Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

Details about alternative Indian medicine that has impressed Raila – Pulse Live Kenya

Posted: February 15, 2022 at 6:27 am

Rosemarys doctor, Narayanan Namboothiri, disclosed that she was undergoing an alternative form of treatment known as Ayurvedic medicine. This seems to have intrigued the Azimio La Umoja presidential candidate.

I came to India for my daughter's eye treatment in Kochi, Kerala. After three weeks of treatment, there was a substantial improvement in her eyesight. It was a big surprise for my family that our daughter could see almost everything, said Odinga.

He further stated that he has discussed this matter with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he would like to bring this treatment method to Kenya and use similar indigenous plants for therapeutics.

What exactly is Ayurvedic medicine?

According to National Center for Complementary Health Ayurveda (NCCH), a natural system of medicine, originated in India more than 3,000 years ago.

The term Ayurveda is derived from the Sanskrit words ayur (life) and veda (science or knowledge). Thus, Ayurveda translates to knowledge of life.

Based on the idea that disease is due to an imbalance or stress in a person's consciousness, Ayurveda encourages certain lifestyle interventions and natural therapies to regain a balance between the body, mind, spirit, and the environment.

Ayurveda treatment starts with an internal purification process, followed by a special diet, herbal remedies, massage therapy, yoga, and meditation.

Goals of treatment aid the person by eliminating impurities, reducing symptoms, increasing resistance to disease, reducing worry, and increasing harmony in life.

Herbs and other plants, including oils and common spices, are used extensively in Ayurvedic treatment.

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Details about alternative Indian medicine that has impressed Raila - Pulse Live Kenya

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John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration – Science Based Medicine

Posted: at 6:27 am

If there are certain titles and sentences that I never expected to use for a blog post and certain sentences that I never, ever expected to write as part of a blog post, near the very top of the list has to be anything resembling John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration. Has to be. Its a sentence and title so off-the-wall that, even in the most fevered flight of ideas that sometimes run through my fragile eggshell mind as I contemplate what Im about to write in this and my personal blog, I could never have strung these words and thoughts together unaided unless I had actually seen John Ioannidis publish a paper in which he did, indeed, weaponize the Kardashian Index in order to attack the signatories of the John Snow Memorandum, which, to my utter disbelief, really happened last week in the form of a paper authored by John Ioannidis and no one else published in BMJ Open Access titled Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy.

Ill stop right here for a second to reassure readers that I fully realize that those who dont know who John Ioannidis is and are not familiar with the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), the John Snow Memorandum (JSM), or, for that matter, the Kardashian Index (K-index) are very likely scratching their heads right now wondering whether Gorski has gotten a little too much into the single malt scotch. That is entirely understandable, but I assure you that I was stone cold sober when I wrote this. (Actually, I have to wonder if Ioannidis was sober when he wrote his paper!) However, because of the bizarreness of the paper that Im about to discuss, before I delve into it I will now take a moment to try bring everyone up to speed, so that you can all understand why the paper is a combination of bonkers and awful, not to mention a continuation of Ioannidis ongoing assault on science communicators with a significant social media presence who have criticized him. Regular readers, however, will likely be familiar with at least two things, though. First, we here at Science-Based Medicine have written a fair amount about the GBD and John Ioannidis. Some might even be familiar with the John Snow Memorandum, a response by public health scientists to the GBD. As for the Kardashian index, that seems to have started as a joke, leading me to wonder why someone like John Ioannidis would take it seriously enough to write a paper like this about it. In any event, before I get to the paper, heres some relevant background. If youre familiar with this, feel free to skim or skip the next couple of sections, but I think that it will still be worthwhile for even those familiar with all these terms and the background to review them, because doing so will really help put this paper into context.

As I alluded to above, John Ioannidis has for a while been more or less at war with science communicators who have criticized him. Of course, given his reputation and his pivot to questionable takes on COVID-19, he is a huge target. How did we get here? First, part of the reason Ioannidis is such a huge target is because he is a physician-scientist at Stanford UniversityProfessor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Population Healthwho is also one of the most published scientists in the world (if not the most published living scientist), with well over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers indexed in PubMed as of yesterday and eleven papers already in 2022. (By comparison, I have one co-authored paper in 2022 thus far, and thats just because it took longer to be published than expected, pushing its publication date to a week ago.) As Ive said many times, John Ioannidis was at one time a personal scientific hero and, I daresay, a hero of SBM bloggers in general. Pre-pandemic, we featured general laudatory commentary about a number of his papers, including papers about bad epidemiology regarding diet and cancer risk, the life cycle of translational research, whether popularity leads to unreliability in science, problems with reproducibility in science, and the reliability of scientific findings, all of which contributes to the puzzlement many of us at SBM have expressed over Ioannidis evolution into a COVID-19 contrarian who has been wrong about so much about the pandemic and has even credulously regurgitated outright conspiracy theories about it. Maybe, however, this development should not have been such a surprise. Lets see why.

Ioannidis is most famous for having written the 2005 paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, which investigated why so much of what is published in the biomedical literature later turns out to be incorrect. It is, of course, a paper whose findings have been endlessly misused by cranks, quacks, antivaxxers, science deniers, and conspiracy theorists to claim that most science is false or at best a coin flips worth of certainty (and therefore their pseudoscience and quackery should be taken seriously as being correct), but that doesnt mean it wasnt a worthwhile endeavor. Those of us who support science- and evidence-based medicine recognized it as simply trying to quantify something that we had long intuitively known, namely that one should never take any single paper as the be-all and end-all, that we should base our medicine on a confluence of mutually supporting evidence, because the initial papers published on a topic, the bleeding edge sorts of papers if you will, often are later shown to be mistaken. Indeed, theres even now a term for it, the decline effect, or, as I like to call it, science correcting itself, even if the process is often messy and slow.

Even pre-pandemic, though, I found myself not as enthusiastic about several of Ioannidis takes on issues. The first time I found myself seriously at odds with an Ioannidis study was in 2012, when he tried to argue (badly) that the NIH funding crisis is completely broken and favors conformity and mediocrity. If you want the full explanation, read this and, for background, this, but the CliffsNotes version is simple. He operated from the unproven assumption that funding more risky research would lead to more scientific breakthroughs and also assumed that publication indices are the be-all and end-all of scientific importance. (This is a recurring theme throughout his career that has contributed to his COVID-19 issues.) Consistent with this sort of disagreement, I also thought that Ioannidis exaggerated when he claimed there was a reproducibility crisis in biomedical science, although my disagreement wasnt as sharp as it was about Ioannidis apparent dismissal of the NIH funding process as being a bunch of sheep rewarding only safe scientific proposals with funding. Then there was the time when Ioannidis argued that evidence-based medicine (EBM) was being hijacked by industry while totally ignoring how pseudoscientific integrative medicine and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) had taken advantage of the huge blind spot of EBM with respect to scientific plausibility to integrate quackery with medicine.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the pandemic hit, Ioannidis has arguably been one of the most prolific producers in the scientific literature of articles that downplay the severity of the pandemic, many based on methodolatry. Examples abound and have been documented mainly by Jonathan Howard and myself, the most egregious example being when Ioannidis credulously repeated a conspiracy theory from early in the pandemic claiming that doctors were intubating COVID-19 patients willy-nilly who didnt really need intubation, thereby killing them. Less egregious (but still quite egregious) examples include downplaying the death toll from the pandemic by misrepresenting how death certificates are filled out to claim that it was comorbidities killing patients rather than COVID-19 and that COVID-19 mortality statistics were therefore hugely exaggerated (another conspiracy theory); downplaying the impact of the pandemic on hospitals; and publishing articles that overestimated the prevalence of COVID-19 and underestimated its infection fatality rate (IFR), among other things.

As Ioannidis started to receive something he wasnt used to, namely large amounts of harsh (and, to my mind, justified) criticism for his conclusions, he started firing back with scientific papers that indulged in what can only be described as ad hominem attacks. For example, in one paper he indulged in the most gratuitous ad hominem attack Ive ever seen in a scientific paper against a graduate student named Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who had published an article that found an IFR far higher than Ioannidis had estimated. More recently, I discussed Ioannidis in the context of the Carl Sagan effect, in which scientists who take the time to engage with the public to communicate science tend to be viewed by many of their peers as inferior scientists, based on a stunningly lazy exercise in bibliometrics in which Ioannidis concluded that science communicators who are interviewed in the media are not, by and large, members of the top 2% of scientists in terms of bibliometric metrics. It was as big a Well, duh! conclusion as Ive ever seen, given that theres no evidence that effective science communication correlates with the publication metrics that Ioannidis used and served more as yet another attack on his critics on social media than anything else.

This latest paper by Ioannidis takes his lashing out at critics to the next level, but to understand why and how, you need to understand the conflict between the GBD and the John Snow Memorandum and why it is not surprising that Ioannidis has clearly allied himself with the signatories of the GBD against their critics and has used an even more ridiculous and lazy analysis to do it.

Regular readers will likely recall that the Great Barrington Declaration is a statement that arose out of a weekend conference in early October 2020 held in Great Barrington, MA at the headquarters of the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market right wing think tank. This Declaration was written and signed by academics favoring a natural herd immunity approach to the pandemic, basically a let er rip strategy in order to hasten reaching natural herd immunity, with a poorly definedactually, almost completely undefinedstrategy of focused protection to protect the groups most vulnerable to severe disease and death from COVID-19, such as the elderly, those with serious co-morbid chronic medical conditions (e.g., type II diabetes and heart disease), all so that society could reopen and life could go back to normal.

