BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
15 February 2014
NPR SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS 2014 COVERAGE & MEDAL STANDINGS FROM 23JAN14 THROUGH 15FEB14
THE coverage of the Sochi Winter Olympics 2014 from NPR.....
Team USA beat out their rivals in a heart-stopping sudden-death
shootout as Russian President Vladimir Putin watched from the stands.
After coming out of a two-year retirement, Noelle Pikus-Pace wins a
medal that long eluded her. At 31, eight years after she was first seen
as an Olympics favorite, she celebrated with her two children in Sochi.
So far, no U.S. speedskater has finished better than seventh in
Sochi while wearing a new race suit. Now the American skaters will
switch back to the suit they wore during a successful World Cup season.
by Sam H. Sanders
The IOC says it's pleased with how the games have turned out so
far. Meanwhile, Sandro Viletta of Switzerland took gold Friday in men's
super-combined slalom, a sport American Ted Ligety had been expected to
dominate.
The U.S. is defending its gold medal in men's figure skating, but
without the star power of previous games. Two skaters in Sochi,
19-year-old Jason Brown and 28-year-old Jeremy Abbott — represent the
near future of the sport in America.
Evgeni Plushenko wanted to compete one more time in a bid to win
an individual gold before his home fans. But recurring back problems
appear to have forced him to pull out of the competition. Plushenko, 31,
won a gold medal in 2006 and helped his team win a gold this week.
Team Russia — led by Alexander Ovechkin — and its fans talk
constantly of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" and the team's loss four years
ago in Vancouver. On Saturday, they'll meet a young and "hungry" Team
USA.
Olympic athletes often endure weeks of anticipation as pressure
builds toward their moment on the global stage. That wasn't a problem
for Canadian Denny Morrison, who got his spot in the speedskating finals
just one day ahead of the race.
Also: Canada beats Team USA in women's hockey, but the teams are
likely to face again later in the gold medal game; the women's downhill
ski race ends in a way that's virtually unheard of.
German Natalie Geisenberger's winning margin of 1.139 seconds was
the largest at the Olympics since 1964, the sport's first year at the
games. The American Hamlin says of her medal, "It's surreal, really."
The top five finishers all pulled off their best runs in the
second half of the competition – none more so than White, who stood in
11th place after the first run with a score of 35.
Jumpers Lindsey Van and Jessica Jerome spent a decade advocating
for the event's inclusion. "There's nothing to wait for anymore," says
Van. "I'm here, and it feels good." Their teammate Sarah Hendrickson,
meanwhile, has another battle to fight, as she competes on a newly
reconstructed knee.
Tuesday's highlights include the snowboarder's bid to become the
first American man to earn gold medals at three straight Winter
Olympics. Meanwhile, the three members of Team India can now officially
compete for their nation. A dispute over that nation's organizing
committee has been settled.
Olympic organizers in Sochi are trying to feature Russian culture,
but when it comes to music, they've brought in help from the USA: Mike
Nakagawa from Aspen, Colo. One catch: The Olympics have some strict
rules on what he can play.
The two teams will meet Wednesday in an early round game, but they
have an intense rivalry that has often turned to heated clashes on the
ice. The players are neither embarrassed nor proud of the fighting, but,
yes, it could happen again.
Ole Einar Bjoerndalen is a biathlete competing for a record 13th
medal — which would make him the most decorated athlete ever at the
Winter Games. No one has ever been so good for so long in his sport.
"He's 40 years old, and he's motivated like an 18-year-old," says one
expert.
The Winter Olympics brings up many questions about the sports
themselves. But people are also wondering whether TV announcers use the
U.S.-Sochi time gap to improve their coverage.
Much of the attention on the Olympic slopestyle events has focused
on snowboarders, but the downhill event is also done on skis. Devin
Logan enters Tuesday's competition as the world's top-ranked female
freestyle skier. And at 20, she'll compete before she can legally
celebrate with a beer.
Among Monday's highlights in Sochi: Maria Hoefl-Riesch's third
career gold medal; American Julia Mancuso skis to a bronze; Charles
Hamelin of Canada wins the men's 1500-meter short track speed skating;
Team USA dominates Switzerland in women's hockey.
U.S. Olympic teams have been more successful in speedskating than
in any other winter sport. The secret to their success includes talent,
skill and hard work, but there's also a network of support that buoys
the team.
Luger Shiva Keshavan faces an uphill battle not only to train for
the Olympics, but even to carry his country's flag. He and fellow Indian
athletes are officially "stateless" at the games.
The day after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, in
the heart of the Olympic Park, visitors were upbeat. And all the
controversies of previous days — stray dogs and unfinished digs — seemed
to fall away.
The Sochi Olympics have been criticized for poor preparation,
security concerns, and Russia's policies on human and animal rights. The
Russians aren't pleased. But host-bashing is a popular pastime.
Slopestyle snowboarder Sage Kotsenburg has won the first gold
medal in the Sochi Olympics, as the American women's ice hockey team
gets off to a good start.
