Russia sticking their OARs in: Winter Olympics 2018

[Snake Plissken]

If it's the BBC bloke from Ski Sunday, he's a complete bellend. He began his interview with bronze medallist Isabel Atkin by saying "come on, lock it in!" and made to hug her. She looked as mortified as you'd expect being challenged to cuddle a grinning 50-year-old bloke.

That would be Ed Leigh. Who in the snowboard cross, said one of the competitors did a "frontside 90". It's snowboard cross, the idea is to get down the course as fast as you can mate, not to pull tricks. Also did an impression of an engine hitting a rev limiter.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Yeah, the NHL owners can go fuck themselves. How any supposed businessmen don't recognize the marketing opportunity of letting their star players onto a platform like this is just staggering. Never mind the knock-on interest a world class Olympics would in turn spin back to the NHL. Short-sighted pricks.

[ad hoc]

Hang on a second. You can't complain that Olympic hockey was setup to favour the European teams when it is the NHL who refuse to let their players go. It's not the Olympics fault that the US and Canadian teams are basically a bunch of journeymen - albeit ones quite rightly living a bit of a dream.

Yes you're going to have to provide some evidence for this bias. It's because Olympic hockey is played on international standard sized rinks?

[Ray de Galles]

There are five or six designated tabard colours (red, yellow, blue, white, black and green) for each race that are assigned to the lanes in the starting gate.

The colours only indicate which gate the snowboarders leave from and have nothing to do with their nationality, but the competitors are identified by tabard colour on screen and in the official app.

The problem, as the photo indicates, is that tabards are far from easily distinguishable during the full course of the race.

I figured that was the intended purpose of the tabards but, as you say, it doesn’t work.

I will also admit I hadn’t noticed the “key” to the tabard colours on screen. Perhaps I missed it or maybe it’s because I’ve been watching via online catch up.

[Snake Plissken]

The gods really hate Elise Christie.

[Ray de Galles]

She appeared to cause that crash though, meaning the DQ was the correct decision. She left herself with too much to do on the final corner.

[Snake Plissken]

No different to the previous race where the Korean blocked off a Canadian and the latter got penalised.

[Ray de Galles]

Amazing display from Choi in the 1500m final anyway, she looked unbeatable.

[Ray de Galles]

No different to the previous race where the Korean blocked off a Canadian and the latter got penalised.

I’d have to go back and take another look at that one but Christie’s action was more explicit than a block, she put her arm across her opponent and seemed to pull her knee. These decisions are all subjective but I can’t see that Christie can have any complaints or blame bad luck.

[Muukalainen]

The Finns took the Swedes apart in the quarter finals of the ice hockey. That's not a sentence that gets written very often.

[Ray de Galles]

I won’t pretend to have been following it much but the end to the Women’s Skeleton was exciting, for partisan reasons obviously. As happy for Laura Deas holding on to Bronze as for Yarnold winning Gold.

[ad hoc]

Not looking good for the US now against OAR. They were close for a while but a goal with one second left in the second period and another 25 seconds into the 3rd has made it 4-0.

[Ray de Galles]

Couldn’t find the ice hockey on any platform in the UK.

[ad hoc]

It's on eurosport 2 here which always seems like a pan Europe channel.

[ad hoc]

To the extent where I can switch to English language commentary on it (not on E1)

[ad hoc]

Finished 4-0 to OAR. Slovenia have just beaten Slovakia on a shootout, which means they finish second in the group. I cannot work out how qualification for the next round works though so I don't really know what that means

[ursus arctos]

The three group winners and the best second place team go through to the quarters.

The other eight teams are seeded 1-8 (based on their performance in the group stage) and play single matches (1-8, 2-7,3-6, 4-5), with the winners filling out the quarters.

[Various Artist]

Couldn’t find the ice hockey on any platform in the UK.

I've just watched the whole thing on the BBC red button channel (601), after watching the women's skeleton final runs live on BBC1. That was indeed terrific for Laura Deas hanging onto bronze, quite apart from the brilliance of Lizzie Lizzy Yarnold's last run for gold.

[Hot Pepsi]

Hang on a second. You can't complain that Olympic hockey was setup to favour the European teams when it is the NHL who refuse to let their players go. It's not the Olympics fault that the US and Canadian teams are basically a bunch of journeymen - albeit ones quite rightly living a bit of a dream.

They play on a European ice sheet with European rules. When it was supposed to be amateur, the Soviets and Czechs sent professionals.

But I never said it was their fault. I just sais it was a set up that favored Europeans. Even if its not the Olympics fault that its unbalanced, it's still unbalanced. It's not their fault that nobody else can match the US in snowboard halfpipe, and yet somehow that's evidence of the Olympics selling out to commercial interests whereas the bogus "world championships" of hockey are just his its supposed to be?

[ad hoc]

I just spent an enjoyable half hour disappearing into the rabbit hole that is the history of ice hockey, mostly with the aim of trying to find out the origins of the different rink sizes. Broadly speaking (and having read a number of message board rants from angry Canadians who believe that they invented the sport and should be listened to on all matters) the story is this :
*various hockey ish games were played in most European countries that had significant winters and these were replicated in North America upon colonisation
*the first game that we would recognise today as being close to the modern game happened in Montreal and it was codified there (though in fact they basically took nearly the entire rulebook wholesale from field hockey)
*Europe was a mass of different games with different rinks all sort of related
*the LIHG (the forerunner to the IIHF) was founded to try and come up with rules that would allow international /cross border play. Of all the challenges they faced, rink size was the trickiest because of course that was the most physical and difficult to alter aspect. But they managed
*As Canada (and latterly the US) didn't have to mediate between loads of national conventions it was much easier to find a set of rules and stick with them (tweaking as necessary). This made the development of the game much easier there. But it also meant that the LIHG could genuinely claim to be an international association.
*later there were efforts made to unify hockey and much was agreed (in general the LIHG moved closer to the North American code than the other way around). However for the same reason as the first time round agreeing on rink sizes proved impossible

I have no idea why I just typed all that. I think mostly to argue that what HP calls "European rules" are genuinely international and have come about over time to form a genuinely international sport, and while North American rules evolved differently (and understandably so) to argue that the IOC adopting LIHG/IIHF rules was somehow a stitch up doesn't really wash

[NickSTFU]

I feel sorry for Christie.

There was some pub bore yesterday exclaiming loudly how shite she was. As he was sat near enough to me, I reminded him that she's a World and European champion in her events.

It's a shame that she'll probably be remembered by the "every 4 years crowd" as a failure.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

She needs at least a silver just to get into the Merlene Ottey level of "never quite there"ness, for the public.

Having said that, if she wins on Tuesday, the outpouring from Claire Balding will be such that she will overtake Arnold in the SPOTY stakes.

[ad hoc]

Half an hour ish until the start of the (men's) mass start biathlon. My favourite winter olympic event

[Snake Plissken]

Of course, if the big ice is a problem then the NHL could have mandated it during the last round of arena building.

If Britain can build Olympic sized ice pads then I’m pretty sure the North Americans can.

[ad hoc]

Great finish.