In response to the GBD, a group of public health scientists and physicians published the John Snow Memorandum. This memorandum was named in tribute to John Snow, the 19th century English physician who was one of the founders of modern epidemiology, for his finding that the source of a cholera outbreak in London was a public water pump on Broad Street, leading authorities to remove the pump handle, an action that ended the outbreak. In essence, the JSM countered the GBD by arguing for continuing traditional public health measures (masking, social distancing, etc.) to minimize death and suffering from COVID-19 by slowing its the spread at least until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics became available. Again, remember that this was before COVID-19 vaccines were available to the public and that at the time these vaccines were still in clinical trials. The memorandum noted, correctly even in October 2020:

The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.

Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity(3) and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of healthcare systems to provide acute and routine care.

Furthermore, there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection(4) and the endemic transmission that would be the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future. Such a strategy would not end the COVID-19 pandemic but result in recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination.

Indeed, the signatories of the GBD, Martin Kuldorff of Harvard University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, have always seemedshall we say?unconcerned that, as a practical matter, it is impossible to protect the vulnerable when a highly contagious respiratory virus is spreading unchecked through the healthy population. (After all, who takes care of the vulnerable?) Moreover, as was noted even then, for natural herd immunity even to be achievable, immunity after infection must be durable, preferably lifelong. Unfortunately, if theres one thing that the rise of variants such as Delta and Omicron, the latter of which has been particularly prone to reinfect those previously infected with prior variants of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has shown us, its that post-infection immunity (i.e., natural immunity) is nowhere near durable enough for such a strategy, given the propensity of this coronavirus to produce variants that can evade immunity from previous infections and waning immunity from vaccination. It is for those reasons that, when I originally wrote about the GBD, I described it as eugenicist in that it basically uses the observation that young people are far less likely to suffer severe disease and die from the disease as an excuse to argue, in essence, Screw the elderly and let COVID-19 rip in order to achieve natural herd immunity. This was especially true given that the GBD was published and promoted before there were safe and effective vaccines available against COVID-19.

Now that there are safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19, even if since the rise of the Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants they are no longer as effective as they once were because these variants can evade both post-infection and vaccine-induced immunity to some extent, emphasizing natural immunity as somehow being superior to vaccine-induced immunity is even more dangerous because its clearly not. If the rise of the Delta and Omicron variants, which are transmissible even in the vaccinated, hasnt demonstrated that to you, I dont know what will. Thats why its particularly disturbingalbeit not particularly surprisingthat the Brownstone Institute, founded by former AIER Editorial Director Jeffrey Tuckerwho was in the room where it happened as the GBD was drafted, describes his new institute as the spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration, and recruited Kulldorff as its scientific directorhas pivoted to spreading antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, even going so far as to compare vaccine mandates to the othering that lead to the Holocaust, slavery, and Rwandan genocide and the public health response to COVID-19 to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, all while its signatories claim to have been silenced.

Meanwhile, the GBD was hugely influential, with its signatories seemingly having had easy access to the Trump Administration in the US and the Johnson Administration in the UK, whose policies then essentially aligned with the Declaration, as well as leaders like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appointed a GBD devotee and member of the crank organization Americas Frontline Doctors to head up Floridas public health apparatus and declared that a single positive COVID-19 antibody test proves lifelong immunity and no need for a COVID-19 vaccine ever. Even now, GBD signatories, allies, and flacks falsely argue that natural immunity undercuts the case for vaccine mandates, which, according to them, harm patients when required for healthcare workers and damage labor markets. Even after Joe Biden became US President, in this country the GBD remains enormously influential, and its hard to miss the rapid push to eliminate mask mandates and block vaccine mandates as having been influenced by it.

Enter John Ioannidis, using bad methodology and a joke of an index to argue that in reality the dominant narrative is not the GBD.

I had always ignored the Kardashian Index (or K-index), viewing it as more of a joke than anything valuable. It was originally proposed in 2014 by Neil Hall in a BMC Genome Biology publication entitled The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists and named after Kim Kardashian, a celebrity who in my estimation is famous mainly for being famous (which was the point of the name) and compares the number of followers a scientist has on Twitter to the number of citations they have for their peer-reviewed work. The idea, clearly, was to denigrate scientists with a large social media presence as not being good scientists. Hall even said so:

While her Wikipedia entry describes her as a successful businesswoman [[2]], this is due most likely to her fame generating considerable income through brand endorsements. So you could say that her celebrity buys success, which buys greater celebrity. Her fame has meant that comments by Kardashian on issues such as Syria have been widely reported in the press [[3]]. Sadly, her interjection on the crisis has not yet led to a let-up in the violence.

I am concerned that phenomena similar to that of Kim Kardashian may also exist in the scientific community. I think it is possible that there are individuals who are famous for being famous (or, to put it in science jargon, renowned for being renowned). We are all aware that certain people are seemingly invited as keynote speakers, not because of their contributions to the published literature but because of who they are. In the age of social media there are people who have high-profile scientific blogs or twitter feeds but have not actually published many peer-reviewed papers of significance; in essence, scientists who are seen as leaders in their field simply because of their notoriety. I was recently involved in a discussion where it was suggested that someone should be invited to speak at a meeting because they will tweet about it and more people will come. If that is not the research community equivalent of buying a Kardashian endorsement I dont know what is.

I dont blame Kim Kardashian or her science equivalents for exploiting their fame, who wouldnt? However, I think its time that we develop a metric that will clearly indicate if a scientist has an overblown public profile so that we can adjust our expectations of them accordingly.

Of course, Hall is on record recently as saying that he had always intended the K-index to be satire mocking the preoccupation with metrics measuring citations, even protesting that there are a number of tells. Ill be honest. Most of his tells werent super obvious to me as I reread the paper. (Maybe thats on me. Maybe not. Maybe Im one of those old farts who didnt get it.)

Lets at least quote Hall, though:

I suppose the description of picking a randomish selection of 40 scientists to examine and that he had intended to collect more data but it took a long time and I therefore decided 40 would be enough to make a point were likely two of his tells, but in retrospect I have a hard time not coming to the conclusion that this whole exercise, satire or not, backfired rather spectacularly. If the K-index is satire, its perhaps a bit too opaque a satire, as certainly Ioannidis appears not to have seen it as satire; either that, or Ioannidis use of the K-index is satire thats even more opaque and less recognizable as satire than the original paper.

I did take one of Halls recommendations to heart, however:

I propose that all scientists calculate their own K-index on an annual basis and include it in their Twitter profile. Not only does this help others decide how much weight they should give to someones 140 character wisdom, it can also be an incentive if your K-index gets above 5, then its time to get off Twitter and write those papers.

In the interests of full of transparency, I will note that my own K-index, calculated yesterday using Halls original formula, varies depending on how I calculate it. The K-index is calculated as the ratio of Twitter followers divided by 43.3C0.32, where C is the total citations received in ones career. Hall came up with that denominator when he fitted a curve to a graph of the number of Twitter followers versus number of citations as a means of estimating how many Twitter followers a scientist should have based on his citations. (Remember, he only used 40 nonrandomly chosen scientists.) In any event, if I use Google Scholars estimate of my citations (which, as you will see, Ioannidis says that he does in his paper) my K-index is 104; if I use Web of Knowledge metrics, its even higher, at 118. I guess that makes me a science Kardashian. Do I care? Not really, given that I have over 69K Twitter followers and Halls silly metric says that I should only have 585-664 followers. Instead, I view my Twitter follower count as overachieving on Twitter rather than evidence of underachieving in science!

Seriously, this image kept coming to my mind the more I read Ioannidis embarrassment of a paper.

That Ioannidis would, apparently more or less seriously, use such an utterly ridiculous old man yells at a cloud metric (that was likely intended to mock the very sort of exercise he uses it to indulge in) to strike back at critics of the GBD and, not coincidentally, of him, boggles the mind. On the other hand, Ioannidis does not have a Twitter account, making his K-index by definition zero, making me think that his entire conclusion from the K-index is that scientists should not have Twitter accounts. I also note that young scientists, who, being relatively new scientists, likely havent amassed a lot of publications and citations yet, could easily have a really high K-index with just a modest number of Twitter followers. Thats how ratios work. Does Ioannidis not understand this?

I wasnt alone in thinking this:

So now, finally, lets look at what Ioannidis did. I realize that some of you must be wondering why I took so long to get to this. Youll just have to trust me that knowing the background is very important, and I hope that after you conclude this section youll agree.

You can tell from the introduction of Ioannidis paper that hes really cheesed about how the GBD and its signatories and supporters have been portrayed negatively, and he definitely vents:

The optimal approach to the COVID-19 pandemic has been an issue of major debate. Scientists have expressed different perspectives and many of them have also been organised to sign documents that outline overarching strategies. Two major schools of thought are represented by the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD)1 and the John Snow Memorandum (JSM)2 3 that were released with a short time difference in the fall of 2020. Each of them had a core team of original signatories and over time signatures were collected for many thousands of additional scientists, physicians and (in the case of GBD) also citizens.4 A careful inspection is necessary to understand the differences (but also potential common points) of the two strategies.4 5 The communication of these strategies to the wider public through media and social media has often created confusion and tension. The communication includes what endorsing scientists state and how opponents describe the opposite strategy. Oversimplification, use of strawman arguments, and allusions of conflicts, political endorsements and ad hominem attacks can create an explosive landscape.49

I like that part about ad hominem attacks, given Ioannidis previous punching down ad hominems against Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and my perception that this entire article is basically an exercise in ad hominems marshaled to discredit JSM signatories. Maybe his irritation at criticism is part of the reason he treated a likely satirical index with the utter seriousness of a funeral director arranging a memorial service. Nowhere in his paper did I find any indication whatsoever that Ioannidis recognized the ridiculousness of the K-index or that it was likely intended as satire directed at the very sort of bibliometric analyses that he routinely does.

