Beijing Olympics

[NUguy514]

GOLD, BABY!!!

[Culturegeek]

(02-10-2022 02:43 PM)Culturegeek Wrote:  If anyone gets higher PCS than Brown, including Chen, it'll be a joke.

He deserved to win, so I won't harp on that. And given the actual quality of the gold medal skates we've seen, he deserves credit.

Kudos to Grassl and Brown. Not in love with Uno's performance getting the bronze.

Imagine you were first learning about the jumps and Kvitelashvili is your model. Do you ever learn?

[NUguy514]

(02-10-2022 03:32 PM)Culturegeek Wrote:  Imagine you were first learning about the jumps and Kvitelashvili is your model. Do you ever learn?

LOL

I wish Jason had finished fourth or fifth; third was just too big of a hill to climb with no quad of any kind. Sixth is a fabulous achievement for him, though. Yuma is wonderful, and his silver is well-deserved. I've never been a huge fan of Shoma's skating (his landings are often kind of shitty), but I don't think I would've liked Hanyu to medal with two falls either. I guess I don't care too much which of the two of them got bronze.

So happy and relieved for Nathan. He was so far and away the best of the bunch, and he really threw down.

Also, Chloe Kim is just a delight. I'm thrilled that she repeated, and I think she's such a great ambassador for her sport.

[NUguy514]

Also, I just want to say that Terry Gannon could have gotten it in 1996 and could still get it in 2022.

[misplaced validity]

Happy for Chen, but I don’t love that LP. It’s hard for me to like a program where the songs are chopped up and a medley.

Yeah Chole Kim!

[Culturegeek]

(02-10-2022 10:09 AM)Above the Title Wrote:  The decision is going to be announced tonight at midnight EST (1pm local time) at the end/near the end of the men's free skate.

Did they announce anything? I mean, I'd love for Canada to get another medal, but frankly the Canadian team is probably the worst figure skating team in living memory, so I'm unbothered by them not. But for the USA and Japan, it does seem unfair.

[Above the Title]

They held their daily press conference (apparently they do this every morning), blathered on about cloud storage and photography forever and a fucking day and finally during the Q&A portion, they were pressed by a journalist and they said basically we can't talk about it because it's a legal issue, we cannot identify the identity of the skater in question because it's a legal issue, and we cannot provide a timeline for any announcements because it's a legal issue. Btw, because the devil works hard, the press conference is daily at 11am local time, which happened to correspond with exactly what Kondratyuk was on the ice. So a whole lot of nothing, making it seem like a presser about this. Also simultaneous with the press conference - again, the devil works hard - Valieva was on the practice rink. So...nothing happened. Not sure anything will happen? Now that Valieva's identity was independently identified by NBC, I can't see them sweeping this totally in the rug in that sense that they have to acknowledge it. They don't necessarily have to DQ - and I don't think they will - but they can't just pretend there isn't a swirl of controversy. My fear is that Johnny, Tara and Terry will just turn on Valieva completely and not talk about the ACTUAL issue, which is that a 15 year old is being drugged by the adults in charge. We have always known Russia had state-sanctioned doping, but this is a bigger deal because there has never been an athlete this young implicated in something like this. And, let's say for argument's sake she is DQed at least from the ladies event, the winner will likely be either Shcherbakova or Trusova - who are also doping, they just have not been caught.

GOLD, BABY!!!!!! What a champion. I honestly couldn't absorb all the information coming at us this week (Valieva scandal, Oscar nominations, Saget hit his head and died of a brain bleed?) but this was absolutely the breath of fresh air I needed. He's come so far in the past few years, we have seen him grow and improve so much, and this is the reward for all that hard work.

Like with 2018 and 2014, I didn't think the quality of the finals were THAT great (I mean, the skill level and how fast it's growing is insane, but so far it's at the expense of cleanliness in Olympic finals) but Chen's win is pretty irrefutable. Honestly, if Jason hadn't doubled the planned triple sal, he could have finished fourth?!?!?! WITH NO QUAD. Assuming he retires, I doubt we see anyone in men's finish top six without a quad ever again. Also cool that there are now seven American men's champions and they are all currently alive still!

[Above the Title]

(02-10-2022 10:54 AM)misplaced validity Wrote:  What has Shiffrin said in relation to dealing with mental health issues?

She's doing the Super G today but both she and her mother are not doing any media interviews effective immediately until further notice.

[misplaced validity]

Has Nathan Chen spoken about his future plans at all? I more so wonder if he’s worked on the quad axel at all and if there is a race to be the first to land it in competition, or if that’s off the table for a bit now.

[Above the Title]

Whether he comes back for 2026 will be another story, but he's taking a looooooong break now. He took a leave from Yale to train for the Olympics, he wants to get back to that. I'm not sure whether he will end up going to Worlds or not.