clemsonbeav

I've seen her twice in the USA, but I don't know of anyone else in the USA that knows her...any of you familiar with Loreena McKennitt? My fav artist.

I just watched the Rock Master Lead Duels...so fun! Brooke Raboutou vs. Janja Garnbret in the Quarterfinals...that's a matchup you'll want to see!

U.S. Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships A-Division Men Semifinals: (happening right now) vs. vs. A-Division Women Semifinals: (happening later today) vs. vs. B-Division Men Semifinals: (happening later today) vs. vs. B-Division Women Semifinals: (happening later today) vs. vs. Finals tomorrow

What a great start for the women. 6 in the top 20 of the W Giant Slalom in Sölden Paula Moltzan - 2nd Mikaela Shiffrin - 4th Nina O'Brien - 6th Katie Hensien - 12th A.J. Hurt - 13th Elisabeth Bocock - 19th (The men only saw River Radamus into the top 30.)

After the Cup of China... Amber and Alysa went 1-2 in the Women's comp. Chock/Bates and Zingas/Kolesnik went 1-2 in Ice Dance. Green/Parsons withdrew due to injury. Camden withdrew and was replaced by Tomoki Hiwatashi, who was a distant 4th. Sanchez was 7th. McBeath/Parkman finished 7th.

I know Mikaela Schiffrin will be happy to have done so well. 4th place for her, 2nd place for her compatriot Paula Moltzan.

Medal table, copied/pasted from Wikipedia. Of note, the 7 medals for China are from 6 separate gymnasts. Japan's 5 came from 4 gymnasts. USA's came from 5 gymnasts. Russia had 2 medalists. GB had 5. Algeria had 1. Philippines had 1. Armenia had 2.

Yulo was so great on vault, and Davtyan was exhilarating to watch as well! Glad to see Brody on top of the high bar routine!

I wish Amber Glenn would look a little less stressed / more joyful when she skates. But I know she puts a lot of pressure on herself, while Alysa Liu is always having a good time. with 2 golds and 2 silvers this week. I updated Post 2 with the results.

I so love watching Alysa Liu and Chock/Bates as they skate...love seeing Liu's emotions come out. She's so graceful and confident (and she won the SP without doing the 3 Axel). Chock and Bates own the ice, and they're so fun to watch. Hoping for a good second skate tomorrow!

I'm half-heartedly watching this Nations Grand Finale. It's interesting for many reasons, not all of them good: 1) The venue is not the best looking place. Looks like an old rusty school gym. 2) The fact that you had to get to about Ranking #14 on the teams to find 6 teams to compete shows you that it's not the best logistically. 3) The fact that not all of the teams sent their A team is also indicative that perhaps this wasn't the best-planned event. (No shocker at all that Korea, with its A team, won Lead.) But on the positive side... 4) The teams event is interesting, seeing the teammates actively helping each other, having to manage the clock, etc. 5) It's also interesting seeing the coach being able to coach. I'm intrigued to see if more modes of competition come in during the 2026 calendar (whether that's more of this team business, speed relay, etc.). I just learned of the Rock Master Lead/Boulder Duel competitions. So many of the elite athletes just competed there (Janja, Brooke Raboutou, Adam Ondra, etc.). It is interesting that the event in question is keeping Boulder and Lead together, now that they're totally separate at LA28.

Three medals for USA on Day 1 of the apparatus finals, and two 4th place finishes. Impressed by Team GB today as well. The Armenian pommel boys, too! (Image from USA Gymnastics FB.)

And fortunately, I have access to this race tomorrow without having to pay for another subscription! (Usually, here in the USA we only get live racing when it's in the USA, but this one is being streamed for whatever reason.)

Men's All-Around Gold: Hashimoto Daiki Silver: Zhang Boheng Bronze: Shi Cong Women's All-Around Gold: Angelina Melnikova ( ) Silver: Leanne Wong Bronze: Zhang Qingying All of our commentators in the (not surprisingly) were convinced that Melnikova wasn't properly penalized for an out-of-bounds in her floor routine, but we never saw a good replay of it, and I don't have the knowledge enough to say whether it's true or not. Only 0.1 between Gold and Silver. And if I recall correctly from the commentators, this is the same Gold and Silver from 4 years ago. Props to Melnikova for retaining Gold, even after falling off the beam. Congrats to all the athletes! Silver for !

Because I was curious, I did some digging. Winston Tang has always competed with the USA. I found his Instagram here. No references to Guinea-Bissau at all. But then when I saw the article on FIS talking about snow sports coming to GBS, I caught (thanks to ChatGPT) that the organizer of the Winter Sports Federation of GBS was named Thomas Tang. Come to find out, Thomas Tang was born in Taiwan and moved to America as a teenager. Thomas competed in Calgary 1988 and Albertville 1992 as an alpine skiier, and works as a businessman. Winston is his son. I then found a video on Facebook from Ministério da Cultura, Juventude e Desportos da Guiné-Bissau from April 2024 that seems to be Thomas (speaking English) talking with the people at the Ministry in GBS talking about the opportunity to form the winter sport federation. (It's primarily a presentation from someone else in Portuguese.) Seems like Thomas saw an opportunity to develop something that aligns with his passions...and methinks GBS probably was keen on fast-tracking Tang and his family to be citizens, allowing Winston to compete under their flag. I also found the dad's FB profile, which shows him in Guinea-Bissau. (Whether it's dad actually wanting to build winter sports in GBS, or just dad wanting to see his son compete in the Olympics, we'll see where the future leads!)

Fun seeing an Icelandic gymnast in the finals

Just got around to looking at the results from today...despite the news from Asher, looks like we'll have someone in 4, maybe 5, of the apparatus finals. We'll see in a few hours after the last two subdivisions come through. I think Brady Malone is the only returning 2024 Olympian for us.

To make it worse, apparently his family is from Jakarta, and his grandparents were going to be able to watch him compete on the big stage: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/asher-hong-brings-his-gymnastics-home-to-jakarta

Results post updated. Canada with a million gold medals this week!

Both of our leading women on the podium in the 1500m! Hopefully we'll be able to snag a gold in the next stop.

9 skaters in the 1500m W Final A...we'll see how this goes! Edit: All 9 finished...no crashes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_ISU_Short_Track_World_Tour Nope - Jens took the 1000m in Stop 1, and Dubois took the 500m in Stop 2. But still quite impressive!

How we did in Montreal 2: Men: 500m - Andrew Heo and Brandon Kim made the QF - same as last week 1000m - Kim made the QF (an improvement) 1500m - Brandon Kim finished 3rd in the B Final (an improvement), and Clayton De Clemente finished 4th in the B Final (an improvement). Andrew Heo made the SF (same as last week). Relay - Made the A Finals! (We finished 4th, but a nice opportunity to skate in the A Finals.) Women: 500m - KSG with the Bronze, Corinne Stoddard with 4th. 1000m - Stoddard went down in the finals, finishing 4th. Again, KSG went out in the QF. 1500m - Stoddard in 2nd, KSG with a bronze! Relay - Finished 1st in the B Finals (5th overall). Mixed Relay: Made it to the B Finals and finished 3rd (so 7th).

And per commentators, they can't find another example of a male ever doing that at an event.

What is it with the YouTube stream and 1000m finals...mine is bugging out severely.