Daily Archives: February 19, 2022

Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee performs in the Beijing Olympics, February 17, 2022. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

On the menu today: The worst Olympics in history are coming to a close, and even NBC seems to have had it with the International Olympic Committees bumbling incompetence and longstanding blind eye to corruption; what the heartbreaking, cringe-inducing, and outrage-stirring scandal involving Kamila Valieva can tell us about that other big ongoing story involving Russia; and confronting the concept of reality privilege.

A Debacle Draws to a Close

Ten days ago, this newsletter noted that the opening days of the Genocide Games er, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing had generated a cataclysmic loss of audience for NBC. Over the past week or so, the audience size hasnt gotten any better and its not just here in the United States:

Television ratings for the Beijing Olympics are off by 50 percent from PyeongChang levels in 2018, which themselves were well below the levels of Winter Olympics past. But to hear the International Olympic Committee tell it, theres no problem, no problem at all. . . . In the United States, though, with the exception of the post-Super Bowl bump, ratings for the Games have bounced off the bottom of the ocean floor at historic lows.

No, its not only a viewer boycott of China thats driving the low ratings, but its hard to believe that its not a factor. Viewers around the world have a lot of reasons for antipathy toward China these days from the ongoing Uyghur genocide, to the crackdown on Hong Kong, to the aggressive moves towards Taiwan, to that virus that started in Wuhan which has killed almost 6 million people around the world officially and perhaps many, many more.

There are no live audiences or cheering crowds at the events, a television correspondent got dragged away on air, waiters and bartenders in the hotels are wearing full hazmat suits, and theres not even the usual pretty scenery the ski-jump platform was built next to a steel plant with structures that reminded American audiences of nuclear reactors. Theres something absurdly dystopian about this whole debacle.

For a long time, the IOC insisted to the world, and perhaps to themselves late at night, that autocratic regimes such as Russia and China were challenging but worthwhile partners who helped make the games a truly global event. It contended that the long history of blatantly unethical behavior by these regimes, inside and outside the field of play, shouldnt be a reason for concern and certainly wasnt a reason to exclude those countries athletes or bar them from hosting the games. Whatever Beijing and Moscow lacked in ethics, they made up for in money and the authority to build stadiums quickly.

These games brought another embarrassing and outrage-inducing scandal, this one involving Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure-skating prodigy. Valieva tested positive for the heart drug trimetazidine on December 25 at the Russian nationals; the test results were only delivered from a Swedish lab last week, after Valieva helped Russia win gold in the team figure-skating event. The IOC ruled there would not be a medal ceremony for the team event, in which Russia won gold and the U.S. won silver. If the Russian team is eventually disqualified over the positive drug test, the Americans will move up to gold, Japan will win silver, and Canada will win bronze. When Valieva competed in her free skate, she fell apart, falling twice and finishing in fourth place.

No one believes that a 15-year-old girl would obtain and take a performance-enhancing substance on her own; someone had to have supplied it to her.

You know a situation is bad when the usually mild-mannered Mike Tirico, NBC Sports anchor for the Olympics coverage, calls out the IOC on-air for utterly failing to protect Valieva or to mitigate Russian cheating and rule-breaking:

Something undeniable is the harm to the person at the center of it all: a fifteen-year-old, standing alone, looking terrified on the ice before her free skate. This image, maybe more than anything else, encapsulates the entire situation the adults in the room left her alone. Portrayed by some this week as the villain, by others as the victim, she is in fact the victim of the villains the coaches and national Olympic Committee surrounding Kamila Valieva, whether they orchestrated, prescribed or enabled, all of this is unclear. But what is certain is they failed to protect her.

Guilt by association is often unfair, but its called for here. Russia has been banned from using the name of its country the last three Olympic Games, because of the systemic state-run doping program that was uncovered after they hosted the Sochi games in 2014. The deal that was broken was supposed to ensure a level playing field while giving clean Russian athletes a chance to compete, but that scenario totally broke down here.

Now, a failed drug test from one of their athletes has tarnished one of the marquee events of the games and taken away from every skaters moment. In the name of clean and fair competition, Olympians and gold medalists from across the globe have spoken up and IOC president Thomas Bach, at his end of the games press conference in the last hour uncharacteristically openly criticized Valievas entourage for their quote tremendous coldness at the end of her skate and said that those involved should be held responsible

But now its time for the IOC to stand up whether its about blocking Russia from hosting events for a very long time or stringent and globally transparent testing for Russian athletes going forward, if swift action from the top of the Olympic movement does not happen quickly the very future of the games could be in jeopardy.

Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, an NBC figure-skating analyst, added that, It makes me angry that the adults around her werent able to make better decisions and be there for her, because she is the one now dealing with the consequences and shes just 15 and thats not fair. . . . Again, with that being said, she should not have been allowed to skate in this Olympic event.

