Category Archives: Olympics

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."

Excerpt from:

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

Sometimes, it's not just the Olympic athletes who get all the glory. Every once in a while, an announcer garners a little bit of fame, too.

It was Duluthian Chad Salmelas Here comes Diggins! call on NBC Olympics in 2018 that went viral, when Jessie Diggins helped lead Team USA to its first-ever cross-country skiing gold medal.

Chad Salmela, of Duluth, is the College of St. Scholastica coach who made the euphoric announcement as Jessie Diggins, of Afton, Minn., won the gold medal at the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. It was the first gold medal for the United States in cross-country skiing.

Courtesy photo

Now, Salmela is joined by another Duluthian 2018 curling gold medalist Tyler George who got the call this year from NBC to join their crew of curling announcers.

George and Salmela join the more than two dozen American athletes competing in the Beijing Olympics who have lived in Minnesota.

Reflecting back on his euphoric call of Diggins final push across the finish line in 2018, Salmela said nothing about it was planned.

"And actually, four years later, I think it's in a lot of ways maybe a little bit problematic for me because I think everybody's waiting for the next one, he said. And I don't know if it's ever coming."

Salmela said his goal when he calls races is to impart the excitement of the moment in a genuine way.

"You're really at the mercy of a lot of things, he said. You're at the mercy of the event itself and and what transpires."

He's also at the mercy of what he can see. Salmela, and all the other U.S. announcers, are calling the events from NBC's studios in Connecticut. So he's watching a monitor with a feed that's being sent halfway around the world.

Last week, at the end of a sprint race, the camera zoomed in tight on the soon-to-be gold-medal-winning Swedish skier Jonna Sundling as she approached the finish line. Salmela couldn't even see Diggins until the camera switched to a wider view a couple seconds before she crossed the line in third.

"But I thought we did a really good job with what we were given from the world feed to call that race to the line, he said. It's just not going to be a Here comes Diggins! again because that's the nature of the way the thing was shot in real time."

Not being there in person can affect the call in those situations, Salmela said. But he doesn't think it's essential to be there in person.

"It just colors the call differently," he said.

This is Salmela's fifth Olympics as an analyst, since he was first discovered by an NBC producer who heard him in 2002, when he worked as the PA announcer for the biathalon competition at the Olympic games in Salt Lake City.

In addition to cross country skiing, he also provides commentary for biathalon and Nordic combined events.

Tyler George of the 2018 Olympic Champion U.S. Curling team reaches out to give a hug at the Duluth airport on returning from the Games. Now retired George is providing analysis for NBC Olympics.

Bob King | Duluth News Tribune 2018

For Tyler George, this is his first Olympics as an analyst. And he didn't even know he had the job until about three weeks before the Games started. Still, he said, nerves were not an issue.

"All I'm really doing is talking about my sport. I don't have to go outside my lane or anything, he said. I just say what I know and I got people around me that makes sure I don't make any missteps."

His commentary is filled with plenty of curling terms while remaining understandable to neophytes watching whats taking place on screen.

"So the best that China can do now is draw around that stone to top 8, top 4, and then (U.S. skip) Shuster will have the decision if he can see any of the stone, if he wants to just rip it out, or if he wants to play the draw, but it will be his choice," he said during a recent U.S. vs. China mens game.

George was part of the U.S. curling team that won gold four years ago. He retired from Olympic competition after those games. He said he relies on that experience behind the microphone.

"You put on the headset, you do your prep to the games, you know the the athletes and you do your background, I interviewed a lot of the curlers in the field going in, he said. And the access that I have, especially with the U.S. teams, gave me a lot of good material for the downtime that we have during the games, too."

Both George and Salmela are coping with grueling schedules because of the 13-hour time difference from Beijing and Connecticut. George calls matches at 8 p.m. and again at 7 a.m. Eastern time. He gets about four hours of sleep in between, and catches a midmorning nap.

Salmela typically wakes up around 9 p.m., and often works 15-hour days.

Not that either of them are complaining. Both announcers say the profile of their sports has grown since the success of the U.S. teams four years ago. George said in past Olympics, excitement would build during the games. This year, he said, it started much earlier.

"And that's not something we've ever seen, he said. So seeing that buildup going in and having curling be a part of NBC's promos, you know seeing John Shuster's fist pump on the the intros with all the rest of the famed athletes and moments from the previous games, you know, people are actually talking about curling going into the games this time."

After the Olympics end, George said hes already booked out through May with trips lined up to promote the sport of curling across the country from Los Angeles to Huntsville, Ala.

George said so far all the reports hes heard on his commentating have been positive.

I'm being told that if you don't hear anything, that's usually a bad sign. So I'm happy with how everything's been going, he said.

Salmela said he feels like he has a bit of a heightened profile since the Olympics from four years ago.

In this business, when your call is getting put on [NBCs] marketing that's kind of a coveted thing I think a lot of people aspire to in this business, Salmela said. It's nice to be known for doing something that people think is cool and well done.