Pray continue, though, Dr. Ioannidis:

It is often stated in social media and media, by JSM proponents in particular, that JSM is by far the dominant strategy and that very few scientists with strong credentials endorse GBD.69 GBD proponents are often characterised as fringe, arrogant and wrong by their opponents.69 However, are these views justified based on objective evidence on scientific impact or they reflect mostly perceptions created by social media and their uptake also by media?

Here, an analysis is being performed to try to evaluate the scientific impact and the social media visibility of the key signatories who have led the two strategies. Scientific impact is very difficult to evaluate in all its dimensions and no single number exists that can measure scientific excellence and scholarship. However, one can use citation metrics to objectively quantify the impact of a scientists work in terms of how often it is used in the scientific literature. Adjustments for coauthorship patterns, relative contributions and scientific field need to be accounted for.10 Concurrently, an additional analysis evaluated the social media visibility of signatories, as denoted by Twitter followers.

Surely Dr. Ioannidis must realize that there are social media platforms other than Twitter. What about Instagram and YouTube, for instance? Or Facebook? Or Tik Tok. (If Twitter irritates Ioannidis so much, Tik Tok will likely break his mind. Maybe its best that he never look at Tik Tok.) Also, notice how hes trying to argue that the JSM narrative doesnt really dominate in public health science but only appears to dominate because of the social media presences of its signatories. And how does he propose to prove that? First, he looks at H-index metrics for the key signatories of both documents. H-index is a commonly used measure of publication productivity and citation metrics. Mine, for instance, is 26. Using the same methodology, Ioannidis H-index is 162. (To be honest, I thought that the discrepancy would be an order of magnitude larger.) Then he goes to Twitter and starts calculating the K-index for the signatories.

Ioannidis is sloppy from the start. He states that he uses the Google Scholar citation index for this reason:

The original publication14 defining the index used citations from Google Scholar. However, given that many signatories did not have Google Scholar pages and Google Scholar citations may be more erratic, Scopus citations (including self-citations) as of 2 April 2021 were used instead. Scopus citation counts may be slightly or modestly lower than Google Scholar citations, and this may lead to slightly higher K-index estimates, but the difference is probably small.

I went back and reread Halls original paper proposing the K-index, referenced by Ioannidis. Hall only mentions Google once in the context of Kim Kardashian being the most searched-for person on Google in 2014. In fact, Hall did not use Google Scholar at all, but rather stated explicitly: I used Web of Knowledge to get citation metrics on these individuals. So already, I sense somemanipulation and cherry picking here. Did Ioannidis try using Halls original formula and find something that didnt fit with his narrative? One wonders, one does.

Actually, one doesnt, given how Ioannidis picks the signatories he looks at:

The two documents were retrieved online.13 For the main analysis, the 47 original key signatories of the GBD who were listed on its original release online, and the 34 original key signatories who authored the first release of the JSM in a correspondence item published in the Lancet3 were considered for in-depth citation analysis.

He also takes care to use his previous database, the one that he used to denigrate scientists with a media and social media presence, to look at the top 2% of scientists in terms of his citation index. In any event, hes unable to show that the original Great Barrington Declaration signatories are significantly better by these metrics than the original JSM signatories, concluding:

Among the 47 original key signatories of GBD, 20, 19 and 21, respectively, were among the top-cited authors for their career impact, their recent single-year (2019) impact or either. Among the 34 original key signatories of JSM, 11, 14 and 15, respectively, were among the top-cited authors for their career impact, their recent single year (2019) or either. The percentage of top-cited scientists is modestly higher for GBD than for JSM, but the difference is not beyond chance (p>0.10 for all three definitions).

He had a similar lack of luck when it came to comparing how many scientists were among the top 2% for each group. Then he produced what has to be one of the most ridiculous figures Ive ever seen (and the only figure in the paper), showing the Twitter counts:

What does this figure even mean, other than that a lot of GBD signatories dont have Twitter accounts?

He then notes:

Only 4/47 GBD signatories versus 17/34 JSM signatories had over 30000 Twitter followers (3/47 vs 10/34 for signatories with over 50000 Twitter followers). Twitter and citation data, and inferred Kardashian K-indices for the scientists with >50,000 followers appear in table 2. The values of K-index in these scientists were extraordinarily high (3632569).

An updated search for Twitter accounts and followers on 25 November 2021 found that 22/47 key GBD signatories versus 34/34 key JSM signatories had a retrievable Twitter account (p<0.001). The median number of followers was 0 vs 34600 (p<0.001). The number of key signatories with >50000 followers was 13 vs 4.

If I were a peer reviewer for this article, I would have noted that Ioannidis got it wrong describing Halls original methodology (such as it was) and appears to have cherry picked an index that hes more comfortable with. Even accepting that his findings described a reasonable comparison (which they dont), Id ask: So what? Theres no evidence that social media presence does or should correlate with citation metrics in the peer-reviewed literature. Id even point out that, if you look at Table 2, which includes signatories with more than 50K Twitter followers, some of the GBD signatories have K-indices much higher than even mine calculated using Google Scholar; e.g., Martin Kulldorff (363), Michael Levitt 451), and Karol Sikora (2,569).

Of course, if I were a reviewer, normally I would expect to see my peer review of the manuscript published. Why? Because BMJ Open Access also publishes the peer review reports of the papers it publishes, all in the name of transparency. Yet in this one case, a paper written by John Ioannidis as single author (and single author papers are also unusual), it has been observed:

BMJ responded:

A technical error? Why is it that I find this explanation ratherconvenient.

Whether the failure to post the peer reviews was an honest mistake or something less innocent, Ioannidis discussion section made me laugh out loud at a number of points. Running through his commentary is the apparent idea that the number of Twitter followers is a valid metric for influence, coupled with the implicit Carl Sagan effect-like assumption that GBD signatories are better scientists because they dont have as large a social media presence. For instance, get a load of this backhanded compliment:

The key JSM signatories have a very large number of followers in highly active personal Twitter accounts. The most visible Twitter owners include some of the most cited scientists in the analysed cohorts (Trisha Greenhalgh, Marc Lipsitch, Florian Krammer, Rochelle Walensky, Michael Levitt, Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya) and others who have little or no impact in the scientific literature, but are highly remarkable and laudable for their enthusiastic activism (eg, Dominic Pimenta).

You can almost sense Ioannidis patting Dr. Pimenta on the head in a condescending fashion.

Amazingly, Ioannidis then cites Halls original paper, a paper that the Ioannidis of 2014 would likely have dismissed as a joke (which it is) as though it were serious scholarship:

Previous work that introduced the Kardashian K-index stated that K-index values above 5 suggest an overemphasis of social media versus scientific literature presence and called such researchers Science Kardashians.14 This characterisation has not caught up with evolutions in the last few years. Many signatories, especially of JSM, have extraordinarily high K-index, with values in the hundreds and thousands. However, one should account that the volume of Twitter users and followers has increased markedly since the K-index was first proposed, even before the COVID-19 pandemic and even for specialists in disciplines that are not very likely to attract massive social media interest (eg, urology).15 As COVID-19 has attracted tremendous social media attention, Kardashian K-indices are skyrocketing. While no past data were available for the number of followers of the analysed scientists pre-COVID, anecdotal experience suggests that many, if not most, saw their followers increase tremendously during the pandemic. Substantial increases were documented even in the short 7-month interval between April and November 2021.

The massive advent of social media contributes to a rampant infodemic1618 with massive misinformation circulating. If knowledgeable scientists can have strong social media presence, massively communicating accurate information to followers, the effect may be highly beneficial. Conversely, if scientists themselves are affected by the same problems (misinformation, animosity, loss of decorum and disinhibition, among others)19 20 when they communicate in social media, the consequences may be negative.

Ioannidis, predictably, ignores his own role in contributing to this infodemic. He also finally reveals whats really at the heart of this paper. After acknowledging that he had only sampled a small number of other signatories of both documents and that both citation indices and Twitter followers have limitations in face validity and construct validity as measures of impact, he nonetheless pivots to claim victimhood for GBD signatories and their narrative:

Acknowledging these caveats, the data suggest that the massive superiority of JSM over GBD in terms of Twitter firepower may have helped shape the narrative that it is the dominant strategy pursued by a vast majority of knowledgeable scientists. This narrative is clearly contradicted by the citation data. The Twitter superiority may also cause, and/or reinforce also superiority in news coverage. In a darker vein, it may also be responsible for some bad publicity that GBD has received, for example, as evidenced by plain Google searches online or searches in Wikipedia pages for GBD, its key signatories or even for other scientists who may espouse some GBD features, for example, scepticism regarding the risk-benefit of prolonged lockdowns. Smearing, even vandalisation, is prominent for many such Wikipedia pages or other social media and media coverage of these scientists. This creates a situation where scientific debate becomes vitriolic, and censoring (including self-censoring) may become prominent. Perusal of the Twitter content of JSM signatories and their op-eds suggests that some may have sadly contributed to GBD vilification.24

In addition, although Ioannidis is mostly correct that the narrative in the media has generally portrayed JSM as the scientific consensus, he fails to recognize that the reason for this dominance is more because JSM has been far closer to the scientific consensus in public health than the GBD, always a minority fringe viewpoint, ever was, rather than anything having to do with Twitter activity of JSM signatories. Indeed, Tim Caulfield and colleagues have argued that what predominated in the media regarding natural herd immunity strategies was more false balance than anything else, and I find that argument persuasive, particularly given the effectiveness of organizations like AIER and its offspring the Brownstone Institute.

