Borderline Fantastic Sports

The Winter Olympics are all done. Time to take a look at the final ICH Standings. Only two other people made picks. Evan spent some time making his picks. I really just picked one country per discipline and picked that country for all the events. Check out February’s IDM featuring a recap of the Winter Olympics.

ICH Olympics

NBC opened their afternoon coverage talking about how terribly Norway was doing. Great. I’m not sure if Norway is rubbing off on me or we were both meant to be miserable this week.

I decided I want to visit Vancouver. That isn’t new, I’ve wanted to go to Vancouver for a while. Now I want to go there in two weeks. Right after the Olympics. With Spring Training starting up I’m growing concerned that winter is going to be over soon. I want to take a trip, but unlike normal people going south for Spring Break, I want to go north. Although, Vancouver is warmer than it is here, it’s still wintery if for no other reason than it hosted the Winter Olympics.

I’m disliking figure skating more and more each day. NBC seems to love it. They love it enough that they show almost everyone live and push speed skating to late night. Here is my idea to move things along. With widescreen I think you could show 6 skaters going at the same time. As each one stumbles or falls, they get dropped from the screen. By the end, you only have 1 or 2 on the screen. How much time would this save? Would you miss anything?

Biathlon – Women’s 10k Pursuit
Are there any other olympic events where you are rewarded by your finish in a previous event? I feel like the second medal should only be worth half as much.
5. BERGER Tora – Started 33rd, made up almost a minute.
8. FLATLAND Ann Kristin Aafedt – Started 10th.

Biathlon – Men’s 12.k Pursuit
7. BJOERNDALEN Ole Einar – Started 17th. Made up 50 seconds.
8. SVENDSEN Emil Hegle – Started 2nd but struggled in the standing shooting.
17. HANEVOLD Halvard – Started 24th.
23. BERGER Lars – Started 46th.

Boarder X
4. Helene Olafsen – She made it to the finals and was getting a lot of chatter. In typical Norway fashion, she slipped up and fell and finished last in the finals. No medal.

Curling
Men lost 7-6 to Canada but in the late session, beat the USA 6-5. To top things off, have you seen their curling pants? http://www.ctvolympics.ca/news-centre/newsid=41700.html
Hockey

Trouble against Canada, losing 8-0.

Day 6 has 7 medal events scheduled:
Women’s Downhill
Cross-Country – Women’s Individual Sprint
Cross-Country – Men’s Individual Sprint
Speed Skating – Men’s 1000m
Luge – Doubles
Short Track – Women’s 500m
Snowboard – Men’s Halfpipe

Thankfully, Norway does not have any team events.

Today is going to be difficult. I need to avoid finding out about the Downhill. Then the Halfpipe finals don’t start until 10:15.

538 has been doing medal projections. They expect 17.4 more medals for Norway, which would be good enough for 4^th.

I tried avoiding results yesterday, which is nearly impossible. I would go to MSNBC and see a picture that looked like the olympics and panic before letting it sink in. In my panic, I’d go to my homepage, which is SI. So I’d have to panic again. I made it through work but while I was at home I managed to see the USA finishes for the two events I cared about (Downhill and Boarder X) before I got to watch. I should have made it to the Downhill but NBC didn’t put that on until primetime, even though it started at 1:30. Hopefully today will be better. I think NBC only has 2 hours of coverage this afternoon. I imagine that will cover Biathlon and Boarder X Qualifiers.

Cross-Country – Women’s 10k Individual
The announcers kept talking about the disappointing day for Norway.
3. BJOERGEN Marit – 3rd Olympics. Silver in this even in 06. Also a Silver in the 4×5k Relay in 02.
8. STEIRA Kristin Stoermer – In 06, had 3 4th places and a 5th. So close. Hopefully a medal for her this year.
22. SKOFTERUD Vibeke W
49. KRISTOFFERSEN Marthe

Cross-Country – Men’s 15k Individual
What a disappointing day for Norway in Cross-Country. They have the #1 in the world, and the best finish was 28. It wasn’t even him!
28. GJERDALEN Tord Asle
33. JOHNSRUD SUNDBY Martin
41. NORTHUG Petter – #1 in the world.
42. HAFSAS Ronny

Men’s Downhill
A 2nd Silver for Norway.
2. SVINDAL Aksel Lund – Competed in 06. Best finish was 5th. Finished 21st in Downhill.
These two tied for 31st. Kind of crazy for two from the same country to tie. The top 3 were a record for how close they are, so ties can happen.
31. JANSRUD Kjetil
31. MYHRE Lars Elton
46. KARLSEN Truls Ove

Boarder X
I will continue to call this Boarder X. Norway had 2 qualify for the quarters, but it doesn’t look like they made it out of that.

