What to Watch From Now Until Tokyo

The Winter-to-Summer Olympic gap always feels really long.  So what do we have to look forward to in the next two and a half years until the Tokyo Games?  A lot actually.  From the World Cup to all of the pre-Olympic-year World Championships, the worldwide sporting calendar will be far from empty from now until July 24, 2020.

Let's start with the big event coming up this summer.  The one that's just as big as the Olympics.  The 2018 World Cup.  Of course, the United States won't be one of the 32 teams in Russia.  But that's not gonna take anything away from what we're gonna see.  The World Cup is always tremendous, and the 2018 edition promises to be more of the same.

One World Cup that we don't need to stress over is the 2019 Women's World Cup.  Qualification only just started, but the chances of the American women meeting the same fate as their male counterparts seems unlikely.  Not only is the United States the defending champions, they should be one of the favorites to win it again when 24 teams convene in France next June.

That's just one of three World Cups in store for us next year.  As a bit of a prelude to the Tokyo Olympics, the 2019 Rugby World Cup will also take place in Japan.  This is a long one too, it goes for six weeks from Sept. 20-Nov. 2.  They originally wanted to use Tokyo's Olympic Stadium for the Rugby World Cup, too, but they're taking too long rebuilding it (they haven't even started yet!), so the final will instead be in Yokohama, the same site as the 2002 World Cup Final.  Oh, and as for American qualifying, that's already taken care of.  The United States finished as the top team in the Americas region for the first time.

Then there's the 2019 Basketball World Cup, the first one not in the same year as the soccer World Cup.  FIBA rescheduled it from 2018 until 2019 so that they wouldn't be in the same year anymore.  It's in China and not until September, which means they expect the NBA guys to play a ridiculously long 2019-20 season that will begin and end in Asia.  Or, more likely, it means we're gonna see two completely different American teams at the World Cup and the Olympics.  The good news is that you can qualify directly for the Olympics at the World Cup, so there's no extra tournament to worry about.

Before I get off the World Cup kick, there's one other soccer tournament worth mentioning.  UEFA Euro 2020 will be different than previous Euros, too.  It's the 60th anniversary, so they're doing a continent-wide tournament with no official host.  The semifinals and final will be in London, but the group stage will be held in 12 cities in 12 different countries (including London).

If Olympic-style multi-sport events are more your thing, there's one right around the corner.  The 2018 Commonwealth Games are in Australia, so they're early.  The United States isn't part of the Commonwealth (although Canada is), and they're in April, so it'll be easy to overlook the Commonwealth Games.  But they are a worthwhile thing to check out.

Speaking of events worth checking out, the 2019 Pan Am Games are in Lima, Peru.  I had a blast at the last Pan Am Games in Toronto, so I'm really looking forward to this next edition.  The Pan Am Games are a much bigger deal in the rest of the Americas than they are here, but they actually serve as the Americas Olympic qualifier in a number of sports, and they start almost a year to the day of the Tokyo Games.

About a month before the Pan Am Games will be the 2019 European Games in Minsk.  The inaugural European Games in 2015 were a bit of a work-in-progress.  And you could definitely tell.  They had trouble getting the different sporting federations to buy in, and some nations certainly seemed a bit disinterested too.  They even had trouble finding a host for this edition, which was originally supposed to be in the Netherlands.  So, there's nowhere to go but up.  Right?

And let's not forget that Olympic sports have their World Championships in odd years, and the intensity is always ratcheted up a notch in the pre-Olympic year.  That will especially be the case in the 2019 IAAF World Championships, which are in Doha, so they'll be really late in the season.  Not until the end of September.  The 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships, meanwhile, will be in their traditional mid-summer timeframe.  And we've been talking about the Olympics' little Asian swing, but the swimmers will have the same thing in an even shorter window.  This one's in Korea, and the 2021 World Championships are in Fukuoka, Japan, which means three straight trips in three consecutive years for them.

