Olympics 2014

[Kalah]

Great start for Norway so far.

Silver medal in snowboard slopestyle. (he should have gotten the gold, btw; he was better than Kotsenburg, who touched the ground in landing).

Gold and bronze medal in women's skiathlon.

A magnificent gold in biathlon by our 40-year-old superman, 1.5 seconds in front of the second spot.

[Angelspit]

[Kalah]

Actually, Canada were unconvincing today. It took quite a while for them to get going. And frankly, Canada beating Norway 3-1 in hockey is a bit like Mike Tyson beating me on points.

[Angelspit]

I know, but I couldn't help to tease you a bit.

Our players are still getting used to the international-size rinks, that explains the slow start.

[wimfrits]

[Kalah]

Yeah that's pretty ridiculously one-sided. I'm a bit disappointed that the guys were not given a joint gold medal; the difference was 3/1000 of a second? In Formula 1 that's fine but speed skating, no. Give 'em both a gold medal, eh?

[Koni]

wim, you can add the 10,000 m triple win!!! hup Holland hup - my compliments and congrats

[Kalah]

After a week of abject misery, we finally got some more medals today.

For the past week, the Norwegian crosscountry skiing team have been struggling to a ridiculous degree. The fault has been determined to lie with the ski preperation team (ironic, since we spend more money on that than anyone else), who have failed to prepare the skis as well as the other teams.

It seems that this has been fixed:
Gold + Silver in combined (jumping + cross country)
Gold in biathlon

Go Norway!

[wimfrits]

Did they bring the bigfoots instead of the regular skis?

As much as I'm happy about the speed skating results (even a record in clean sweeps!) it does not bode well for the future of the sport. Less competition means less public attention, less commercial value, etc.
I don't understand what has happened in the past years. Especially Norway and Germany always were very tough opponents.

[Kalah]

I can answer that. While our Norwegian speed skaters have a proud tradition (Hjalmar Andersen, Johann Olav Koss, Eskil Ervik et al.), our current stock is just too thin. We have just a handful of really talented skaters (Bøkko being one) and that means less competition. Also, while financial support from the Norwegian Olympian society is OK (not abundant), it covers all Olympic sports. That means that you have a lot of different athletes competing for the same big pot of money.

You skaters, I believe, are professionals racing for teams. Norwegians - usually - are not.

Meanwhile, more gold for us in cross country skiing today.
The girls took a gold in the team sprint.

[Kalah]

More gold! Ole Einar Bjørndalen (biathlete) has become the most successful winter olympian in history.

[Kalah]

Check out this thing from the men's ski cross event where 3/4 fell just before the finish line ...

Best photo finish ever!

[Angelspit]

Canada vs. USA in the hockey semi-finals, just about to start.

We're putting up our Out of Office notifications at work.

[wimfrits]

I think every Dutch remembers Koss. What a guy!

It seems Canada is taking the lead..

[ThunderTitan]

Canada vs. USA in the hockey semi-finals, just about to start.

We're putting up our Out of Office notifications at work.

Let me guess, it went something like this:

http://www.macbrosplace.com/craig-fergu ... nd-hockey/

[Angelspit]

Actually...

... yes.