if that was how it worked.

Um, on the jumps, they will get points for, uh , distance and also style for the execution of the takeoff, the flight and the landing, uh, and then they'll combine that into a time, and then you've got your race.

Um, so I mentioned no women competing.

Uh, they have also reduced the number of men from 55 in Beijing to 36.

The team event is now going to be in pairs instead of teams of 4.

The crazy thing here, uh, is to me that the Olympics have actually done a really good job overall of balancing out the gender equity across sports.

We've seen all sorts of, uh, like mixed doubles events added in sports like curling and judo and triathlon in the summer, and we've talked about some here today.

Wrestling is another great example of a sport that added a bunch of women's weight classes, and then this one's just sitting out here as like the one sport where it's men only and no women, um.

The most bizarre thing here that I think looks really bad for the IOC is that women do compete in the sport, like they have women's events at the world championships.

Um, ESPN wrote a story about this that says the IOC deemed the sport, quote, not applicable for the women's category, pointing to a perceived lack of podium diversity and low broadcast ratings for the men's Nordic combined events.

Um, there's an athlete named.

Uh, Anika Malasinski, who went viral recently talking about how she's been training for the Olympics her whole life, but she's not able to compete just because they don't have women's events.

Um, she spoke to People magazine about it, and the IOC gave a quote to people that basically cited the same stuff they told ESPN and then they also said the whole sport is undergoing a review before 2030.

So they decided not to add women this time around, um, cause I guess the men's event is on the chopping block, sort of like we've talked about with modern pentathlon in the summer.

Um, but I guess instead of adding women, uh, a cycle before they might cut the sport entirely, they just decided to keep it how it was and also chop out some of the men, uh, competing.

Uh, interesting thing here, Annika's brother is actually competing in the Olympics, so it's a really bittersweet moment for her.

She's heartbroken over this for herself, but also happy for her brother.

Um, I watched, here's a quote from one of her videos online.

She said, I literally do the same sport.

I jump the same jumps, I cross country ski the same courses.

I put the same amount of love into this sport, yet because I'm a woman, I don't have the opportunity to fulfill my dreams.

So, just like I, I yeah.

tough, bad luck for the IOC, but it also just seems like such a fixable problem.

Like, uh, you know, I, I understand there are logistics to have like qualifying and stuff and people and athletes and space and things are getting cut, but that just doesn't seem, the, the strange thing, as I said, is like they have made this a priority to have gender equity, and so that's part of why it's even more surprising that they just haven't on this sport.

Um, so that's Nordic, and I feel like that, I don't know if that's gonna color people's interest in watching this, uh, knowing this is going on.

It sounds like there's less interest in this anyway, given that low TV ratings are one of the things they cite as a reason to potentially get rid of it.

Um, I can tell you the US has never won a medal in Nordic combined.

Sorry, they had never won a medal in Nordic combined, then surprisingly won 4 of them in Vancouver in 2010 and have not won any since, so they just had that one Olympics when they did have a bunch, um.

Team USA did announce sort of like a partnership, like a practice partnership with Norway, um, so I, I guess if you can't beat them, join them.

They've been working with Norway, we'll see, um, we'll see if that helps .

But yeah, I think the, the big story, at least in the lead up to the games around Nordic combined has been this, um, this issue with women not being able to compete.

Yeah, I'll, I'll issue a quick correction because when I was doing my last minute research on Norwegian ski jumpers, and I went to Olympics.

com on Anna Odine Strom's profile, they listed ski jumping and Nordic combined on her profile, and so I wrote down, OK, she's gonna be in the Nordic combined.

And then I was like, I forgot our conversation earlier where you said, no, they don't have women at this event.

So I wonder why on the Olympics official website, they're listing her as competing and maybe she competes on the World Cup circuit and they just put her there because they put that tag on her profile because of of of that, but I don't know, that was, uh, it just adds to this, uh, it just highlights this, uh, you know, this injustice really that, uh, she's not able to compete if she does, if she does do it on the World Cup circuit.

Yeah, strange situation.

Yeah, yeah, um, OK, well, so we're getting, we're getting near the end here.

Mitch said, I think we got two left.

My last one is ice hockey.

Again, you know, saving the best for last, I guess.

Yeah.

So the big news here, obviously is that NHL players are back, uh, for the first time since 2014.