Lastly, we've got the Youth Olympics.  Two editions, in fact.  The IOC puts the Youth Olympics for the opposite season in the regular Olympic years, so that means we've got the Summer Youth Olympics coming up later this year in Buenos Aires, followed by the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland.  The Youth Olympics still haven't really quite caught on in the mainstream, but the IOC loves them.  And they are where they try out new sports and events before moving them up to the regular Olympics, so some of the stuff you see in Buenos Aires and Lausanne could very well be previews of events that you'll see in Beijing and Paris.

So, don't worry, kids.  There's still plenty to keep us occupied between now and the start of the Tokyo Olympics.  Let's not forget, we'll have two full seasons of pro and college sports in the interim, too.  In other words, we'll be fine.  There definitely won't be a void.  And if you are feeling one, you can always check out the Olympic Channel, which will be showing PyeongChang replays all week.

NBC's New Announcers Make the Grade

One last Olympic post before catching up on what I've missed over the last two and a half weeks.  And this time it's to give NBC a certain amount of credit for their Olympic coverage.  Don't get me wrong, while it improved in week two, the coverage was still as disappointing overall as I thought it was early in the Games.  But...the quality of the production had nothing to do with the quality of the analysts, who, for the most part, were excellent.

I can't remember another Olympics that saw so many new analysts debut, which was actually a smart decision on NBC's part.  They saw that the reaction Will & Grace (my nickname for Tara & Johnny) got in Sochi.  They were so good and so relatable that they were promoted to the main crew and Scott Hamilton, who's called Olympic figure skating since God knows when, was relegated to the "Olympic Ice" show on NBCSN.

Speaking of "Olympic Ice," Tanith White proved to be just as solid as Will & Grace.  She was great.  She clearly knows her stuff, but she made it so that we could understand it too, without treating us like morons who knew nothing.  And, considering how over-the-top and borderline annoying Will & Grace (especially Will) got at times, it was a nice change of pace to have her call the ice dancing.

Tanith is the first of the new broadcasters to get an "A."  Mike Tirico also gets one.  Taking over as the primetime host, especially for a legend like Bob Costas, wasn't the easiest of tasks.  But he was up for the challenge.  And you could tell he was more comfortable in the role as the Games went on (again, I think the improved production and them actually letting him do things in the second week helped, too).  Not having Bob Costas there will still take some getting used to.  We're definitely in good hands, though.

Another newcomer to the NBC Olympic stable this year was Joey Cheek.  If you only watched NBC's primetime coverage, you didn't see much of Joey Cheek.  But his commentary during speed skating was smart, insightful and a massive improvement over Dan Jansen.

The third recent U.S. Olympian who made his debut as an NBC analyst in PyeongChang was Bode Miller.  I actually liked Bode Miller.  I, frankly, was refreshed to have somebody new calling alpine skiing alongside Dan Hicks, and I was a big fan of the little anecdotes he gave about the different skiers.  He actually knows these guys from competing alongside them for so long, and I though that first-hand knowledge added something to the broadcast.

But, apparently, Bode Miller wasn't as popular with some critics as he was with me.  There have even been predictions (already) that, come Beijing, he'll be replaced by Lindsey Vonn.  I wouldn't be totally surprised if that happens.  (You know NBC's gonna find a way to work her in somehow.)  I wouldn't be completely upset to see Bode return, though.

Then there's former Canadian Olympian Kevin Martin.  This might just be evidence that I watched way too much curling during the Games.  But I feel like I know more about the sport now from listening to him.  Sure, some of the terms he used were way over my head.  But, especially during the gold medal match, it was incredibly helpful to have him breaking down the strategy and how to execute each shot.

They didn't just stick with new people, though.  When you've already got analysts like John Morgan, Apolo Oho and, especially Chad Salmela, why would you need to? 

Rowdy Gaines is synonymous with Olympic swimming in the Summer.  And with good reason.  He's the best, and everybody knows it.  Same thing with Ato Boldon.  Well, the Winter Olympic equivalent of Rowdy Gaines and Ato Boldon is John Morgan.  They call him "Mr. Bobsled" for a reason.  I don't know the last time he didn't call an Olympic bobsled competition.  And it's clear why.  He knows his stuff.  He's not the best at play-by-play, but he did a serviceable job in that role (although, I missed the English guy saying "run breaker" over and over again during the final runs of four-man).

