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Postcards from Pyeongchang: Best and Worst Moments

mtlchick

By mtlchick
in 2018 Winter Olympics [Read-Only]

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Souris

Souris

(edited)

Best:

U.S. gold in women's hockey, men's curling
Mirai's triple axel in the team competition
Jessie Diggins's final kick for the gold in cross country
South Korean gold in skeleton
Shibutani twizzles in the short dance
Savchenko and Massot winning gold in the pairs with that awesome free skate

Worst:

Nathan Chen's short program
Russia* winning the hockey gold
Mirai's triple axels in the individual competition
All the scary falls in the men's ski halfpipe (I'm still cringing)
Speed skating mass start -- WTF was that???

Edited by Souris
  • Love 7
galaxygirl76

galaxygirl76

I'm adding the women's snowboard cross to the worst because I still can't believe they let that actually start and as we saw it was an awful competition. I still feel bad for the athletes in that event.

Also the poor Dutch snowboarder kid who broke his arm on the first day of the games in training.

 

The best: Marit fucking Bjorgen. It did annoy me that every time she skied the announcers, wherever I watched, had to mention that she has a child and heavily imply how amazing it is that she can still perform on the highest level despite that.

  • Love 4
legaleagle53

legaleagle53

1 hour ago, Souris said:

Best:

U.S. gold in women's hockey, men's curling
Mirai's triple axel in the team competition
Jessie Diggins's final kick for the gold in cross country
South Korean gold in skeleton
Shibutani twizzles in the short dance
Savchenko and Massot winning gold in the pairs with that awesome free skate

Worst:

Nathan Chen's short program
Russia* winning the hockey gold
Mirai's triple axels in the individual competition
All the scary falls in the men's ski halfpipe (I'm still cringing)
Speed skating mass start -- WTF was that???

But you forgot one of the bests: Nathan Chen's six quads in the Free Skate that actually made him WIN the Free Skate!

  • Love 8
Jeddah

Jeddah

1 hour ago, Souris said:

Best:

U.S. gold in women's hockey, men's curling
Mirai's triple axel in the team competition
Jessie Diggins's final kick for the gold in cross country
South Korean gold in skeleton
Shibutani twizzles in the short dance
Savchenko and Massot winning gold in the pairs with that awesome free skate

Worst:

Nathan Chen's short program
Russia* winning the hockey gold
Mirai's triple axels in the individual competition
All the scary falls in the men's ski halfpipe (I'm still cringing)
Speed skating mass start -- WTF was that???

I agree with all of you figure skating ones! Under worst, I’d also add Chock and Bates’s free skate. They looked crushed. I felt so bad for them.

  • Love 4
kittykat

kittykat

29 minutes ago, galaxygirl76 said:

The best: Marit fucking Bjorgen. It did annoy me that every time she skied the announcers, wherever I watched, had to mention that she has a child and heavily imply how amazing it is that she can still perform on the highest level despite that.

One more for the road:

 

SHUT UP AL!

  • Love 6
legaleagle53

legaleagle53

25 minutes ago, Jeddah said:

I agree with all of you figure skating ones! Under worst, I’d also add Chock and Bates’s free skate. They looked crushed. I felt so bad for them.

You also reminded me about one of the other figure skating Bests:  The Knierims' performances in the team event.  It was the first time I'd ever seen them skate, and I absolutely fell in love with them.

  • Love 5
opus

opus

Best- Women's gold medal hockey game

(Bonus best- announcers call in Jesse Diggens home stretch)

Best/Worst- The snowboarder winning the alpine skiing race and NBC's coverage of it ("It's over. No one good left. Move along. Nothing to see here").

Worst- Lindsey Jacobellis coming up short again

(Bonus worst- as mentioned above, Nathan Chen's short program).

  • Love 3
kili

kili

Best:

Mark McMorris winning a medal after almost dying 11 months ago and his brother Craig's awesome commentating job.
Canada and Germany tying for the 2 man Bobsled gold and how very happy everybody was for each other
Virtue and Moir winning their third gold medal
Javier (especially his gala performance)
Germany's tweets after they beat Canada in hockey (including giving out free hot chocolate)
Good sportsmanship
 

Worst:
Short Track - too many DQs. It's the random slot machine sport
All the OAR angst
Poor sportsmanship
 

  • Love 6
SeanC

SeanC

Best:

- Kelsey Serwa and Brittany Phelan's gold/silver race in women's ski cross, particularly Phelan's dramatic drive from fourth place to second.

- The high drama of the faceoff between Virtue/Moir and Papadakis/Cizeron.

- The South Korean women's curling team's improbable drive to the finals.

