Tag: 2014 olympics

olympic sports, winter sports

Sochi recap: Snowboarding, women’s slopestyle, 2nd heat

Posted on by Beau Dure

A couple of favorites struggled, and American Ty Walker did the bare minimum to keep going. But Jamie Anderson lived up to her favorite status.

Date: 6- Feb

Sport: Snowboarding

Event: Women’s slopestyle qualifing, second heat

How U.S. fared: Gold medal favorite Jamie Anderson was smooth as silk in the air and on all her landings in her first run, posting a massive 93.50. With her qualification safe, she opted not to take her second run.

Ty Walker was the first rider, but she bypassed every ramp. Her score: 1.00. (One judge gave her a 2.) Then she skipped her second run. Why? She’s hurt, and all she had to do to make the semifinals was make it down the slope once. Strategically, nothing wrong with it — just very strange to watch.

The stunner was Karly Shorr. The inexperienced 19-year-old slipped on her first run. On her second, needing to beat 77.75 to qualify for the final, she nailed it — 84.75.

Jessika Jenson slipped a little on each run.

What happened: Another surprise was Anna Gasser, a solid fifth in the X Games but not expected to post anything like the 95.50 she laid down on her second run.

Sarko Pancochova (Czech Republic), one of the favorites, had a so-so first run but still stood fourth with a 77.75. She didn’t try to improve on the second run, doing a few grabs but no twists or flips. Then she watched Shorr take away her direct qualification spot. Oops.

Norway’s Silje Norendal, first in the current World Snowboard Tour rankings, didn’t post a clean run and will need to go through the semifinals.

The direct qualifiers: Gasser, Anderson, Switzerland’s Elena Koenz, Shorr.

Quote: “It definitely wasn’t how I imagined my Olympic run, my first run in the Olympics, to be. But you just gotta play the cards in your hand and put myself in the best position for Sunday.” – Ty Walker

Full results

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olympic sports, winter sports

Sochi recap: Snowboarding, women’s slopestyle, 1st heat

Posted on by Beau Dure

Torah Bright and Isabel Derungs posted the top scores, while contender Kjersti Buaas had a painful accident.

Date: 6- Feb

Sport: Snowboarding

Event: Women’s slopestyle qualifying, first heat

How U.S. fared: They’re in the second heat, coming up next.

What happened: Three-event threat Torah Bright (Australia) laid down a conservative first run and was as surprised as anyone else when she got the top score of 85.25. Switzerland’s Isabel Derungs took over that top spot with 87.50 in the second run. Qualifying straight to the final: Derungs, Bright, Canada’s Spencer O’Brien and Finland’s Enni Rukajarvi. Everyone else in the heat must go through the semifinals.

Norway’s Kjersti Buaas, the 2006 halfpipe bronze medalist, had a nasty wipeout in Run 2. She got off-kilter in the air and was in obvious trouble. She landed on her side, thankfully with plenty of time to get her arms out and protect her head. She got up on her own but was limping heavily and needed medical help.

Rukajarvi also took a spill on her second run, bouncing off her board and landing on her back. But she bounced up again and finished on her own power, and her first-run score kept her in the top four.

Other than Buaas, the only other contender to miss out on qualifying directly to the final was Switzerland’s Sina Candrian. The World Championship runner-up had two wobbly runs.

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Final changes

Posted on by Beau Dure

Having gone through the last week of World Cup stuff, season standings and slopestyle accidents, the following medal projections have changed:

Alpine skiing, men’s super-G: Patrick Küng (Switzerland) bronze, Christof Innerhofer (Italy) considered

Alpine skiing, women’s giant slalom: Jessica Lindell-Vikarby (Sweden) gold, Tina Maze (Slovenia) considered

Biathlon, men’s individual: Emil Hegle Svendsen (Norway) bronze, Andreas Birnbacher (Germany) considered

Bobsled, two-man: Alexander Zubkov (Russia) bronze, Lyndon Rush (Canada) considered

Freestyle skiing, women’s skicross: Marielle Thompson (Canada) bronze, Kelsey Serwa (Canada) considered

Snowboard, men’s slopestyle: Staale Sandbech (Norway) silver, Max Parrot (Canada) bronze, Shaun White (USA) withdrew), Torstein Horgmo (Norway) injured

Adding to “considered”

Cross-country skiing, men’s sprint: Josef Wenzl (Germany)

Luge, women’s: Kate Hansen (USA)

No change in curling, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, skeleton, ski jumping, short-track, speedskating.