However, it's clear who takes the cake as the best analyst in PyeongChang.  Chad Salmela.  Like John Morgan, he's a staple of the Winter Olympics.  We only get him every four years, but when we get him, we get a lot of him.  Salmela calls both bobsled and cross country skiing, and he gets equally over-excited for both. 

Which is why his call of the finish of the women's team sprint will be the most memorable call of the Olympics for me.  Steve Shlanger, the play-by-play guy, didn't even need to be there.  Chad gets excited when a French biathlete misses a shot.  I couldn't wait to see how excited he'd get with the U.S. winning a gold medal in cross country for the first time.  And it was everything I thought it would be and more.  I just hope they had medical personnel on hand in Connecticut.  Because I seriously thought he was going to have a heart attack.  He was that excited!

Sadly, we have to wait four more years until we get Chad Salmela again (he also works for the Olympic Channel, though, so we can always go there to avoid Chad withdrawal).  And hopefully we'll get Doc Emrick back in Beijing, too.  Because the hockey coverage was definitely missing something without him there (even if it was all of the guys you regularly see on NBC's NHL broadcasts). 

Maybe NBC will throw us a bone and have Doc call water polo in Tokyo.  I just have one question, though.  If that happens, can Chad Salmela be the color analyst?

Let's Reassess the Winter Priorities

We saw the United States win nine gold medals in PyeongChang.  It's a remarkable display of consistency.  This is the fourth straight Winter Olympics where the U.S. won nine golds (after winning 10 in Salt Lake City).  The nine golds is not the problem.  But that total number of 23 is a little concerning and requires the USOC taking a deeper look.

There were some projections that had the U.S. finishing in the 30s (although, I must say I came pretty close with my 25, and I nailed the 39 for Norway).  They obviously didn't come anywhere close to that number.  To be fair, there were a lot of fourth- and fifth-place finishes, so there easily could've been a few more.  But the fact remains that despite having the largest team (by any country) in Winter Olympic history, the United States took home its fewest medals since 1998.

Here's the concerning part, though.  Nearly half of those came in either snowboarding or freestyle skiing, events that have been added in bulk to the Winter Games lately and have done a pretty good job of inflating the American medal total.  If you take out those two sports, the totals drop to 12 medals overall (one fewer than Nagano) and just four gold (Mikaela Shiffrin, cross country, curling and women's hockey).

Meanwhile, the U.S. won a grand total of three medals in alpine skiing, all courtesy of Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.  The men were shut out.  Speed skating?  One medal.  A bronze.  The first by U.S. women since 2002 (more on that in a second).  Even in figure skating, the one winter sport America is perhaps best known for, the American medal count was two bronzes, one of which came in the team event.

So, while the United States might be snagging medals left and right in the X Games events, the traditional Winter Olympic sports are getting left behind.  And that's why a reassessment might be necessary.

Leading into the Vancouver Games, Canada started an "Own the Podium" campagin.  The Canadians had an incredible showing at their home Games, and it's continued at the last two Winter Games.  Great Britain did something similar prior to the London Games.  And they're still reaping the benefits six years later.

Both of those nations wanted to have a good showing at home, but they also wanted to use their home Games as a springboard to long-term Olympic success.  All of the facilities built for the Olympics became high-performance training centers for the national teams, which has been a huge boon to both the Canadian and British Olympic teams.

I bring this up because the Salt Lake City Games were supposed to have the same effect on the U.S. Winter Olympic team.  Part of Salt Lake's Olympic legacy is the world-class facilities.  Salt Lake City has one of two bobsled tracks and one of the few speed skating ovals in the U.S.  (That was the most hilarious part of NBC's "Do you want to get started in Nordic combined?" ads, since, you know, there's a ski jump around every corner.)  This means American winter athletes don't need to go somewhere in Europe to train.  And, by extension, make the United States competitive in the Winter Olympics across the board.