- The German men's ice hockey team coming within a whisker of defeating Russia.

- Kaetlyn Osmond delivering the skate of her life to win the bronze medal.

Worst:

- Poor Gabby Daleman in the individual free skate.

  • Love 4
NUguy514

NUguy514

While I feel like I had nothing but worsts from Sochi (outside of Meryl Davis and Charlie White's gold), I have so many bests that I'll just focus on those!

Since it's my favorite, here are my favorite figure skating moments/programs from each event:

Team: Mirai's triple axel!!!  I hollered.

Pairs: Aliona and Bruno's basically perfect free skate and the moment they realized they won gold by thiiiiiiiisssss much!  I cried.

Men: Nathan Chen's incredible, redeeming, quad-filled free skate, so incredible that he actually won the free skate by almost nine points!  I cried.

Ice Dancing: The Shib Sibs' free dance.  I cried.

Women: Alina Zagitova throwing her triple lutz-triple loop combination back into her long program after she didn't do the second jump when she had originally planned to.  That sort of skating on the fly is why she won the gold and proved that she's a ninja assassin boss!!  I clapped.

Favorite non-skating moments:

The NBC puff piece on Pita.  He really just seems as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside.  I cried.  (I cry a lot at the Olympics, as you can tell! :-D)

Ester Ledecká just in general and her amazing reaction to winning the super-G!  I laughed.

Jessie Diggins turning that final curve, overtaking Sweden, and skiing for gold like an absolute beast.  I hollered.

Our women's hockey team FINALLY winning that gold!  I hollered.

Our men's curling team winning gold!  I laughed because I couldn't (and still can't) believe it.

Lindsey Vonn's bronze and her epitomizing good sportsmanship these Games.  I applauded (and teared up a bit).

The two Koreas marching into the Opening Ceremonies under one flag.  I got chills.

Yung Sun-bin's absolute domination of the men's skeleton in his home country, winning South Korea's first non-skating medal.  I cheered.

Hungary (WTF?!) winning the short-track men's relay.  I laughed.  That's short track!

Seeing all the beautiful asses and thighs displayed by the male athletes.  I...might miss those most of all!

  • Love 5
jennblevins

jennblevins

Since all my favorite competitive moments have been mentioned, I’ll go with my favorite non-competitive moment: the U.S. men’s curling team singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” during their post-victory interview. Sure, they shouldn’t quit their days jobs, or their secondary jobs as world-class athletes, but it was hard to top in terms of pure joy. 

  • Love 5
MVFrostsMyPie

MVFrostsMyPie

Best:
-Ester Ledecka winning gold in both skiing and snowboarding
- US women's hockey gold.
- Women dominating in general. As Jimmy Fallon put it, "The women are going for gold while the men are close to being eliminated, which also kind of sums up the year 2018."

Worst:
-The crotch area of the US speed skating outfits (I know they supposedly had a reason to do that, but so distracting!!)
- Figure skating wedgies
- Russia* competing

  • Love 9
FrenchCheese

FrenchCheese

Best:

- Norway besting everyone in the medal count again (they had a bad year in Sotchi)

- All the below 20 years old winning a gold medal because every time I see their joy I have a smile on my face (and I don't care where they are from)

- All the biathlon races especially the craziness in the team relays (and all the french medals too especially Marie Dorin Habert on her last year in sport).  

 

Worst:

- figure skating and all the weird scoring ( the bonus points that make a program without any jump for a full minutes a smart thing, the head of the Canada federation as a judge in the ice dancing event): I don't care anymore about the sport because it is always the same thing

- all the doping cases (the ones already discovered and the ones waiting to happen)

- The woman snowbord slopstyle event: those women could not show what they were capable of just because TV is more important than their safety. 

  • Love 2
greyhorse

greyhorse

When I think of the 2018 Games, the first thing that comes to mind would be Jessie Diggins and the unexpected team gold.  That sprint, that unbelievable call, the raw emotion as she crossed knowing she won... it was perfect.  That call will go up there in Olympic lore with Al Michael's "Do you believe in miracles?" It was so incredibly moving and brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

  • Love 6
roamyn

roamyn

(edited)

For me, best was Ester Ledeka and her 2 Gold/2 sports;

US Men’s curling;

Canada’s Gold Ice Dancers;

the South Korean team that won Silver in 4 man bobsled;

Diggan/Kikkan; 

The Cross Country announcer that went berserk:

Chloe Kim;

No more Lindsay Vonn stories (at the Olympics);

Austria’s Teresa Weingarten continuing her family’s legacy;

Norway’s dominance;

Merit Bjorgen becoming the all-time winningest Winter Olympian;

PITA - both for his costume and for his message.