Give NBC Sports a little credit for calling out the IOC on air. Maybe NBC is concluding that operating as a de facto public-relations firm for a spectacularly corrupt and increasingly incompetent Olympic committee just isnt worth it anymore. The ratings arent high enough, the advertisers arent happy enough, and NBC Sports employees no doubt want to broadcast unforgettable human triumphs not to try to polish a turd and implausibly assure viewers at home that the games are fair, free, and abiding under the rules.

Discussions involving Valieva keep spurring the comment that, Its not her fault. Yes, thats precisely the point, and thats why the Russian Olympic team used her in this manner. The people who run her career know that the IOC and the world will feel hesitant to judge and rebuke a tearful, angelic-faced 15-year-old girl. Thats why theyre attempting to cheat by using a 15-year-old girl! If this were an adult man, all of us would be reacting much less sympathetically. Our inner conflict about punishing a teenage girl for the actions of others is what the Russians were counting on; they figured that gave them a better chance of getting away with it.

All of these lessons apply to the other big controversy involving Russia going on this week. Some regimes just dont give a hoot about the rules and will do whatever it takes to win. You cant trust them, you cant negotiate with them without verifying that theyre keeping their promises, you cant rely on their good faith or good will, and if you make a concession in the name of comity, they will pocket it and ask for more.

These games have been a debacle, and the IOC was warned. Adam Kilgore, the Washington Posts correspondent in Beijing, wrote this morning that the games are concluding under a pall of pervasive joylessness and noted that athletes, officials and media members [are] shuttled from hotels to venues, forbidden to see the host city except out of windows. What was the point of selecting Beijing, then? These games could have been held anywhere.

Dan Wetzel, a Yahoo Sports national columnist, sees the Russian coaches heartless on-air verbal abuse of a terrified 15-year-old girl as the natural fruit of a long string of bad IOC decisions and a refusal to confront national Olympic teams that are systemically abusive: This is the Olympics that Bach, who has been president nearly a decade, has built. This is it. He just happened to see it in all its depravity on his television Thursday. He was disgusted at what he saw. Join the club.

The only silver lining to this mess is that Xi Jinping didnt get much of a propaganda victory out of it all.

This Is a New One: Reality Privilege

Examining Meta, Michael Brendan Dougherty shares an anecdote:

At some point in my adolescence, a friend who played guitar explained to me that he gave up video games because it just meant spending time building up skills and achievements that had no meaning outside the game or to anyone else. The guitar, as a discipline, gave my friend an outlet for artistic expression, and he was able to bring real joy to people in the real world with it. Becoming a guitarist not only changed the way he thought, but physically changed his hands over time.

Cam and I talked a bit about video games in the early chapters of Heavy Lifting. If you enjoy video games, fine; its a free country, and everybody relaxes in their own way.

But if you relax by painting or doodling, after a while youve got a painting or a doodle. If you channel your thoughts and feelings and stresses through creative writing, you end up with a story or poem. If you relax by cooking, you end up with a meal. If you play video games . . . what do you have when youre done?

Michael also spotlights what strikes me as a spectacularly odd argument from Meta board-member Marc Andreessen:

The Reality Privileged, of course, call this conclusion dystopian, and demand that we prioritize improvements in reality over improvements in virtuality. To which I say: reality has had 5,000 years to get good, and is clearly still woefully lacking for most people; I dont think we should wait another 5,000 years to see if it eventually closes the gap. We should build and we are building online worlds that make life and work and love wonderful for everyone, no matter what level of reality deprivation they find themselves in.

Was this written by the machines in The Matrix or something?

ADDENDA: This is the last Jim-written Morning Jolt until February 22; Alexandra DeSanctis will fill in for me Monday. Happy Presidents Day!

Way back in 2018, I imagined an international corruption competition. . . .

Read the rest here:

Olympics 2022: Worst. Olympics. Ever. - National Review

It's not quite a neat path that intertwines four women's Games, but there's an inextricable spirit shared byErin Jackson,Brittany Bowe, Elana Meyers Taylor, and Kaillie Humphriesin Beijing.

It started before the Olympics, whenBowepassed on one of her events toJackson, the star skater who just had a bad day at trials. Jackson would go on to win gold in her event, and Bowe claimed a medal later in the Games.

Bowe got an unexpected honor of her own, but only becauseMeyers Taylortested positive for COVID-19 and could not serve as flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony.

WhenMeyers TaylorselectedBoweto replace her, the bobsled star did not know whether she'd compete in front of her family at the age of 37. AndMeyers Taylor's unknown status as a competitor was something keenly felt byHumphries, whose calling out of alleged abuse from her Team Canada coach could've left her without a nation. Instead, she'd finish 1-2 with Meyers Taylor.

Throw inJessie Diggins making history when she won bronzein the womens individual sprint (freestyle) to become the first two-time Olympic medalist in U.S. cross-country skiing history and... well...

You can't say enough about these women, fellow humans. They rule.

