Category Archives: Olympics

Follow our live coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

YANQING, China Alexandra Burghardt adjusted her new Winter Olympics outfit in a hotel a few miles away from the bobsledding track. It was two weeks before her debut at the Beijing Games.

Sometimes I feel like a double agent, she said. Two lives to handle.

In August, Burghardt was running the 100 meters in the blazing heat of Tokyos Summer Olympics. Now, six months later, she found herself in subzero temperatures in China, suiting up for the bobsled in the Winter Games.

And on Saturday night in Yanqing, she found herself with a silver medal around her neck, standing on a podium with her teammate and bobsled pilot, Mariama Jamanka.

She joins a long line of sprinters turned bobsledders, runners whose explosive speed and strength on the track can translate to the ice. But this summer-to-winter Olympic whiplash was extreme. The Tokyo Olympics were postponed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic and held in July and August 2021, six months before the start of the Beijing Games. Burghardt is one of the few athletes who competed in both two Olympics in less than a year.

For Burghardt, the turnaround was even more disorienting, given that she hadnt even thought about competing in a Winter Games until September.

The German bobsled federation had long courted Burghardt, 27, one of Germanys fastest sprinters, hoping she could be the latest track star to push a bobsledding team to a gold medal. We all knew her, said Rene Spies, the head coach of the German bobsled team.

She politely declined for years. Oh yeah, the German bobsled federation has wished for it for a long time, Burghardt said. Im pretty tall and fast and thats exactly what they need for a good brakewoman, but I wanted to get on with my actual sport first and try to reach my full potential before starting on a new adventure.

After suffering from setbacks and injuries through much of her career, she did reach a new level in the past year. She made the German Olympic team and clocked her fastest 100-meter time in the month before the Tokyo Games: 11.01 seconds.

In Tokyo, she ran in the womens 4x100-meter final, in which the Germans placed fifth. She also advanced to the semifinals of the 100 meters with a time of 11.07 seconds.

Tokyo was already a childhood dream come true, Burghardt said. Then there was this opportunity with Beijing, and I wanted to give it a try, and now were here.

Feb. 19, 2022, 9:29 p.m. ET

Burghardts progression from giving it a try to making an Olympic team was particularly swift. Kaysha Love, another sprinter turned bobsledder who took the fast track to these Games, had at least touched a bobsled before last year.

In 2018, a sliding coach reached out to Loves track coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas expressing interest. Her first time in a bobsled was in November 2020. The experience was terrifying, she said, but it cemented a goal: She would make the Olympic team. She finished her track season and turned her full attention to bobsledding in July 2021.

The end goal was always going to be the Olympics, Love said. I knew I was decent, at best. I knew I had a lot of work to do, but I wasnt scared to put in the extra effort.

Now shes very much in. She was selected as a brakewoman for the U.S. Olympic team and finished in seventh place with Kaillie Humphries, the monobob gold medalist. Love already has ambitions to learn to pilot a sled after the Games.

Burghardt was more skeptical at the start, agreeing to train for bobsled only if she could continue to work with her sprinting coach and get back to the track full time as soon as she left China.

But she liked bobsledding from her first run a promising sign for Spies, the German coach, who said many athletes get sick on their first run from the combination of speed and pressure. Burghardts technique wasnt great, he said, but she managed to improve on her next run. She was added to the World Cup lineup two days later.

I didnt really have the time to come down, Burghardt said of the quick transition. Im just riding on this cloud.

Her development was so impressive that she was paired with Jamanka, the 2018 defending gold medalist.

The partnership worked out quite well. They were outrun only by Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi, also of Germany, who won the gold medal in two-woman bobsled. Elena Meyers Taylor of the United States added a fifth Olympic medal to her collection, finishing with a bronze with her teammate, Syliva Hoffman.

Burghardt is already debating whether to race in a German indoor track meet a week after these Olympics. She is also looking forward to getting back on track with her coach in Switzerland in March, and then training camp in April. Then, she said excitedly, the season starts in May.

Its a very big year for track also, with the World Championships and the European Championship, she said.

Then, she said laughing, Im going to need a big break.

Read more:

How Alexandra Burghardt Made it to Two Olympics in Six Months - The New York Times

A medical helper takes a photo of the Zhangjiakou National Ski Jumping Center during the Winter Olympics on Feb. 14. Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A medical helper takes a photo of the Zhangjiakou National Ski Jumping Center during the Winter Olympics on Feb. 14.

BEIJING Outside of the window of a passing train from Beijing to Yanqing are rows and rows and rows of trees.

This succession of perfectly arranged seedlings and saplings stretches for acres. Some look hardly more than three twigs tied together on the ground and at serious risk of falling victim to a gust of wind. But at the base of each tree is a system of ropes and wood keeping them standing.

Much of this obviously recent tree planting is tied to the 2022 Winter Olympics. Authorities in Beijing and Zhangjiakou (locations for the Games' venues) said before the Games that they had planted more than 80,000 hectares (about 198,000 acres) of forest and green areas combined.

China is also in the midst of a years-long "greening" effort. Trees are being planted in and around Beijing to cut down on choking sandstorms from the Gobi Desert.

Put together, the Chinese government and Olympic officials paint the tree planting as a win for the environment and one that offsets climate change and carbon emissions from these Games.

The reality is much different, researchers and environmental experts say.