 

The worst was OAR singing the Russian Nat’l anthem at the men’s Gold medal ceremony.

the Canadian group arrested for DUI & GTA;

Lindsay, Lindsay, Mikayla, Mikayla coming from the media mouths.

US Bobsled team... oh vey

Ditto for US Skaters, minus the Shib siblings; 

the weather pushing back so many alpine events and for the extreme cold that left many events less than 1/2 full.

Edited by roamyn
  • Love 2
doodlebug

doodlebug

57 minutes ago, mledawn said:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!? No. No!

14 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I was so very very disappointed that she refused to remove her goggles during a press conference because she didn't have any makeup on. 

I just  thought it was sort of goofy and fun.  Her explanation, that she hadn’t expected to win, so she hadn’t bothered to be interview-ready,  seemed very human and real.  As someone who’s run into their boss in Home Depot while wearing pajama pants and a baseball cap to cover my dirty hair, I get it.

  • Love 5
FrenchCheese

FrenchCheese

I think it is also goofy and fun. One young french girl did almost the same in the moguls event. Both of them were not expecting to win it and both of them did not know what they were supposed to do. So they forgot to remove their goggles. And once you are in the media zone and one journalist make the remark, it's too late and you look like a fool. She decided to make a joke out of it and good for her.

I also love her reaction to the cameraman who keep telling her this is not a joke or a mistake. 

  • Love 1
mledawn

mledawn

To me the difference is, you actually went to Home Depot anyway.

I feel it's really too bad that she stopped herself from having that moment because of how she felt she looked. I'm disappointed in her setting that as her example, that looking silly at a press conference was better than showing her actual make-up-free face. Now, obviously I haven't seen the presser so I don't have context.

I think it's important that women feel they have the right to be comfortable however they want to be, BUT as someone who coaches girls in sport, it is so hard to fight against traditional roles and expectations. I'm trying to tell my girls not to be sidetracked by how they look and just PLAY. What Ester accomplished was amazing. She's a tremendous athlete. But she's a role model, too. Girls quit sports at an alarming rate once they hit puberty, but the benefits of participation are huge for self confidence in particular.

Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked.

TL;DR Ester should be able to do her post-race interview however she likes, I'm just disappointed based on my own hangups.

  • Love 6
doodlebug

doodlebug

(edited)
55 minutes ago, mledawn said:

To me the difference is, you actually went to Home Depot anyway.

And Ester skied her race and went to the interview anyway, even though she didn't feel she was looking her best.  While I agree that women shouldn't be defined by their appearance, I think it is also very natural and human to want to put your best foot forward, particularly when the world is watching.  The fact that she kept the goggles on and joked about it was endearing to me; she really didn't come across as unusually vain or obsessed with her looks; just like someone who wanted to present her best face to the world at such an important moment.  Had she ducked out on the entire interview or worn a mask, I'd probably feel otherwise.  She was silly and lighthearted about wearing the goggles, I felt she was putting the joke on herself in a good way.

Edited by doodlebug
  • Love 3
mledawn

mledawn

10 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

And Ester skied her race and went to the interview anyway, even though she didn't feel she was looking her best.  While I agree that women shouldn't be defined by their appearance, I think it is also very natural and human to want to put your best foot forward, particularly when the world is watching.  The fact that she kept the goggles on and joked about it was endearing to me; she really didn't come across as unusually vain or obsessed with her looks; just like someone who wanted to present her best face to the world at such an important moment.  Had she ducked out on the entire interview or worn a mask, I'd probably feel otherwise.  She was silly and lighthearted about wearing the goggles, I felt she was putting the joke on herself in a good way.

I didn't mean to imply she was being unusually vain or obsessed, I think I sort of implied the opposite. I think it's fantastic that it could be interpreted as endearing, but it will always be frustrating to me that her "best face" isn't her own. That's my own bias.

To tie it back in to the thread, one of my best Olympic moments was Laurie Blouin, taking a hard crash on her snowboard slopestyle practice run that cut her cheek and gave her a puffy eye. She got clearance from the team doctors and won silver. Those jumps are massive! I guess when you've got Mark McMorris almost dying a year ago, you feel like you need to step up!

All these winter sports are fifty shades of nuts.

  • Love 5
blackwing

blackwing

I too thought it was disappointing that she refused to remove her goggles at the press conference because she didn't put makeup on.  I guess I'm a little ignorant, I didn't think makeup would be high on a list of athlete's priorities.  Except for the performance sports like figure skating and gymnastics.  Do most female skiers put on makeup before competing?

