Sure, I’m biased. I have souvenirs from the 2002 Olympics all over my house. I was thrilled to get the opportunity to go back to Utah a few years later.
But the fact remains: Few cities around the world are ideally suited to host the Winter Olympics. Most host cities are vaguely close to some mountains. In Salt Lake, it’s all right there. And it’s all in great shape — Utah Olympic Park (sliding track, ski jumps) and the speedskating oval are still in steady use.
Cross-country skiing and biathlon is the one exception, requiring a trip out to Soldier Hollow so the skiers aren’t up in the mountains without any air. Curling and one hockey venue were farther away in 2002 — a closer arena this time would make the Games even less of a logistical problem. (Hockey in Rio Tinto Stadium? Probably not, but it’d be nice to throw Sandy something.)
The downside of Utah in the IOC’s eyes is that U.S. investigators laid bare the culture of bribery in the bidding process. (Switzerland may also have paid the price for harboring a whistleblower.) At some point, the dignitaries who expected whining/dining/bribing as part of the bidding process will be out of the picture. Time wounds all heels.
From the chessboard to the cross-country ski trails, Norway had a very good weekend.
Tora Berger was a mild surprise. She’s one of the world’s best biathletes, with a handful of Olympic and World Championship gold medals to prove it. But biathletes typically don’t win three races in the same weekend, which is exactly what she did in neighboring Sweden.
Marit Bjoergen, on the other hand, does this sort of thing on occasion. She won most of the cross-country skiing events contested the 2010 Olympics and 2011 World Championships. She, like Berger, took the natural hat trick this weekend.
But for epic all-time greatness, the big Norwegian winner is Magnus Carlsen, who can now stake a claim to being The Best Chess Player of All Time, at least unofficially. By rating, he has now slightly surpassedGarry Kasparov‘s record rating of 2851. Not bad for a guy who just turned 22. (If you like to dive into the methodology, start at this roundup of various attempts to rate the best ever, then call Nate Silver.)
Also, Aksel Lund Svindal leads the men’s Alpine World Cup standings over the USA’s Ted Ligety. He won it in 2007 and 2009. Seems like he’s been around forever, but he won’t turn 30 until later this month.
Here’s what else happened over the weekend while we were mourning Georgia’s SEC loss and watching Beckham’s back-to-back …
ALPINE SKIING
Women’s World Cup, Lake Louise, Alberta: Lindsey Vonn — the same Lindsey Vonn whose general health was in serious question a couple of weeks ago — won a downhill. And another one. And then a super-G. Vonn is the first skier to win three races at the same venue in two different seasons.
Here she is:
If you’d prefer to see her scramble out of trouble, check this one:
And more U.S. women were in the mix — Stacey Cook was second in each downhill, Julia Mancuso was second in the super-G, and the USA had six of the top 20 in the second downhill (Vonn, Cook, Mancuso 9th, Alice McKennis 11th, Laurenne Ross 18th, Leanne Smith 20th).
The USA has four women in the World Cup top 10: Vonn 3rd, Cook 5th, Mancuso t-6th, Mikaela Shiffrin 10th.
Men’s World Cup, Beaver Creek, Colo.: Ted Ligety joked after Saturday’s super-G:
Have to smile. Another superg wooden spoon. Good crowd on hand. http://t.co/JVoRjoLr
Isn’t the wooden spoon typically last place, not fourth? In any case, he can quit fretting about it now: He won Sunday’s giant slalom so convincingly that his rivals called him “unbeatable” in the event.
The speed events were much better for the Italians than the Americans: Christof Innerhofer won the downhill, and Matteo Marsaglia won the super-G.
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING
World Cup, Kuusamo, Finland: Unique format this weekend — a three-race mini-tour with a sprint, a short freestyle (5k women/10k men) and a classical pursuit (10k/15k). Maret Bjoergen took away the need for any math by winning all three events on the women’s side.