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Meet the Duluthians commentating on the Beijing Olympics from half a world away - MPR News

Every four years, the world's greatest athletes across the winter sport disciplines gather at the Olympic Games to provide a spectacle of sport and sportsmanship that inspires the 7.7 billion humans that inhabit Earth's 195 nations. And every four years, we must take the time to honor our history -- specifically the lost art of ski ballet.

Ski ballet has not been seen in an Olympic setting since it was dropped from the schedule for the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway. It never formally broke through as a true Olympic discipline (with medals awarded), but it was featured as a demonstration sport at both the 1988 Calgary Games in Canada and 1992 Albertville Games in France.

The sport -- also known at times as Acroski -- was featured on professional freestyle skiing tours in the 1970s and 1980s and was always a unique fan-favorite. Competitors performed two-minute routines set to music and filled with spins, flips and flair.

As you can see from the winning runs from Switzerland's Conny Kisslingand France's Fabrice Becker from Albertville 1992, the sport was wildly popular with the fans...

There have been no demonstration sports included in Olympic programs since 1992 in Albertville. In the past, demonstration sports have ranged from military patrol (cross-country skiing/ski mountaineering/rifle shooting), to sled dog racing, to Australian rules football, to bowling, to ... dueling*.

A few more ski ballet clips for you to enjoy...

Time will tell if the abandoned but glorious sport ever makes a triumphant return to the main stage.

*There is some debate as to whether or not the 1908 dueling exhibition held in London was to commemorate the Olympics or the Franco-British Exhibition. Either way, competitors wore protective equipment and fired wax bullets at each other. Dueling has never been on display at the Olympics since. But dueling was demonstrated at the 1906 Intercalated Games in Athens, Greece, where competitors fired pistols at plaster dummies from 20m and 30m. France's Leon Moreaux took gold in the 20m while Greece's Konstantinos Skarlatos won gold in the 30m.

Read more:

Remembering the lost art of ski ballet, a Winter Olympics tradition - NBC Olympics

BEIJING Eileen Gu took her next step toward domination of the 2022 Winter Olympics, but fell just short of a second straight gold medal.

The American-born freestyle skier, who now competes for China, won silver in the womens freeski slopestyle by the barest of margins, needing a dig-deep third-round run to vault herself onto the podium.

Slopestyle requires a skier to navigate a series of pipes and jumps with artistry, grace and daring. Treachery awaits at every trick, and numerous competitors in the minus-seven-degree temperatures struggled with the pipes and the landings.

Judges credited her with a 69.90, good enough for third behind Estonias Kelly Sildaru and Frances Tess LeDeux after the first round. But her second round ended early with a fall off a pipe, and she found herself in eighth place after the round.

Above her, the leaderboard turned upside down. Mathilde Gremaud, whose broken binding in the first round annihilated her run and left her with a score of 1.1, rebounded strong, throwing down an 86.56 to claim the top slot. Sildaru held onto the second slot, and Team USAs Maggie Voisin snared the third slot with a 78.28 heading into the final round.

Gu knew she had to perform the slopestyle run of her life, and she very nearly did. Her final run totaled 86.23, just over three-tenths of a point behind Gremaud for the gold. Sildarus opening-round run held up for the bronze.

Gu is a nationwide celebrity in China. Her face adorns everything from commercials and billboards to the shopping bags filled with Olympic souvenirs at official Beijing Games stores. A silver medal may not carry the same cachet as gold, but the fact that Gu was able to throw down an all-or-nothing final round will only help burnish her legend.

Voisin ended up in fifth after Gu and Russias Anastasia Tatalina passed her in the final round. Team USAs Marin Hamill, who qualified sixth, injured her right leg in her final qualifying run and did not compete.

China's Eileen Gu waits to see her score in the freeski slopestyle final during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at the Genting Snow Park H & S Stadium in Zhangjiakou on February 15, 2022. (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)

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U.S.-born Chinese ski star Eileen Gu wins her second medal of the Beijing Olympics - Yahoo Sports

WASHINGTON U.S. Rep. John Katko (NY-24) Ranking Member on the House Committee on Homeland Security, penned the following op-ed published in The Hill on Chinas leveraging of the 2022 Beijing Olympics to obscure its flagrant human rights violations, anti-democratic actions, and military and economic aggressions.

Don't let China use the Olympics to continue to obfuscate their true intentions

TheHill.com

By Rep. John Katko (NY-24)

A year ago, I wrote a letter to President Biden imploring him to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Citing his own administrations determination that China was committing a genocide upon its own people, I asserted that sending our athletes and providing the tacit support to U.S. companies to sponsor an Olympic games in a country that was committing genocide would have catastrophic effects on the diplomatic norms of the world. Additionally, this would empower China to further its march towards an authoritarian state acting with impunity on the global stage. I closed the letter by stating, China expects the rest of the world to be silent and, in the case of business operations and global supply chains, complicit in their actions.