See more here:

Top Team USA moments at the 2022 Winter Olympics - NBC Olympics

USA TODAY Sports| USA TODAY

Olympic love: Five couples who are competing at the Olympics

It's Valentine's Day and these couples are also competing at the Winter Olympics. Get to know these five couples.

Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

BEIJING It's Valentine's Day at the Winter Olympics.

And for a handful of athletes, such as Evan Bates and Madison Chock, it promises to be an extra special occasion.

"Do you have any plans for Valentine's Day at the Olympics?" a reporter asked Saturday.

"No, I mean..." said Bates

"Yeah we do!" Chock interjected. "We have our free dance run-through!"

Chock and Bates, who finished fourth in ice dance, are one of the few couples at the Games who are actually competing together. Others feature athletes in different disciplines, or different sports or from different countries. It's not unusual for Olympic athletes to meet, or lay the foundation for a relationship, through their sport.

Here are a few of the most prominent partnerships at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Evan Bates first asked Madison Chock out on a date when she was 16 years old. They went to Bahama Breeze, a Caribbean-themed restaurant chain. But that first date was also their only one for the time being, at least.

Years later, they started skating together after Chock's previous partner retired. And years after that, before the Pyeongchang Olympics, they started dating.

Today, Chock and Bates arethe reigning U.S. national champions in ice dance partners on the ice for 11 years, and off the ice for the past five. It's a lot of time to spend together, but they've loved it.

"I feel like skating together and being a couple off the ice made us into a mature couple very quickly," Bates said. "It kind of made us grow together."

Thursday night was a good one for Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld.

Together withChristopher Lillis, the couple won gold in Olympic debut of mixed team aerials.

According to The Washington Times, Caldwell and Schoenfeld met after the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, after the latter joined the U.S. aerials team. They quickly hit it off.

"We just clicked so much that there was just no stopping us from dating each other," Caldwell told the newspaper.

Like Chock and Bates, Adrian Diaz and Madison Hubbell are also ice dancers in a romantic relationship. They just don't compete with one another.

Diaz skates with Olivia Smart for Spain, while Hubbell and Zachary Donohue are among the top pairs for the United States, winning the bronze medal in ice dance at the Beijing Olympics. Diaz and Hubbell have been dating since the 2014-15 season and engaged since 2018. They plan to marry in 2023.

Hubbell said that, because they often compete against one another, she relished the recent team figure skating competition, where the U.S. won silver. Spain did not have a team, so Diaz could watch her live.

"Usually were focused on our event so much that we dont get to see each other in person," she said, according to The Associated Press. "So Im really happy to have him able to be there."

Gagnon and Ganong are both Alpine skiers, representing Canada and the United States, respectively. They met at a race in 2007 and got engaged in September while, naturally, on top of a mountain.

"She enthusiastically climbed up to this spot with me in a rain storm, the Matterhorn completely covered in clouds, without second guessing the adventure," Ganong, 33,wrote on Instagram. "And said yes!"

Gagnon, 32, added in her own post: "13 years into it, but couldnt have been timed more perfectly!"

Red Gerard figures hes known Hailey Langland since before double digits.

At 21, thats a long time for the two slopestyle snowboarders, who have now competed in their second Olympics together.

The couple, who began dating shortly before the Pyeongchang Games four years ago, have the rare benefit of a loved one with them at an Olympics where international visitors are not allowed.

Hes awesome. Hes so fun to watch ride, and Im really, really lucky to have him here, Langland said. That definitely helped me make the decision to come here. Im just a really lucky gal.

Their shared experience of competing on the same course in the same events gives each other a sounding board as they shareideas for runs. Slopestyle is unique in competitive snowboarding because the variety and layout of the course changes from contest to contest and requires riders to figure out their best run each time.

Our dynamic of snowboarding, me being able to push her and her being able to push me, is really cool, Gerard said. Its a fun part to our relationship that I like.

On January 28, British speedskater Ellia Smeding posted a video of herself at the National Speed Skating Oval, with fellow speedskater Cornelius Kersten by her side.

"At the Olympics with my bestest friend," she wrote on Instagram."Someone pinch me!!!"

Kersten, 27, and Smeding, 23, are partners in both a romantic relationship and a business venture a coffee company called "Brew 22," that they founded to help fund their travel and training expenses ahead of these Games.

While they train in the Netherlands, which is a speedskating hotbed, Kersten and Smeding both represent Great Britain, which is... not. One of their goals at these Games is to spark more interest in the sport in their home nation.

"I dont really know what weve achieved yet," Kersten told The Associated Press, "but hopefully weve achieved something."

Mikaela Shiffrin and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde arent dating for the competitive advantage. But its not a bad added bonus.

She sends me videos, I send her videos and then we try to learn from each other a little bit, said Kilde, the overall champion in 2020. Thats cool. I have a lot to learn from her.

The Norwegian and Shiffrin have been dating since early 2021, and made their relationship Instagram-official in June.