Among Americans — Kikkan Randall has suddenly flipped from contending in the sprints to contending in the distance races, finishing second in the freestyle and holding on for fifth overall despite being knocked out in the sprint semifinals. Ida Sargent also made the sprint semis and took 18th overall. The others were all in the top 24: Liz Stephen 17th, Holly Brooks 22nd, Jessie Diggins 24th.
In the men’s event — yet another Norwegian? Yes, it was Petter Northug taking the overall. Only three of the six Americans finished the last event. Noah Hoffman had the only top-20, finishing 19th in the freestyle.
SKI JUMPING
World Cup, Kuusamo, Finland: No Americans made the trip. Germany won the team event and the individual (Severin Freund).
NORDIC COMBINED
World Cup, Kuusamo, Finland: France’s Jason Lamy Chappuis, while American Bryan Fletcher kept up a string of promising performances with a 14th-place finish.
SPEEDSKATING
World Cup, Astana, Kazakhstan. Shani Davis was the only U.S. skater competing, and his win in the 1,500 meters broke up a Dutch men’s sweep. Jorrit Bergsman won the 10,000; the Netherlands won the team pursuit.
Canadian women had two wins — the team pursuit and Christine Nesbitt in the 1,500. The Czech Republic’s Martina Sablikova won the 5,000.
SHORT-TRACK SPEEDSKATING
World Cup, Nagoya, Japan: Not a great weekend for U.S. women — none made a final, and Jessica Smith‘s seventh-place finish in the 1,500 was the top result.
A but better for the men: J.R. Celski (2nd, 1,000 and 7th, 1,500) and Travis Jayner (3rd, 500) made finals. Jeff Simon made a pair of semifinals.
BIATHLON
World Cup, Oestersund, Sweden: Jean Philippe Le Guellec is the first Canadian man to win a World Cup event, shooting cleanly to win the sprint. For the Americans, Tim Burke showed some signs of snapping into form, finishing 18th in the sprint and 15th in the pursuit. Susan Dunklee was the only U.S. woman to qualify for the pursuit, finishing 39th.
Tora Berger (see above) won all three women’s events; France’s Martin Fourcade won the men’s individual and pursuit.
LUGE
World Cup, Koenigssee, Germany: The host country swept the men’s podium, with Chris Mazdzer 16th and Taylor Morris 22nd. And they took four of the top five places in the women’s race, interrupted only by Canada’s Alex Gough in third. American women finished in pairs: Erin Hamlin and Emily Sweeney 11th/12th, Kate Hansen/Julia Clukey 20th/21st.
And in the doubles, it was … Germany, 1-2. Matthew Mortensen/Preston Griffall finished 11th; Jake Hyrns/Andrew Sherk 17th.
CYCLING
Cyclocross World Cup, Roubaix, France: It’s all about Katie Compton, who came back on the last lap for her third win of the World Cup season.
GYMNASTICS
World Cup, Stuttgart, Germany: Elizabeth Price, an alternate for the 2012 Olympic team, won the all-around. Danell Leyva had the highest score on horizontal bar and placed fifth in the all-around.
WEIGHTLIFTING
American Open, Palm Springs, Calif.: This was held. Not sure what’s up with results.
MMA
Bellator: Andrey Koreshkov, whose name sounds like a former Yes keyboardist but isn’t, remained unbeaten in winning the welterweight tournament final over Lyman Good. And we welcome Kala Hose back to … what? Knocked out in 22 seconds by Doug Marshall?
BAMMA: Alex Reid — to my knowledge, the only MMA fighter to fare better on Celebrity Big Brother than on The Ultimate Fighter — is back with a win.
KSW: UFC veterans Kendall Grove and Rodney Wallace traveled to Poland and lost. Grove at least lost to a strong opponent — Mamed Khalidov, the highest-ranked middleweight outside the UFC and Strikeforce.
Cage Contender: TUF alum Martin Stapleton won an old-school, one-night tournament that would never be allowed in the USA today.
RUGBY
Sevens World Series, Dubai: Samoa beat New Zealand 26-15 in the final. The USA beat Spain and put up good fights against France and South Africa but was oddly blown out by Canada.