NHL players are gonna be participating in the Olympics.

Um, the, the league made the decision in 2018, I think mainly because of the, uh, the time zone, you know, it's difficult to get.

Uh, North American interests and European interests when you're in East Asia, um, just it didn't work out.

Long way to ask the travel, the players to travel as well in the middle of the season, so they didn't do that.

And then, uh, 2022, you know, COVID impacts, and so they, and, and again in East Asia, so they skipped that one.

We're back now, you know, it's, uh, people are really excited for it.

Um, every NHL team has at least one player on an Olympic roster.

Uh, it doesn't really impact the Olympics that much, but something for the league to point to, something for them to be excited about, um.

We mentioned, you know, Russia being banned, that's gonna be a big factor here.

Russia not competing, so, no Alex Ovechkin, which is, you know, a little bittersweet.

That's a guy nearing the end of his career.

His, uh, politics maybe not great, kind of a Putin ally, so maybe you wanna debate how much you want to root for him, but, uh, no question, he's a fantastic player and he's not gonna get a chance to compete for an Olympic medal.

So, um, but yeah, that, that obviously opens the door for, for some other teams to, to fill that slot, um.

In terms of the format here, so, the men's tournament has 12 teams, that's 3 groups of 4, and the women's has 10, that's 2 groups of 5.

on the men's side, all teams are still in medical contention after the preliminary round .

There's 4 teams that advanced directly to the quarterfinals, then 8, the the remaining.

8, go to a playoff where they have a chance to win a game, to go to the quarterfinals and the tour, the tournament progresses from there.

Um, the US got a pretty favorable draw, at least as far as these things can be considered, you know, all teams are good in the Olympics to an extent, uh, but they got a pretty decent draw.

So, they, they're in a group with Germany, which is 7th in the current world, uh, world rankings.

Denmark is 8th, and Latvia is 10th.

Um, Mitch, I know you told me, the reason I'm doing the hockey previews cause Mitch, you told me that you are not much of a hockey fan, but do you know who Leon Dreissele is?

Um, are there follow-up questions?

Can I just say yes and move on?

You know, I am very familiar, but , you know, why don't you explain it for the listeners who might be less familiar?

OK, so Leon Dreissele, he's one of the best players in the world.

Uh, he's the reigning NHL goals leader.

He led the league in goals last year.

He's German, uh, so he's gonna be the.

Best player on that team, somebody for the US to watch out for, uh, with the German roster.

But those three teams the US has drawn with, Germany, Latvia, and Denmark, they only have a combined 19 NHL players, so not a lot of talent in that US would win that group pretty easily and, and earn one of those byes to the quarterfinals.

Um.

The other groups, uh, Canada is in a tough one with Czechia and Switzerland as well as France.

France, a lesser team making its first men's hockey appearance since 2002, but Czechia, and Switzerland, two good teams, a lot of NHLers on, on those squads.

Um, I bring up Canada, mainly to mention, uh, their roster includes 19-year-old.

Macklin Celebrini.

He could be one of the breakout stars of these Olympics.

He's having an amazing year for the San Jose Sharks.

He was the, uh, the number one pick in the 2024 NHL draft.

He had kind of a rough rookie year, but this year, second year, he's going crazy.

He's having a really great season .

Uh, the Sharks are like in playoff contention primarily or maybe even exclusively because of Celebrini.

And again, he's only 19.

He's gonna be the youngest player ever to represent Canada at the Olympics where there are NHL players, uh, the first teenager to do so.

So, uh, really incredible achievement, you know, he made that roster.

If you look at this, so, we mentioned the NHL and, uh, the, the lack of participation in recent Olympics.

One way the league tried to garner interest in international hockey before these Olympics, last year, they had, instead of an All-Star game, they had a tournament called the Four Nations Face-off, US, Canada, Sweden, Finland, the four best teams in the world, basically.

Um, Celebrini not on the Canadian roster.

Why would he be?

He's an 18-year-old rookie, you know, if you're thinking this time last year, who's gonna be on the Canadian Olympic roster, Celebrini is not really on the radar, but he played his way onto that, into that consideration with his play, uh, early in the first half of this season.

So he's gonna.

Be a real, a real exciting guy to watch.

Uh, the last group is Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, and Italy.

That's a tough one.

Pretty evenly matched, especially with Finland and Sweden.

