Garden Wafers

Something that might be underappreciated about Nalini's backstory is just how impressive it is that she's a practicing dermatologist. Dermatology's already competitive for US medical graduates, and is only more so for international medical graduates. And it wouldn't matter if she'd completed her medical training abroad; to practice in the USA, IMGs would have to complete a residency program here before they could be licensed (I believe that changed this year when TN passed legislation waiving the post-graduate medical education requirement). Without knowing when exactly Nalini went through the Match, I went back to look at the 2005 NRMP data: that year, there were a total of 288 PGY-2 dermatology spots offered and only 7 of the 283 spots that matched went to IMGs.

I was happy with both the men's and women's gold medallists. I guess I'm just a big old softy when it comes to skips battling against injuries to finally capture Olympic glory on their fourth try (interestingly, Shuster also needed four Olympic runs before he got gold in 2018). If this trend continues, maybe Mouat will win gold in 2034 and Fujisawa in 2030.

I enjoyed watching the team event yesterday, but I thought the announces were being rather disrespectful towards the other three Americans competing with Shiffrin. It felt like they were treated as supporting characters in Mikaela's Quest to Salvage Something From These Games. Also, the one announcer kept talking about how "no one" had won a head-to-head race going down the red course, except Shiffrin did exactly that in her very first race! I had to double check the Olympics website to make sure I wasn't misremembering events.

I don't know if it's still true or not, but I believe the Danish men have a similar setup to the Swiss where the skip throws second stones and the vice-skip throws fourth stones. I'm curious if the American women might adopt a similar approach to Tirinzoni's rink. I think Kevin Martin mentioned during the Canada-USA game that Roth seemed to have a better understanding of the angles than Peterson did.

I ended up rooting for Canada after I saw video of Jennifer Jones hugging the Japanese and Brad Gushue breaking down after his semi-final loss to Sweden. Canadian curlers are just too darn likable and I can't help but be sympathetic towards them given the weight of expectations they bear. Shuster's already had his redemption arc after his disastrous 2010 showing; just making it to another medal round proved his 2018 run wasn't a complete fluke. On a side note, what exactly was going on with the Chinese women's skip? I remember in Vancouver it was a fairly big deal that Shuster was benched for one game because of how poorly he played; as far as I can tell, Han Yu was not only demoted to 3rd starting with China's 4th game but eventually completely dropped after their 6th game.

Karim Bashir. I believe he's the only world feed curling commentator who doesn't have any curling experience - and frankly, it shows. For instance, in the men's Norway-Italy game, during the 6th end he was talking about how happy the Italians would be to take one point and maintain their lead; but anyone with any passing familiarity with curling strategy would know they'd opt to blank the end rather than take a force.

I've been Team Shuster all this week because, well, I'm as guilty of boosterism as the next American - but also because I thought facing off against the USA in the final would give Nik Edin's rink the best chance of getting a gold medal. I just really want the guy to get an Olympic gold medal before his body completely poops out on him.

Oh yeah, I always find myself becoming a human "math equations" GIF when it comes to the tail end of round robin play and trying to game out possible playoff scenarios. Based on the most recent DSC, the Japanese women are ahead of both the Brits and Canadians and would probably squeak by both teams if needed. The most dangerous scenario for the Japanese women would be the Brits beating Russia, Korea beating Sweden, and Japan losing to Switzerland.

Looks like the Olympic site has put up sheets with the possible final round robin standings for the men and women. US women are officially out but the US men still have a good chance of progressing to the final four; they're in if they beat Denmark or the Italians beat the Norwegian team.

Well, I was hoping for more for the U.S., but can't say I'm surprised. Becca Hamilton's been struggling this entire tournament and was again the weakest player at 72% shot accuracy. I know there's been talk about how the women's team have improved with just the switch in positions between Peterson and Roth, but they have the exact same W-L record as they did four years ago in Pyeongchang. I believe 2002 is the only time the U.S. women have ever had a winning record at the Olympics. I wonder what's happened to the Russian team though. I remember them making a deep run at world's last year and they're having a fairly torrid time.

I'm still going to root for the US women, but am prepared for a loss to Japan. The shot success percentages (which, granted, should be taken with a grain of salt), show the Japanese women ahead of the Americans at all positions except at third; it's just hard to win games if your lead is ranked 7th in the field and your second is dead last.

Oof. If you watched the women's USA-SUI game, that was an absolute horror show of two ends from the American women.

I remember at the last Olympics when the Canadian women's skip, Rachel Homan, got a fair amount of criticism for opting to remove a stone that had been lightly touched instead of allowing it to stay in play - even though it was well within her rights to do so. The nice thing about curling is that it's meant to be a good-natured, self-policing game where the winners buy the losers a round of drinks after the game. The officials are really only there to manage the clock, take measurements, and occasionally act as line judges when the handles get wonky.

I continue to be puzzled by the strategy of teams heading into the 10th end. The men's team had an opportunity to draw for one in the 9th end of the USA-CHN game, but instead elected to try a double takeout to blank the end. Shuster missed and China ended up stealing one point. But if you look at the W-L records of teams in the 10th end, the success rate of teams two up with hammer (98.6) is only marginally better than teams three up without hammer (97.3%). On the other hand, allowing China to steal meant the success rate dropped down to 89.2%.

I really couldn't understand the Danish stone management during that last end. Up two without hammer, why let that many stones accumulate in the rings - especially after Japan hogged a stone while trying to place a guard? Why not keep the house clear to prevent Japan from potentially ringing up a big score?