With the mens and womens World Cup circuits rarely in the same places at the same time, Shiffrin and Kilde keep in touch during the season through FaceTime and phone calls. The Olympics are no different.

With COVID and restrictions, you have to be really careful, Kilde said. Its a tease kind of. You see her but you cant really touch her, you cant really be with her that much. But its really nice to have her here.

Another real-life ice dancing couple, Tim Koleto and Misato Komatsubara met through the sport in 2016.

They were both looking for new partners and met in Milan, Italy for a random tryout. And the rest, as the clichgoes, is history.

"We talk about it often that it was fate that we found each other the way we did," Koleto told The Associated Press.

Koleto, who was born in Montana, has since become a Japanese citizen and legally adopted his wife's surname.

Belgium's Kim Meylemans and Brazil's Nicole Silveira not only compete in the same sport, skeleton, but they also competed directly against one another. Silveira finished 13th and Meylemans was a few spots behind in 18th.

We had to navigate being competitors, but also being in a relationship," Silveira recently told reporters."We figured it out. Basically, when we're at the track we are competitors and outside of the track, it's fair game, real life partners."

Silveira, 27, said the couple met three years ago but "it wasnt until this last season that we made things official." She finished 17th at the most recent world championships. Meylemans, 25, finished ninth.

Hundreds of athletes marched in the opening ceremony, and documented the experience on social media. But a post from Blayre Turnbull stood out.

"Name a cooler place to be reunited with your fianc after spending the last 3 months apart," she wrote in a caption on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself and fianc Ryan Sommer. "Ill wait."

Sommer and Turnbull are both Olympians competing for Canada, the former in four-manbobsled and the latter in women's hockey. Fortunately, their medal-determining rounds do not occur on the same day, so Sommer and Turnbull might be able to watch and support one another in their most pivotal moments at the Games.

Contributing: Nancy Armour, Rachel Axon and Tom Schad

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report

Read more:

Olympic love: Meet some of the couples competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics - USA TODAY

BEIJING (AP) The Latest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:

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The United States has clinched the top seed in the Olympic mens hockey tournament.

The young Americans beat Germany 3-2 on Sunday to finish the preliminary round a perfect 3-0-0. The U.S is the only team to win all three of its group stage games in regulation.

The U.S. moves directly to the quarterfinals Wednesday along with second-seeded Finland, the third-seeded Russians and fourth-seeded Sweden. Canada is seeded fifth and will again play host China in the qualification round Tuesday.

The U.S. has the youngest team in the tournament with an average age of 25 and eight players under 21.

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Erin Jackson has become the first Black woman to win a speedskating medal at the Winter Olympics. And a gold one, at that.

Jackson won the 500 meters with a time of 37.04 seconds Sunday, giving the Americans their first speedskating medal of the Beijing Games.

This one carried much more than national pride. The 29-year-old Jackson joins fellow American Shani Davis as the only Black athletes to win speedskating medals at the Olympics. Davis won gold in the mens 1,000 meters and silver in the 1,500 meters at the 2006 Olympics in Turin.

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Defending Olympic champion Norway has advanced to the semifinals of team pursuit speedskating along with the United States, Russian Olympic Committee and the Netherlands.

The Norwegian trio of Hallgeir Engebraaten, Peder Kongshaug and Sverre Lunde Pedersen posted the fastest time in the quarterfinals Sunday at 3 minutes, 37.47 seconds.

Ethan Cepuran, Casey Dawson and Emery Lehman put up the second-fastest time of 3:37.50 for the Americans, who came into the event as the world-record holders.

The Russians were third at 3:38.67, and the Dutch also advanced in 3:38.90. The semifinals and medal races are set for Tuesday.

Canada and South Korea were relegated to the C final. Italy and Japan will meet in the D final.

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Liu Shaoang of Hungary has won Olympic gold in 500-meter short track speedskating.

He led all the way and crossed the line in 40.338 seconds at Capital Indoor Stadium on Sunday. Liu had earned bronze medals in the 1,000 and the mixed team relay.

Russian Konstantin Ivliev took silver. Steven Dubois of Canada earned bronze.

The A final was missing some of the biggest names. Defending champion Wu Dajing of China was relegated to the B final, which he won. Ren Ziwei of China and Liu Shaoangs brother Liu Shaolin Sandor of Hungary were eliminated in the quarterfinals.

Hwang Daeheon of South Korea went out in the semifinals after getting a penalty for a late pass that caused contact with Dubois. The Canadian was advanced to the A final and won his second medal in Beijing. He took silver in the 1,500.

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Led by Suzanne Schulting, the Netherlands won Olympic gold in the 3,000-meter relay in short track speedskating.

Schulting collected her second gold and third medal overall in Beijing. She earned silver in the 500 and gold in the 1,000.

The Dutch team of Schulting, Selma Poutsma, Xandra Velzeboer and Yana van Kerkhof lowered its own Olympic record with a time of 4 minutes, 3.40 seconds at Capital Indoor Stadium.