For one, China is notably reliant on coal powered energy, which has clear ties to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions. This month, the central government pledged to run coal power plants at full capacity. Officials even called on coal producers to ensure a steady supply of coal or face "further investigation and accountability measures."

The Winter Olympics are using almost entirely artificial snow which requires large amounts of water and the use of chemicals the health and environmental impact of which is still largely unknown.

The International Olympic Committee says it is prioritizing sustainability with its Summer and Winter Games. In practice, that hasn't been the case, according to researchers.

Sustainability in the Olympics has "significantly declined over time," according to one analysis of 16 editions of the Summer and Winter Games.

"Salt Lake City 2002 was the most sustainable Olympic Games in this period, whereas Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 were the least sustainable," according to the report. It was issued before the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Olympic host cities are required to show that they are carbon neutral. Beijing organizers pointed to tree planting and other efforts to reach that goal.

But to construct the National Alpine Ski Center in Yanqing, the Chinese government tore through the former central piece of the Songshan National Nature Reserve, a park founded to protect its dense forests, according to CNN.

This construction required the removal of nearly 20,000 trees over the course of a few years.

A general view of the Olympic rings during the Winter Games at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center. If not planned well, transplanting trees from a nature reserve to make way for the Olympics could hurt biodiversity, a conservation expert says. Jeff Pachoud/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A general view of the Olympic rings during the Winter Games at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center. If not planned well, transplanting trees from a nature reserve to make way for the Olympics could hurt biodiversity, a conservation expert says.

The Beijing Organizing Committee pledged to transplant those trees and topsoil to the north of the city. It claimed more than 90% of those trees survived the move.

By re-planting trees, the biodiversity unique to the Beijing area could suffer, according to Terry Townshend, an adviser to the Paulson Institute's conservation work.

"If not planned well, for example if non-native or single species are used of the same age and planted in straight lines, it is likely to be bad for biodiversity," he told NPR.

That's especially the case if the trees are planted in grassland, scrub or wetlands.

The leopard cat and the great bustard bird two animals unique to the Beijing area could lose their habitat by the indiscriminate planting of trees, according to Townshend.

"Beijing is an important stopover and wintering site for many migratory birds," he said. "Bustards are the equivalent of Boeing 747s they are heavy, slow and need a large runway."

If their sought-after open areas are planted with trees the great bustard may need to find another place to land.

"Beijing could lose these remarkable species," Townshend said.

NPR's Emily Feng contributed to this report.

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Beijing touts a green Olympics, but Games have wide environmental impact - NPR

WASHINGTON Companies usually shell out for Olympic sponsorship because it helps their business and reflects well on their brands. But this year, with the Olympics in Beijing, Procter & Gamble paid even more to try to prevent any negative fallout from being associated with Chinas repressive and authoritarian government.

The company, one of 13 worldwide Olympic partners that make the global sports competition possible, hired Washington lobbyists last year to successfully defeat legislation that would have barred sponsors of the Beijing Games from selling their products to the U.S. government. The provision would have blocked Pampers, Tide, Pringles and other Procter & Gamble products from military commissaries, to protest companies involvement in an event seen as legitimizing the Chinese government.

This amendment would punish P.&G. and the Olympic movement, including U.S. athletes, Sean Mulvaney, the senior director for global government relations at Procter & Gamble, wrote in an email to congressional offices in August.

Some of the worlds biggest companies are caught in an uncomfortable situation as they attempt to straddle a widening political gulf between the United States and China: What is good for business in one country is increasingly a liability in the other.

China is the worlds biggest consumer market, and for decades, Chinese and American business interests have described their economic cooperation as a win-win relationship. But gradually, as Chinas economic and military might have grown, Washington has taken the view that a win for China is a loss for the United States.

The decision to locate the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing has turned sponsorship, typically one of the marketing industrys most prestigious opportunities, into a minefield.

Companies that have sponsored the Olympics have attracted censure from politicians and human rights groups, who say such contracts imply tacit support of atrocities by the Chinese Communist Party, including human rights violations in Xinjiang, censorship of the media and mass surveillance of dissidents.

One thing our businesses, universities and sports leagues dont seem to fully understand is that, to eat at the C.C.P.s trough, you will have to turn into a pig, Yaxue Cao, editor of ChinaChange.org, a website that covers civil society and human rights, told Congress this month.

The tension is playing out in other areas as well, including with regards to Xinjiang, where millions of ethnic minorities have been detained, persecuted or forced into working in fields and factories. In June, the United States will enact a sweeping law that will expand restrictions on Xinjiang, giving the United States power to block imports made with any materials sourced from that region.

Multinational firms that are trying to comply with these new import restrictions have found themselves facing costly backlashes in China, which denies any accusations of genocide. H&M, Nike and Intel have all blundered into public relations disasters for trying to remove Xinjiang from their supply chains.

Harsher penalties could be in store. Companies that try to sever ties with Xinjiang may run afoul of Chinas anti-sanctions law, which allows the authorities to crack down on firms that comply with foreign regulations they see as discriminating against China.

Beijing has also threatened to put companies that cut off supplies to China on an unreliable entity list that could result in penalties, though to date the list doesnt appear to have any members.

Companies are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to complying with U.S. and Chinese law, said Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents companies that do business internationally.