Ioannidis also casts GBD signatories and supporters as victims, with a bit of what borders on conspiracy mongering:

A major point of attack has been alleged conflicts of interest. However, GBD leaders have repeatedly denied conflicts of interest (see also the site of GBD1). Key JSM signatories appropriately and laudably disclosed upfront all potential conflicts of interest in their original letter publication in the Lancet; the long list is available in public.3 Based on this list, it is possible that JSM leaders have more conflicts than GBD leaders, but the social media superiority of JSM controls also the narrative surrounding conflicts. A similar vitriolic attack has been launched against the American Institute of Economic Research that offered the venue for hosting the launch of GBD.24 Experimental studies show that mentioning conflicts may have the same degree of negative impact as attacks on the empirical basis of the science claims; allegations of conflict of interest are as influential as allegations of outright fraud, when the value of scientific evidence is appraised.25 Non-scientists trust is eroded by allusions of conflicts of interest, while it is not affected much by perception of scientific (in)competence (which is also impossible for a non-expert to appraise).25 26 In good faith, reporting of potential conflicts of interest should be encouraged and transparency maximised. However, spurious allegations of hidden agendas and conflicts should not become a weapon for invalidating one or the other document. While exceptions may exist, probably the vast majority of scientists who signed either document simply had good intentions towards helping in a major crisis.

I find it interesting that nowhere does Ioannidis appear to cite the document that, to AIER and GBD signatories, is one of the vitriolic attacks against them, namely the article I co-authored with Gavin Yamey (one of the JSM signatories) last spring, in which we documented how right wing forces and think tanks were promoting a GBD narrative and how influential that narrative had been to governments. Indeed, Ioannidis himself was promoting a GBD-like argument against lockdowns with his friend Bhattacharya to the Trump administration months before there was even a GBD, and Trumps COVID-19 czar Dr. Scott Atlas even acknowledged him for it on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show a month ago. Meanwhile, Im hard-pressed to find any JSM signatories having been invited to have such close contact with the Trump or Johnson administrations.

Interestingly, Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, both GBD signatories, with Kulldorff being the person who was first enticed by AIER to get the other GBD signatories together for the Great Barrington conference that spawned the GBD, are quite capable of some serious vitriol themselves, for example:

Kulldorff himself loves to dismiss doctors critical of the GBD as laptop class, claiming false solidarity with working class people who didnt have the option of working from home during the pandemic, which Kulldorff no doubt did. Kulldorff also has a penchant for referring to his opponents as being a cult:

Covidian church? (I suppose I should be grateful that Kulldorff refrained form using Branch Covidian, a favorite of antivaxxers to describe scientists.) Kulldorff does know, doesnt he, that referring to scientific findings as religion and scientists you dont like as cult members is exactly the same thing that antivaxxers love to do. Similarly, Kulldorff and Bhattacharya, the latter a good friend of Ioannidis, have accused critics of the GBD of being part of the mob, egoists making the poor suffer for their egos, and so deluded that they know lockdowns dont help but they continue.

Just last week, a Stanford University medical student named Santiago Sanchez challenged GBD signatory Dr. Bhattacharya. I think its worth citing some of the Tweets:

Not only did Bhattacharya sic his Twitter followers on Sanchez, but, suspiciously, a charity affiliate of the GBD known as Collateral Global Charity called him a snake. When criticized harshly for it, whoever runs its Twitter account deleted the original Tweet and then unconvincingly claimed that it had been hacked:

One wonders if the ever-so-civil Ioannidis, who decries any form of ad hominem and nastiness in his search for only the purest possible scientific discourse has had a little chat with his good buddy Jay Bhattacharya and his other friends at the GBD about how bad it looks to punch down this way. I wont even go into how Bhattacharya also challenged Santiago to a debate moderated byI kid you not!Dr. Vinay Prasad.

On second thought, I cant resist:

I couldnt resist giving this intrepid medical student, whom I admire for his bravery in standing up to a famous professor at his medical school, a little advice about not debating cranks, using my SBM post from a couple of weeks ago:

Ill stop now, because I know that some of you dont like a lot of embedded Tweets, but I think that in this case it is more than justified to feature them. In addition, I realize that this is a bit of a tu quoque fallacy to bring this up, but on the other hand the hypocrisy of GBD signatories and advocates never ceases to astound me. Indeed, Ioannidis paper can be viewed in this context as a rather obvious ploy to portray JSM signatories as social media prima donnas, as unserious science Kardashians, and hes so intent on such an ad hominem attack that he appears to have completely missed the point about the K-index and took it as a serious metric supported by research; that is, unless he has written a satire so incredibly subtle that no one can detect the satire.

Ill conclude by asking about John Ioannidis the same thing that I ask about every scientist and physician whom before the pandemic I had considered reasonable or even someone to be admired for their scientific and medical rigor: Did something about them change, or where they always like this and I just didnt see it? For someone like Dr. Vinay Prasad, I think that the answer is the latter explanation. In the case of John Ioannidis, I still dont know. Everyone with whom Ive interacted who knows him says hes such a supportive, honorable, and nice man. A paper like his K-index paper, however, is not consistent with such a characterization, and thats why more and more Im leaning towards the latter explanation for his behavior and scientific takes since the pandemic hit. Whatever the reason, Ill conclude once again that, sadly, Ioannidis appears to have come full circle. He first became famous because of his paper about how most scientific findings turn out to be wrong, and now hes contributing to the very problem that he identified.

And now hes gone beyond that and led me to write a sentence that I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined and actually use it as a title of a blog post.

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John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration - Science Based Medicine

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Olympics Live: US wins to set up gold-medal game with Canada …

Posted: at 6:26 am

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

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Hilary Knight had a goal and assist, Alex Cavallini stopped 25 shots and the defending Olympic champion United States defeated Finland 4-1 in a womens hockey semifinal at the Beijing Games on Monday to set up the sixth gold-medal showdown between the Americans and Canada.

The cross-border rivals will play on Thursday after Canada erupted for five first-period goals over an Olympic record span of 3:24 in a 10-3 win over Switzerland earlier in the day. The two world powers have played for the championship in every Olympic tournament except the 2006 Turin Games, when Canada defeated Sweden after the Swedes eliminated the Americans in the semifinal round.

This time, the United States is attempting to defend its title following a 3-2 shootout win at the 2018 the Pyeongchang Games, which ended Canadas Olympic run of four championships.

Cayla Barnes had a goal and assist, and Hayley Scamurra and Abby Roque, with an empty-netter, also scored for the U.S.

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Austria has won Olympic gold in the ski jumping team event at the Beijing Games.

Manuel Fettner jumped 128 meters (420 feet) Monday night on his final jump to seal the first-place finish.

The team of Fettner, Stefan Kraft, Daniel Huber and Jan Hoerl combined to score 942.7 points, beating Slovenia by 8.3 points with a combination of jaw-dropping distances and style that impressed the judges.

The Slovenians earned silver and Germany won bronze.

Slovenia went into the final round with a nine-point lead over Austria. Norway, Germany, Japan and Poland followed after the first round in the last ski jumping event of the 2022 Olympics, but they couldnt keep up with the top two nations.

Germanys result was particularly impressive because the team didnt have one of the best two-time gold medalist Andreas Wellinger, in their lineup because he tested positive for COVID-19.

Men have been ski jumping at the Winter Olympics since the first edition in 1924, and have had an opportunity to compete as teams since 1988.

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Xu Mengtao of China landed a jump with three somersaults to win Olympic gold in womens aerials on a frigid evening.

Xu becomes the first woman from China to win the Olympic ski aerials event. She instantly knew her run was a gold-medal worthy jump, too, pointing up at the sky soon after landing Monday night.

She later leaned back and screamed into the cold air as the temperature hovered around minus-10 (minus-23 Celsius). Xu scored a 108.61 to edge defending champion Hanna Huskova of Belarus. American Megan Nick was a surprise bronze medalist, holding off teammate Ashley Caldwell.

The 28-year-old Caldwell was the last to go after posting the highest score over the first two jumps of the final, which trimmed the field to six. She hit her back on the snow while landing her final jump.

Caldwell won a gold medal last week in the Olympic debut of mixed team aerials.

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The International Olympic Committee says there will be no medal ceremony in Beijing if 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva places in the top three in the womens individual event.

There will also be no medal ceremony for the team event, where Russia won gold a week ago with help from Valieva. The U.S. won silver and Japan won bronze.

Valieva was cleared Monday by Court of Arbitration for Sport judges to compete starting Tuesday, despite failing a drug test ahead of the Olympics.

But a separate investigation of that possible doping offense must be done in Russia and could take several months to resolve.

In the meantime, if Valieva wins an individual medal when the competition concludes Thursday, there wont be even a flower ceremony on the ice.

The IOC says its executive board decided in the interest of fairness to all athletes not to award medals this week.

It will organize dignified medal ceremonies once the case of Ms. Valieva has been concluded.

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Nordic combined star Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway has tested negative for COVID-19, leaving open the chance of him competing at the Beijing Games. The three-time world champion was in isolation for more than 10 days.

Nordic combined has two medal events left on Tuesday and Thursday. Four of the top seven athletes in the sport, which combines ski jumping and a cross-country ski race, missed the first event last Wednesday. Germanys Vinzenz Geiger won.

Estonias Kristjan Ilves was released from isolation after 11 days on Saturday and has been training to compete.