South Korea rallied to take silver. China earned bronze.

Schulting screamed and raised her arms in triumph after crossing the finish line.

There were no crashes in the four-team final. Canada finished fourth.

In the B final, Italy won with Arianna Fontana skating. The Russians were penalized and the U.S. team was penalized for a lane change that caused an obstruction.

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There will be a new Olympic champion in mens 500-meter short track speedskating.

Defending champion Wu Dajing of China failed to advance to the A final. Hell skate in the B final against three others.

Liu Shaoang of Hungary won his semifinal that included Wu, Steven Dubois of Canada and Hwang Daeheon of South Korea.

Hwang was penalized for a late pass that caused contact with Dubois, who was advanced to the A final by the referee. Hwang ended up in the rinkside padding and was eliminated.

Also making the A final are Konstantin Ivliev of ROC, Pietro Sighel of Italy and Abzal Azhgaliyev of Kazakhstan.

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Quentin Fillon Maillet of France hit all 20 of his targets despite howling wind, and he skied to his second gold and fourth medal of the Beijing Games, winning the 12.5-kilometer biathlon pursuit.

Johannes Tingnes Boe of Norway had started off first after winning gold in the sprint, but he missed two targets in his first standing shooting. Fillon Maillet passed him and stayed out front.

Tarjei Boe of Norway was second in the sprint and went off second Sunday. He missed only one target and finished 28.6 seconds behind the Frenchman for the silver medal.

Russian Eduard Latypov also only missed one target and won the bronze.

Fillon Maillet also won gold in the individual race and two silvers, one in the mixed relay and one in the sprint.

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Ren Ziwei of China is out of the mens 500 meters in Olympic short track speedskating.

Ren finished third in his quarterfinal on Sunday night, and that wasnt enough to advance to the semifinals. He earlier won the 1,000 in Beijing.

Most of the other big names moved on: defending champion Wu Dajing of China, 2018 silver medalist Hwang Daeheon of South Korea, 1,500 silver medalist Steven Dubois of Canada and Liu Shaoang of Hungary.

American Ryan Pivirotto was eliminated, along with John-Henry Krueger of Hungary and Lius older brother, Liu Shaolin Sandor.

There was just one crash in the quarterfinals, with Jordan Pierre-Gilles of Canada going down.

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Marte Olsbu Roeiseland earned her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, and fourth medal overall, by winning the womens biathlon 10-kilometer pursuit race Sunday.

The Norwegian started the race with a lead because of her win in the sprint race and hit 19 of her 20 targets. Despite strong winds and blowing snow, Roeiseland held her focus and shot cleanly in the last standing stop to win in 34 minutes, 46.9 seconds.

Elvira Oeberg of Sweden, who was second in the sprint race and started 31 seconds behind Roeiseland, had three misses in her second and third shooting bouts, but cleaned the last standing to finish 1:36.5 behind for silver.

Tiril Eckhoff of Norway also missed three targets but came in 1:48.7 behind her teammate for the bronze medal.

Roeiseland previously won gold in the mixed relay as well as the sprint. She also won bronze in the individual race.

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Just like in the womens cross-country ski race, the Russian team opened a lead on the first leg of the mens relay on Sunday and then held on for the Olympic gold medal.

Sergey Ustiugov maintained more than a minute lead on the last lap over the two-man chasing group of Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo of Norway and Maurice Manificat of France.

Ustiugov grabbed a flag on his way to the finish line and won the 10-kilometer relay in 1 hour, 54 minutes, 50.7 seconds. Klaebo pulled away from Manificat for the silver, 1:07.2 back. France took third, 1:16.4 behind the Russians.

Snowy conditions made the ski tracks slow, especially on the first two classic ski legs. Leaf-blowers were used to clear the snow out of the ski tracks. By contrast, the winning time in the four-man relay at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics was more than 20 minutes quicker.

Alexey Chervotkin led off for the Russians, with Alexander Bolshunov skiing the second classic leg. Denis Spitsov and Ustiugov took the two freestyle legs.

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Ukraines Olympic team has issued a statement calling for peace against the backdrop of a Russian military build-up on the border between the countries.

So far no other athletes have followed the lead of slider Vladyslav Heraskevych. He held up a sign with the Ukrainian flag and the message No War in Ukraine after finishing a run in the skeleton competition.

The Ukrainian team issued a statement Saturday night Beijing time expanding on his gesture.

The Olympic Team of Ukraine that is competing at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing expresses a unanimous call for peace together with the native country, the Ukrainian Olympic Committee wrote on social media.

Being thousands of kilometers away from the Motherland, mentally we are with our families and friends. The statement doesnt mention Russia or the military situation.

The International Olympic Committee bans most protest gestures at the Games. It isnt taking action against Heraskevych because No war is a message we can all relate to, executive director of the Olympic Games Christophe Dubi said Sunday.