President Biden, while less antagonistic than his predecessor, has maintained many of the tough policies put in place by President Donald J. Trump, including hefty tariffs on Chinese goods and restrictions on exports of sensitive technology to Chinese firms.

The Biden administration has shown little interest in forging trade deals to help companies do more business abroad. Instead, it is recruiting allies to ramp up pressure on China, including by boycotting the Olympics, and promoting huge investments in manufacturing and scientific research to compete with Beijing.

Feb. 19, 2022, 9:29 p.m. ET

The pressures are not only coming from the United States. Companies are increasingly facing a complicated global patchwork of export restrictions and data storage laws, including in the European Union. Chinese leaders have begun pursuing wolf warrior diplomacy, in which they are trying to teach other countries to think twice before crossing China, said Jim McGregor, chairman of APCO Worldwides greater China region.

He said his company was telling clients to try to comply with everybody, but dont make a lot of noise about it because if youre noisy about complying in one country, the other country will come after you.

Some companies are responding by moving sensitive activities like research that could trigger Chinas anti-sanctions law, or audits of Xinjiang operations out of China, said Isaac Stone Fish, the chief executive of Strategy Risks, a consultancy.

Others, like Cisco, have scaled back their operations. Some have left China entirely, though usually not on terms they would choose. For example, Micron Technology, a chip-maker that has been a victim of intellectual property theft in China, is closing down a chip design team in Shanghai after competitors poached its employees.

Some companies are taking a step back and realizing that this is perhaps more trouble than its worth, Mr. Stone Fish said.

But many companies insist that they cant be forced to choose between two of the worlds largest markets. Tesla, which counts China as one of its largest markets, opened a showroom in Xinjiang last month.

We cant leave China, because China represents in some industries up to 50 percent of global demand and we have intense, deep supply and sales relationships, said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council.

Companies see China as a foothold to serve Asia, Mr. Allen said, and Chinas $17 trillion economy still presents some of the best growth prospects anywhere.

Very few companies are leaving China, but all are feeling that its risk up and that they need to be very careful so as to meet their legal obligations in both markets, he said.

American politicians of both parties are increasingly bent on forcing companies to pick a side.

To me, its completely appropriate to make these companies choose, said Representative Michael Waltz, a Florida Republican who proposed the bill that would have prevented Olympic sponsors from doing business with the U.S. government.

Mr. Waltz said participation in the Beijing Olympics sent a signal that the West was willing to turn a blind eye to Chinese atrocities for short-term profits.

The amendment was ultimately cut out of a defense-spending bill last year after active and aggressive lobbying by Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Intel, NBC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others, Mr. Waltz said.

Procter & Gambles lobbying disclosures show that, between April and December, it spent more than $2.4 million on in-house and outside lobbyists to try to sway Congress on a range of tax and trade issues, including the Beijing Winter Olympics Sponsor Accountability Act.

Lobbying disclosures for Coca-Cola, Airbnb and Comcast, the parent company of NBC, also indicate the companies lobbied on issues related to the Olympics or sports programming last year.

Procter & Gamble and Intel declined to comment. Coca-Cola said it had explained to lawmakers that the legislation would hurt American military families and businesses. NBC and the Chamber of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.

Many companies have argued they are sponsoring this years Games to show support for the athletes, not Chinas system of government.

In a July congressional hearing, where executives from Coca-Cola, Intel, Visa and Airbnb were also grilled about their sponsorship, Mr. Mulvaney said Procter & Gamble was using its partnership to encourage the International Olympic Committee to incorporate human rights principles into its oversight of the Games.

Corporate sponsors are being a bit unfairly maligned here, Anna Ashton, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said in an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Companies had signed contracts to support multiple iterations of the Games, and had no say over the host location, she said. And the funding they provide goes to support the Olympics and the athletes, not the Chinese government.

Sponsorship has hardly been an opportunity for companies this time around, she said.

Read more here:

Why Companies Struggled to Navigate Olympics Sponsorships - The New York Times

Feel the rhythm and feel the rhymeafter a 24-year absence, Cool Runnings is back at the Olympics.

On Saturday in Beijing, Jamaica competed in the four-man bobsled for the first time since the 1998 Nagano Games, and to plenty of fanfare.

The team's performance drew comparisons on social media to Jamaica's Cool Runnings team from the 1988 Calgary Games, which was immortalized by the Disney film of the same name.

Click here to watch both of Jamaica's heats in the four-man bobsled.

Piloted byShanwayne Stephens, who also competed in the two-man event last week, Jamaica ranked last after the first two heats, finishing more than five seconds behind first-place Germany with times of1:00:80 and 1:01.39.

Stephens's teammates include a rugby player for the Jamaican national team, a one-time HBCU track star and a former member of the Great Britain bobsled program.

However, Stephens said earlier this week that the nation's return to the even meant a lot more than just the final result.

I think it's everybody's dream to represent their country and we're here doing it, living it and breathing it, Stephens told ESPN after the two-man event. "We just hope that we've done everybody proud.

I mean, there's a lot of people supporting us. There's Jamaican, non-Jamaican, everybody that loves Cool Runnings is supporting us. Just represent Jamaica and enjoy it while we're here. Not everybody gets this opportunity, so we just want to enjoy it.

More Winter Olympics Coverage:

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Watch: Jamaican Four-Man Bobsled Team Returns to Winter Olympics After 24 Years - Sports Illustrated

The Winter Olympics are nearly over, but athletes competing up on the mountains outside of Beijing were dealt with perhaps the worst weather theyve seen so far throughout the Games on Saturday.