Germany, meanwhile, has ruled out Terence Weber and says Manuel Faisst traveled to China to potentially replace him in its Nordic combined lineup. The team is still holding out hope that three-time Olympic gold medalist Eric Frenzel will be cleared to compete in Beijing.

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American freestyle skier Marin Hamill wont compete in the slopestyle final after hurting her right leg in a crash during qualifying. Shes headed back to the United State for further evaluation, the team announced.

Hamill, a 20-year-old from Utah, earned a spot in the final with her score of 69.43 on her first run through a course filled with rails and jumps.

She was finishing her final run when she crashed on the last jump. Hamill slid to the bottom of the hill and was treated by medical personnel. She was taken off the course in a sled and placed into an ambulance.

Hamill was second in a World Cup skiing slopestyle competition in France last month.

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A Norwegian biathlete who collapsed after crossing the finish line in the womens 10-kilometer pursuit race will be heading home instead of competing again at the Beijing Olympics.

Ingrid Landmakr Tandrevold, who said she has had heart issues in the past, was in position to win a medal at the end of Sundays race. But she stalled as she approached the line and then fell to the ground after crossing it. She ended up finishing 14th.

Dropping to the ground at the end of a biathlon race is common for skiers who push themselves on the ski tracks and shooting range, but several other competitors noticed that Tandrevold appeared to be in trouble and alerted medical staff.

On Monday, Tandrevold said she is feeling better but is done with competing for now. She says she needs to be careful because of her past heart issues.

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The World Anti-Doping Agency suggests officials in Russia are at least partly to blame for the six-week wait to produce a doping test result for figure skater Kamila Valieva.

Court of Arbitration for Sport judges have cleared Valieva to continue skating at the Beijing Olympics. One reason cited was serious issues with the time between when Valieva took the test and when the sample was flagged.

Valievas urine sample was taken Dec. 25 in St. Petersburg by Russias anti-doping agency and sent to a laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden. That laboratory flagged the result just a week ago, hours after Valieva helped the Russians win team gold in Beijing.

WADA says it expects bodies like Russian agency RUSADA to tell labs when faster testing is needed ahead of major championships like the Olympics, which it says didnt happen in this case.

Though Valieva can skate in Beijing, a separate longer-term investigation of the doping case by RUSADA could yet result in a ban and disqualification from the Olympics.

WADA can appeal against the eventual Russian ruling if it thinks a stricter punishment is needed.

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Mikaela Shiffrin has confirmed that she will race a downhill at the Winter Olympics for the first time Tuesday.

She says shes changing how she thinks about what is at stake as she prepares for her fourth event in Beijing.

She finished a second training session at the Yanqing Alpine Skiing Center with the 15th-fastest time among the women who didnt miss a gate.

The two-time gold medalist in Alpine skiing did not finish her opening runs in either of her initial two events, the two-leg giant slalom and slalom, before coming in ninth in the super-G, another race she hadnt previously entered at an Olympics.

As someone who specialized in the technical disciplines of slalom and giant slalom, the speed events of downhill and super-G are still new and works-in-progress for Shiffrin.

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Reigning Olympic gold medalist Sebastien Toutant of Canada crashed hard during qualifying at mens snowboarding big air and wont defend his title.

Toutant needed to land a big trick on his third run to crack the top 12, but he slammed into the icy landing attempting a triple cork 1620 -- three off-axis flips with 4 1/2 rotations.

The 29-year-old fell on his back, and his head whipped back hard enough to knock his goggles off entirely. He remained down for several minutes before being helped up and walking away.

Max Parrot, the Canadian who took gold in slopestyle last week, leads after qualifying, followed by Japans Takeru Otsuka and American Red Gerard, who won gold at slopestyle in 2018.

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Defending champion Sofia Goggia says she can be in there competing for a medal in Tuesdays Olympic downhill despite not competing since badly injuring her left knee and leg in a crash three weeks ago.

The Italian placed fourth in the final training session.

Joana Haehlen of Switzerland led the session and was 0.61 seconds ahead of Goggia.

Mikaela Shiffrin placed 17th and said she will race the downhill after indicating following the opening training session that she wasnt sure. The two-time Olympic champion is still seeking her first medal in Beijing.

Former overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone did not qualify for a downhill starting spot on Italys team.

Tamara Tippler appeared to grab the final starting spot for Austria.

Tricia Mangan of the United States and Jasmine Flury of Switzerland crashed, but both appeared to avoid serious injury.

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Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva is on the ice practicing less than an hour after learning shell be allowed to compete in the womens individual event at the Beijing Olympics.

Shes skating along with teammate Alexandra Trusova and four other competitors. Her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, is at the side of the rink.

Valieva appeared intently focused on her warm up. Shes the favorite for the gold medal in the individual event, which starts Tuesday.

When it was her turn to run through her practice program, she didnt appear to stumble or falter. Her skating elicited a smattering of applause from Russian press watching from an area designated for media.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 15-year-old should not be provisionally suspended. She tested positive for a banned heart drug before the Olympics, on Dec. 25.

The ruling doesnt decide the fate of the gold medal she won as part of the team competition.

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The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says its disappointed Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will be allowed to compete for a second gold medal despite failing a pre-Olympics drug test.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 15-year-old Valieva, the favorite for the womens individual gold, should not be provisionally suspended ahead of a full hearing into her positive test for a banned heart drug on Dec. 25.

USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland says the committee is disappointed by the message the ruling sends. She says athletes are being denied the right to know theyre competing on a level playing field. She says its part of a systemic and pervasive disregard for clean sport by Russia.

The ruling means Valieva can compete starting Tuesday in the womens individual competition, where shes a favorite for gold.

It doesnt decide the fate of the gold medal she won as part of the team competition. The U.S. won silver and would be in line for gold if the Russian medal is revoked.

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Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva will be allowed to compete for a second gold medal at the Winter Olympics despite failing a pre-Games drug test.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Monday that the 15-year-old Valieva, the favorite for the womens individual gold, does not need to be provisionally suspended ahead of a full hearing into her positive test for the heart drug trimetazidine. The positive test was Dec. 25.

The Russian team can still aim for the first womens figure skating podium sweep in Olympic history. The event starts with the short program Tuesday and concludes Thursday with the free skate. Valieva is the favorite to win gold.

The ruling only addresses whether Valieva can keep skating before her case is resolved. It doesnt decide the fate of the one gold medal that she has already won.

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Olympic champion Jamie Anderson says life in Beijings pandemic bubble has been difficult for her mental health, leaving her a little bit tapped out and excited to go home.

The American snowboarder failed to qualify for the finals in womens big air Monday. She said the Beijing Games have been a draining slog for her and her teammates.

Weve been here for so long and I feel like our whole crew is just over it, Anderson said. Just barely hanging on by a fricking strand of hair. Just like, tired of the food, homesick, tired of the pressure.

The 31-year-old Anderson came to China a two-time defending champion in slopestyle and won silver in big air at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. She finished ninth trying to defend her slopestyle titles last week, then said on Instagram that she straight up couldnt handle the pressure and that her mental health and clarity just hasnt been on par.

Anderson says shes not ready to retire, but shes not sure whats next for her as far as competitive snowboarding. She plans to take some time and free ride, then reset and see how she feels.

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The International Olympic Committee says it wanted the entire investigation of Russian figure skater Kamila Valievas doping case to be completed during the Olympics.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to announce Monday afternoon Beijing time whether Valieva can compete in the womens figure skating event that starts Tuesday, where she would be a heavy favorite.

But they wont decide now whether Valieva is guilty of doping, nor whether the Russian skaters can keep the gold team medal they won with Valievas help. Those questions will be answered by a separate investigation led by the Russian anti-doping agency.

Valieva is the strong favorite for gold if CAS lets her compete in the individual competition despite a positive doping test from before the Olympics. It was only revealed last week after she competed in the team competition.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says it wanted all legal issues settled once and for all before this competition starts.

Adams says the parties which include the IOC, World Anti-Doping Agency and the Russian team could not agree on a process.

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Olympics Live: US wins to set up gold-medal game with Canada ...

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Madison Hubbell, Zach Donohue Earn Bronze in Olympic Ice …

Posted: at 6:26 am

Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue just missed the podium at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. This year, theyll be dancing on it with medals around their necks.

The American duo earned bronze in the ice dance event at the 2022 Beijing Games. Frances Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron, who earned silver in 2018, came away with gold, while ROCs Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov got silver.

Hubbell and Donohue secured their medal spot with a 130.89 score in Mondays free dance at Capital Indoor Stadium, bringing their total score to 218.02. In 2018, the two placed fourth overall in PyeongChang and were less than five points away from earning bronze.

While Hubbell and Donohue missed out on the ice dance medal in 2018, this will not be their first Olympic hardware. The two were a part of the silver-winning U.S. squad in the team competition earlier in the 2022 Games, earning the top spot in the rhythm dance in a field that included Sinitsina and Katsalapov.

This is the fifth straight Olympics where the U.S. has medaled in the event and second straight time earning bronze. Maia and Alex Shibutani edged Hubbell and Donohue at the last Olympics.

While Hubbell and Donohue made the jump from fourth to third, a U.S. pair still landed in the first spot outside the podium. Madison Chock and Evan Bates were in fourth place following the rhythm dance portion and jumped into first place with their 130.63 in the free skate. Each of the remaining three pairs jumped into first place with their respective dances, bumping Chock and Bates out of medal position.

Team USA had a third pair in the ice dance competition. Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker placed 11th after scoring a 115.16 in the free dance. The duo entered the second phase of the competition in 11th place, as well.