Those are top teams.

Slovakia is a good team and Italy, the hosts, you know, not really known for its hockey, but, uh, we'll see what they can do with the home crowd behind them.

The women's tournament has a weird structure.

So, like I said, there's 10 teams, and there's uh 2 groups of 5.

The top 5 teams in the world are all placed in one group, and they all advance to the quarterfinals automatically.

Their, uh, their preliminary round games are only to determine their ranking, their seeding for the quarterfinals, so there's still an incentive to win your games there, just in terms of giving yourself an easier path to the quarterfinals and, and, and onward to the medal matches, um.

In the second group, the top three teams in that group will advance to the quarterfinals.

Um, the first time this format was used in 2022, none of the teams from Group B ended up winning a quarterfinal game.

So, um , really, you know, there's, there's a real bifurcation here with the, the women's game where the top teams are the top teams and the lower teams are, are not so great.

So, uh, those two groups this time around, the top group is the US, Canada, Czechia, Finland, and Switzerland.

And the second group is France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and Japan.

Um, in terms of the US roster on the women's side, there's some familiar faces there.

Um, you'll certainly recognize Hilary Knight, who was playing in her 5th Olympics.

She's 36, uh, she's the oldest player on the roster.

She was also the oldest player on the roster in Beijing 4 years ago at 32.

Um, some other veterans include Kendall Coyne Schofield, Kelly Panic, and Alex Carpenter.

Uh, who are all big contributors to the 2022 team that ended up winning silver, lost to Canada in the gold medal match.

Um, there's also though, a lot of young faces, a lot of new, new faces, but also really young faces, like I said, um, they've got seven players on the US women's roster who are currently in college.

Um, so, you know, the, the, and, and they're not like, you know, they're not.

Nobody's, you know, they're playing for top college programs, Wisconsin, Minnesota, places like this that are take their hockey really seriously and honestly, like those, those schools are probably on par with some foreign pro teams.

So, um, they're gonna be, you know, they shouldn't have too much trouble adjusting to the level of international play, especially having the chance to get your feet wet in those, those preliminary round matches that, uh, the stakes aren't as high, um.

We'll talk about the venues later, but I just wanna shout out, people have heard about, that's, that's the maybe the title of the episode, we'll talk about the venues later, um.

I want to shout out that there's two venues here.

One is called the Palitalia, which is, uh, a new venue that's been in the headlines lately because the construction is really dragging on, uh, in a way that's been troubling.

Uh, they say that it's gonna be ready.

There was, it, it opened officially a few weeks ago with some matches that were, uh, went, you know, kind of maso manos as you might say in Spanish, there's, uh, you know, some good and some bad.

I was, I was gonna say, as, as someone who does not follow the NHL, this has been the headline for me that I have seen the most news stories.

So I, some people, yeah , we'll, we'll, we'll, uh, definitely before the Olympics start, uh, because we're taping this a little early, but we'll make sure we have all the up to-date information on how much of the construction is complete and how much isn't before the Olympics begin.

But this has been a very amusing story, uh, for me to follow.

I'll say, yeah, so that's, that's the big one, the main.

Unfortunately, the main arena is the one that has the problems.

There's like 12,000 seats in there, I believe, and there's a smaller one.

It's like about half the size that they've built inside this convention center.

It's an enormous convention center kind of on the outskirts of Milan, where they've built a hockey rink, and that's where actually the long track speed skating oval will be.

So they've built them in this big convention center.

Um, those ones are fine.

There's no problems there as far as I can tell , but the, the larger one, there may be some issues.

Yes.

All right.

Are we done with hockey?

We're down to 1, the final sport.

All right, well, we're not done with hockey.

We're gonna talk a lot about hockey over the next 3 weeks, but done for today because we are moving on to curling.

I figure everyone knows curling by now.

I, I remember like 4 or 5 Olympics ago, it was this like curiosity where I think people saw it on TV maybe for the first time, and they were like, what the heck is that?

But then quickly realized, oh, actually I like this.

This is very interesting.

I think by now it's become like a real mainstay of the Winter Olympics that a lot of people really look forward to.

Um, I count myself among those people, uh, although I think I do say that about every sport, basically, but I do really like the curling, it's a fun one.

there are 3 medal events.