Heres everything you missed overnight from the Olympics.

Freestyle skiing survived gusty, frigid conditions in Zhangjikaou on Saturday, and a pair of Americans left the mountain with medals in hand.

David Wise and Alex Ferriera won the silver and bronze medal, respectively, in the freestyle skiing competition on Saturday. Wise finished with a score of 90.75, and Ferreira was just behind him at 86.75.

New Zealands Nico Porteous won the gold medal, and celebrated accordingly with his team on the mountain after.

Temperatures on the mountain felt like minus-12 degrees Fahrenheit while wind increased throughout the competition.

The conditions were so bad, plenty of athletes including American-turned-Great Britain competitor Gus Kenworthy wiped out. Ten of the 12 riders fell at least once during their runs.

Though plenty called for freestyle skiing to be canceled, it went on as scheduled.

The Alpine skiing mixed team event, however, did not.

The weather caused organizers to postpone Saturdays event until Sunday the final day of the Games. There is a chance the event could be canceled.

The event was set to be the last for American star Mikaela Shiffrin at the Games.

Kai Verbij sacrificed his shot for a medal on Friday in the mens 1,000-meter speed skating event, all out of sportsmanship.

The Netherlands skater was matched up with Canadas Laurent Dubreuil in the final run of the competition, and both were trying to beat Verbijs teammate Tim Krol who was leading with a time of 1:07.92.

Yet during their race, Verbij realized that he was well behind Dubreuil. Even though Verbij was in contention for a medal, Dubreuil was 0.73 seconds ahead of the leaders pace.

Story continues

So, instead of staying in the race and potentially crashing, Verbij pulled up and let his Canadian counterpart try for gold.

Dubreuil eventually finished in second, but the act of sportsmanship was still incredible.

Check out the race in its entirety here.

"When I exited the inner lane I saw his higher top speed and knew: I have to get up, otherwise I would ruin his race and Im not that kind of a*****e, Verbij said.

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What you missed at the Olympics: Americans medal in skiing despite brutal conditions - Yahoo Sports

A handful of Olympians with ties to the Bay Area and Northern California are leaving the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with some extra hardware.

Check out the list below to see which local athletes earned a medal during the Winter Games.

Fremont's Karen Chen, a two-time Olympian, will return to the Bay Area with a silver medal around her neck.

Chen helped Team USA finish in second in the figure skating team event.

Watch her performance in the team event below.

Palo Alto's Vincent Zhou will also be heading home with a silver medal.

Along with Chen, he helped the Americans snag silver in the team figure skating event.

Check out his performance in the team event below.

The run of silver medals continues with Hilary Knight.

Knight, born in Palo Alto, led Team USA to a second place finish in women's ice hockey. She scored a goal in the gold medal game against Canada, but the Americans would end up losing 3-2.

The four-time Olympian now has four Olympic medals to her name: one gold and three silvers.

Check out her goal in the gold medal game below.

David Wise, a three-time Olympian from Reno, Nevada, who skis and trains in Tahoe, returned to the podium once again in the men's freeski halfpipe event.

After capturing halfpipe gold in 2014 and 2018, Wise took silver in Beijing.

Catch highlights from the halfpipe final below.

San Francisco native Eileen Gu, competing for China, leaves the Winter Games as one of its breakout stars, winning not one but three medals two gold and one silver in the women's freestyle skiing events.

The 18-year-old grabbed gold in both big air and halfpipe and silver in slopestyle.

She is the first freestyle skier to win three medals at a single Olympics.

Relive her remarkable run at the Winter Olympics below.

See the article here:

List: Local Athletes Who Won Medals at the 2022 Winter Olympics - NBC Bay Area

Kamila Valieva of the Russian Olympic Committee performs in the Beijing Olympics, February 17, 2022. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

On the menu today: The worst Olympics in history are coming to a close, and even NBC seems to have had it with the International Olympic Committees bumbling incompetence and longstanding blind eye to corruption; what the heartbreaking, cringe-inducing, and outrage-stirring scandal involving Kamila Valieva can tell us about that other big ongoing story involving Russia; and confronting the concept of reality privilege.

A Debacle Draws to a Close

Ten days ago, this newsletter noted that the opening days of the Genocide Games er, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing had generated a cataclysmic loss of audience for NBC. Over the past week or so, the audience size hasnt gotten any better and its not just here in the United States:

Television ratings for the Beijing Olympics are off by 50 percent from PyeongChang levels in 2018, which themselves were well below the levels of Winter Olympics past. But to hear the International Olympic Committee tell it, theres no problem, no problem at all. . . . In the United States, though, with the exception of the post-Super Bowl bump, ratings for the Games have bounced off the bottom of the ocean floor at historic lows.

No, its not only a viewer boycott of China thats driving the low ratings, but its hard to believe that its not a factor. Viewers around the world have a lot of reasons for antipathy toward China these days from the ongoing Uyghur genocide, to the crackdown on Hong Kong, to the aggressive moves towards Taiwan, to that virus that started in Wuhan which has killed almost 6 million people around the world officially and perhaps many, many more.