Watch all the action from the Beijing Olympics live on NBC

Papadakis and Cizerons victory comes four years after disaster struck seconds into their 2018 Olympic journey. Papadakis performed through a wardrobe malfunction in the rhythm dance in PyeongChang, but the duo managed to obtain silver in the end. The French pair won back-to-back world championships following those Games and are now champions on the biggest stage in figure skating.

Here are the full standings for the ice dance competition:

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Madison Hubbell, Zach Donohue Earn Bronze in Olympic Ice ...

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Olympics Live: Medal Count, News and Updates – The New York Times

Posted: at 6:26 am

The United States men hold the world record in the team pursuit.Credit...Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

The United States finished third in speedskatings team pursuit on Tuesday, collecting the second American speedskating medal of these Olympics. The United States men are the world record holders in the team pursuit and were favored to win the event, making the third-place finish equal parts success and disappointment.

Russian Olympic Committee

The American team of Joey Mantia, Casey Dawson and Emery Lehman defeated the Netherlands in the B final effectively the bronze medal race by almost three seconds. Norway won the gold, for the second Olympics in a row, defeating Russia in the final.

But an unexpected decision potentially cost the United States a chance to race Norway in the final. Mantia, the most accomplished American skater, did not skate in the semifinals against a team from Russia, with Ethan Cepuran chosen instead by the team to race with Dawson and Lehman.

Dawson, Lehman and Cepuran skated well, leading through the middle of the race their time of 3 minutes 37.05 seconds was faster than the Olympic record (and faster than the Americans skated with Mantia in the B final). But the Russians skated an even better race, and won by almost half a second.

Cepuran and Mantia both said they were only a little bit disappointed by the semifinal loss. How unlucky do you gotta be that Russia goes four seconds faster in their semi than their final? Mantia said. Race of their lives. You cant really be sad about it. Its just kind of unlucky.

The plan was always for Mantia to not skate in the quarterfinals, the team said. Before the semifinals the skaters sat down and talked frankly about how they all felt, and that conversation resulted in Cepurans skating in the semifinals instead of Mantia. After the semifinals, Cepuran was more tired than Dawson, who arrived at the Olympics late and was fresher, and so he stepped aside for Mantia.

In the mens team pursuit, three team members skate in single file only inches apart for eight laps, with the time of the last skater to cross the finish line counted. Usually every lap or two the front skater, who does the grueling work of setting the pace while the others glide in his slipstream, peels to the back and lets a new teammate lead, and suffer.

As a group of individuals, the United States skaters are less accomplished than most of their opponents. None of them had won an Olympic medal before, for example, and besides Mantia, none have come particularly close. Their opponents in the bronze medal race, the Dutch, were led by the nine-time Olympic medalist Sven Kramer and the four-time medalist Patrick Roest.

But the United States has prioritized the team pursuit over the past four years with a bold and innovative strategy that has upended how the race is run. Instead of exchanging the role of who skates up front, the United States has one member lead the entire race, while his teammates use the energy saved to physically push one another forward. The strategy has had success: The Americans set the world record in Salt Lake City in December, and the Norwegians, who won the gold on Tuesday, freely admit to having copied it.

The bronze medal is the first for all the United States skaters, and came in the third, and possibly final, Olympics for Mantia, who is 36. Last week he seemed he seemed resigned to retiring without ever winning an Olympic medal after finishing sixth in the 1,500 meters.

Its heartbreaking, you know, Mantia said at the time. I really thought that this was my chance.

It was difficult to be too disappointed, then, after finally winning a medal. I feel like the weights been lifted in a sense, Mantia said. Im an Olympic medalist.

In the womens team pursuit, the favored Canadians defeated the Japanese and set a new Olympic record. The Japanese led the entire race, but on the final curve Nana Takagi suddenly lost her balance and fell, handing the gold medal to the Canadians. The Netherlands defeated Russia for the bronze.

Olympics Live: Medal Count, News and Updates - The New York Times

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Winter Olympics 2022 – Team USA women down Finland in hockey semifinals, Americans go 1-2 in monobob and more from Beijing – ESPN

Posted: at 6:26 am

The gold medal in women's ice hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympics seems destined to go through the U.S.-Canada rivalry. On Sunday, Canada did its part, defeating Switzerland in one semifinal game.

Monday morning, USA booked its ticket to the gold-medal game, defeating Finland 4-1. Four Americans scored -- Cayla Barnes, Hilary Knight, Hayley Scamurra and Abby Roque. But it was the play of goaltender Alex Cavallini that was the story. She held the Fins scoreless until the final 26 seconds of the game.

As it has done throughout the Olympic tournament, Canada swamped its opponent, defeating the Swiss 10-3. By the 10:40 mark of the first period, the Canadians had staked a five-goal lead. They never looked back.

Now the United States will meet Canada for the sixth time in seven Olympics. The puck drops at 11:10 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

Here is our breakdown of Team USA's hockey semifinal:

Cavallini (25 saves) made some quality saves, including a spectacular stop on Finnish forward Michelle Karvinen on a 2-on-1 late in the first period to keep the game scoreless.

In the second period, forward Knight gave the U.S. some breathing room and made history in the process. The Americans finally hit the board on the power play just 3:29 into the second period as forward Hannah Brandt found defender Barnes wide-open on the right side of the Finland net for an open-net goal. Knight had the secondary assist on that goal to tie Natalie Darwitz for second most for an American women's player with 25 career Olympic points.

She broke that tie on a goal with 1:07 left in the second period, as Team USA's top line converted. Kendall Coyne Schofield outworked Finland's defense to win a loose puck in the corner, setting up a sequence that ended with Knight scoring from just in front of the Finland crease for the 2-0 lead. Scamurra added insurance in the third period, and Roque added a late empty-net goal. -- Greg Wyshynski

Other top action from the Olympics:

The U.S. women went 1-2 in the first ever Olympic women's monobob event, with Kaillie Humphries winning gold and Elana Meyers Taylor securing the silver medal. Canada's Christine de Bruin won the bronze medal.

Humphries dominated the event, leading by 1.54 seconds by the end. Meyers Taylor, who had been in fourth after her first two runs, made up time in the third and fourth runs to finish ahead of de Bruin at 4:20:81. An emotional Meyers Taylor, who took an entire season off to give birth to her son, Nico, screamed, "We did it!" as she got to the finish line.

Humphries, a three-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion, received her American passport in December 2021. She left Canada for the U.S. because of a divisive separation from Bobsleigh Canada, after she accused her former coach of mental and emotional harassment. She was a part of Bobsleigh Canada for 16 years, representing Canada in three Olympic Games -- Vancouver, Sochi and Pyeongchang -- and won two golds and one bronze medal in the two-woman bobsled events.

With this gold medal, she became the first American to win a gold for two countries -- U.S. and Canada -- at the Winter Olympics.

Meyers Taylor also had a rough journey to Beijing. She tested positive for COVID-19 soon after arrival and was unable to walk as flag-bearer in the opening ceremony. She isolated for a week and produced two negative tests right before training for monobob and the two-woman bobsled events began. -- Aishwarya Kumar

Kamila Valieva will be allowed to skate in the women's singles competition after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled not to reinstate her suspension. The 15-year-old Russian had tested positive for a banned substance.

According to a media release, the panel considered that "preventing the athlete from competing at the Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm in these circumstances." It also cited the lower sanctions for her as a "protected person" due to her age and noted that the late reporting of the test, which was taken in December, was "not her fault." A timeline of the doping allegations.

Team USA's Megan Nick took bronze in the women's slopestyle final as China's Xu Mengtao won gold.

U.S. teammate Ashley Caldwell scored highest heading into the final jumps, but she failed to land her final jump cleanly, and Xu's score of 108.61 proved to be enough to win on home snow.

Nick recorded a score of 93.76 with her final jump to secure bronze, while Belarus' Hanna Huskova took silver.

For three of the world's top ice dance teams, tonight was about unfinished business.

Four years after finishing fourth, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue finally got the Olympic medal they dreamed of in their very last competitive skate.

The U.S. team finished in third, behind Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France and Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov from the Russian Olympic Committee.

Papadakis and Cizeron won gold with an exquisite performance -- possibly one of the best ever -- and banished the memory of Pyeongchang, where they skated through a wardrobe malfunction and still won silver. They broke their own world record yet again, just like they did in the rhythm dance.

Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates finished fourth despite a personal-best score for their Daft Punk-soundtracked free skate about an alien and an astronaut. Four years ago, they both fell during the free dance. Now, despite finishing off the podium, they can leave Beijing with their heads held high -- and a team medal to boot! -- Elaine Teng

A rematch of the recent X Games Aspen big air showdown between U.S. snowboarder Jamie Anderson and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand will not be in Beijing.

As expected, Sadowski-Synnott -- who won gold in slopestyle eight days ago and became the first Winter Olympics gold medalist from New Zealand -- qualified first into Monday's women's snowboard big air final. But Anderson failed to qualify, falling on her first two jumps.

In her third attempt, Anderson landed a gorgeous frontside 1080, scored an 89.75 and nearly qualified on that score alone. But ultimately, she finished 14th.

Two-time Olympian Hailey Langland grabbed the 12th and final qualifying spot to become the sole rider who will represent Team USA in the final.

