Olympic Notes, 2026

1

I had a conspiracy moment the other night, late night, watching the ladies dual moguls. This is the first year of the ladies dual moguls as an Olympic event. Moguls is a downhill ski race that has two jumps and all the bump-bump-bumps between the jumps. It's exhausting to watch.

The other night, and it was late remember, the first thing that seemed peculiar to me was that there were three skiers that had byes, and had no competition to get to round 2. Cool, that's the gravy of being one of the highest rated athletes. They were all American. Cool.

As the competition progressed, there were inevitably crashes...and it seemed crazier and crazier that the crash outs were against the American ladies. Every time it seemed like an American was going against a competitor, the competitor would go cockeyed at the first bump. One time I even called it: "Watch: that girl in the dark kit is gonna washout---oh no, jeeze, bummer!" One time the competition went around a flag, which is an automatic loss, and the announcer were like, "She just...just didn't cut back, I can't understand---" and at that moment, the American lady crashed hard. She got back up, moseyed on down the mountain slowly, came in far after the other lady and still advanced.

An American got to the gold medal match by having her competition washout, and the Aussie that made it beat a different American. Then the Aussie won the gold. The bronze was awarded to the American girl who scored better than the French girl, because winning the race isn't the whole game, and she did not win the race. It was peculiar and triggered by BS meter. But...it was late...

2

Curling is cool and all, but dang! So much curling on television! Why is it curling and not figure skating? It seemed like curling has been the default programming. It's slow but not devoid of entertainment, but it can really make your eyelids heavy,

3

I had to look it up: Super G is a souped up version of Giant Slalom, which itself is a souped up version of Slalom. This is the downhill skiing of my imagination: the sweeping turns and absurd speeds (SEVENTY MILES AN HOUR ON STICKS ATTACHED TO YOU FEET?) and 'just-survive-once-again' vibes. Slalom is that, but Giant Slalom is faster with more turns. Super G is even faster with even more turns. Holy hell, it's crazy.

So between it---Super G---and skeleton, I've been showing the kids the most terrifying winter sports imaginable.

4

Cass: "Wait...is that a gun? And why are they skiing like that?"

5

We watched the Finnish 18 year old on Big Air (the "Hot Dog" from our Commodore 64 "Winter Olympic" video game) land on his head and then slide down the hill face first, fully knocked out. Here's hoping to him being all good. 

That was unnerving to watch.

6

I had the Quad God final spoiled by an NPR report as I drove the kids home from swim on Friday, so when we watched it that night, it was interesting to watch the Kazakh kid get his big score, and then held it for twenty minutes and five skaters.