There are no live audiences or cheering crowds at the events, a television correspondent got dragged away on air, waiters and bartenders in the hotels are wearing full hazmat suits, and theres not even the usual pretty scenery the ski-jump platform was built next to a steel plant with structures that reminded American audiences of nuclear reactors. Theres something absurdly dystopian about this whole debacle.

For a long time, the IOC insisted to the world, and perhaps to themselves late at night, that autocratic regimes such as Russia and China were challenging but worthwhile partners who helped make the games a truly global event. It contended that the long history of blatantly unethical behavior by these regimes, inside and outside the field of play, shouldnt be a reason for concern and certainly wasnt a reason to exclude those countries athletes or bar them from hosting the games. Whatever Beijing and Moscow lacked in ethics, they made up for in money and the authority to build stadiums quickly.

These games brought another embarrassing and outrage-inducing scandal, this one involving Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old Russian figure-skating prodigy. Valieva tested positive for the heart drug trimetazidine on December 25 at the Russian nationals; the test results were only delivered from a Swedish lab last week, after Valieva helped Russia win gold in the team figure-skating event. The IOC ruled there would not be a medal ceremony for the team event, in which Russia won gold and the U.S. won silver. If the Russian team is eventually disqualified over the positive drug test, the Americans will move up to gold, Japan will win silver, and Canada will win bronze. When Valieva competed in her free skate, she fell apart, falling twice and finishing in fourth place.

No one believes that a 15-year-old girl would obtain and take a performance-enhancing substance on her own; someone had to have supplied it to her.

You know a situation is bad when the usually mild-mannered Mike Tirico, NBC Sports anchor for the Olympics coverage, calls out the IOC on-air for utterly failing to protect Valieva or to mitigate Russian cheating and rule-breaking:

Something undeniable is the harm to the person at the center of it all: a fifteen-year-old, standing alone, looking terrified on the ice before her free skate. This image, maybe more than anything else, encapsulates the entire situation the adults in the room left her alone. Portrayed by some this week as the villain, by others as the victim, she is in fact the victim of the villains the coaches and national Olympic Committee surrounding Kamila Valieva, whether they orchestrated, prescribed or enabled, all of this is unclear. But what is certain is they failed to protect her.

Guilt by association is often unfair, but its called for here. Russia has been banned from using the name of its country the last three Olympic Games, because of the systemic state-run doping program that was uncovered after they hosted the Sochi games in 2014. The deal that was broken was supposed to ensure a level playing field while giving clean Russian athletes a chance to compete, but that scenario totally broke down here.

Now, a failed drug test from one of their athletes has tarnished one of the marquee events of the games and taken away from every skaters moment. In the name of clean and fair competition, Olympians and gold medalists from across the globe have spoken up and IOC president Thomas Bach, at his end of the games press conference in the last hour uncharacteristically openly criticized Valievas entourage for their quote tremendous coldness at the end of her skate and said that those involved should be held responsible

But now its time for the IOC to stand up whether its about blocking Russia from hosting events for a very long time or stringent and globally transparent testing for Russian athletes going forward, if swift action from the top of the Olympic movement does not happen quickly the very future of the games could be in jeopardy.

Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, an NBC figure-skating analyst, added that, It makes me angry that the adults around her werent able to make better decisions and be there for her, because she is the one now dealing with the consequences and shes just 15 and thats not fair. . . . Again, with that being said, she should not have been allowed to skate in this Olympic event.

Give NBC Sports a little credit for calling out the IOC on air. Maybe NBC is concluding that operating as a de facto public-relations firm for a spectacularly corrupt and increasingly incompetent Olympic committee just isnt worth it anymore. The ratings arent high enough, the advertisers arent happy enough, and NBC Sports employees no doubt want to broadcast unforgettable human triumphs not to try to polish a turd and implausibly assure viewers at home that the games are fair, free, and abiding under the rules.

Discussions involving Valieva keep spurring the comment that, Its not her fault. Yes, thats precisely the point, and thats why the Russian Olympic team used her in this manner. The people who run her career know that the IOC and the world will feel hesitant to judge and rebuke a tearful, angelic-faced 15-year-old girl. Thats why theyre attempting to cheat by using a 15-year-old girl! If this were an adult man, all of us would be reacting much less sympathetically. Our inner conflict about punishing a teenage girl for the actions of others is what the Russians were counting on; they figured that gave them a better chance of getting away with it.

All of these lessons apply to the other big controversy involving Russia going on this week. Some regimes just dont give a hoot about the rules and will do whatever it takes to win. You cant trust them, you cant negotiate with them without verifying that theyre keeping their promises, you cant rely on their good faith or good will, and if you make a concession in the name of comity, they will pocket it and ask for more.

These games have been a debacle, and the IOC was warned. Adam Kilgore, the Washington Posts correspondent in Beijing, wrote this morning that the games are concluding under a pall of pervasive joylessness and noted that athletes, officials and media members [are] shuttled from hotels to venues, forbidden to see the host city except out of windows. What was the point of selecting Beijing, then? These games could have been held anywhere.

Dan Wetzel, a Yahoo Sports national columnist, sees the Russian coaches heartless on-air verbal abuse of a terrified 15-year-old girl as the natural fruit of a long string of bad IOC decisions and a refusal to confront national Olympic teams that are systemically abusive: This is the Olympics that Bach, who has been president nearly a decade, has built. This is it. He just happened to see it in all its depravity on his television Thursday. He was disgusted at what he saw. Join the club.