Imagery from Russia's recent past – including the hammer and
sickle that adorned the flag of the Soviet Union – is seen in the
Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Olympics Friday.
Large-scale pageantry opened the Sochi Olympics on Friday, in a
symbolically rich opening ceremony that was marred by an early and
highly visible mistake — one of five massive Olympic rings failed to
fully appear.
This is the first Olympics where figure skaters from each country
are competing as teams. It's twice the skating, which is great for
ratings, but it also means athletes in this individualized sport now
have to work together.
Artist Marc Ahr has been drawing the Olympics for 22 years. For
him, it doesn't matter what the press narrative is, how the countries
are preparing, or even who wins or loses. Asked about negative news
surrounding Sochi, he says that here, "everything is impossible, but
everything is possible."
The stray dogs roaming Russia's Olympics venues have already
become the unofficial mascots of the Winter Games. Olympics officials
say no healthy dogs will be destroyed, but animal rights groups worried
about the fate of the dogs are taking in as many as they can.
Are people excited about the Winter Olympics? Don't figure skaters
get dizzy? Those are some of the questions being answered on Quora, the
"knowledge sharing" site. We'll highlight interesting questions during
the 2014 Winter Games.
Like to get your Olympics fix the old-fashioned way in prime time?
NBC-TV has that covered. The network is also putting more than 1,000
hours of its coverage online, live. The catch: You need to show you're a
cable TV or satellite TV subscriber, so have your credentials at hand.
A Russian official says the security situation in Sochi is no
worse than in New York, Boston or Washington. Meanwhile, slopestyle
snowboarding makes its Olympic debut, without American star Shaun White.
Southern Russia, the venue for the coming Winter Olympics, is a
wild land known for its breathtaking beauty and centuries of conflict.
It has long inspired Russian writers; here are three classic books on
the region.
The sport's biggest star says the slopestyle course in Sochi is
too risky for him; several top athletes have already been injured. He
will still compete in halfpipe, and hopes to pick up his third gold
medal in the event.
There's plenty of snow for the Olympics. A massive, fully
automatic snow-making system operated by a Michigan-based company comes
complete with two man-made lakes to draw water from. The company says
the snow that's been pumped so far could cover more than 900 football
fields.
With the Winter Olympics just days away, the status of
preparations in Sochi is mixed: Housing for the athletes has been
getting rave reviews, but hotels and other buildings are still
unfinished.
NCPR The Norwegian figure skater
reinvented the sport, adding grace and lyricism while also helping to
commercialize it. She translated her gold medals into a high-flying
Hollywood career, but also sparked controversy by rubbing shoulders with
Adolf Hitler himself.
MPBN Russell Currier, a native of
Stockholm, Maine, earned a spot on the Olympic biathlon team, and that
has his hometown abuzz. It's a reward for a region that's spent more
than a decade rekindling its Nordic skiing roots.
The 29-year-old from Park City, Utah, will compete on the U.S.
Olympic team in Sochi this month. What it took to get there is more than
she ever imagined.
Jessica Lutz has shuttled between Europe and the U.S., with the
goal of getting to the Sochi Olympics. For most of the past year, she
crafted latte art at a Washington, D.C., coffee shop.
Hubertus Von Hohenlohe will be the only skier representing Mexico
in the Winter Olympics in Russia. A German prince and one of the oldest
athletes to be competing in the Winter Olympics, Hohenlohe says he
doesn't expect to win any medals. But he does hope people will notice
his flair for fashion.
Elite athletes start their sports young and sometimes sacrifice
academics; some even drop out of high school. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard
Association says it wants to prevent that by opening its own high
school. But no mistake: Academics there aren't as important as winning.
NCPR Families of athletes normally
make a pilgrimage to see the Olympics, but this year is different: The
trip is more costly than previous games and, for many, more
nerve-wracking.
WSHU When Tucker West was 6, his
father built an 800-foot-long luge track in their backyard. Now, at 18,
West is the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic luge team.
The X Games have changed the lineup and atmosphere of the Winter
Olympics with the introduction of snowboarding, half-pipe and now
slopestyle. But when a youth-lifestyle, punk-rock sport makes it to the
Olympics, some things inevitably change.
Weeks after he turned 19, Jason Brown placed second at the U.S.
Figure Skating Championships with an electrifying performance that
became a YouTube sensation. "I'm so blown away and so shocked — beyond
shocked. It's so surreal to me," he says.
WDET No U.S. skating team has ever
won Olympic gold in ice dancing. Some experts wonder whether it even
qualifies as a sport. But Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, known
for their blend of athletic power, speed and flair, are helping to
dispel that notion.
During the 17 days of the Olympics, we'll bring you the most
interesting things we see and learn from the Sochi Games. We hope you
tell us what you're seeing, too.
Not that long ago, female elite athletes thought they had to
retire if they wanted to have kids. Now, they're competing throughout
pregnancies and getting right back to training once they deliver. In
some cases, they're even making the most out of sponsorship deals they
might have once lost.
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