Today, we are participating in an Olympic Games that embody the very silence and complicity about which I was so concerned. As athletes from around the world gather in Beijing, they face travel restrictions, goods shortages and logistical calamities in the country from which COVID-19 initially emerged and is still beset by the worlds harshest lock downs and waves of unmanaged COVID cases. They will be the tools in a global farce aimed at portraying China as a benevolent, functional and futurist society whose ascendance to the height of the global order is inevitable. This is a preposterous reality to which the Biden administrations failed policies have made America a party.

Countries around the world have publicly informed their athletes that they will be spied upon with no expectation of personal privacy and that any communication or data will almost certainly be stolen. The evidence of this is irrefutable. In fact, the app all athletes are required to download to simply exist in the Olympic Village has already been exposed to have a myriad of technical flaws and surveillance technology built into it, ready to deploy with a simple software update.

China has gone to extensive lengths to ensure that the facade of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be pristine and expertly curated for the world to see through their domestic media, which, in many cases, has opted to send no reporters to bear witness with their own eyes and ears to the reality on the ground. Those brave enough to have tried to mount any protest to the CCP and its ever-increasing authoritarianism, have already been rounded up and jailed by the tens of thousands in what have been dubbed black jails, so named for their intense secrecy. Like the Uyghurs, the fate of those people is unknowable to the outside world, yet is standard practice for the CCP.

Over the last year, as the Olympics and its platform for global publicity drew closer, we saw China move further and further from democratic norms. The issuance of so called lists of errors, followed by lists of grievances, to the United States, our ally Australia, and several other nations around the world set the tone. Nearly 365 days later, the catalogue of reasons why these games should never have been allowed to happen in China has only grown. Be it massive cyber-attacks, the overt economic coercion of countries around the world, military aggression toward Taiwan, or the continued and unapologetic genocide of Uyghurs within their own borders and the ceaseless persecution of dissidents globally these games are a tragedy of cognitive dissonance by the democratic nations of the world.

The 2022 Winter Olympics is happening. The coverage is being broadcast all over the world and the CCP will manipulate these images for its own benefit the entire time. Every shred of evidence will tell us what we are seeing are lies. We must use this charade of global proportion to shatter Chinas ability to obfuscate what it really is and what that means for democracy, human rights, and capitalism going forward.

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ICYMI Rep. Katko: Don't Let China Use the Olympics to Continue to Obfuscate Their True Intentions - Congressman John Katko

Sports fans who tuned in to watch the Beijing Winter Olympics on YouTube are instead being served propaganda videos. An analysis of YouTube search results by WIRED found that people who typed Beijing, Beijing 2022, Olympics, or Olympics 2022 were shown pro-China and anti-China propaganda videos in the top results. Five of the most prominent propaganda videos, which often appear above actual Olympics highlights, have amassed almost 900,000 views.

Two anti-China videos showing up in search results were published by a group called The BL (The Beauty of Life), which Facebook previously linked to the Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual movement that was banned by the Chinese Communist Party in 1999 and has protested against the regime ever since. They jostled for views with pro-China videos posted by Western YouTubers whose work has previously been promoted by Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Similar search results were visible in the US, Canada, and the UK. WIRED also found signs that viewing numbers for pro-China videos are being artificially boosted through the use of fake news websites.

This flurry of propaganda videos was first spotted earlier this month by John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the University of Torontos research laboratory, Citizen Lab. On February 5, Scott-Railton found that after hed watched skating and curling videos, YouTube automatically played a video by a pro-China YouTube account. I found myself on a slippery slide from skating and curling into increasingly targeted propaganda, he says. These videos no longer appeared in autoplay by February 11, when WIRED conducted its analysis. But the way similar videos still dominate YouTube search results suggests the platform is at risk of letting such campaigns hijack the Olympics.

YouTube spokesperson Farshad Shadloo says the vast majority of videos showing up in search results were posted by trusted sources like NBC Sports and the official Olympics channel and none of the videos shared violated the companys policies.

A common theme in the pro-Beijing propaganda videos is the 2019 decision by US-born skier Eileen Gu to compete for China at the Winter Olympics. A video titled USA's Boycott FAILURE ... Eileen Gu Wins Gold by YouTuber Jason Lightfoot is the top result for the search term Beijing, with 54,000 views.

The US and Canada were among the countries that took part in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics. In Canada, that same video by Jason Lightfoot also showed up for users searching for Olympics 2022 and Winter Olympics, although much further down, in 26th and 33rd place. In the video, Lightfoot says Western media cant take what Eileen Gu represents someone who has chosen China over the American dream.

In another video, which has more than 400,000 views, American YouTuber Cyrus Janssen also discusses why Gu chose to represent China. The video, which is the fifth result for the search term Beijing, details Gus career before referencing the high rates of anti-Asian hate crime in the US, a subject that has also been covered by mainstream American media outlets.

Excerpt from:

YouTubes Olympics Highlights Are Riddled With Propaganda - WIRED

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.