The only silver lining to this mess is that Xi Jinping didnt get much of a propaganda victory out of it all.

This Is a New One: Reality Privilege

Examining Meta, Michael Brendan Dougherty shares an anecdote:

At some point in my adolescence, a friend who played guitar explained to me that he gave up video games because it just meant spending time building up skills and achievements that had no meaning outside the game or to anyone else. The guitar, as a discipline, gave my friend an outlet for artistic expression, and he was able to bring real joy to people in the real world with it. Becoming a guitarist not only changed the way he thought, but physically changed his hands over time.

Cam and I talked a bit about video games in the early chapters of Heavy Lifting. If you enjoy video games, fine; its a free country, and everybody relaxes in their own way.

But if you relax by painting or doodling, after a while youve got a painting or a doodle. If you channel your thoughts and feelings and stresses through creative writing, you end up with a story or poem. If you relax by cooking, you end up with a meal. If you play video games . . . what do you have when youre done?

Michael also spotlights what strikes me as a spectacularly odd argument from Meta board-member Marc Andreessen:

The Reality Privileged, of course, call this conclusion dystopian, and demand that we prioritize improvements in reality over improvements in virtuality. To which I say: reality has had 5,000 years to get good, and is clearly still woefully lacking for most people; I dont think we should wait another 5,000 years to see if it eventually closes the gap. We should build and we are building online worlds that make life and work and love wonderful for everyone, no matter what level of reality deprivation they find themselves in.

Was this written by the machines in The Matrix or something?

ADDENDA: This is the last Jim-written Morning Jolt until February 22; Alexandra DeSanctis will fill in for me Monday. Happy Presidents Day!

Way back in 2018, I imagined an international corruption competition. . . .

Read the rest here:

Olympics 2022: Worst. Olympics. Ever. - National Review

The final alpine skiing event of the 2022 Winter Olympics the mixed gender team event has been rescheduled for 9am on Sunday morning in Beijing (8pm on Saturday night in the United States). You can watch live on USA Network, Peacock and NBCOlympics.com.

The event was originally scheduled for Saturday morning in Beijing, but was delayed multiple times until organizers announced that very windy conditions would not permit the event to be held on Saturday.

The U.S. team will feature three-time Olympic medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, competing alongside Paula Moltzan,Tommy Ford,Luke Winters,A.J. HurtandRiver Radamus. Only four athletes will compete in each round of competition.

ROUND OF 16:

8:00pm ET: And were off! A day after high winds caused the event to be called off, racers are finally on course. The first head-to-head match up features Canada vs. Slovenia. Austria, meanwhile, gets a bye through the round of 16 thanks to their world No. 1 ranking.

8:04pm ET: Its a tie! Canada won two, Slovenia won two. The first tiebreaker? The nation with the lower combined time of its fastest male and female competitor is awarded the win. And it is Slovenia that gets the go-ahead thanks to the performance of Andreja Slokar and Zan Kranjec.

8:08pm ET: After winning the first three races against the Czech Republic, France clinches a spot in the quarterfinal round. The fourth skier still gets to compete, though. I guess they have to ski down the mountain anyway!

8:16pm ET: Norway vs. Poland! And wow, in the fourth head-to-head matchup, Norways Fabian Wilkens Solheim skis out. That results in a 2-2 tie Norway moves ahead thanks to the combined time differential.

8:21pm ET: Italy vs. the Russian Olympic Committee: Marta Bassino clinches the win for the Italians with a solid run. Bassino is one of the strongest giant slalom skiers in the world (she won the World Cup discipline title last year), but the 25-year-old is still searching for her first Olympic medal.

8:24pm ET: Its time for the USA vs. Slovakia. Mikaela Shiffrin is the first out of the gate and she makes it look easy. The three-time Olympic medalist crosses the line 0.64 seconds ahead of Slovakias Rebeka Jancova. Thats actually the third largest time differential weve seen yet today.

8:26pm ET: And after two strong runs by River Radamus and Paula Moltzan, the U.S. clinches the win. The Americans will face Italy in the quarterfinal round.

8:35pm ET: Germany defeats Sweden 3-1, with Emma Aicher, Linus Strasser, and Lena Duerr all recording wins. Duerr just missed the individual slalom podium at these 2022 Winter Olympics, finishing fourth only 0.07 behind bronze medalist Wendy Holdener of Switzerland.

8:38pm ET: Speaking of Wendy Holdener she is the first athlete out of the gate for Switzerland in their round of 16 match-up against China. And the 28-year-old wins easily. Holdener has won five Olympic medals in her career, including gold in the team event four years ago.

8:39pm ET: Switzerland sweeps China, 4-0. They will face Germany in the quarterfinal round.

QUARTERFINAL ROUND:

8:40pm ET: Here are the four quarterfinal matchups:

The U.S. will use the same four athletes in this round, but in a different order. Paula Moltzan (1), Tommy Ford (2), Mikaela Shiffrin (3), River Radamus (4).

8:49pm ET: After a bye in the first round, Austria makes its team event debut in Beijing. The Austrians easily defeat Slovenia, winning 3-1.

8:50pm ET: Norway vs. France. Tessa Worley is first up for the French, but she loses to Norwegian Thea Louise Stjernesund. Worley is a six-time world medalist and one of the most dominant giant slalom skiers of the last decade, but the 32-year-old is still searching for her first career Olympic medal. Despite her loss, she still has a shot if her French teammates can pull through.