There's a men's and women's, which are both teams of 4, and then there's a mixed doubles event, which is in pairs.

Um, all 3 have 10 teams that will play a round robin, and then the 4 teams move into the semifinals.

I will give a quick terminology refresher for those who need it.

Uh, each game has 10 ends, which you could think of like innings in baseball.

They are delivering stones down the sheet, trying to get closest to the house or button, which is like that target that looks like a bull's eye.

Uh, one person will throw the stone and then the rest of the team has brooms, and they'll sweep along the stones path to try to, uh, knock the other team's stones out of the way and place their stone right where they want it.

Uh, one team scores per end, getting a point for each stone that's closer than any of their opponents.

So there's a lot of strategy, trying to block, trying to land yours right on the button, trying to knock your opponents out.

There's, uh, there's a lot that happens here.

Um, the men's and women's games both have 8 stones per end.

The mixed doubles, it'll be, uh, 5.

The, uh, mixed doubles starts first, so we're gonna be seeing that for the 1st 7 days, wrapping up with the medal matches, and then the men's and women's team events run concurrently all the way through to the last day.

So curling is actually the only sport that will be held literally every day of the Olympics, from day -2 all the way through to the gold medal, the women's gold medal game on day 16.

Um, for Team USA, the men's team has had a changing of the guard here.

Uh, you may remember they named the teams based on the last name of the skip, which is like the captain and lead strategist.

Um, so people are probably familiar with Team Schuster.

John Schuster had competed in 5 straight Olympics with the bronze in 2006 and a gold medal as the skip in 2018.

They were beaten at US trials by Team Casper, led by skip Danny Casper.

Uh, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland are typically very good.

Um, Great Britain's men's team is looking pretty good this year.

In mixed doubles, I like that Sweden has two siblings who are coached by their dad, who is a Sweden curling Hall of Famer.

Um, Italy is another fun team to watch.

They've got a great mixed doubles team playing in their home country.

Uh, the US's best team, uh, is probably the mixed doubles team, and here's, I've been teasing this for a while.

A fun fact, the US mixed doubles team, they are both named Corey, which is fun.

There is Corey, uh, Tis and Corey Dropkin.

Uh, they won gold at the World Championship in 2023 and finished fifth this past year.

Uh, Corey Tea is also on the women's team.

Corey Dropkin is not on the men's team.

They do have like their own team and qualifying for mixed doubles.

They don't just pull one player, uh, from each team, of course, it's a different game and you've got to have chemistry with your teammates.

Uh, a new rule alert here in curling.

World Curling put out a quote sweeping technique policy on January 6th, just one month before the Olympics.

That outlawed a few types of sweeping.

Basically a single stroke technique.

There's a 40-second YouTube clip that I watched of this that I can share, uh, on Twitter and Blue Sky for anyone who wants to see it, that explains it.

It will affect all teams, but it actually seems primarily aimed at Team Casper, the US men's team.

Uh, so we'll, we have a curling expert coming on later this week.

We will have to ask about this.

Casper, I will say he does seem pretty chill about it.

Like, I think, uh, it doesn't seem like it's gonna be that big a deal, or maybe if it is, he's just hiding it and playing it off well.

Um, but, uh, let's see, a quote here from the Grand Slam of curling, uh, empowering officials to issue warnings and remove rocks from play marks a shift in a sport that has been for better or worse, primarily self-offficiated.

Um, so I don't know how big a story it is, but for me as a casual, you know, fun to see them announce a sweeping rule change a month before the games, uh, sweeping, I say sweeping like sweeping with the broom, not sweeping like describing, not describing the scope of the rules changes that maybe is an important distinction for me to make.

Um, I think the last thing I'm gonna say about curling, there will be some new graphics on the screen.

I was reading, I forget where I saw this, but I was reading about the broadcast.

Uh, they're gonna have like data.

It sounds a little bit like Statcast data if you're when you're watching MLB games.

Um, I think we're gonna get data on both the speed and the revolutions of.

The rock, almost like when you get spin rate on curveballs coming into home plate.

So I think, uh, if, depending on how closely you follow this or how much you can pick up, or maybe it's just a fun thing, uh, that'll be interesting to watch, but I think we're gonna have a lot more data with, uh, some high speed, whatever curling Hawkeye, uh, looks like.

We'll, we'll have access to that this time around.

That sounds fun.

