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The XXII Sochi Winter Olympic Games / Ski And Skate Against Hate

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Pedrito

Member
WTF at Russia suddenly becoming a powerhouse out of nowhere in short track (aside from fake russian An).

Awful, awful Olympics for South Korea. Heads will roll.
 

Kazerei

Banned
Just turned into Great Britain vs Canada in men's curling. 10th end, and both teams just made huge back-to-back mistakes LMAO.
 

Madness

Member
How fucking crazy is that? Winning gold for South Korea in Turin in 2006, becoming a Russian citizen and changing your name to Victor and then winning gold for Russia in 2014. I bet the South Koreans will also be choked because their own skater was penalized.
 

Peru

Member
Victor An is one of those great, priceless olympic stories. Wow.

Agreed. Someone like Björgen, who is usually in a class of her own completely in the world, would still be doing better than this if the only problem was the waxing. I'm not buying that as the complete explanation for why Norway has not been performing as expected. It is a bit of a mystery, but I'm not sure they'll be doing much better in the rest of the competitions with all the pressure and all the scapegoating apparently going on over there right now.
.

When she/they had to pole while countries like France glide past it's obvious the skis were not good. Sometimes more is not more when it comes to a big team and all the technology in the world.

But there have been some indications the preparations were not that good otherwise as well, with lacking or wrong preparation for the high altitude. They tire too quickly as you say. It was bitter to see 'nobody' countries shuffle past us like nothing.

Don't think anyone could've necessarily beat Kalla anyway today. All credit to her monster race.
 

Kazerei

Banned
That was like 6 freezes in a row...

vjkngrZ.png

Edit: haha, Canada with the steal
 
Victor An is one of those great, priceless olympic stories. Wow.



When she/they had to pole while countries like France glide past it's obvious the skis were not good. Sometimes more is not more when it comes to a big team and all the technology in the world.

But there have been some indications the preparations were not that good otherwise as well, with lacking or wrong preparation for the high altitude. They tire too quickly as you say. It was bitter to see 'nobody' countries shuffle past us like nothing.

Don't think anyone could've necessarily beat Kalla anyway today. All credit to her monster race.

copy pasted from reddit:

Bjørgen won gold at the skiathlon, Weng got bronze, and Johaug got 4th. That, aside from the sprint (where Bjørgen got knocked out because of poor tactical decisions) have been the only days where Norway has nailed the ski preparations. Unless they have food poisoning or some other illness, I find it hard to believe that they will suddenly all be out of form like this. None of them have complained of feeling out of shape.

The XC skiers and the biathletes (who have acknowledged that they messed up their preparation (aside from Bjørndalen who has had his own training)) haven't had the same training schedule as far as I know, so it would be weird if both teams collectively failed in this manner. But while Svendsen felt out of shape at the start of the Games, he felt great for the 20km, but still fell way behind because of bad skis.

All that aside, Bjørgen would usually have started way ahead of the other teams for the final lap, simply catching up to Finland and Germany would not have been enough to win a gold medal if Norway had performed as they have been doing for the last 5 years. It is giving Sweden more credit than they are due in my opinion. Kalla deserves massive credit for sure though.
 

Empty

Member
watching ice hockey for the first time. this is so much fun to watch, guess i need to follow this tournament more closely
 

DrM

Redmond's Baby
watching ice hockey for the first time. this is so much fun to watch, guess i need to follow this tournament more closely

Hockey is great, we killed Slovakia in the morning :p But USA will kill us tomorrow :D

Our president made a bet with hockey team - for every goal they score, he will ice skate for one hour, all for charity. The number is now at five, so I hope that they score some more on next two games :D
 

Madness

Member
I still think Olympic hockey is better than NHL hockey, but I know I'm in the minority in that opinion. lol

Well you're literally getting the best players of each country playing against each other, and actually trying unlike an All-Star game, so of course the play is high level as compared to a regular season game. But playoff hockey in the NHL is perhaps some of the best hockey you'll ever see.

Edit: Did you mean because it's played on the open/big international size arenas?
 

kottila

Member
Agreed. Someone like Björgen, who is usually in a class of her own completely in the world, would still be doing better than this if the only problem was the waxing. I'm not buying that as the complete explanation for why Norway has not been performing as expected. It is a bit of a mystery, but I'm not sure they'll be doing much better in the rest of the competitions with all the pressure and all the scapegoating apparently going on over there right now.

Have you ever skid? Badly prepared skis is an enormous disadvantage. It saps you of energy both uphill and downhill.
 
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