8:55pm ET: Wow. Norway defeats France. With the two teams tied, Norway gets the nod thanks to fast runs from Thea LouiseStjernsund and Fabian Wilkens Solheim.

8:57pm ET: Its Italy vs. the United States. The Americans start off with a 2-0 lead thanks to Paula Moltzan and Tommy Ford.

8:59pm ET: In the third run, its Mikaela Shiffrin vs. Marta Bassino. Two really strong giant slalom skiers. Bassino manages to eek out the win by two-one-hundredths of a second. But Shiffrin and her U.S. teammates will get to ski again after River Radamus clinches the 3-1 victory.

9:03pm ET: In the final quarterfinal: its Germany vs. Switzerland. The Swiss have already been so successful at these 2022 Winter Olympics, winning seven total medals in alpine skiing, including two by Wendy Holdener.

9:05pm ET: And what a tight battle between Wendy Holdener and Germanys Lena Duerr. Competing on the blue course, which appears to be slightly faster, Duerr eeks out the win. Germany will move thanks to fast times from Alexander Schmid and Duerr. As a reminder, in the event of a 2-2 tie, the first tiebreak goes to the nation with the lower combined time of its fastest male and female competitor.

SEMIFINAL ROUND:

9:10pm ET: Here are the two semifinal matchups:

9:15pm ET: Tied 1-1, Austrias Katharina Liensbergerputs her team up 2-1. Norways Fabian Wilkens Solheim then evens the score 2-2, but Austria will move ahead on tiebreak criteria.

9:17pm ET: The blue course is really showing its speed. Since the start of the quarterfinal round, the athlete on the blue course has won every time (except if they DNFd).

9:22pm ET: Competing on the red course, Mikaela Shiffrin loses to Germanys Lena Duerr by one-tenth of a second. River Radamus (blue course) puts the U.S. back into the hunt with a win

9:25pm ET: And Paula Moltzan (blue course) goes down! That is tough luck for the United States Germanys Emma Aicher also skis out, but because she made it further down the course, shell get the point.

9:30pm ET: With Germany leading 2-1, its a must-win situation for U.S. skier Tommy Ford, competing on the red course. Ford crosses the line 0.84 seconds behind Alexander Schmid, who clinches the win for Germany.

A full preview of alpine skiings mixed team event can be found here.

Follow Alex Azzi on Twitter@AlexAzziNBC

Excerpt from:

Alpine Skiing Team Event at the Winter Olympics: Live Updates - On Her Turf | NBC Sports

It's not quite a neat path that intertwines four women's Games, but there's an inextricable spirit shared byErin Jackson,Brittany Bowe, Elana Meyers Taylor, and Kaillie Humphriesin Beijing.

It started before the Olympics, whenBowepassed on one of her events toJackson, the star skater who just had a bad day at trials. Jackson would go on to win gold in her event, and Bowe claimed a medal later in the Games.

Bowe got an unexpected honor of her own, but only becauseMeyers Taylortested positive for COVID-19 and could not serve as flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony.

WhenMeyers TaylorselectedBoweto replace her, the bobsled star did not know whether she'd compete in front of her family at the age of 37. AndMeyers Taylor's unknown status as a competitor was something keenly felt byHumphries, whose calling out of alleged abuse from her Team Canada coach could've left her without a nation. Instead, she'd finish 1-2 with Meyers Taylor.

Throw inJessie Diggins making history when she won bronzein the womens individual sprint (freestyle) to become the first two-time Olympic medalist in U.S. cross-country skiing history and... well...

You can't say enough about these women, fellow humans. They rule.

See more here:

Top Team USA moments at the 2022 Winter Olympics - NBC Olympics

USA TODAY Sports| USA TODAY

Olympic love: Five couples who are competing at the Olympics

It's Valentine's Day and these couples are also competing at the Winter Olympics. Get to know these five couples.

Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

BEIJING It's Valentine's Day at the Winter Olympics.

And for a handful of athletes, such as Evan Bates and Madison Chock, it promises to be an extra special occasion.

"Do you have any plans for Valentine's Day at the Olympics?" a reporter asked Saturday.

"No, I mean..." said Bates

"Yeah we do!" Chock interjected. "We have our free dance run-through!"

Chock and Bates, who finished fourth in ice dance, are one of the few couples at the Games who are actually competing together. Others feature athletes in different disciplines, or different sports or from different countries. It's not unusual for Olympic athletes to meet, or lay the foundation for a relationship, through their sport.

Here are a few of the most prominent partnerships at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Evan Bates first asked Madison Chock out on a date when she was 16 years old. They went to Bahama Breeze, a Caribbean-themed restaurant chain. But that first date was also their only one for the time being, at least.

Years later, they started skating together after Chock's previous partner retired. And years after that, before the Pyeongchang Olympics, they started dating.

Today, Chock and Bates arethe reigning U.S. national champions in ice dance partners on the ice for 11 years, and off the ice for the past five. It's a lot of time to spend together, but they've loved it.

"I feel like skating together and being a couple off the ice made us into a mature couple very quickly," Bates said. "It kind of made us grow together."

Thursday night was a good one for Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld.

Together withChristopher Lillis, the couple won gold in Olympic debut of mixed team aerials.