I, I, I love myself some data, big, big stack ass guy.

So, uh, yeah, I wonder if they'll have, uh, you know, points above average or whatever, you know, some kind of advanced stats you might see incorporating that data.

We will see.

All right, well, we did it, Gart.

We previewed all 16 sports.

Uh, it was a little bit easier than when we did all 39, uh, for the Summer Olympics back in 2024 when we had to split it up into two episodes.

Um, but this was a lot of fun.

It's definitely helpful for me doing all this research, and, uh, I hope people really enjoyed this.

I think this, this hopefully does give you a good picture of what our show is gonna be like.

We're definitely gonna talk about all the big moments, you know, figure skating and hockey and downhill and all that, but we were all, we're also gonna spend a lot of time on some of these niche things, uh, you know, Mono Bob and Nordic combined and ski athlon and all sorts of.

Events.

I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to dive into the minutia and, uh, all the fun things that make the Olympics, uh, a good time and, and all the people who dive in and try to be experts for 3 weeks.

We will be, I think you and I do that a little bit.

I think we also will be pulling from experts.

We have a bunch of people from Sports Illustrated who are going to be on the ground.

You and I are gonna be reading things and citing other outlets.

I think we're gonna be able to, uh, give people a really nice companion if you want to know more about what's going on.

Yeah, the, the way I like to approach my job is I want to tell people about something they didn't think they were going to be interested in.

And I think there's a lot of opportunity for that here.

People aren't gonna know, they might not expect they're gonna be interested in Nordic combined or ski jumping or ski mo or whatever it is.

So we're gonna, you know, we're gonna introduce people to some things that they didn't know they wanted to hear and, and hopefully they enjoy it.

Yeah, I love that ethos of, uh, something, giving them something they didn't know they wanted.

I definitely feel the same, and I think that's why you and I are a good pairing here cause I think we both bring that energy, and I think that's gonna be a good time and, and hopefully we have a lot of people back who enjoyed us two years back, uh, and are here again.

So, as we wrap up, I want to say once again, make sure you subscribe or follow the show.

Uh, do us a favor, whatever platform you're on, Apple or Spotify, if you could like or, uh, give us a five-star rating, maybe write a review.

Uh, you know, I'd love to sort of juice the algorithm a bit, a little bit, remind people that we're here and, and pop up in those feeds.

So anything you can do, especially If you were here with us last time and loved it, or if you're just, if you're new and excited to be here, we would appreciate that help.

Uh, we are also, I've mentioned, we're both on social media.

We're gonna be posting things.

Um, you can find the show on YouTube.

Again, I think I said this at the very top, but that was like 4 hours ago.

Uh, if you are the kind of person who watches, uh, your podcast, we are on YouTube.

Um, I also wanna say some thank yous before we get out of here.

Um, Alex Savalas and Andrew Christie from SI's video team, both hugely helpful, uh, really supportive of our show last time around, um, and helpful in getting us back off the ground, uh, and supporting the show again here.

Shelby Royston, who was our producer every day during the Paris games, uh, he has also been really helpful getting us back set up, uh, restarting the feed, um, and, and getting things moving.

Dan Spaventa is our Our new producer who's gonna be with us most days of these Olympics, and it's been, uh, great to have him on board.

We're excited to get to know him a little bit better as we spend a lot of time with him the next 3 weeks.

We also have so many people at SI, writers, editors, people behind the scenes who are gonna be helping, uh, promote the show, embedding our show in other stories, helping people find out about it, um, people helping cover for us, all kinds of things.

So I just want to say thanks to the whole team, the larger SI team out there, and, uh, all the people who are gonna make this show run for the next few weeks.

Yeah, well said.

I , it takes a village to an Olympic village, you might say, to put the show together and, uh, it's not just us, a lot of the people involved, and we owe them a big debt and, uh, we're looking forward to having them help us out the rest of these 3 weeks as we tell the story of the Olympics.

All right, and Garth, thanks to you.

I'm excited to be back.

This will be fun, the two of us doing this again.

So, Uh, I don't know if you wanna throw it, uh, throw it to the end, or if you want me to.

I'll, I'll let you get the final word in.

Well, Mitch, I'm gonna need a big drink of water after talking that much, so I think we might just leave it there and tell folks to, to join us next time and look forward to talking to you again.