The winter Olympics conjure up images of snowy mountain ranges, frozen ice rinks and athletes in cold-weather gear. And for good reason. Winter Olympic venues have often been in places that receive anaverage snowfall of 300 inches per yearor more.

However, barring some extremely anomalous weather patterns, the mountains surrounding the snow events for the Beijing Winter Olympics will be tones of brown and green and nearly devoid of snow. The region typically receives onlya few inches of snowfallin each winter month. This means that basically all of the snow the athletes will be competing on will be human-made.

I am anatmospheric scientistwho specializes in mountain weather and snow. I am also the founder of a snowmaking startup and an avid skier. There are distinct differences between natural and artificial snow, and it will be interesting to see if these differences have any effect on competition.

Snowmaking guns spray tiny droplets of cooled water into the air.

Though artificial snow and natural snow are both frozen water, most skiers and snowboarders are able to immediately recognize that the two are very different.

Traditional snowmaking useshigh pressure water, compressed air and specialized nozzlesto blow tiny liquid droplets into the air that then freeze as they fall to the ground. But snowmaking is not as simple as just making sure the air is sufficiently cold.

Pure water does not freeze until it is cooled to nearly -40 F (-40 C). It is only the presence of microscopic suspended particles in water thatallow it to freeze at the familiar 32 F (0 C). These particles, known as ice nuclei, act as a sort of scaffolding to help ice crystals form.

Without these particles, water struggles to turn into ice. Different particles can raise or lower freezing temperatures depending on their specific molecular configuration.

Two of the best ice nuclei aresilver iodideand a protein produced by the bacteriaPseudomonas syringae. Most snowmaking systems add acommercial form of the bacterial proteinto water to ensure most of the tiny droplets freeze before they hit the ground.

Natural snow starts as a tiny ice crystal on an ice nucleus in a cloud. As the crystal falls through the air, itslowly grows into the classic six-sided snowflake.

By comparison, human-made snow freezes quickly from a single droplet of water. The resulting snow consists of billions of tiny spherical balls of ice. It may resemble natural snow to the naked eye on a ski run, but the natural and artificial snow feel very different.

Due to the fact that the tiny ice balls pack together quite denselyand that some of them may have not frozen until they touched the groundartificial snow often feels hard and icy. Fresh natural powder snow, on the other hand, provides skiers and snowboarders an almost weightless feeling as they soar down the mountainside. This is largely because the natural snow crystals stack very looselya fresh layer of powder is as much as95% or more air.

While fresh powder is what most recreational skiers dream of, Olympic skiers have different tastes. Racers want to be able to glide as fast as possible and use their sharp edges to make powerful, tight turns. The dense, icy conditions of artificial snow are actually better in these regards. In fact, race organizers oftenadd liquid water to race courses of natural snowwhich will freeze and ensure a durable, consistent surface for racers.

Another consideration is the fact that natural snowstorms produce dull, flat lighting and low visibilityhard conditions to race or jump in. Heavy natural snowfall will often cancel ski races, ashappened during the snowy 1998 Nagano Games. For racers, clear skies and artificial snow provide the advantage there, too.

But hard human-made snow does have its downsides. Freestyle skiers and snowboarders who are flying off jumps or sliding on rails high above the ground seem toprefer the softer surface of natural snowfor safety reasons. This is also true of Nordic skiers, who recently flagged thedangers of artificial snow in the event of crashesas icy, hard surfaces can lead to more injuries.

While Olympic athletes have mixed needs for their snow, for the vast majority of recreational skiers, natural snow is far better. Due to the air-filled crystals, it is much softer and more enjoyable to ski or snowboard on.

Scientists have been trying for decades to create more natural snow on demand. The first way that people tried to make real snow was by seeding natural clouds with silver iodide. The goal was to facilitate moisture in clouds turning into falling snow crystals. If you could make this processcalled theWegener-Bergeron-Findeisenprocessoccur more easily, it would theoretically increase the snowfall rate.

In practice, it has historically been difficult to prove the efficacy of seeding. However, recent work using large, meticulously deployed sets of atmospheric instruments has shown thatfor a fraction of storms with the proper conditionsseeding clouds with silver iodide does indeed yield modestincreases in the total amount of snowfall.

Another optionwhich doesnt require storm clouds to seed in the first placeis to create snowmaking machines that can grow fluffy natural snow crystals. Scientists have been growing snowflakes in laboratories for many decades, but the process is delicate, and typically researchers onlyproduce a few flakes at a time. Because ice crystals typically grow slowly, it has been tricky for researchers to scale the process up by the many orders of magnitude needed to grow enough snow for skiing. But in a quest to produce fluffy powder for skiers and snowboarders, my colleague Trey Alvey and I developed a process that can produce snowflakes in larger quantities using a technique that mimics the natural crystal formation process. Were commercializing it through our company calledQuantum Snow.