According to The Washington Times, Caldwell and Schoenfeld met after the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, after the latter joined the U.S. aerials team. They quickly hit it off.

"We just clicked so much that there was just no stopping us from dating each other," Caldwell told the newspaper.

Like Chock and Bates, Adrian Diaz and Madison Hubbell are also ice dancers in a romantic relationship. They just don't compete with one another.

Diaz skates with Olivia Smart for Spain, while Hubbell and Zachary Donohue are among the top pairs for the United States, winning the bronze medal in ice dance at the Beijing Olympics. Diaz and Hubbell have been dating since the 2014-15 season and engaged since 2018. They plan to marry in 2023.

Hubbell said that, because they often compete against one another, she relished the recent team figure skating competition, where the U.S. won silver. Spain did not have a team, so Diaz could watch her live.

"Usually were focused on our event so much that we dont get to see each other in person," she said, according to The Associated Press. "So Im really happy to have him able to be there."

Gagnon and Ganong are both Alpine skiers, representing Canada and the United States, respectively. They met at a race in 2007 and got engaged in September while, naturally, on top of a mountain.

"She enthusiastically climbed up to this spot with me in a rain storm, the Matterhorn completely covered in clouds, without second guessing the adventure," Ganong, 33,wrote on Instagram. "And said yes!"

Gagnon, 32, added in her own post: "13 years into it, but couldnt have been timed more perfectly!"

Red Gerard figures hes known Hailey Langland since before double digits.

At 21, thats a long time for the two slopestyle snowboarders, who have now competed in their second Olympics together.

The couple, who began dating shortly before the Pyeongchang Games four years ago, have the rare benefit of a loved one with them at an Olympics where international visitors are not allowed.

Hes awesome. Hes so fun to watch ride, and Im really, really lucky to have him here, Langland said. That definitely helped me make the decision to come here. Im just a really lucky gal.

Their shared experience of competing on the same course in the same events gives each other a sounding board as they shareideas for runs. Slopestyle is unique in competitive snowboarding because the variety and layout of the course changes from contest to contest and requires riders to figure out their best run each time.

Our dynamic of snowboarding, me being able to push her and her being able to push me, is really cool, Gerard said. Its a fun part to our relationship that I like.

On January 28, British speedskater Ellia Smeding posted a video of herself at the National Speed Skating Oval, with fellow speedskater Cornelius Kersten by her side.

"At the Olympics with my bestest friend," she wrote on Instagram."Someone pinch me!!!"

Kersten, 27, and Smeding, 23, are partners in both a romantic relationship and a business venture a coffee company called "Brew 22," that they founded to help fund their travel and training expenses ahead of these Games.

While they train in the Netherlands, which is a speedskating hotbed, Kersten and Smeding both represent Great Britain, which is... not. One of their goals at these Games is to spark more interest in the sport in their home nation.

"I dont really know what weve achieved yet," Kersten told The Associated Press, "but hopefully weve achieved something."

Mikaela Shiffrin and Aleksander Aamodt Kilde arent dating for the competitive advantage. But its not a bad added bonus.

She sends me videos, I send her videos and then we try to learn from each other a little bit, said Kilde, the overall champion in 2020. Thats cool. I have a lot to learn from her.

The Norwegian and Shiffrin have been dating since early 2021, and made their relationship Instagram-official in June.

With the mens and womens World Cup circuits rarely in the same places at the same time, Shiffrin and Kilde keep in touch during the season through FaceTime and phone calls. The Olympics are no different.

With COVID and restrictions, you have to be really careful, Kilde said. Its a tease kind of. You see her but you cant really touch her, you cant really be with her that much. But its really nice to have her here.

Another real-life ice dancing couple, Tim Koleto and Misato Komatsubara met through the sport in 2016.

They were both looking for new partners and met in Milan, Italy for a random tryout. And the rest, as the clichgoes, is history.

"We talk about it often that it was fate that we found each other the way we did," Koleto told The Associated Press.

Koleto, who was born in Montana, has since become a Japanese citizen and legally adopted his wife's surname.

Belgium's Kim Meylemans and Brazil's Nicole Silveira not only compete in the same sport, skeleton, but they also competed directly against one another. Silveira finished 13th and Meylemans was a few spots behind in 18th.

We had to navigate being competitors, but also being in a relationship," Silveira recently told reporters."We figured it out. Basically, when we're at the track we are competitors and outside of the track, it's fair game, real life partners."

Silveira, 27, said the couple met three years ago but "it wasnt until this last season that we made things official." She finished 17th at the most recent world championships. Meylemans, 25, finished ninth.

Hundreds of athletes marched in the opening ceremony, and documented the experience on social media. But a post from Blayre Turnbull stood out.

"Name a cooler place to be reunited with your fianc after spending the last 3 months apart," she wrote in a caption on Instagram, alongside a photo of herself and fianc Ryan Sommer. "Ill wait."

Sommer and Turnbull are both Olympians competing for Canada, the former in four-manbobsled and the latter in women's hockey. Fortunately, their medal-determining rounds do not occur on the same day, so Sommer and Turnbull might be able to watch and support one another in their most pivotal moments at the Games.

Contributing: Nancy Armour, Rachel Axon and Tom Schad

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report

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Olympic love: Meet some of the couples competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics - USA TODAY