  • Love 4
StatisticalOutlier

StatisticalOutlier

11 hours ago, mledawn said:

I think it's fantastic that it could be interpreted as endearing, but it will always be frustrating to me that her "best face" isn't her own. That's my own bias.

I have to disagree that it's fantastic that it could be interpreted as endearing, because it's such a terrible message.  And it's not frustrating to me that her "best face" isn't her own--it's sad.

  • Love 2
AuntTora

AuntTora

This was the most enjoyable Olympics that I can remember. It was mostly covered as a SPORTING EVENT with little incidental profiles, instead of "OH THAT SPEED SKATER'S SISTER DIED LET'S TALK ABOUT IT EVERY NIGHT FOR AN HOUR (here's some scores)" . No holding the top event until midnight (even though it actually ended 18 hours ago) so they could TALK MORE ABOUT THE SKIIER WHO LOST HIS DAD (also here's some results). I'm sure the summer games will be back to usual, but at least there's no Matt Lauer looming.

  • Love 3
doodlebug

doodlebug

(edited)
On 2/28/2018 at 6:09 PM, blackwing said:

I too thought it was disappointing that she refused to remove her goggles at the press conference because she didn't put makeup on.  I guess I'm a little ignorant, I didn't think makeup would be high on a list of athlete's priorities.  Except for the performance sports like figure skating and gymnastics.  Do most female skiers put on makeup before competing?

I’ve never seen Lindsay Vonn or Michaela Schifrin competing without makeup.  Lindsay looks like she’s either wearing false eyelashes or has lash extensions whenever I’ve seen her.

On 2/28/2018 at 10:57 PM, StatisticalOutlier said:

I have to disagree that it's fantastic that it could be interpreted as endearing, because it's such a terrible message.  And it's not frustrating to me that her "best face" isn't her own--it's sad.

For me, it’s no different than piercings or tattoos or coloring one’s hair, getting hair extensions or even having a distinctive hairstyle.  Wearing makeup is a form of personal expression to me and I don’t find it sad at all.  If Ester likes the way she looks with makeup, that’s her thing and she’s entitled to it.

Edited by doodlebug
  • Love 4
StatisticalOutlier

StatisticalOutlier

5 hours ago, doodlebug said:

If Ester likes the way she looks with makeup, that’s her thing and she’s entitled to it.

No doubt.  But the corollary--she apparently doesn't like the way she looks without it, to the point that she won't let it be seen after an unbelievable feat that has nothing to do with her face--is what I find sad.

And @AuntTora, I didn't watch much of the Olympics at all because I can't stand the glurge.  Maybe I'll give the next one a shot, but like you,, I'm not that hopeful they'll keep it up.  Lots more athletes to mine for stories.

  • Love 2
doodlebug

doodlebug

1 hour ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

No doubt.  But the corollary--she apparently doesn't like the way she looks without it, to the point that she won't let it be seen after an unbelievable feat that has nothing to do with her face--is what I find sad.

And @AuntTora, I didn't watch much of the Olympics at all because I can't stand the glurge.  Maybe I'll give the next one a shot, but like you,, I'm not that hopeful they'll keep it up.  Lots more athletes to mine for stories.

Your corollary is faulty, IMO.  Ester can like the way she looks with or without makeup, but still prefer to wear makeup when doing TV interviews.  I never heard her say she didn't like how she looked without makeup.  If that was the case, I presume she would be wearing it all the time, everywhere.  She doesn't, so I don't think it's true that she dislikes her appearance without it.

  • Love 2
StatisticalOutlier

StatisticalOutlier

Well, there are women who wear makeup all the time, everywhere, and would be embarrassed to be seen without it, which I also find sad.  I gather Ester isn't one of them, since she didn't have it on that day, but she also said she did it because she didn't think she was going to be "seen."  And when it turned out she was going to be seen, she decided it was less embarrassing to do a press conference while wearing giant goggles than to reveal her unadorned face.  I draw an inference from that, while you don't.

The most favorable thing she could say is, "I look better with makeup," which I still think is sad.  It's not like she was going to a gala, where everybody would be gussied up out of respect for the event.  She's an athlete, and was being interviewed about her athletic prowess.

And swimmers go to their medal ceremonies with wet hair. 

  • Love 1
legaleagle53

legaleagle53

10 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

And @AuntTora, I didn't watch much of the Olympics at all because I can't stand the glurge.  Maybe I'll give the next one a shot, but like you,, I'm not that hopeful they'll keep it up.  Lots more athletes to mine for stories.

What's "glurge"?  I've never heard that word.

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