I prefer watching the Nordic skiing and biathlon (will be sad with no Bjorndalen) to the downhill events. I also get hooked into curling. One thing I'd love to see in person someday is bobsled/luge/skeleton - we almost went up to LP a few months ago as a last-minute trip when there was a World Cup event there.

As someone who's all-time favorite sporting moment was watching the Miracle on Ice game as a 14-yr old, I'll still watch men's hockey (local rooting interest with Harvard's Ryan Donato and BU's Jordan Greenway). I'll admit that with some of the ridiculous young talent that has come into the NHL in the past 2-3 years it would have been fun to see them in the world stage in mid-season form, but I'll watch regardless. Women's tournament should be good as well.

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

Short track isn't about fast or slow twitch. It's about not falling over.

#StevenBradbury

The 50k always gets me excited, especially when offered in classic format (which 2018's edition will be).

These times bring back fond memories of my XC ski days in Sweden from the late 90's - I'd rub elbows at some regional start lines (or prestigious events like the Wasaloppet) with the likes of Botvinov or the aspiring Kenyan XC ski racers...bizarre. Now I can barely watch the racing (unless its a YouTube feed or something...you gotta love Texas, right?).

While I agree that Nordic events are exciting, I wouldn't put a country that dialed into a 12 hour long show about chopping wood as a great example of people who know what good TV is.

Well, Norway just had 55 hours of Ole Einar Bjoerndalen's races without any commercial breaks.
I have tried to watch American football or baseball. 2 seconds of actions and then breaks.

I rather watch endurance sports in a country where endurance sports athletes are heroes and not something strange.
The joke among foreigners in the USA is that no American can participate in the olympics without have cancer...................;-)

But it is better now with the olympic channel. You now have commentators talking about the sport and not everything else.

Who is your favorite in the 30k?
Alex, Sundby, Klaebo, Cologna or any other?

My predictions:

Mens 30K skiathlon:

1. Cologna
2. Harvey
3. Calle Halfvarsson

Cologna has been on fire so I put him #1. I put Calle at #3 because Sweden seems to always have an amazing peaking plan.

Womens 15k skiathlon

1. Charlotte Kalla
2. Jessie Diggins
3. Heidi Weng

I would love for Diggins to win but like I said above: Sweden always has amazing championships performances and Kalla is probably the best female at timing her peak. Jessie could seriously win the skiathlon gold if she is even with Kalla with 1k to go. I don't think there is anyone on the world cup that can empty themselves more than Jessie Diggins.

Has Cologna beat Klae bo in any races?

Could any of you smart winter-people explain a little bit about ski jumping to me? I'm being serious; what is the profile of an athlete that excels at this? Flexibility and a strong core to hold proper position are obvious. But the take off? Is it basically just one huge burst of power, kind of like a weightlifter? The only endurance-type analogy I can think of is a BMX or cyclocross racer at the start of a race, where the top guys will put out 15-20 watts/kg to get off the line.

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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

Thanks, that link is outstanding!

My personal favorite Oly/Winter Sports event is the 4x7.5km Biathon Relay. The US team seems to always frontload the squad and tease me into thinking they are going to be medal contenders.

I'm happy to include Alpine Skiing in the "endurance" mix. If we consider the 800m a mid-distance event, no reason not to include equally anaerobic events from skiing.

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John Hartpence, Athlete & Coach
tripence@gmail.com, @coachpence

When I tried out for it, they made us put our balls on a scale...no dice for me.

needless to say, Primoz Roglic (a former Slovenian ski jumper, successful too) is a premier Time Trialist and damn good all rounder in the pro peloton.

That being a single data point, I would think success comes from telling yourself that you can overcome the impossible...if you've ever had the privilege standing atop a K140 jump and look down, there is nothing natural about letting yourself push off that bench

Agreed. Halvard had posted that link a year or so ago and it's great stuff for the trainer.

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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

The above plus you want to be a lightweight with a crazy huge single vertical jump....I think Spud Webb would be the perfect body type for ski jumping which is a combo of jumping and flying. Basically everything that makes a lightweight bad for cycling aero, in terms of frontal body area vs weight, makes them good for flying....you need frontal for lift when you turn into an airfoil, you want lightweight for anti gravity while flying, . But you need the vertical jump part too so that you can convert your terminal velocity to the right flight path and get relatively high above the snow for the flight phase.