No Norway in Speed Skating or Pairs. Speed Skating got all screwed up because of the ice yesterday. Pairs wound up being the first event I skipped over most of. Figure Skating is looking to be my least favorite event. I don’t think I’ll watch any Ice Dancing. We’ll see about the singles.

Norway Totals: 2 Silver 1 Bronze

Day 5
Norway’s Men’s Curling debuts with a morning match with Canada and a night match with the USA. They also start up Men’s hockey, facing Canada this afternoon. Norway has 0 NHL players. Ole-Kristian Tollefsen was traded by the Flyers last week to the Red Wings. The Red Wings put him on waivers and no one picked him up. So he’s in the AHL now. I don’t feel a good day coming on for Norway’s team sports.

6 medal events scheduled for the day:
Biathlon – Women’s 10k Pursuit
Women’s Boarder X
Biathlon – Men’s 12.5k Pursuit
Men’s Super Combined
Women’s Luge
Speed Skating – Women’s 500m

Biathlon – Men’s 10k Sprint
I don’t think I’ve ever watched an entire event before, but it was a lot more interesting than I expected. It was a little difficult to keep track of who was in the lead because they did the leaderboard at each shooting area. So someone would be at #1 but he had already had a penalty at the next stop, so that #1 didn’t really matter. It would have been even more exciting had anyone who started later had a chance. It rained and snowed so the people that didn’t start early had no shot.
2. SVENDSEN Emil Hegle – Finally, a medal for Norway! In 06 he finished 6th in the 15k Mass Start. I don’t know what that event is yet, but I think I’ll find out this week.
17. BJOERNDALEN Ole Einar – All sorts of Olympic experience in 98/02/06. Totals: 5 Golds, 3 Silvers, 1 Bronze.
24. HANEVOLD Halvard – Had no shot starting 73rd. 40 years old, I didn’t see any reference to previous Olympics on the site.
46. BERGER Lars

Nordic Combined – Individual Normal Hill
9. MOAN Magnus H. – In 06 won Bronze in this event and Silver in the Large Hill.
17. TANDE Petter L. – In 06 finished 4th in this event and 6th in the Large Hill.
23. SCHMID Jan – 4th in the Team Large Hill in 06.
32. KOKSLIEN Mikko

Speed Skating – Women’s 3000m
8. HAUGLI Maren

Luge – Men’s Single
No competitors from Norway. I noticed they refer to themselves as ’sliders.’ I guess they got sick of the luger jokes.

Men’s Moguls
So far my favorite events have been the moguls. I think their closest competition will be from Boarder and Skier X. The announcers have been solid as well.

Monday features 6 medal events.
Cross-Country – Women’s 10k Individual
Alpine Skiing – Men’s Downhill
Cross-Country – Men’s 15k Individual
Snowboard – Men’s Snowboard Cross
Figure Skating – Pairs
Speed Skating – Men’s 500m

A few of my friends decided to pick countries and keep track of their performance during the Olympics. It’s not a competition. I’m not even sure how it will work. My country is Norway.

On Day 2 (Saturday), there were 5 medal events. Norway did not compete in the Women’s Moguls or the Men’s Short Track 1500m. This is disappointing because these were by far my two favorite events of the day. In each of the three events they did compete in they at least finished in the top 10. In the Men’s Speed Skating 5000m, all three finished in the top 10, but no medal.

Ski Jumping – Individual Normal Hill
9. JACOBSEN Anders
12. HILDE Tom
18. BARDAL Anders
23. ROMOEREN Bjoern Einar – Won Bronze in Team in 06

Speed Skating – Men’s 5000m
4. BOKKO Havard – Competed in 06 but DNF 1500m and DNP in Team Pursuit, but I’m pretty sure he made the trip to Turin.
8. CHRISTIANSEN Henrik
10. HAUGLI Sverre

Biathlon – Women’s 7.5k Sprint
What I gathered from watching this was that if you missed a shot, you had to take a penalty lap, which costs about 30 seconds. I didn’t realize it was such a severe penalty. I thought they just added a few seconds and you kept going.
10. FLATLAND Ann Kristin Aafedt
33. BERGER Tora – Competed in 5 events in 06. Best finish was 5th in the 4×6km Relay.
70. EIKELAND Liv Kjersti

Five medal events are scheduled on Day 3. Norway will compete in …
Biathlon Men’s 10k Sprint (4)
Speed Skating Women’s 3000m (1)
Nordic Combined (3)
Not competing: Luge Men’s Single and Men’s Moguls

My knowledge is limited to what I found on the Vancouver 2010 site.