The dry, barren mountains hosting the 2022 Winter Olympic venues are not exactly a skiing destination. But thanks to snowmaking science, the athletes will have reliable, if icy, runs to compete on. And sports fans can all be thankful for the technology that allows them to enjoy the high-speed spectacle put on by the brave souls who compete in the skiing and snowboarding events.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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The Olympics Has 100 Percent Fake SnowHere's The Science of How It Gets Made - Scientific American

Olympic Medal Count: How Countries Fared at Tokyo 2020

Every four years, the Summer Olympics brings together thousands of athletes from around the world to compete in a global arena of sportsmanship and athletic excellence.

Tokyo hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics from July 24 to August 9, 2021, marking the second time Japan has hosted the Summer Olympics. The country was first given the honor back in 1964 becoming the first Asian nation to host the Olympic Games.

Even in this most challenging of climates where the games had to be pushed by a year, nothing stopped the athletes from exceeding their limits and breaking long-held records.

In a complete show of dominance, the U.S. won the most medals at the Olympics, raking in 113 total with 39 gold medals. The U.S. beat out China to claim the top spot by a single gold medal. China finished the games with an impressive 88 medals in total. The host country Japan comes in at third with 27 gold medals and a total of 58 medals.

Here is the final Olympic medal count for each country that participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games:

Of course, countries with larger populations have an inherent advantage, so its also interesting to look at the top countries by population per medal. By this measure, the European microstate of San Marino comes out on top. This was San Marinos first ever medal showing at an Olympic Games. Turkmenistan and Burkina Faso also won medals for the first time at Tokyo 2020.

Heres a look at the top 15 countries by population per Olympic medal:

Among countries with a slightly larger population, the Netherlands and Australia had strong showings.

Despite a year-long delay and a slew of challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, this unprecedented Olympic Games went ahead. Here are 12 interesting things to note about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics:

The Olympic Torch Relay traveled through all 47 of Japans prefectures over 121 days. It involved 10,500 torchbearers, who ultimately arrived at Japans Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.

40 venues in and around the city of Tokyo hosted 33 Olympic Sports and 22 Paralympic Sports events. The two main areas were the Heritage Zone and the Tokyo Bay Zone.

The Tokyo Olympics were the most expensive Olympics on record. According to officials, the budget for the Games was $15.4 billion. On the other hand, Japanese government auditors have claimed the total spending topped $20 billion.

This is almost three times the original forecast of around $7.4 billion when Tokyo put together its bid for the Olympics. The postponement of the Games cost the country close to $2 billion, after initial speculation that the cost could be as high as $6 billion.

29 athletes qualified as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Rio 2016 was the first time that an IOC refugee team had made an appearance at the Olympic games.

Syrian table tennis player Hend Zaza and Japanese skateboarder Kokona Hiraki were the youngest athletes in Tokyo at 12 years old, while Australian equestrian Mary Hanna was the oldest at 66 years old.

Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics put their medals around their own necks to protect against spreading COVID-19. After being presented medals on a tray, the athletes picked it up and medalled themselves. There would also be no handshakes or hugs at the podiums.

To promote sustainability, this years Olympics repurposed a number of the venues used in the 1964 Games. Moreover, the podiums, uniforms, medals, and even the beds at the Olympic Village were all made from recycled materials.

While Japan is not the first to make Olympic medals from recycled materials, it is the first time that citizens of a host country proactively donated their electronic devices as materials for the medals.

This year, the Games nearly reached gender parity. According to the IOC, of the almost 11,000 Olympic athletes in Tokyo, nearly 49% were women, marking the first gender-balanced games in its history. Nearly 85 years after the canoe sprint made its Olympic debut, the womens sprint event was added to the Olympic games this year.

Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard from New Zealand was the first openly transgender woman competing in any event at the Olympics. She joined other elite athletes like footballer Quinn from Canada and U.S. cyclist Chelsea Wolfe to participate in this years games.

Starting with four-time grand slam champion Naomi Osaka withdrawing from the French Open over mental health concerns, the conversation about an athletes mental preparedness was as important as their physical one at the games.

After Simone Biles stepped away from the U.S. womens gymnastics team in the all-around contest earlier last week, numerous athletes worldwide have continued to elevate conversations surrounding mental health, especially in competitive sports.

Olympic high jumpers Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy mutually decided to share the top spot in their event. The last time the gold medal was shared among two athletes at the Olympics was 113 years ago.

Four sports made their Olympic debuts at the Tokyo Games: karate, skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing. Other sports added new disciplines, including mens and womens three-on-three basketball and the BMX freestyle event.

Humanoid Robots helped on the field for the first time, fetching hammers and javelins flung during field events and interacting with spectators. This was also the first time a host used facial recognition systems to provide athletes and officials venue access, helping to increase and speed up security.

The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024. During those weeks, Paris will be at the center of the sporting world. The IOC is keen to set a new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced and youth-centered games.

The next Olympics are expected to see even more athlete and spectator participationhopefully, one where they likely wont have to work around COVID-19 restrictions. With numerous new sports added in Tokyos Olympic Games, we might even see breakdancing in the Paris version of events. Heres to the next four years.