Friendly: One of England’s “great victories in their history,” the BBC’s Tom Fordyce says, as New Zealand fell 38-21.
JUDO
Grand Slam, Tokyo: Didn’t see any Americans in the top eight.
Time for the showdown of friends and teammates — Jon Manley and Joey Rivera. They praise each other and hug. And Team Carwin thinks Team Nelson hasn’t bonded …
Colton Smith is cornering Manley. Cameron Diffley is cornering Rivera. Dana White is giddy. Denny’s is the sponsor. Herb Dean is the ref. They’re both 7-1. We haven’t heard anything from Julian Lane yet. This is exciting stuff.
After some standing exchanges, Manley rushes into Rivera and pushes him to the cage. Smith and Diffley keep up steady streams of positive reinforcement, like coaches who just walked out of a Positive Coaching Alliance workshop. (Hey, it’s a good program. Based on John Wooden’s ideals, so you can’t say it’s not old-school.)
Rivera reverses and gets a grip on a guillotine, but Manley reverses and finally gets the takedown. But somehow, he ends up in awful positions. The momentum swings back and forth like a table tennis referee’s eyes following the ball. (Sorry — I’ve seen that “bad high school analogies” meme maybe 10 times this week on Facebook.) Rivera gets Manley’s back and goes for the choke. Manley slips out and gets back on top. Rivera gets a triangle attempt. Manley escapes. Rivera goes for an armbar. Manley gets side control. That’s where Round 1 ends, and that probably means Manley took it 10-9.
In Round 2, Rivera spends the first 3:30 showing off his outstanding takedown defense. Manley finally gets the takedown and gets in side control. Somehow Rivera gets a triangle attempt. But Manley slips out.
Dana White recap: Rivera looked like he was on Xanax.
Jarman had it 19-19, but the other two judges correctly scored it 20-18 for Manley. Not a great fight — the friendship certainly played a factor. Manley, who has THE ONLY FINISH SO FAR THIS SEASON, is disappointed in his performance despite the win.
Then we go to the former best buds from Canada, Mike Ricci and Michael Hill, who start arguing in the house over something having to do with sauce being sabotaged. This leads to one of the dumbest trash-talk exchanges in TUF history.
Ricci: “You’ll get your chance.”
Hill: “You’ll get YOUR chance.”
Then we have an ad for the U.S. Marines, with Mike Ricci. Who’s Canadian. This is the most embarrassing moment for Canada since Bryan Adams released “Summer of ’69.”
Hill actually reminds us of a mulleted Bruce McCullough character from Kids in the Hall.
The fight starts with some modest fireworks, and Hill lands one or two decent shots. But when Ricci gets Hill to the ground, Hill’s defense sags. Ricci looks like he’s posturing up to try the Michael Scott “spit in Dwight’s mouth” technique, which is indeed illegal under the Unified Rules of MMA.
But instead, Ricci does a bit of damage. The horn sounds before he can do any significant work toward a submission.
In Round 2, Ricci gets it to the ground quickly and takes Hill’s back. Hill stands, but Ricci drapes himself on Hill’s back as they do the Pilobolus. They fall to the mat with Ricci punching away, and coach Roy Nelson is reduced to profanities. Hill manages to stand again, but Ricci gets a good solid grip on a rear naked choke and … loses it. Hill actually stands and lands a couple of consolation strikes before the horn sounds.
Judges couldn’t get it wrong if they tried. 20-18 x3 for Ricci.
Shane Carwin speaks for the first time in the episode. Don’t remember what he said. Dana White isn’t impressed with Hill’s ground game.
In the three remaining minutes, we get the semifinal pairings:
Jon Manley (Nelson) vs. Colton Smith (Nelson). Another buddy vs. buddy.
Mike Ricci (Carwin) vs. Neil Magny (Carwin)
On the next episode … the semifinals. And they say one thing is for sure — there will be a knockout. That means there’s another thing for sure — a semifinalist is getting the Knockout of the Season bonus, unless they give it for one of the prelims.
But before we leave, let’s forget about Ricci and Hill, remembering some of the many good things about Canada:
Duresport.com 