It's been 16 years since Salt Lake City, which means we're onto a new generation of winter athletes.  The athletes who competed in the Salt Lake City Games are long since retired (for the most part) and have been replaced by those who watched them on TV.  And have had the benefit of training at those facilities throughout their entire careers as elite athletes.

Why then, did it take 16 years for the U.S. to win an Olympic medal in women's speed skating?  Why then, were the only two alpine skiers you've ever heard of the only ones who brought medals home from PyeongChang?  (And there are ski resorts all over the U.S.)  Same thing with figure skating.  There are rinks everywhere, yet the U.S. hasn't won an Olympic singles medal since Evan Lysacek's gold in 2010.

Yes, there have consistently been bobsled and luge medals since the Salt Lake Olympic track opened, and the U.S. has won Olympic medals in Nordic combined and, now, cross country at recent Games.  But that doesn't change the fact that the American Winter Olympic medal tally has really become dependent on two sports--snowboarding and freestyle skiing.

Is it working?  For now.  But other nations are eventually going to start winning medals in those sports, too.  And what will happen when they do?  We'll go back to seeing American medal totals in the teens (which I'm sure NBC would love).  That is, unless the USOC commits to developing the entire winter sports program.  Not just snowboarding and freestyle skiing. 

Then maybe the American dominance of the Summer Gmaes will carryover to the winter.  Or at least put the U.S. in the conversation with Norway, Germany and Canada.  Because there's no reason why it shouldn't.

A Golden Finish

Team USA was in a little bit of a holding pattern there for a while.  After all the X Games events ended, we went like a week between American gold medals.  Now, the Winter Games will never be the gold medal factory that the Summer Games are (the USA won more medals at last year's track & field World Championships than at these Olympics), but that mid-Games lull was definitely a little unexpected.

Well, the last few days have more than made up for it.  The USA is going to end up leaving PyeongChang with nine gold medals, and going out with a bang.  Because there were three memorable (and historic) gold medals over the final few days of the Games that will make people forget about that gap in the middle.

Let's start with the one that's perhaps the most significant.  The one that snapped the gold medal drought.  Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall's victory in the cross country skiing team sprint.

Coming into these Games, the United State had won a grand total of one cross country skiing medals in its Olympic history, Bill Koch's silver in 1976.  That was expected to change here.  Jessie Diggins has become one of the best in the world, and she had two fifths and a sixth in her first three individual events.  So, the team sprint ended up being her last chance to get that elusive Olympic medal (at least in PyeongChang).  And Diggins didn't just win a medal.  She won gold!

It wasn't just the second American medal ever in cross country.  It was the first cross country medal for a woman.  And the first gold! 

The best part for me, though, was that Diggins shared it with Kikkan Randall.  My sister actually lives in Anchorage and has seen Kikkan Randall around skiing.  She's arguably the greatest American cross country skier in history, and she's really the one who first made the US relevant in cross country skiing in the first place.  This was her fifth and final Olympics.  And it was so fitting that in her final Olympic race, she was given the Michael Strahan/Ray Lewis/Peyton Manning sendoff.  Randall deserved to win an Olympic medal.  So did Diggins.  The fact that they won a gold together makes that much more special.

Speaking of teams that deserved to win a gold...I saw an article about Lindsey Vonn after she won her bronze arguing that she was a disappointment because she didn't win gold.  Any Olympic medal is an accomplishment you should be proud of.  Anyway, my point is there's only one silver/bronze medal that would've been considered a disappointment.  And that would've been one in women's hockey.

They dedicated four years to one game.  They were tired of losing to Canada, and gold was the only option.  After all, it had been 20 years.  And as that incredible game progressed into overtime and then the shootout, it became increasingly clear that yet another silver would be the most painful of them all.  So, when Jocelyn Lamoureux scored that ridiculous shootout goal, and Maddie Rooney made that save on the other end, those women were probably running a gamut of emotions.  Elation and "We did it!" sure.  But probably some relief and "Finally!" too.

