NearPup

I really like Steep so I enjoyed the Olympic expansion. The slopestyle and half pipe events in particular where solid. Big air is a bit ridiculous, I think I managed something like a quintuple cork 1620’ on my first time xD

This is actually a team that could cause an upset in the team event.

Not strictly sports related, but I’ve been qatching some Overwatch league lately (a video game competition). It’s a very slick and profetional production, and having played Overwatch I did not expect it to be as fun to watch as it is. Also following the Australian Open on and off, but due to the timezone it’s the Grand Slam I pay the least attention to.

Rest of the Canadian team: Snowboardcross Baptiste Brochu Kevin Hill Chris Robanske Carle Brenneman Zoe Bergermann Tess Critchlow Meryeta O’Dine Parallel Giant Slalom Jasey-Jay Anderson Darren Gardner Halfpipe Dereck Livingston Mercedes Nicoll Elizabeth Hosking Calynn Irwin Anderson is conpeting in his sixth winter Olympics, which is a record for Canada (and obviously a record for snowboarders). He has competed in every Giant Slalom / PSG in Olympic history, winning gold in 2010, on top of Snowboardcross in 2006 (where he was 5th) and PSL in Sochi. As far as I know he is the only snowboarder to qualify for every Olympics where snowboarding was contested.

Most of the reallcations went to countries that already had quotas, only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Denmark in women’s half pipe.

The US had to turn down four women’s ski cross quotas that ended up going u filled. How does that help anybody?

No. They are simply gone. The per country limit really should be 40 (rather than 30), it would have prevented or at least mitigated this situation where there are unused quotas both in Sochi and here.

Baring any last minute oddity (which, lets face it, always happens) Canada is looking at a team of 222 for Pyeongchang. This is exactly the same size as in Sochi. It is still possible Canada will be offered a second re-allocation in cross country skiing (Canada is 13th in line and seven spots remain to be re-allocated). That's the likeliest way Canada could beat the record from Sochi at this point. Alternatively, someone could get injured between runs / due to a crash in bobsleigh (like in Sochi).

Bobsleigh team Female pilots: Kaillie Humphries Alysia Rissling Christine de Bruin Female push athletes: Phylicia George Melissa Lotholz Heather Moyse Male pilots: Justin Kripps Christopher Spring Nick Poloniato Male push athletes: Lascelles Brown Jesse Lumsden Neville Wright Ben Coakwell Seyi Smith Bryan Barnett Alex Kopacz Cam Stones Josh Kirkpatrick Alternates: Cynthiah Appiah Kristen Bujnowski Sam Giguère Joey Nemet

Olympic team Kevin Boyer Dave Greszczyszyn Barrett Martineau Jane Channel Mirela Rahneva Elisabeth Vathje The whole team is made up of Olympic rookies, even 38 year old Greszczyszyn (who narrowly missed out on Sochi). The best part of this team? Hearing commentators have to pronounce Greszczyszyn.

Olympic team (now with the specific distances): Kim Boutin - 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, women's relay Kasandra Bradette - women's relay Jamie Macdonald - 500m, women's relay Valerie Maltais - 1,000m, 1,500m, women's relay Marianne St-Gelais - 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, women's relay Charle Cournoyer - 1,000m, men's relay Pascal Dion - 1,500m, men's relay Samuel Girard - 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, men's relay Charles Hamelin - 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, men's relay François Hamelin — men's relay

They will probably not race at least one or two of them. The US traditionally uses the downhill training runs as an internal qualifying race, which is pretty sensible IMO.

Slopestyle and big air, sure, but aerials is completly distinct from slopestyle and big air. The techniques involved are completly different.

I am personally a big proponent of snowboarding / freestyle skiing equality Slopestyle is pretty great, at least on the men’s side. Not so good on the women’s side with the exception of a few athletes (Kelly Sildaru justify the existence of women’s ski slopestyle on her own, sadly she is injured) but it’s just a sport where the gap is more apparent than others. When you look at something like half pipe it’s a case of the women being about a decade behind the men in terms of the tricks they perform. Big Air I don’t care for, but it has the advantage of being “urban” (in the literal sense of the word, it’s one of the few snow sport you can hold in a big city) so I can see why it’s appealing to the IOC. I don’t think it’s a great TV package but, whatever, at least the men’s contests are really competitive.

There are so few viable and popular winter sports, I think it’s kind of ridiculous to leave the “extreme” (is slopestyle really more extreme than alpine skiing?) sports out of the winter games.

(very small) Olympic team: Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes Taylor Henrich

I think the way FIS quotas work is part of the problem. Why invest in developing athletes in parallel if all that means is that it would need to reduce the number of athletes in events where the US is already strong?

That couple was an embarrassment last time. Good riddance.

Snowboard Olympic Team Halfpipe Kelly Clark Arielle Gold Chloe Kim Maddie Mastro Ben Ferguson Chase Josey Jake Pates Shaun White Big Air and Slopestyle Jamie Anderson Jessika Jenson Hailey Langland Julia Marino Chris Corning Redmond Gerard Kyle Mack Ryan Stassel Snowboard Cross Faye Gulini Lindsey Jacobellis Rosie Mancari Meghan Tierney Nick Baumgartner Jonathan Cheever Mick Dierdorff Hagen Kearney Parallel Giant Slalom A.J. Muss Mike Trapp

No joke, my initial reaction (before noticing the flag) was "damn, those OAR uniforms are *ugly*" xD Is this supposed to be like an armor?

I want off this Russian state doping ride ASAP... Victoria Demchenko is a curious addotion to the list, makes you wonder if it has anything to do with who her father is...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeP92W_F5Ks/?taken-by=alexandermajorov3

Freestyle Skiing Team Aerials Ashley Caldwell Kiley McKinnon Madison Olsen Mac Bohonnon Jonathon Lillis Eric Loughran Half Pipe Maddie Bowman Annalisa Drew Devin Logan Brita Sigourney Aaron Blunck Alex Ferreira David Wise Torin Yater-Wallace Moguls Tess Johnson Jaelin Kauf Keaton McCargo Morgan Schild Casey Andringa Emerson Smith Troy Murphy Brad Wilson Slopestyle Caroline Claire Devin Logan Darian Stevens Maggie Voisin Nick Goepper Alex Hall Gus Kenworthy McRae Williams The US has declined to send any athlete in Ski Cross. As Devin Logan is competing in both Half Pipe and Slopestyle the US is only sending 29 athletes.

As I like to remind people, the 2009 Bruins had more Canadians than the Canucks and the 2009 Canucks had more Americans than the Bruins. The only NHL team I care about are the Senators (with a side interest in the Stars, since it's my local team - surprise, I live in Texas ), if nothing else it would annoy me to see another Canadian based NHL team win (especially the Canadiens or, much much worse, the Leafs).

My reaction when the NHL announced they wouldn't go to the Olympics was "Christmas is canceled". I stand by the sentiment.