But IOC spokesman Mark Adams says that doesnt mean the IOC wants other athletes to join in.

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Marco Odermatt of Switzerland has won gold in the mens giant slalom at the Beijing Olympics.

The 24-year-old Swiss skier plowed through snow and poor visibility Sunday to win.

It was the first time snow fell during an Alpine skiing race at this years Olympics and the bad weather conditions caused the second run to be postponed by 1 hour, 15 minutes.

Odermatt coped with the conditions and the delay and a first-run mistake to post an unofficial combined time of 2 minutes, 09.35 seconds.

Zan Kranjec of Slovenia took silver, 0.19 seconds behind, and world champion Mathieu Faivre of France earned bronze, 1.34 behind.

The skiers had been racing and training on artificial snow until the real thing started to fall on Saturday at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center. A second womens downhill training run was canceled because of the conditions on Sunday.

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Slalom gold medalist Petra Vlhova is leaving the Beijing Olympics early due to an inflamed left ankle tendon. Shell miss the Alpine combined event in which she would have been a challenger to Mikaela Shiffrin, the favorite in the race.

Mauro Pini, Vlhovas coach, tells The Associated Press that they didnt want to risk making things worse by trying for a medal in the combined.

By winning the slalom four days ago, Vlhova became Slovakias first Olympic medalist in Alpine skiing.

Pini added that Vlhova also wants to make sure she has time to go home and share this medal with those closest to her.

Vlhova had already sat out the super-G and the opening downhill training session.

The Alpine combined is scheduled for Thursday. Vlhova finished second behind Shiffrin in the combined at last seasons world championships in Cortina dAmpezzo, Italy.

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The second run of the mens giant slalom has been postponed amid heavy snowfall and low visibility at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center.

Marco Odermatt of Switzerland has a lead of 0.04 seconds over Stefan Brennsteiner of Austria and 0.08 over world champion Mathieu Faivre of France after the first run.

It is the first time snow has fallen during an Alpine skiing race at the Beijing Olympics.

Snow has been falling since Saturday at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center, where athletes had been racing and training on artificial snow. A second womens downhill training run scheduled for Sunday was canceled.

The skiers say it is tough to see but good enough to race in.

Fourth-placed Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway says the light is more than skiable but adds it just makes it difficult.

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The womens Olympic skiing slopestyle qualifying event has been moved to Monday with the final the following day.

The competition was postponed Sunday due to wind, snow and low visibility.

The mens slopestyle qualification has switched from Monday to Tuesday. The final will now be Wednesday.

Eileen Gu, who lives in the United States and represents China, will be going for a second gold medal. She won big air last Tuesday.

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Kaillie Humphries has a big lead in the first part of the monobob competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Humphries is competing for the first time as an American citizen. Its also the first time monobob, a one-woman bobsled, has been an Olympic event.

The reigning world monobob champion finished two runs Sunday in 2 minutes, 9.10 seconds, giving her a massive lead of 1.04 seconds over second-place Christine de Bruin of Canada. De Bruins time was 2:10.14.

Laura Nolte of Germany was third in 2:10.32, and three-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor of the U.S. is right in the medal hunt her time of 2:10.42 putting her fourth.

Barring a big mistake by somebody, it looks like four women remain in the mix for the three medals. Theyll be decided on Monday morning in Beijing, late Sunday night in the United States. The gap between Meyers Taylor and fifth-place Huai Mingming of China is nearly a half-second.

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Live updates from the Beijing Olympics - Associated Press

Feb 15, 2022

Alyssa RoenigkESPN

In his final run of snowboard big air finals Tuesday, China's Su Yiming took a victory lap. The Olympic silver medalist from slopestyle one week ago, Su had already locked up the win with his first two jumps, the only rider in the top five whose best two scores came on his first two attempts. In each, Su launched massive 1800s, held his grabs extra long and stomped the trick clean. He wasn't leaving this one up to the judges.

"For four years, I've dreamed of this every night," Su said after becoming the first Chinese snowboarder to win Olympic gold, picking up the medal many believe he earned in slopestyle. That win, however, went to big air bronze medalist, Max Parrot of Canada.

And Parrot's story was heartwarming. A top slopestyle and big air rider for more than a decade, Parrot took silver in slopestyle in Pyeongchang. Ten months later, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Last Friday in Beijing, he won Olympic gold.

But a judging controversy has hung over his head ever since.

During his winning run, Parrot landed triple corks on each of his three jumps. At first glance, the jump section of his run was clean, technical and progressive. But on second glance -- or on NBC's televised replay -- it became clear Parrot missed grabbing his board on his final trick, a frontside triple cork 1620, and grabbed his knee instead.

In competitive snowboarding, a knee grab is about as egregious as sliding out on a landing. Grabs are used to stabilize a rider's body in the air. They help them spin or flip efficiently and show a rider's control over the trick. Most importantly, they represent a rider's style, his or her stamp on the same trick everyone else is doing.