Like the 1999 soccer team, that 1998 gold medal hockey team inspired a generation.  Most of the players on this team have said that they started playing hockey because of that 1998 team.  And much like the current version of the soccer team, they want to pay it forward and inspire a new generation the way they were inspired by Cammi Granato and Co.  (How great was it that Angela Ruggerio presented their medals, BTW?) 

I'd say this gold medal will go a long way towards achieving that goal.  Women's hockey in this country is only going to get better.  And names like Lamoureux (both of them) and Knight and Coyne and Duggan will be right up there with Granato and Ruggerio.  (And, by the way, NHL, thanks for keeping your players home and giving us even more of a reason to celebrate this team of incredible women.  P.S.-the men's tournament went on perfectly fine without you.)

Lastly, we've got America's darlings.  And I'm, of course, talking about the men's curling team.  Every four years, curling is this fascination that enthralls us during the Olympics (much like water polo in the Summer).  But this time, we were more enthralled than ever before.  And the reason why was obvious.

Most people didn't jump on the curling bandwagon until later on.  But their journey was incredible.  John Shuster was the skip of team that finished last in Vancouver and ninth (out of 10) in Sochi.  And it looked like it might be the same thing again here.  They lost four out of five in the middle of the tournament and were languishing near the bottom of the standings with a matchup against Canada, the dominant power in the sport, looming.  And they won!  That was the turning point, and they ended up making the semifinals, where they played Canada again.  And sure enough, they beat them again. 

Suddenly, they were guaranteed a medal.  By that point, they had nothing to lose.  Shuster had an incredible hit to get five points in the eighth end, which made gold all but a certainty.  Once it was official, this Cinderella story was complete.  They completely rewrote the story.  John Shuster went from an Olympic career (which also included bronze in 2006) known mainly for disappointment to one where he captained his team to a gold medal.

Is this going to lead to some sort of renaissance where curling suddenly becomes more popular?  I doubt it.  There almost certainly are people who've been introduced to the game and will start to play.  But I think this was more a case of national pride overtaking everyone.  Which isn't a bad thing.

These guys are easy to root for, too.  They have an every man appeal, which may actually inspire some people into thinking they can do it too.  They look like the guys you'd hang out and go have a beer with.  And the fact that they were winning at a sport people generally find somewhat goofy only added to the fun.

So, for an Olympics that started with a flurry of gold medals (which were all mainly expected), the flourish at the end was much more satisfying.  Because those three may be far more transformative.  And they'll certainly be much more memorable.  We'll remember PyeongChang as the Olympics where the U.S. won gold medals in curling and cross country skiing.  And the one where the women's hockey team won for the first time in 20 years.

Not a Fan of Backloading

Last night we saw a tremendous battle between two rivals who were head-and-shoulders above their competition.  Russian Alina Zagitova ended up winning the gold medal in ladies figure skating by a little more than a point over teammate Evgenia Medvedeva.  In fact, the two tied the free skate, but it was Zagitova's small lead after the short program that proved to be the difference.

I personally preferred Medvedeva's performance, but it's not like she was cheated out of the gold.  They both deserved to win.  And the difference that led to Zagitova's victory can be attributed almost completely to her technical elements.  She's an outstanding jumper (that sequence they showed of her doing five triples in a row at practice was ridiculous).  And the points she got for her jumps provided that extra little bit that put her over the top.  More specifically, the bonus points she got for her jumps.

In figure skating, you get extra points for doing a jump in the second half of your program.  The theory behind this makes sense to a degree.  Jumps are harder when you're legs are tired.  But, as we also saw, skaters are able to manipulate this system for maximum points, often backloading their program with jumps just to get the bonus points.  

That's exactly what Zagitova did.  She basically did two completely different programs.  The first half was ballet on ice.  The second half was nothing but jumps.  I think that's why I liked Medvedeva better.  She did her jumps throughout the program, and it seemed much more complete.

Now, Zagitova didn't do anything against the rules.  In fact, a lot of skaters do this.  But I'm not a fan of it.  And there really is a simple fix.  You require them to attempt at least one jump in the first half of the program.  This way, you don't have them just skating around for two minutes waiting to start jumping.  And this way they don't get bonus points for every jump they take.