Meanwhile, over on the slopestyle course, the focus -- and the on-site cheering -- was directed at recent freeski big air gold medalist Eileen Gu of China. One of the most popular athletes at these Games, Gu, who was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and American father, struggled in her opening run. She laid down a solid second run to qualify in third place. "I don't know why, but qualies are always way more nerve-wracking than finals," Gu said in the finish area, eating a bao bun.-- Alyssa Roenigk

Olympic legends Shaun White and Chloe Kim are both posting from the Super Bowl ... a mind-boggling transportation achievement it's best not to think too much about:

Only ‘one reliable host city’ will be left for Winter Olympics if global emissions are not curbed: study | TheHill – The Hill

Posted: at 6:26 am

As the 2022 Winter Olympics are underway in China, researchers are already looking ahead to how the planet can sustain holding future Olympic games as climate change impacts the winter season across the Northern Hemisphere.

Researchers from the U.S., Canada and Austria conducted a study to measure how significantly global greenhouse gas emissions would impact the Winter Olympics. Their results found that only one of 21 cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics would be able to not only provide reliably safe but also fair conditions for snow sports by the end of this century.

Winter is changing at the past Olympic Winter Games locations and an important perspective to understand climate change risk is that of the athletes who put themselves at risk during these mega-sport events, said researchers.

Researchers used the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement as its barometer for climate change progress, noting that if emission targets can be achieved the number of climate-reliable host cities jumps to eight, with only six considered unreliable.

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In 2015, the Paris agreement was created to incentivize countries to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possibleso the planet could be a climate neutral world by mid-century. It was adopted by 196 countries and required plans for climate action, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The treaty aims to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius.

However, researchers found that the average daytime temperature in February in Olympic host cities has steadily increased from .4 degrees Celsius at games held in the 1920s and 1950s, to 3.1 degrees Celsius at games held during the 1960s and 1990s and now 6.3 degrees Celsius in games held in the twenty-first century, which includes the current Beijing games.

The 21st century warming is expected to increaseby an additional 2 to 4.4 degrees Celsius, depending on which emission reduction plan countries adopt.

Climate change is altering the geography of the Winter Olympic Games and will, unfortunately, take away some host cities that are famous for winter sport. Most host locations in Europe are projected to be marginal or not reliable as early as the 2050s, even in a low emission future, said RobertSteiger, one of the studys co-authors from theUniversity of Innsbruck in Austria, in a statement.

As part of their study, researchers also surveyed 339 elite athletes and coaches from 20 countries to define fair and safe conditions for snow sports competitions, which found that the frequency of unfair and unsafe conditions has increased under all future climate change scenarios.

Researchers noted that athlete safety has been an important perspective missing from the limited research on climate change and the Olympics. Athletes risk serious injury, whether thats from skiing down steep slopes or hitting the superpipe on a snowboard, and studies of injury incidence rates recorded among Olympic/Paralympic alpine skiing/snowboarding/freestyle athletes were 55 percent higher versus other Olympic Winter Games.

Climate change could worsen already dangerous conditions as researchers said scenarios like adverse snow conditions, athlete heat stress and equipment failures were often caused by warmer temperatures. For example, warmer temperatures make snow heavy and unsafe at high speeds. It can also make courses too slushy, causing athletes speed to slow down and force unsafe landings.

The bottom line is that climate change is not an issue that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), sporting organizations or athletes and coaches can solve alone, with researchers concluding that needs, a society-wide response to this grand challenge.

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Only 'one reliable host city' will be left for Winter Olympics if global emissions are not curbed: study | TheHill - The Hill

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Winter weather appears to have extinguished Olympic flame in Beijing. But organizers say it’s just ‘fine’ – USA TODAY

Posted: at 6:26 am

Snow delays; Kaillie Humphries close to gold, ice dance medals Sunday

Snowfall forced a day delay for ski slopestyle. Kaillie Humphries is in position to win her first gold as an American. US ice dancers look to extend medal streak.

Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

BEIJING A rare snowstorm in Beijing on Sunday brought a distinct winter vibe to the 2022 Winter Olympics.

But it also might have extinguished the Olympic flame at the Bird's Nest.

Photos taken by a USA TODAY photographer early Sunday afternoon show no visible flame in the Olympic cauldron at the medals plaza outside the stadium, where it was lit during the opening ceremony on Feb. 4. The flame traditionally remains lit for the entire duration of the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee referred questions about the flame to the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, which said all is well.

"Our Bird's Nest team said the Olympic cauldron and the flame are fine," a Beijing 2022 spokesperson wrote in an email."Maybe it is (the) snowing which affected the visibility."

The Olympic flame is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Games, beyond perhaps the Olympic rings. It is lit before every edition of the Olympics at a special ceremony in Olympia, Greece, using "the ancient method of the sun's rays in the parabolic mirror," according to an IOC document.

"The Olympic flame can only be lit in this way," the document reads.

The flame is then transported to the host city through the ballyhooed torch relay, which can take several months and involve thousands of torch bearers.

Winter Olympics live updates: Kaillie Humphries halway to gold in monobob; men's hockey faces Germany

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The Beijing Games took a different approach with its relay, condensing the ceremonial process into just a few days and select locations in China. The cauldron itself is also nontraditional. While past Games have had massive cauldrons visible from a significant distance away, the Beijing Games opted for a small torch at the center of a web of snowflakes, due to a stated desire to be more eco-friendly.

"I have been thinking maybe we could make some reform on this to express the concept of low-carbon development in the new era," opening ceremony director Zhang Yimou said, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.

This is not the first time the Olympic cauldron has gone out. In a now well-known incident, the flame at the 1976 Montreal Games was extinguished by a surprise storm and a plumber on site attempted to re-igniteit using a cigarette lighter and pieces of newspaper. When Olympic officials learned about the incident, they quickly put out the plumber's flame and re-lit the cauldron using a backup flame, per Olympic protocols.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.

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Winter weather appears to have extinguished Olympic flame in Beijing. But organizers say it's just 'fine' - USA TODAY

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Channels, Streaming and More: How and Where to Watch the Olympics Tonight – NBC Chicago

Posted: at 6:26 am

History is on the line as arguably the world's best snowboarder looks to end his Olympic career with one final medal.

Team USA has been climbing the medal ranks after a stellar night of performances, but Thursday's events will be headlined by some of the Olympics' biggest veterans.

Here's what to watch in the next 24 hours in Beijing and how you can watch it live.

Tonight is Shaun White's big moment. The United States snowboarder will drop into the halfpipe in the 2022 Winter Olympics for the final time Thursday, hoping that he can cap off a legendary career with an historic gold medal.

White, who has competed in the half-pipe event in the last four Olympics, made it to the 2022 Games as one of the final qualifiers in his sport, and now the 35-year-old is hoping that he can make history with yet another gold medal.

White, a snowboarding legend and three-time Olympic gold medalist in the event, is competing in his last Olympic Games. If he manages to win gold in Beijing, he will become the only athlete to capture four golds in the same event.

The final of the men's halfpipe takes place on Friday at 7:30 p.m. CT.

The Alpine skiing womens program shifts tothe daunting Rock speed coursefor the super-G Thursday evening, and NBC and Peacock have live coverage of the star-studded event.

The event will markMikaela Shiffrin's returnto the ski slopes following herdisappointing startto the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Here's how to watch:

The U.S. women's hockey team, led by its Chicago-area stars, takes on the Czech Republic during the quarterfinals on Thursday night at 10:10 p.m. CT.

The game will be broadcast live on the USA Network.

Much like its name suggests, skeleton is one of the scariest and most dangerous sports known to man. The winter sliding sport consists of a racer, covered head to toe in protective padding, lying face down and darting head-first down a frozen track.

Skeleton is the third-fastest sport held in the Winter Olympics, with maximum sled speeds reaching about 130 km/hr.

Here's when you can watch it next:

* TV networksmay not air events live; check full schedule for detailed information.

Tabitha and Tara Peterson and the rest of the Team USA women's curling team have started strong at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The United States got its second win Thursday in the women's round robin tournament in Beijing, besting Denmark 7-5.

On the men's side, Team USA fell 1-1 during a gold medal game rematch against Sweden. The Swedes defeated Team USA, 7-4, at the National Aquatics Center in Beijing. The win comes four years after the U.S. beat Sweden in a gold-medal game matchup.

Team USA returns to competition on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. CT as they take on Great Britain.

One of the most interesting sports to take place at the Winter Olympics is back once again.

Biathlon made its debut at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif., and has been a part of each Winter Olympics ever since.

* TV networksmay not air events live; check full schedule for detailed information.

The womens 1000m will feature three Americans: Maame Biney, Kristen Santos and Corinne Stoddard.

Santos is expected to be in the mix for a medal in the event after beating defending Olympic gold medalist Suzanne Schulting during the World Cup season. Still, Schulting will be the woman to beat in the event.

Santos and Biney will be competing in their second event of this years Olympics with the 1000m. Both raced in thewomens 500mon Monday, though neither advanced past the quarterfinals.

The Chicago area's local skiers - Kevin Bickner, Casey Larson and Patrick Gasienica - will all return to the hill for their next event. None of the three medaled in their Beijing debuts, but they'll have another shot as they look to qualify for the men's large hill individual.

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Channels, Streaming and More: How and Where to Watch the Olympics Tonight - NBC Chicago

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Winter Olympics 2022 – Meet the ‘quirky’ goalie with the paleo diet and weird glasses who might lead Team USA to gold – ESPN

Posted: at 6:26 am

5:20 PM ET

Greg WyshynskiESPN

Team USA goalie Strauss Mann understands how he's perceived by others.

He'll spend five hours in the kitchen, preparing meals so he can maintain his strict paleo diet. He wears blue-light-blocking glasses on the bus in order to get a better night's sleep. The 23-year-old goaltender is known to seek out coaches that can help with certain aspects of his game, exemplified by last summer's sessions with a specialist that focused on opening his hips to improve his post-to-post mobility.