But they are not required, nor is there a set deduction for not doing them. That's the thing about snowboard judging. It is not standardized like in gymnastics or figure skating, where elements are assigned specific point values that are added up to arrive at a final score. Snowboard judging is subjective, more akin to judging an art contest. And for many reasons, the riders prefer it that way.

Snowboarding prides itself on resisting the rigidity of sports like figure skating and gymnastics, and the judging, in theory, represents that ethos. Land the same tricks as everyone else, but go bigger, do a better grab -- or be the final rider to drop in a contest, and chances are the score will be higher. Innovate and land a trick you've never done before -- or better yet, one that no rider has ever landed in a contest -- and chances are you'll score big.

Because while the judging criteria -- execution, difficulty, amplitude (height above the halfpipe or jump), variety and progression -- are meant to be weighed equally in pursuit of a score based on overall impression, most judges value progression above all.

But if they don't, that's OK. That's what makes snowboard judging so difficult, and as the sport has progressed to the level it is at today, so inconsistent.

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At the Olympics, a panel of six international judges, plus a head judge, scores each run and the highest and lowest scores are tossed. But every judge on that panel might value the criteria differently, which means six judges can see -- and score -- the same run differently. Some reward spinning and flipping over style and innovation, and others see the sport precisely the opposite way. Judges are also humans who are susceptible to being caught up in a rider's story, past results or post-run celebration.

But in the case of Parrot's slopestyle win, the judges -- hired and trained by the International Ski Federation, the controversial overlords of Olympic snowboarding since its inception -- saw the same run and mis-scored it.

In two separate interviews after the event, head Olympic snowboard judge Iztok Sumatic, a longtime snowboarder, admitted that the panel made a mistake. In replays and in photos posted online after the contest, it became clear Parrot missed the grab on his final trick. But the judges didn't catch it. Sumatic blames NBC's camera angles, which is what the judges were using to score the event.

"We judged what we saw," Sumatic told snowboard website Whitelines.com. "And what we saw was a grab and a well-executed switch frontside 16 from the point of view of a camera that we were given. We need to make a decision in seconds, because it's live. We are being pushed to be on time."

Sumatic said that while Olympic judges are entitled to replays when they request them, in Parrot's case, they didn't ask for one because they didn't know they'd missed anything worth seeing a second time. "We just had this camera angle that they gave us, and it looked clean," Sumatic said. "Everything Max did was super clean and super good. We judged what we saw and everyone felt confident with it."

Once the scores were submitted, Sumatic says it was too late to change them. But had they caught the missed grab, "it would be a different score. Yes," he said. The podium would have shifted, too. Su -- who landed the only 1800 of the contest -- would have won gold. Parrot's teammate, Mark McMorris, would have taken silver and defending champ Red Gerard of the U.S. likely would have bumped up into the bronze-medal spot.

"Until we have people caring about having proper cameramen on the scene, proper feeds displayed for the judges, proper training and accountability for the judges, as well, it's going to be an uphill battle to get proper judging," McMorris told the AP on Tuesday.

In reference to the judges' inability to change Parrot's score after it was submitted, McMorris added, "I think that was somewhat a get-out-of-jail-free card. Because I think there was a lot of things they could have done to maybe make that situation a little bit better."

He's not wrong. Over and again, snowboard judges lay claim to having one job at a contest: Get the podium right. The fluid nature of snowboard judging allows them to score with that in mind. So, in theory, once they realized they'd over-scored Parrot's second run, they could have done the same for Su and McMorris after they landed their best runs in the third round.

But just like a blown holding call in the final minutes of a Super Bowl or any number of questionable Olympic podiums across sports, what's done is done. Parrot's win stands. It's what happens next that is up for debate.

"We are in an era where we should [build] a new system that can measure everything," Japanese rider Ayumu Hirano said in a news conference one day after his halfpipe win. "In the world of competition, there should be a way to measure height and grabs [numerically]. Athletes are taking risks, so we should be evaluated and judged more clearly."

During Saturday's halfpipe final, Hirano was nearly another casualty of inexplicable judging. In his second run, Hirano became the first snowboarder to land a full contest run that included a triple cork, the most hyped trick in the sport heading into the Games. Longtime NBC commentator Todd Richards, who competed for the U.S. in the Olympic debut of halfpipe snowboarding in 1998, speculated on-air that Hirano would receive a 97 or 98 for the run. When his actual score -- 91.75 -- was announced, fans booed and the hashtags #robbed and #triplegate trended on Twitter.

"As far as I'm concerned, the judges just grenaded all their credibility," Richards said on the broadcast. "I know when I see the best run that's ever been done in a halfpipe. Try to tell me where you're deducting from this run. It's unbelievable that this is even happening. It's a travesty."

No one was more stunned than Hirano, who later said his confusion at seeing a second-best score turned to anger, which fueled him to land the same five tricks again in his third run -- incredible in itself -- and earn a 96 to win.