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Visualizing 50 Years of Doping Scandals at the Winter Olympics - Visual Capitalist

Were more than halfway through the Winter Olympics. In case you havent been paying attention, heres what youve missed.

Umm … beats me.

Like millions of Americans, Ive been staging a personal boycott of the Beijing Games. The Olympics have always been a mix of sports and politics, but for some reason,this version is just too much to take.

Maybe its that the medals are made out of leftover barbed wire from concentration camps.

Not that Chinese President Xi Jinping is losing any sleep over Americas viewing habits. Hes already won simply by having the world show up and validate this charade.

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All of us nobodies cant do much about that, but we can help NBCs ratings go in the tank. So far, so good.

Viewership is down about 40% from the last Winter Olympics. Thats still about 60% higher than they should be, but well take good news wherever we can find it these days. That said, I confess that I tuned in at first.

The first event on the Beijing calendar was curling. Im not a huge curling fan, but old habits die hard. I was raised on Jim McKay, Mary Lou Retton,Do You Believe in Miracles? and all the stuff that made the Olympics must-see TV.

I also felt sorry for the athletes, if you can call a curler an athlete. Theyve spent years training for their chance at glory, and they get sent to a dystopian gulag where the host country plants listening devices in their toothbrushes.

Big Brother Xi is so ruthless that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advised U.S. athletes not to say a peep against the regime. Will theyget disappeared ormaybe spend the rest of their lives in a labor camp making sneakers for NBA social justice warriors?

I wanted to give our brave lugers, curlers and Nordic combiners some long-distance respect, but my conscience got the best of me. After five minutes of Peacock TV, I flipped over and watched some cornhole competitionon ESPN. It wasnt as exciting as ski jumping, but at least I didnt feel like a tool of the Chinese Communist Party.

If youve preferred curling to cornhole the past week, thats OK. Im not down on people who still long to see figure skatingand how badly the Russian judge will screw the competition.

So, watch if you wish. I just keep getting 1936 flashbacks.

You remember the Berlin Games. Adolf Hitler, Jesse Owens, the master race, etc. All brought to you by the International Olympic Committee.

A lot of people think Hitler got dunked on when Owens won four gold medals. Historians say that might have given Der Fhrer a little indigestion, but those Games were actually a propaganda gold mine.

They normalized the German state, which had bigger plans down the road. China also seems to have bigger plans genocide, forced sterilizationso I cant really blame it for ruining anOlympic experience.

The real villain, as far as the Games go, is the IOC. It never met a dictator it didnt like, as long as he met the bribery requirements and put the chief pooh-bah up in a five-star presidential suite.

The current president is Thomas Bach. He apparently never read the part of the Olympic Charter that says the IOC should put sport at the service of the harmonious development of mankind...

Beijing doesnt even have real snow, much less a concern for world harmony. Of course, the IOC would be the WAC if it didnt have corporate partners like Toyota, Samsung and Procter & Gamble writing it eight-figure checks. It also got a tidy $7.7 billion from NBC to televise the Games through 2032.

The BBC asked the 13 major sponsors how they felt about bankrolling an Olympiad held in a police state. None responded.

I get why corporations cant just write off 1.4 billion potential customers. Whats tiresome is Coca-Cola and otherscondemning U.S. atrocities like voter ID requirements, then going mum as China marches Uyghur Muslims into prison camps.

But again, what does Xi care?

As far as his 1.4 billion subjects probably know from state-run TV, Chinese athletes have won every gold medal. I just wish that somehow the best-laid plans of mice and oppressors would go awry.

Maybe a bobsled will jump the track and fly into the CCP skybox and land in the punch bowl just as Xi, Bach and the NBC head of programming are raising a toast to the success of the Beijing Olympics.

Now that would be worth watching.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. And follow him on Twitter: @DavidEWhitley

Originally posted here:

David Whitley: Beijing Olympics have been one big turn-off for this viewer - Gainesville Sun

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

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Irans only male athlete at the Beijing Olympics has tested positive for an anabolic steroid in the first confirmed doping case at the Games.

The International Testing Agency says Alpine skier Hossein Saveh Shemshaki failed a drug test on Monday in Beijing, before competing.

He is provisionally suspended and cannot compete at what was to be his third Olympics.

The 36-year-old raced in slalom and giant slalom at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and four years later at Sochi. He carried Irans flag at the opening ceremony in Sochi.

He can appeal against his provisional ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Beijing.

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Germany is making the Olympic luge competition its own national showcase once again.

Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt won the doubles title at the Beijing Olympics on Wednesday night, their third consecutive gold medal in the event.

They finished two runs in 1 minute, 56.653 seconds, holding off fellow Germans Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken by 0.099 seconds.

Austrias Thomas Steu and Lorenz Koller survived a wobble just before the finish line to get the bronze.

Zack DiGregorio and Sean Hollander were 11th for the U.S. in their Olympic debut.