Hey, I won one of these finally. I was the only one to pick the Saints over the Vikings in the NFC Championship. That was enough to give me the one game edge over Ahad.

Note: Evan didn’t make picks for the Sunday games in the Divisional Round.

With the Super Bowl over, here are the final standings for picks for this season. The scores here are for correct picks during the regular season and playoffs.

Ahad: Let’s keep things simple once again. I went against the Saints in the conference championship game and I am going to do it again. The Colts are the better overall team. Pick: Colts
Matt: The Colts haven’t lost a game all season when they were playing to win the game. And they have Peyton Manning. They just have to avoid the turnovers that cost the Vikings their game against the Saints, because they will certainly be able to move the ball on the Saints defense. You can move the ball on the Colts D, too, but they are an underrated bunch. An unhealthy Freeney will certainly hurt the Colts pass rush. They can’t let Brees sit back there and pick them apart. I think it will come down to which QB plays the best. Brees is good, but he is no Peyton. Pick: Colts
Evan: I am really rooting for the Saints. I also think they are equally good on offense, but the Colts obviously have a better D. Defense wins championships. Pick: Colts, in a close one.
Mike: I’m right there with Matt. It comes down to the QBs and you can’t help but think that Peyton will come up where he needs to. The Saints may have the better receivers and backs, but the Colts have Peyton. I feel like I should be rooting for the Saints. The Colts just won not too long ago and the Saints have never been. Plus, it’s New Orleans. It’s going to be one of those games where once I start watching I will lean toward one team or the other. I have a feeling that team will be the Colts. Pick: Colts

Link

Carolla back with the Sports Guy. Just an incredible show from start to finish. Carolla shines as usual with some made up movies.

The BS Report is IDM with a budget, and talent.

ESPN has a new podcast player. I wonder how that design meeting went. How did they decide on 3 bottom lines?!? Was it a compromise? Did someone suggest 10?

Jets @ Colts, Sunday 3pm
Ahad: The Jets luck finally runs out. At some point Sanchez is going to make mistakes that will hurt his team. If the Colts defense plays as well as they did last week, they should have no problem beating the Jets. Pick: Colts
Mike: I’ve been proven wrong two weeks in a row with the Jets. In usual circumstances, I’d finally jump on over onto the bandwagon. This is no usual circumstance. Peyton is involved. Pick: Colts
Matt: How interesting is it that the AFC representative will be one of these two teams? The Jets beat the Colts in Week 16, but the Colts pulled their starters in the 3rd quarter. This should be a good chess match between two teams that are polar opposites in philosophy. The Jets are old-school: play tough defense and have a good running game. The Colts are built for speed and passing the ball. I really want to see the Manning versus Revis matchup. Will Manning throw his way? It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the Jets win this game, but I can’t see Manning losing. Pick: Colts
Evan: I had a text message draft all set to go last week picking the Jets and the Saint, but never sent it to Janke, so I guess I don’t get credit for picking that upset. I’m going to stick with the upset bandwagon though. Pick: Jets

Vikings @ Saints, Sunday 6:30pm
Ahad: I am going to keep it simple. This game will be decided by the defenses and the Vikings have the better defense. Pick: Vikings
Mike: The Vikings sure looked good last week. At least that is the impression I got from the final score. I’ve been with the Saints all year so I’m going to ride. One thought: Saints/Colts I don’t have a favorite, it’s fairly even. Vikings/Colts and I’ll be sporting a Peyton jersey. Mike: Saints
Matt: Do you even have a Manning jersey, Mike? I am with Ahad, I think the Vikings do have the better defense, but they haven’t always played as well on the road and they are hurt somewhat along their D-Line. The Saints will need to be able to run the ball. They are undefeated this season when running for more than 130 yards and 5-3 when running for less. It will be hard to do against the Vikings. Favre will have to avoid the killer mistakes he has made in the past, which he has not done much of this year. You can run on the Saints, so I think Adrian Peterson will be the key in this game. I expect a big game from him. Last team to have the ball wins? I am thinking so. I’ll be rooting for the Saints, but I think the Vikings will take it. Pick: Vikings
Evan: I’m very nervous about the prospect of Percy Harvin not playing. He is my favorite part of the Vikes. I’m hoping that this game will live up to the billing of a high scoring affair. In the end, I’m going with the old man and the better defense. Pick: Vikings