Olympics Page 18 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Lindsey Vonn Is Going For Broke In Her Last Olympics
Lindsey Vonn is the most decorated female skier in history, and the most decorated skier, man or woman, in U.S. history. She’s also the athlete whose motto is “If you fall, pick yourself back up.” And with good reason. It isn’t just that she’s fallen, a lot. It’s that each time she picks herself bac...
Nathan Chen Has Four Very Long Years Ahead Of Him
American figure skater Nathan Chen came into Pyeongchang with the promise of a possible coronation. He’ll leave, instead, with a whole lot of work left to do. The 18-year-old winner of back-to-back U.S. national titles, who was many people’s pick to win gold at the men’s individual competition in hi...
What The Hell Is Sweden Doing With Its Phenom?
The Swedish men’s hockey team just barely squeaked by Germany this morning, riding an early goal from Victor Stahlberg to win 1-0 despite getting outshot 28-26. Two games into the Olympics, that win plus a 4-0 defeat of Norway in their opening game suggest that things are going smoothly. They aren’t...
The Guy Who Finished Last In The Olympic Cross-Country Event Got A Hero's Welcome
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea—One hundred and nineteen skiers took off at 30-second intervals in the 15km cross-country ski race at the 2018 Olympics today. Three didn’t finish or were disqualified. Of the 116 athletes who successfully skied the course, 115 of them were faster than German Madrazo, the 43...
Badass Olympic Skeleton Helmets Are Back
Skeleton exists because someone decided luge wasn’t terrifying enough. What if luge, but head-first? Accordingly, skeleton sliders tend to personalize their helmets like hockey goalies, having them painted in artistic, patriotic, or intimidating ways. ...
Pita Taufatofua Finishes 114th—Not Last!—In Cross-Country Skiing
Pita Taufatofua joined the longer-than-you-might-think list of athletes to compete at the Winter and Summer Olympic Games when he raced in the 15 kilometer freestyle today. Taufatofua, of course, is best known as the “Shirtless Tongan.”...
Two Swiss Skiers Come Down With Norovirus At Olympics
The Norovirus outbreak at the 2018 Olympics has mostly been confined to staff and security personnel, but today it was confirmed that the bug has finally reached the athletes....
Yuzuru Hanyu Skated Masterfully And Then Winnie The Pooh Bears Rained Down On The Ice
Yuzuru Hanyu, the defending world and Olympic champion, took the ice first tonight in the final flight of the men’s short program to great anticipation. Hanyu, who is considered to be one of the greatest male skaters of all-time, hadn’t competed since injuring his ankle in November; though considere...
Mikaela Shiffrin Failed To Medal In Her Best Event<em></em>
Fresh off a a gold-medal win less than 24 hours prior in the giant slalom, Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin seemed poised to build momentum with another gold in her best event: the (regular) slalom. However, Shiffrin couldn’t even get to the podium, finishing fourth with a total time across two runs of 1...
Adam Rippon Isn't Quite The Best, But He Is The Most Fun
Figure skater Adam Rippon, the undisputed breakout American star of these Olympic games, finally got to show off his long-awaited short-form performance today in Pyeongchang. It’s modern, it’s fun, it’s soundtracked by, in Rippon’s own words, “a trashy club mix,” and it does not disappoint. Here’s a...
Lindsey Jacobellis Comes Up Agonizingly Short Yet Again<em></em>
American Lindsey Jacobellis is perhaps the greatest boardercross racer of all-time. She’s won 10 X-Games golds and five world championships, though the Olympics have been anomalously cruel to her. You probably remember her fall at the 2006 Turin Olympics, when she showed off with an unnecessary gra...
The Youngest American Olympian, Vincent Zhou, Nailed The Games' First-Ever Quad Lutz
Seventeen-year-old Vincent Zhou, the youngest American competing in any event at these Winter Olympics, pulled off a move tonight that no one at the Games had ever landed cleanly before: the quad lutz. It’s the most difficult move currently recognized as achievable, and it requires four rotations af...
French Figure Skater Performs Short Program To "Rapper's Delight"
Figure skaters are really taking full advantage of being allowed to perform to music with lyrics at the 2018 Olympic Games. Chafik Besseghier, the second guy up in the men’s short program tonight, was dressed like a taxi driver and performed to “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang....
What Makes Ice Dancing Different? Brother-Sister Pairs, To Start<em></em>
At last month’s figure skating national championships in San Jose, California, ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue took to the ice after the sibling team of Maia and Alex Shibutani. The “Shib Sibs”—a nickname that I did not make up—have been the most successful U.S. ice dance pair of the la...
An Austrian Snowboard Racer Broke His Neck And Finished His Race Anyway
Markus Schairer was in fourth position heading towards the penultimate jump of the first quarterfinal of men’s snowboard cross when something went wrong that caused his board to get out from under him. Schairer flailed in the air, then came down hard straight on his back, breaking his fifth cervical...
Just Give Olympians Their Medals Right After The Event
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea—Just before 2:45 p.m. on Thursday, 22-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin won her first gold medal of the 2018 Olympics. She watched from the bottom of the course while her final competitor skied through the giant slalom, and as soon as it became clear that her position atop the leade...
The U.S. Women Were <i>This Close</i> To Taking Canada To Overtime
The U.S. women’s hockey team were so close to pulling off what would have been a very fun comeback. They controlled the majority of their final group-stage battle against Canada—which didn’t really matter but served as a preview of the expected gold-medal game—but the Americans still found themselve...
The Knierims Heard About The Florida School Shooting Moments Before Taking The Ice
At least 17 people were killed today by a man with an AR-15 at a Florida high school, with a still-unconfirmed number of people injured. It is the 18th school shooting of 2018....
Swiss Olympic Skier Appears To Be An Escalator Wizard Or Some Shit
Swissman Fabian Bösch is a former world champion and X-Games gold medalist, but more importantly, he’s an escalator genius. If I did this, I would tear my rotator cuff, but I guess that’s why I’m not in the Olympics....
Nothing Happened To Shaun White
American snowboarder Shaun White won another Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe yesterday. The event was broadcast on NBC, and throughout the competition White was talked about as an American hero and champion. It wasn’t unexpected, as the media often equates skill with a ball, bat, or in this case ...