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2014 Sochi Olympics Thread


dlbalr

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The 2014 Winter Olympics officially kicked off today in the wee hours of the morning EST. The days' events are not yet over and already we have allegations of fixed judging in figure skating between Russia and the US. That didn't take long.

http://olympics.cbc.ca/news/article/alleged-olympic-vote-swapping-deal-would-keep-canada-from-gold.html

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Note to self: pay better attention to when the last post of the thread was made. Totally misread it this morning and had today's short track winner spoiled. Still, was not expecting Celski to not medal. Big disappointment there, as 1500m is supposed to be his best event. A lousy start once again for both US curling teams. The women looked good early, stealing points in the 1st two ends, but folded. John Shuster once again sucked for the men. Crazy result in the 500m long track speed skating. That had to have sucked so much for the Dutch skater who thought he'd won before video replay changed his time, resulting in a loss by .01 seconds. Huge final run by Bilodeau in the moguls. I wish they've cover the biathlon better down here. We end up with little more than a highlight package of the shooting and finishes.

I took a total of 40 hours off work these two weeks to have time to watch everything, but I'm regretting only taking a 1/4 day off tomorrow, before beginning 1/2 days. Three US curling matches tomorrow alone is gonna eat up a ton of time. Can you tell I love the Olympics that I use my paid vacation time to watch them? Haha.

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Team USA: Failing at curling since 2010. Can't believe I'm taking time off work to watch these teams continually choke on the important stones. How bad do you have to be to give up 7 in a single end?

Disappointments left and right for the US. No medal for Bode, no medal in women's cross country sprint, no medal in the men's halfpipe, no medal in the 1500m men's short track.

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Team USA: Failing at curling since 2010. Can't believe I'm taking time off work to watch these teams continually choke on the important stones. How bad do you have to be to give up 7 in a single end?

7 in an end? I don't think I've ever seen that before.

There was quite the 3rd period in the Canada-US women's game. I must say, I'm still a bit surprised the one goal counted (I won't say which to avoid spoilers but anyone who watched the game already knows what I'm referring to).

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Team USA: Failing at curling since 2010. Can't believe I'm taking time off work to watch these teams continually choke on the important stones. How bad do you have to be to give up 7 in a single end?

Disappointments left and right for the US. No medal for Bode, no medal in women's cross country sprint, no medal in the men's halfpipe, no medal in the 1500m men's short track.

:shocked:

Can't wait for the short track speed skating relays.

My favorite sports all Olympics sports combined :

1. Men Hockey

2. Men Moguls

3. Men 100m sprint relay (summer)

4. Short track speed skating relay (both men and women)

5. Curling I guess, or women beach volleyball :D

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7 in an end? I don't think I've ever seen that before.

There was quite the 3rd period in the Canada-US women's game. I must say, I'm still a bit surprised the one goal counted (I won't say which to avoid spoilers but anyone who watched the game already knows what I'm referring to).

Yeah, I'm still a little confused about that goal. I didn't see a signal one way or the other on the ice and apparently whistles aren't reviewable in the Olympics, so the whole situation was weird. The whistle did blow before it went in, but it shouldn't have been blown in the first place, so you can't really complain there. Overall, though, the officiating was terrible. Lots of missed interference type calls and Canada's line changes were terrible. They got called for one, but should have had at least a few others. In the end, the US just didn't deserve to win. They didn't show up in the 3rd period until they pulled the goalie. You can't do that against Canada.

More disappointments for the US, with Shani Davis not even coming close to a medal in the 1000m. On the good side, we rocked the women's halfpipe and got our first ever medal in the luge.

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François Hamelin falls and the Canadians miss a chance to go for a medal in the 5000m relay.

Major dissapointment for Canada. this + Mariane St-Gelais who missed the final...

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The top Japanese guy fell in figure skating and it was all there for Patrick Chan, but he had a pretty shaky run and ended up with silver. Joannie Rochette had a pretty harsh take on it: "The gold was there on a silver platter. He took the platter."

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When the Olympics started, I didn't think I'd be cheering for any Japanese people but I found it hard not to cheer for ski jumper Noriaki Kasai. At the age of 41, in his 7th Olympics, he won his first ever individual ski jumping medal (a silver). That's a cool story. Apparently, he intends to try to qualify for the 2018 games as well.

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Is anyone shocked that the US skaters were still slow after changing back to their old suits? It was idiotic to change equipment heading into the Olympics, but let's be real - that wasn't their biggest problem. A suit might give +/- a couple tenths of a second at most, not the kind of time they're losing by. For whatever reason, we're just not skating well. Blaming the suits is just embarrassing.

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I was reading an article about how the US weren't even allowing their athletes to test the new suits before Sochi out of fear that info would leak to other countries about its design. I think Canada's in a similar situation too in terms of trying to protect its secrecy. Go with what brought you there...or do the testing early enough so that the athletes are comfortable.

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The US women's hockey team was up 3-0 with 26 shots before Sweden even got their first shot. And this in an Olympic semi-final. I really can't buy anyone's defense for the level of parity in the women's game.

I think the US has got to be the favourite for the final on Thursday, despite Canada's win over them.

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Speaking of women's hockey, has anyone else had enough of Cassie Campbell as the colour commentator? For someone that has been doing hockey broadcasting since 2006, she sure isn't improving (I think she has gotten worse). I don't think she knew half of the Swiss players today (you could hear the silent hesitation as she checked her lineup sheet to see who wears number ___) and boasted on about every Canadian player as if they were a star. Any negative comment about Canada was immediately qualified with a positive or some sort of statement about how they're working hard out there. Sadly she's no better when doing the men's games either.

It also irked me when she talked about how someone should count the number of offsides. You're the analyst, Cassie, that's your job. You'd think after 8 years she'd know that by now.

If only NBC would carry the final live, I'd watch the US commentary just to get away from listening to her go on and on about the most insignificant things...or things that didn't actually happen.

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Yeah, Cassie Campbell always struck me as too slow to be a commentator and not insightful enough to be an analyst. It's sort of inevitable that she'd be a cheerleader when calling the Team Canada women (I'd be surprised if NBC is any better), but it's unfortunate that she's the main horse that CBC are tied to when it comes to female analysts.

The final shot total in the US game was 70-9. They might as well have a 7 game series for gold between Canada and the US, and have the rest of the tournament be for bronze.

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Jesus Christ - anyone watching the women's gold medal game?? The last 2 minutes alone have been absolutely heart-attack inducing. Canada has crawled back from a 2-0 deficit and almost losing from a referee knocking down a Canadian defenseman with the goalie out. Puck hit the post squarely. Absolutely crazy end of game. Let's see what OT brings!

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What a game for the gold. Canada-US in the final is always a classic, and this one lived up to it. The Canadian goalie saved our bacon time and again. However, if I was American I'd be pissed, there were some iffy calls in OT. Who hires a British ref for the biggest game in the sport?

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