Germany is now 3-for-3 in luge gold medals at these Games and will try to sweep the events when the team relay is contested Thursday night.

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South Koreas Hwang Daeheon has won the 1,500 meters in Olympic short track speedskating.

Hwang stuck his skate in front at the tight finish of the 10-man final Wednesday night at the Capital Indoor Stadium.

Steven Dubois of Canada took silver. Semen Elistratov of the Russian Olympic Committee earned bronze.

There were so many skaters in the final that six lined up on the start and the other four were in back. The pack circling the rink looked more like a relay than an individual final.

Liu Shaoang of Hungary finished fourth. His brother, Liu Shaolin Sandor, was sixth.

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South Korea has advanced to the final of the womens 3,000-meter relay in short track speedskating.

Kim A Lang could become the first skater to win three consecutive Olympic titles in the same event. She and Seo Whimin, Choi Minjeong and Lee Yubin will compete in the A final on Sunday.

South Korea has won gold six of the eight times the relay has been held at the Olympics, including the last two. Kim, Choi and Lee return from four years ago when they won in their home country.

Also moving on to the A final were Canada, China and the Netherlands.

The U.S. team of Kristen Santos, Corinne Stoddard, Maame Biney and Julie Letai will skate in the B final.

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The Liu brothers of Hungary are among the top qualifiers for the mens 1,500-meter final in short track speedskating.

Liu Shaolin Sandor and Liu Shaoang advanced out of the semifinals at the Capitol Indoor Arena.

Also joining them in the A final are South Korean teammates Hwang Daeheon, Lee Juneseo and Park Janghyuk.

Chinas Ren Ziwei was penalized for an arm block and 37-year-old Charles Hamelin of Canada was penalized for a lane change in their semifinal. That allowed three skaters to be advanced to the A final, including Yuri Confortola of Italy, who had crashed out.

Failing to advance was Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands, who was penalized for an arm block.

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Defending Olympic champion Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands was the top qualifier in heats of the 1,000 meters at short track speedskating.

Arianna Fontana of Italy, who is the most decorated short track skater in Olympic history, moved on to the quarterfinals Wednesday.

Also advancing were Choi Minjeong of South Korea and Americans Kristen Santos, Maame Biney and Corinne Stoddard.

Santos won her heat. Biney benefitted when Canadian Kim Boutin tripped and crashed while leading their heat. Boutin won a silver medal four years ago in Pyeongchang.

Stoddard skated with a white bandage on her broken nose. She got hurt in a crash on the first day of competition.

Three-time Olympian Kim A Lang of South Korea was eliminated.

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Germanys Vinzenz Geiger has won a mens Nordic combined gold, rallying from a 1-minute, 26-second deficit to cross the finish line first in a 10K cross-country race after ranking 11th in ski jumping earlier in the day.

Joergen Graabak of Norway earned silver Wednesday night and Lukas Greiderer of Austria took bronze.

Japans Ryota Yamamoto jumped 108 meters (354 feet) and had 133 points in the first part of event, giving him a 38-second lead over the pack, but he faded from contention halfway through the cross-country race.

In the sport that forces athletes to have ski jumping and cross-country skiing skills, the athlete who jumps the farthest and impresses judges the most gets to start the cross-country portion with a lead. The rest of the field follows, in order of their finish in ski jumping. The first to cross the finish line wins gold.

Its the only Olympic sport where only men compete.

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Chinas Ren Ziwei, Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands and Charles Hamelin of Canada are among the top qualifiers through to the semifinals of the mens 1,500 meters at short track speedskating.

Liu Shaolin Sandor and his brother Liu Shaoang of Hungary also moved on in the first of three rounds that will culminate with the final later Wednesday.

John-Henry Krueger of Hungary, South Korean teammates Hwang Daeheon, Park Janghyuk and Lee Juneseo, and Pascal Dion of Canada also advanced.

South Korea has won gold three of five times since the 1,500 debuted at the 2002 Olympics.

Americans Andrew Heo and Ryan Pivirotto were eliminated.

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The Russian ice hockey team has started its defense of the Olympic mens gold medal with a 1-0 win over Switzerland in Beijing.

It wasnt the convincing start to the tournament the Russians may have hoped for as they were outshot 33-30 by a Swiss team not expected to contend for a medal.

The Russians, playing as the Russian Olympic Committee, had a slice of good fortune for the only goal.

A shot from former Edmonton Oilers forward Anton Slepyshev took a double bounce off Swiss goaltender Reto Berras pad and Enzo Corvis leg on its way into the goal with 2.7 seconds left of the first period.

Fabrice Herzog could have sent the game to overtime when he hit the frame of the goal late in the third period. Russian goaltender Ivan Fedotov had 33 saves for the shutout on his Olympic debut.

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The winners in the team figure skating competition at the Beijing Olympics still have not received their medals two days later because of what the IOC says are legal issues.