That an Olympic athlete had to land the best run in the history of halfpipe snowboarding a second time to win gold was absurd. In Hirano's third run, with the same five tricks and same grabs, the same six judges scored him a full 4.25 points higher. The U.S. judge elevated his score by seven points.

"We want to have sound standards and I think we should look into exactly what the judges were looking at," Hirano said. "For the athletes, they're putting their lives on the line, they're giving it their all. So, for the riders, I think some steps need to be taken to address this issue regarding the judges."

As sports like snowboarding and freeskiing become bigger and more mainstream, and as the riders continue to push and progress, the judging needs to progress along with them. Snowboarders don't want to see their sport become standardized. But they want it to be fair. The question is, how do they get there?

Read more from the original source:

Olympics 2022 -- Why is it so hard to judge snowboarding? Explaining the mistakes, failures and admissions - ESPN

The Haydenettes skate at the Synchro Fall Classic in Irvine, Calif. in Nov. 2021. Cynthia Slawter Photography hide caption

The Haydenettes skate at the Synchro Fall Classic in Irvine, Calif. in Nov. 2021.

Under the crack of fireworks, this year's Winter Olympics will come to an end at Sunday's closing ceremony. As is customary, the Olympic flag will be passed to the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, which are set to host the Winter Games in 2026.

Maybe that'll be Carmela Mariz Olarte's shot. The competitive skater says it's her "No. 1 dream" to compete in the Olympics.

But there's an extra hurdle to overcome: her sport, synchronized skating, is not an Olympic competition.

"I think that's anyone's dream when they go into the sport," says Olarte, who skates for a Boston-area synchronized skating team called the Haydenettes. "That's also another question that people ask, like 'Oh, are you going to the Olympics?"

Much like synchronized (or artistic) swimming in the Summer Games, synchronized skating brings teams together to perform formations and step sequences. They skate in "perfect unison," said Saga Krantz, who coaches the Haydenettes.

The sport has for years held competitions in the U.S. and around the world, but a push has been underway by the International Skating Union, the governing body for competitive skating, to find a permanent place in the Olympics for synchronized skating.

To become an Olympic sport, the International Olympic Committee's executive board would need to propose it, and the rest of the IOC would then have to hold a vote. It's how breakdancing was added to the lineup for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.

Ahead of the Beijing Games, the International Skating Union announced the appointment of a working group to "investigate, strategize and gather the information required for Synchronized Skating to be accepted as an Olympic discipline" in Beijing. The sport didn't make the cut this year, but U.S. Figure Skating says it stands strongly in favor, according to a statement provided to NPR.

"U.S. Figure Skating strongly supports the addition of synchronized skating to the Olympic Program," the national governing body said in a statement.

It's hard to tell when any decision will be made one way or the other, so for now, competitive synchronized skaters say they are focused on continuing to improve whether at the Olympic level or not. But the Olympic dream remains.

"It kind of is in the back of our heads," Olarte says. "But when [an Olympic debut] gets brought up, we have this little hope."

The Haydenettes glide across the ice at the Bryant Park tree lighting in New York. On Ice Perspectives hide caption

Krantz says she thinks an Olympic debut could be "getting very close."

"The time that we train these days, the amount of hours, the type of training that we do is equal to the singles and pairs dance," Krantz says.

Still, the sport will have multiple hurdles to overcome before it can reach the Olympic stage. The IOC considers new sports based on 35 criteria, including how many athletes and officials would be included; how popular the sport is in the host country and what type of revenues it might generate.

The Haydenettes have participated in every world championship since the International Skating Union's first World Synchronized Skating Championships were held in in 2000. The squad has won medals five times at the world level and have been national champions more than two dozen times.

The sport is much different than it was two decades ago, says Krantz. Over the years, the number of skaters on the ice has decreased to 16 from 32, Krantz notes. The International Skating Union is also testing the sport with 12 skaters.

The training, she says, has also become more serious over the past five years.

But a push to reach Olympic status doesn't define them, she says.

"We're quite comfortable and happy where we are as athletes," Krantz says. "We're in a very good place right now where we just want to continue to train and simply to see if the opportunity comes to make it happen at the Olympics."

For now, the team is preparing for a national competition in Colorado Springs for a chance to compete in World Championships in April.

The Haydenettes skate at the Boston Synchronized Skating Classic in Norwood, Mass. Marissa Olarte Photography hide caption

Carly Muoz, a skater with the Haydenettes, first started skating when she was four years old. After watching a local synchronized skating team when she was six, she was "captured by the magic." She hasn't looked back since.

Now 23, Muoz says she's not just competing for a shot at the Olympics. She's competing for herself and her team, she says, to be the best skater she can be.

"That's a process that never stops," she says. "We can always do better than what we were yesterday or what we were last year."

But the Olympic dream lingers. It would be "incredible to compete," she says.

Read more:

Synchronized skating is looking for a spot at the Winter Olympics in 2026 - NPR