Johnny Weir mentioned this repeatedly throughout the Olympics, and I agree with him.  He lamented that there's more math involved in figure skating than ever before.  Skaters are trying to figure out how to get every last point out of each element, and it's become more about finding ways to get more points than anything else.  And, as a result, those who are more artistic and not necessarily the best jumpers are getting left behind.

He also brought up another flaw in the current scoring system that seems to defy logic.  You get more points for simply attempting a harder jump and falling than you do for cleanly landing an easier jump.  (The funny thing is Yevgeny Plushenko was upset for the exact opposite reason when he lost to Evan Lysacek eight years ago in Vancouver.)  That shouldn't be.  A fall is a fall.  Just because you fell trying to do something harder doesn't change the fact that you fell.  And the fact that you can fall, but still get more points than someone else who didn't fall doesn't really make much sense.  

Again, there's an easy solution.  If you fall, you only get credit for the next-lowest value of the jump.  Say you fall on a triple.  Even if you complete the rotations, you only get credit for doing a double.  And you still get the one-point deduction for falling.  That way you don't end up getting rewarded for falling, which is what it sometimes seems like to the untrained eye.

Most people only watch figure skating during the Olympics.  We aren't experts by any means.  We only know what we see.  Which is why fans are often confused by the scores when comparing one skater to another.  It shouldn't be harder for people to understand.  We don't know the difference between a triple salchow and a triple lutz (the axel has that extra half-turn, so it's the only easy one to identify).  But we do know when somebody falls and when somebody doesn't.

Likewise, we know what we like and what we don't.  The ice dancing competition was extremely close.  The judges really seemed to like the French couple, while the fans clearly preferred Virtue & Moir.  It's different styles, I understand, but that arena would NOT have been happy if Tessa & Scott's scores weren't high enough to give them the win.  Just like I preferred watching Evgenia Medvedeva perform for four minutes over Alina Zagitova jumping for two.

Is the current scoring system better than the old 6.0 method?  Yes.  Does it have flaws and need to be improved?  Definitely.  Does it diminish what we saw in PyeongChang?  Absolutely not.

Zagitova and Medvedeva were both brilliant.  They both deserved to win.  It almost makes you wish there were two gold medals so they could each get one.  But, of course, only one could win it.  And that gold medal went to Alina Zagitova.

Russian OAR Not?

It's not like I can really blame NBC's broadcasters for being confused, but I've heard the Russian team called about five different things during these Olympics.  Officially, of course, Russia isn't competing in PyeongChang, and the individuals are referred to as "Olympic Athletes from Russia."  But there have been plenty of variations of that name.

"Olympic Athlete Representing Russia" has been a common one, even though that is 100 percent incorrect since they technically aren't representing Russia at all.  Terry Gannon is among those who are just calling a spade a spade and saying "Russia."  What are they gonna do anyway?  Nothing!  Then there are the announcers who've given up entirely and just say "OAR" (which Kenny Albert might be doing just because it's quicker).

We all knew when the IOC came up with this compromise allowing Russians to compete in PyeongChang that is was going to sound weird and be a little awkward.  But it's been even more awkward than anyone anticipated.  Even the stadium PA announcers are having a hard time with what to call them.  (They also need to decide if it's singular or plural, although the hockey team consists of multiple people, so it has to be Athletes there.)

The IOC is responsible for most, if not all, of this confusion.  When they suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in December, they also threw them a bit of a bone by including the word "Russia" in the name of the team that the approved athletes would be on.  They just as easily could've been "Independent Olympic Athletes" like the Kuwaitis were in Rio.

But to act like there's no "Russian" team here is ridiculous, especially when you consider OAR is the fourth-largest team, which means everyone is going to have to talk about it throughout the Olympics.  And, frankly, that's where the "OAR" designation is kinda stupid.  Everyone knows that they're Russian.  And everyone knows the situation.  So there's no use in pretending it's anything else.