The ceremony to award gold to Russia, silver to the United States silver and bronze to Japan was not held as scheduled Tuesday.

Reporters asked the Kremlin about it amid speculation that gold medals won by six Russian skaters could be at risk.

Lets, for the sake of understanding, wait for some explanations either from our sports officials or from the IOC, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The IOC has not provided more information about the legal issues.

If any athlete and team were disqualified or had their results nullified, an appeal would likely follow, which could further delay the medals presentation.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has set up an office in Beijing to hear urgent cases during the Winter Games.

Canada placed fourth Monday and would be in line to be upgraded to the podium if another team were disqualified.

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Finland mens hockey forward Marko Anttila has returned to the team after being released from an isolation hotel at the Beijing Olympics. Coach Jukka Jalonen expects goaltender Jussi Olkinuora to be out later today.

Anttila had been in isolation for six days because he tested positive for COVID-19. Olkinuora was taken to isolation Monday.

Of course it was disappointing for me, but otherwise it was just boring, Anttila said after practice. Of course its frustrating, and I feel good physically and all those things. But I think its history, hopefully, now and I can get my (virus numbers at) the right level.

Anttila says he first tested positive for the coronavirus a little over three weeks ago. The 36-year-old had no symptoms after testing positive upon arrival in Beijing or during any of his time in isolation.

Getting back into hockey shape is the bigger concern with Finlands first game scheduled for tomorrow against Slovakia.

Of course the feeling is not that good on the ice right now, but physically Im OK, Anttila said. I get workouts there and all those things, so its not a problem.

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Japans Ryota Yamamoto jumped 108 meters (354 feet) and had 133 points in the first part of the Nordic combined event at the Beijing Olympics.

That gives him a 38-second lead in the 10K cross-country race that will take place later Wednesday.

Lukas Greiderer of Germany will start second, followed closely by Germans Julian Schmid and Johannes Rydzek. Top-ranked Johannes Lampater of Austria will be 1 minute, 4 seconds behind Yamamoto, as will Japans Sora Yachi.

The athlete who jumps the farthest and impresses judges the most gets to start the cross-country portion of the Nordic combined with a lead. The rest of the field follows, in order of the finish in ski jumping. The first to cross the finish line wins gold.

Four of the top seven Nordic combined athletes, including second-ranked Jarl Magnus Riiber of Norway, recently tested positive for COVID-19 and did not compete on the normal hill. They can potentially make a comeback on the large hill Tuesday and in the team competition next week.

Nordic combined has been part of the Winter Olympics since the first one in 1924. Its the only Olympic sport without gender equity, as only men compete.

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Lindsey Jacobellis captured Americas first gold medal of the Olympics on Wednesday, riding hard to the line in her snowboardcross final a full 16 years after a mistake cost her the title.

The 36-year-old racer was in her fifth Olympics and captured the first U.S. win of what has been an otherwise dismal Games for the U.S.

The victory came after Americas top racer, skier Mikaela Shiffrin, skidded out and failed to finish the first run of the slalom, making her 0-for-2 in Beijing.

Up until Wednesday, Jacobellis was best known for taking a massive lead into the final jump at the 2006 Turin Games, but tweaking her board as she road over the crest, then falling and settling for silver.

This time, she rode hard all the way to the line, beating Frances Chloe Trespeuch, then covering her heart with her hands as she slowed. Canadas Meryeta Odine won the bronze.

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Petra Vlhova added an Olympic gold medal to her growing list of achievements, winning the womens slalom at the Beijing Games.

It was Slovakias first Olympic medal in Alpine skiing. Mikaela Shiffrin again failed to finish the race.

Vlhova, who has already clinched the World Cup title in the discipline, was only eighth fastest after the first run down the Ice River course. But she made it up for an unofficial combined time of 1 minute, 44.98 seconds.

Katharina Liensberger of Austria was 0.08 seconds slower than Vlhova over the two legs for second. Wendy Holdener of Switzerland was third, 0.12 behind Vlhova.

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After falling on his first attempt, snowboarder Shaun White hammered down a pressure-packed halfpipe qualifying run to make it through to the medal round of his fifth and final Olympics.

The three-time gold medalist fell on his signature trick on his first run -- the Double McTwist 1260 -- and was mired in 19th place.

After a 50-minute wait following his fall, White returned to the top of the pipe and nailed the same run hed tried before.

Each rider got two tries and only their best score counted. The top 12 advanced to Fridays final. White ended up in fourth.

He stomped every landing and yell out a Yeahhhh at the bottom. He qualified behind two-time silver medalist Ayumu Hirano, 2018 bronze medalist Scotty James and Hiranos Japanese teammate, Ruka Hirano.

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The medal ceremony for the team figure skating competition at the Beijing Olympics has been delayed because of an ongoing legal issue that could affect medalists, the IOC said.

The ceremony to award the Russian team the gold medals, the United States silver and Japan bronze was not held as scheduled Tuesday.

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Beijing Olympics: Live Updates - Associated Press