But hey, ski jumping has nothing to do with slow twitch muscle fiber, so are we allowed to talk about it outside of Nordic Combined?

Dev

I hope for my countryman Cologna and he was very strong in the Tour de Ski. However, Klaebo is a real beast and flying. Absolutely fantastic to watch him. The question is whether he can live with the pressure. But considering how cool he looks while dominating events, I guess that shouldn't be a problem.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Not an urban legend. Not frequent, but you do hear the phrase from time to time. Succeeding due to the failure of others.

Great story,

Before the days of go fund me, some dude from a country with no snow tours around the world skating and hand making skates to fund that.

...then wins gold!

Hope is dont step on any ski-jumpers toes here, but ski jumping is very little about physical attributes. Its A highly technical sport where your ability to float ontop of the air is far more important than how hard you jump. Timing the jump, floating and balancing the air, and some luck with the wind gives medals:-) og yea - and you better not weigh more than 100lbs;) you though the tdf’guys were skinny? Were taking about A sport that has formally imposed restrictions on minimum weight.

I'm not aware of him ever making skates though. Doesn't seem to make his Wikipedia CV...

Well in 2017/2018 pretty much Noone has (only pellegrino in the sprint) :)

Im guessing klæbo wins the 30km - Im unsure of cologna. Tour de ski - athletes Do not have a good record of medalling in following championships..

My guess is

1. klæbo
2. Sundby
3. Harvey

1. Bjoergen
2. kalla
3. Weng

For those in the US, fasterskier.com has a good schedule of biathlon and xc skiing events and times in east coast time. A lot of the live stuff will be very early morning for us east coasters.

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Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
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Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

I'll fully admit that I'm an uneducated armchair critic, but I've just been watching some of the short-track speed skating semi-finals and am I the only one that thinks it's a bit of a joke?!

It's like the BMX of the Winter Olympics; a good starting sprint is obviously very important, as is line and positioning through the corners and ultimately it's decided by good and consistent surges of speed out of each corner. That's all very well and good in terms of the athleticism, but the reality is that, like BMX, every race seems to be decided by crashes and ill-discipline between the racers with often the best-athletes hitting the deck before the race is over.

It seems like if you're outside the top 3 coming into the last few laps the usual modus operandi of the skaters is to sling a stupid move up the inside of the next bend and take everyone else out because you have nothing to lose. Otherwise, if someone makes a legitimate move on you and you're too gassed to respond, then just cut them off on the next bend, again because you know your race is done anyway.

To my uneducated viewpoint the whole sport could do with some more discipline and/or regulation such as individual athlete lanes, as per long-track skating, or at least leader/overtaking lanes as per track cycling? At the moment, there's not much pleasure in watching the best-athletes run off the ice and supposedly the pinnacle event of the sport being decided by the commissaires.

Go ahead, shoot me down!

 
The level of fitness and technique that these athletes need just to "play the game" is off the hook. Several years ago, one of my short track skating friends of coerced me in to giving it a try, with proper skates. I grew up and still was playing ice hockey at a high level, and am also a life long nordic skier, both skate and classic, so I thought it would be a piece of cake.

The speed skating experience was easily the most humiliating athletic experience of my life. Getting yourself around that rink with your back parallel to the ice while keeping your but in right position will break you, not to mention handling skate blades with a flat grind.

As with most sports, you should try it before you mock it. You might learn something!

Kalla won in convincing fashion.
Bjoergen
Parmakoski

I watched live because my wife rolled over at 2 am and knocked over a glass which shattered on the floor and woke me up.

Nice of Norway to share the medals. Happy to see the Finns back in the mix. We have an Finnish international student visiting us a lot so she will be happy. What happened to the Finnish ski jumpers?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I don't doubt the strength, fitness and skill required and displayed by the athletes at all and I'm certainly not mocking them.

I'm railing against the way the competition event is conducted that arguably robs those athletes from a fair contest.