When the IOC announced Russia's suspension and this OAR compromise, I was actually on board with it.  Punishing the country for its doping problem was definitely warranted, but it would've been unfair to clean athletes to take away their ability to compete.  I know it wasn't the most popular decision, especially among some high-ranking Olympic officials.  They would've preferred a complete suspension, with the clean athletes as collateral damage.  That doesn't sit well with me, and it doesn't sit well with IOC President Thomas Bach either, so he decided against that.

Instead, the IOC invited individual Russians to be a part of the OAR team.  Most people expected that would mean a handful of Russian athletes, not an entire team.  That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and I can see their point.  What was the point of the suspension then?  The only difference is that they can't wear Russian uniforms or wave Russian flags.  Although, it was generally understood that the suspension would be lifted in time for the Russians to march under their own flag at the Closing Ceremony.

There were certain conditions placed on the OAR team that most assumed, if met, would lead to that reinstatement in time for the Closing Ceremony.  None of these restrictions seemed particularly harsh, which is why the assumption was the Closing Ceremony would be Russia's grand return.  That may be in jeopardy now, though.  Because the IOC's nightmare scenario may, in fact, be playing out.

One of the requirements placed on the Russian athletes was signing an anti-doping pledge, especially important considering the reason for Russia's suspension in the first place.  Well, that took a big hit when it was announced that Aleksandr Krushelnitskiy, who won a bronze medal in mixed doubles curling, had failed a doping test.  Any other country would've been bad.  But OAR?  Catastrophic.  Both for Russia and the IOC.

Now, I'm not going to get into why a curler would feel the need to take a performance-enhancing substance.  But for it to be a Russian is devastating in a number of ways.  For starters, the IOC extended invitations to those Russian athletes it deemed "clean."  Now they've got mud all over their faces.  And the Russian athletes had to know that they would be subjected to increased testing because their every movement in PyeongChang was going to be intensely scrutinized.

Details are still emerging in the Krsuhelnitskiy case, so I don't want to pass judgment just yet.  But this is a bad look for the IOC.  A guy they deemed "clean" in the country they suspended for doping gets busted.  Whatever the reason (some are saying meldonium, the same drug that prompted Maria Sharapova's suspension), it's definitely a black mark.  And it's got a lot of people saying "I told you so."

Whether or not Russia is reinstated at the end of the Games, it'll still be two and a half years until Tokyo, so you'd have to think they'll be back competing under their own flag in Tokyo.  Which, whether you think they should be there or not, you've gotta agree is better than "OAR."  A compromise name that just didn't work.

Disappointing So Far

You wouldn't know it if you've been watching NBC over the past week, but there are more than three sports in the Winter X-Games...sorry, I mean Winter Olympics.  So, if you were tuning in to watch something other than snowboarding, figure skating or a weather delay at alpine skiing, you would've been better off watching NBCSN.  Because the coverage on the broadcast network has definitely left something to be desired.

This is an odd position for me to be in.  I'm usually the one defending NBC for their programming decisions during the Olympics.  And they have done some things that I like (more on that later).  But, overall, their coverage of the PyeongChang Games has been incredibly disappointing.  At least in prime time.

Prior to the Games, NBC wouldn't shut up about the fact that they were going to have live coverage every night and that the entire nation would see the prime time show at once.  That decision was a good one.  It's 2018.  We've reached a point where they were no longer able to get away with making the West Coast wait three hours to watch stuff on TV, especially when those events are live.  It also didn't make much sense to make them wait when they're used to the early start times for the Super Bowl, World Series, etc.

As for the live thing, that wasn't particularly difficult to achieve.  South Korea is 14 hours ahead of the East Coast, so NBC was able to use its incredible influence within the Olympic Movement to get certain events scheduled for the morning local time, which is prime time the night before in the U.S.  They did this 10 years ago in Beijing, and they'll likely do it again at the next two Olympics as this tour of the Far East continues.  I don't particularly blame them for their choice of events, either.  The picked the ones where they thought there was a chance at an American gold medal (where, for the most part, they've been right) or they know people are going to watch regardless (figure skating).