"Everyone that played with me knows me for my diet or my little habits. If everyone did it, then it wouldn't be a competitive advantage, would it?" he said.

The NY Post once labeled him "endearingly quirky."

Mann shrugged at the reference. "I'm OK with being a little bit different," he told ESPN. "Maybe that makes people label me a certain way."

The University of Michigan perceived him as a starting goalie. He was a standout for three seasons, culminating in a stellar junior year where he was a captain and a finalist for the Mike Richter Award.

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NHL organizations perceived him differently. They saw his height, listed at 6-foot, and passed on him as being too small. Mann left Michigan before his senior season and took his talents to the Swedish pro league.

USA Hockey perceived Mann as an Olympian. The NHL opted out of the 2022 Beijing Olympics after the omicron coronavirus variant caused a material change in its regular-season schedule. Team USA needed goalies. Mann figured he had a shot at making the roster. USA Hockey was looking at college players and pro players overseas. He had been both in the last year.

"I was already thinking about [the Olympics], and then it became the only thing I could think about," he said. "It's the Olympics. Every kid watches it growing up. Every person. I had never represented my country at any stage. ... For me, at this point in my career, this is pretty special."

Especially when he was that kid watching the Olympics in Greenwich, Connecticut, wearing a Team USA Ryan McDonagh jersey while watching the Americans cede the gold medal to Canada in 2010.

"I cried when they lost in overtime," he said. "But it was really special watching [goaltender] Ryan Miller dominate in that tournament."

For one game, Mann played the part of Ryan Miller or Jim Craig for Team USA. His 35-save performance led the Americans to a Beijing Olympics preliminary-round victory over archrival Canada. That was an integral part of their 3-0-0 run to the top of Group A and earned this team, the youngest in the tournament, comparisons to the "Miracle on Ice" college kids who won USA Hockey's last gold medal in 1980.

"We have a lot of college guys, too. I don't know if it is the same," said Mann after the Canada game. "But we have a chance. We showed we have a chance."

Steve Valiquette, the former NHL goalie who has coached Mann since he was 13 years old, thinks he gives the Americans the best chance to win gold again.

"I'm telling you: This kid is a warrior of life. I love him. I love him more than anyone I've ever coached. I'm so proud of him because I know where he began," said Valiquette. "If you're a gambling man, put your money on him. He wins everywhere."

Mann was 13 years old when he met Valiquette, rather randomly at a Christmas party.

Mann's younger sister had a mutual friend with the Valiquette family. Mann had just made Triple-A hockey for the first time, with the Westchester Express.

"He was a chubby, short little kid that didn't come from a hockey family at all," said Valiquette, who began training him from the following summer on.

"He's helped me in a variety of ways," said Mann. "First and foremost, he helped me learn how to commit to the process and really throw all aspects of my life at it. To go from maybe 80 percent to 100 percent."

Valiquette is the CEO of Clear Sight Analytics and a leading voice in the goalie analytics movement. Mann has used some of that insight but hasn't waded too deep into the fancy stats.

"I think I'd get a little over my own head if I was like, 'Oh, I should have stopped this because only one in 30 go in from [this spot],' and this and that," he said. "But I think it's pretty cool to get some of his data and see how to play a 2-on-1. To see how the goalies that stop the most 2-on-1s actually stop those 2-on-1s. Then maybe I can learn a little bit from that, add things to my game."

Mann is constantly looking for an edge. Like the glasses he wears to help him sleep. There's science behind them, as filtering out blue light helps increase melatonin in the body and enables easier sleep.

With Valiquette, he wore swivel-vision goggles that were used on the ice to help with tracking pucks. "Imagine wearing a ski goggle that had little holes in the middle, so you can't see out of your peripheral. He would wear those on the bus," said Valiquette, who was always impressed with Mann's propensity for growth.

"He's able to change his body because his growth mindset is bigger than anybody's. He's got a stronger mindset to get better," he said. "From a personal performance and a player performance, he should be followed by anybody with a desire to play Division I or beyond."

In his freshman and sophomore years at Brunswick School in Greenwich, Mann was a junior varsity player. His junior season, he became the backup on the varsity team. For his senior year, it wasn't clear if Mann was going to be the starter.

"It took a lot of convincing to give him a chance," said Valiquette.

Mann's play in his senior season resulted in him winning New England goaltender of the year. His Mid Fairfield Rangers 18U AAA team won a national championship. That opened the door for him to try out as a walk-on for the Muskegon juniors team. John Vanbiesbrouck, then the general manager of that USHL team and now the GM of Team USA, loved him but didn't have any room on the roster for him. So he called the Fargo Force of the North American Hockey League and told them about this talented walk-on. Mann went to Fargo as a walk-on for the 2017-18 season, which began in October, and took over as a starter by Christmas Day.

Mann then received what Valiquette called a "soft partial scholarship" to the University of Michigan. By his third year there, he was the team captain. An opportunity to join an NHL organization seemed like a possibility. Valiquette did his part as a hype man. "I called everybody for this guy. Called every favor in," he said. "He's playing in Sweden right now because he couldn't get a deal."

Valiquette said that teams were hung up on Mann's size. There wasn't a goalie taken in last season's NHL draft who was shorter than 6-foot-1.

So it was off to Sweden, leaving NCAA hockey behind.

"For me, a lot of things went into it. A little bit of an unorthodox move. I just felt like I was ready. I didn't know right away when I decided to go pro that I would end up in Europe, but I'm just always looking to grow and develop my game. Thought I was ready to take the next step," said Mann.

He reached out to his former Michigan teammates as they were added to the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams following the NHL opt-out. He's close with Owen Power and Kent Johnson, who are playing for Canada. Matty Beniers and Brendan Brisson are his U.S. teammates.

"It'll be nice to go back to the college days, I guess. I definitely feel like I've moved on from that, playing with all these pros now with families," he said.

Mann left Michigan at a fortuitous time. The Wolverines made the NCAA tournament last season but had to withdraw because of positive COVID-19 tests. The Ann Arbor News reported last month that the men's hockey program at Michigan is under investigation by the university for "attempting to hide COVID-19 cases" ahead of that tournament. There is speculation that the report, depending on what it finds, could jeopardize Michigan's status for this NCAA postseason and impact the job status of Michigan coach Mel Pearson, who has denied the allegations.

Instead of facing a cloudy postseason status, Mann has excelled in Sweden, playing on a first-place team in Skelleftea. He's 11-5-0 with a .921 save percentage and three shutouts.

Playing in Sweden has been a success, even if it's been a challenge to his infamously strict nutritional plan.

"I had it pretty perfect until I came here to Sweden," said Mann.

Strauss Mann's diet is the stuff of legend. It's been a subject of media scrutiny wherever he's played. One reporter at the Michigan student newspaper sought to follow that diet for 30 days, and reported, "My sight was a little blurry, I constantly felt like passing out and it was hard to think straight."

Mann began his paleo diet when he was 16.

"I wasn't overweight or anything, but I wanted to get into better shape. I found this meal plan at the gym. It was a habit that started to discipline a lot of areas in my life. I got in shape and started to really care more about sleep and training and video work and all of these other things," he said. "For me, it was a jumpstart to really focusing on hockey. Not long after that, results started to come."

No sugar. No olive oil for cooking. No dairy. No processed foods. No plastic Tupperware containers. A lot of planning and a lot of understanding that not every trip will be paleo-friendly.

"A year ago, I would have been freaking out to be going [to Beijing]," he said. "I've had to accept that not everything is going to be perfect and to do the best I can."

This is a recurring theme for Mann: accepting imperfection.

He tried to convey that sentiment in an Instagram post that showed him meditating near a lake, quoted Pliny the Elder and adding his own thoughts: "Often, it's easy to get fixated on our desires, always wanting immediate success, happiness, and sunlight, if you will. But more and more it's become clear that the only way to reach true fulfillment is to create sunlight from total darkness."

Mann said it's essential to be honest about life's struggles.

"I'm just not one to shy away from the fact that not every day is perfect. There's going to be adversity. That's normal. If you're not experiencing that, or you're saying you aren't, you're probably lying," he said.

That was evident for Mann in the Canada game. He surrendered a goal just 1 minute, 24 seconds into the game, on a shot where he couldn't get his stick paddle down to the ice fast enough. It didn't snowball for him. The U.S. tied the game 1 minute, 10 seconds later. Mann was great the rest of the way.

There's no telling how much action Mann will see now that the Americans have reached the Olympic quarterfinals, with their first game scheduled for 11:10 p.m. ET on Feb. 15. He has that signature win over Canada to his credit. But goalie Drew Commesso played well in wins over China and Germany, stopping 53 of 55 shots. The 19-year-old could get the nod over Mann in elimination-round play.

Whatever happens, Mann won't allow it to define him.

Perceptions are what they are. But Strauss Mann knows who he is.

"It's just trying not to get too high or too low," he said. "That's easy to say, but it comes from every day trying to make sure that your value comes from who you are as a person and not as a player. If you really believe that, then a loss won't affect your confidence, and a win won't give you hubris."

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Winter Olympics 2022 - Meet the 'quirky' goalie with the paleo diet and weird glasses who might lead Team USA to gold - ESPN

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Daily Archives: February 15, 2022

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Only ‘one reliable host city’ will be left for Winter Olympics if global emissions are not curbed: study | TheHill – The Hill

Winter weather appears to have extinguished Olympic flame in Beijing. But organizers say it’s just ‘fine’ – USA TODAY

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Winter Olympics 2022 – Meet the ‘quirky’ goalie with the paleo diet and weird glasses who might lead Team USA to gold – ESPN

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