But, they've been a bit preoccupied with the live thing, which I think is my biggest problem with the coverage.  Nothing but live events means a lot of down time, and, for some reason, NBC has struggled with filler.  Instead, we get extra commercials or nonsensical pieces/interviews (cough, Adam Rippon, cough) that serve no purpose other than to kill time.  And, the weather delays at alpine skiing have been a double whammy for NBC.  They've forced them to find a way to fill all the time they'd allotted for skiing while also screwing up their plans for the days when those events were rescheduled.

It's also felt like the broadcasts have been catered towards West Coast viewers.  Not only is the prime time show live coast-to-coast, the Pacific time zone ends up getting an extra half hour while the rest of us are sent to local news.  And the late night show, which has been renamed "Primetime Plus", is essentially just an extension of prime time coverage.  The nice thing about the late night show, though, was that it was always a bit lighter and a good way to wind down at the end of the day.  If you missed it, big deal.  Now they essentially have prime time coverage going until 1:30-2:00 in the morning...and people have to go to work the next day!

NBC has shown some tape-delayed events in prime time (as well as on the entire daytime show), mainly as filler before the live events start.  However, sometimes the taped events they plan on showing end up getting bumped by skiing or figure skating or snowboarding that runs long.  And, if an American didn't win, good luck seeing them.  Case in point, the other day, they showed the quarterfinals of a women's event in short track because of Maame Biney.  Just the quarterfinals.  Not the semis.  Not the final.  Only Mike Tiricio going "by the way, the Italian won the gold medal" after they kicked it back to the studio.  Or yesterday, when they left Nordic Combined in the middle to got to NBC News coverage of the shooting (which obviously was the right call), and just left us hanging regarding what happened in the event.

In past Games, complaining about NBC's coverage seemed to be an unofficial Olympic event (although, sometimes that was complaining for the sake of complaining, I think).  I think the "problem" people had wasn't so much the taped events (in London and Sochi, for example, there wasn't much NBC could do about that since prime time here is the middle of the night there) as it was their inability to watch them live and not having a choice about it.  Which, in hindsight, was a legitimate gripe.

For years, NBC resisted streaming events live if they planned on showing them later on TV.  It wasn't until London 2012 that they started showing every event live online.  In Rio, they added prime time coverage on NBCSN opposite the prime time coverage on NBC, obviously showing different events.  But, oh, how times have changed.  Now, they're actively encouraging people to watch stuff online and on cable.

The coverage on NBCSN has been a stark contrast to the coverage on NBC.  And by that I mean it's been tremendous.  They've had several days of 24-hour coverage on NBCSN, which obviously can't all be live (and nobody seems to have a problem with that).  The NBCSN coverage hasn't just featured sports like cross country and biathlon and short track, either.  They've shown entire events, not just edited portions.

My favorite thing about NBC's use of NBCSN, though, is that it's essentially their overflow channel during prime time when there are multiple live events taking place (another benefit of time-shifting your coverage).  That's also where the stuff that gets bumped off NBC ends up being shown and where coverage picks up if they run out of time on NBC (which happened during women's snowboard qualifying).

And the decision to have full coverage of the figure skating on NBCSN was very smart.  They started this in Sochi, which is when Tara & Johnny were unleashed on the world, so that people could watch it live in the afternoon before NBC's delayed coverage at night.  By doing it again in PyeongChang, they've been able to appease the figure skating audience by showing them every skater, but still show another marquee event (also live) on NBC.

That decision was a good one.  So was Mike Tirico.  When he was hired by NBC, it was pretty clear he was the heir apparent as Olympic host whenever Bob Costas decided to step away.  And that transition has been incredibly smooth.  He has a different style than Costas, but is a perfectly capable host and will only get better as time goes on (and he gets more to do beyond throwing it from one event to another).

Has NBC's coverage of the PyeongChang Olympics been serviceable?  Yes.  Has it been great?  No.  Are the higher-ups at the Peacock Network satisfied?  Most likely.  I just personally wish the nightly show on the broadcast network was a little bit better.  Because, the cable coverage, like the PyeongChang winds, has been blowing it away.