The final medal count: Norway 39, USA 35, Canada 30, Russia 26, Germany 23.

Games start in three and a half hours.

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olympic sports, winter sports

Unfinished Sochi and Olympic deprivations

Posted on by Beau Dure

Some of the stories about the Sochi Olympics range from the sad to the horrifying — immense costs, terror threats, something about stray dogs I don’t have the heart to investigate, etc.

Then you have the head-scratchers that provide the low-hanging fruit for journalists who can’t help but notice them. Like the double toilets — yes, they’ve found another one. Organizers should probably just drop the defensive tone about them and claim the double toilets are some sort of game inviting people to find them, like Easter eggs in a video game.

This weekend, The Washington Post ran a cheeky piece on the state of media hotels. The story came across a little silly — honestly, who hasn’t had the occasional missing light bulb or faulty TV remote in a hotel at some point? And why are we supposed to be aghast that the hotel didn’t have a room ready for someone who arrived earlier than her reservation? (And then accommodated her, anyway?) But the photo gallery at the bottom shows a few things in the usually tidy Olympic venues that look nowhere near ready for prime time.

The bigger story on media hotels: Some of them aren’t ready. That’s bad. And I checked — one of them is the hotel for which I held a reservation before deciding against the Sochi trip.

While all these little oopsies fit into the larger narrative that Russia has spent $51 billion and accomplished very little, I have another thought: Flashbacks to Torino.

Eight years ago, I arrived in Italy on a plane that looked and sounded like it was struggling to climb up and over the Alps. I landed in a tiny airport where a lot of confused people pointed in different directions to direct the arriving media to shuttles to their “media villages.” Three of us wound up in a cab that made a few loops along a traffic artery in Torino, then stopped in the median. A 10-minute phone call followed. Then we somehow made it to our dorms.

That would not be the only time I would get lost in Italy, but it may have been the only instance for which I could hold the Olympic organizers directly responsible.

Torino had plenty of additional idiosyncrasies, though. You had the media center sinks, which had one pedal for ice-cold water and one for HOLY BERLUSCONI THIS IS MELTING MY SKIN! The media center sundries shop had no cough drops but several varieties of condoms. The biathlon venue had no video display or anything that would let those of us in the standing area know who’s winning.

And they clearly had last-minute preparation issues. I arrived two days before the opening ceremony. The next day, I saw a crew working on the monorail track — all 300 yards of what apparently remains from a 1961 expo.

[cetsEmbedGmap src=https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Palavela,+Turin,+Italy&hl=en&ll=45.021335,7.668886&spn=0.003024,0.00523&sll=45.058198,7.695065&sspn=0.008549,0.020921&oq=palavela&t=h&hq=Palavela,&hnear=Turin,+Piedmont,+Italy&z=18 width=450 height=425 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no]

Check this photo and my blog post from the time, and you’ll see a star-shaped sculpture. At night, it’s supposed to turn and lift water from the pond below. About halfway through the Games, they finally filled the pond with enough water to make it work. By that time, the bathrooms in the Media Center had taken a turn for the worse.

(I was in the Media Center most of the time, watching five TVs at once to keep up the live blog that I re-discovered today through the Wayback Machine.)

They did have one advantage over the Beijing bathrooms, though — you could flush the toilet paper. In the Beijing Media Center, no. They put up signs with anthropomorphic toilets asking people not to put paper in them. Trash bins full of used toilet paper smell exactly as you think.

Fortunately, most of the media facilities didn’t have these:

IMG_3316

Yes, you’re supposed to squat.

So Sochi isn’t alone in unique toilet fixtures or other novelties. And it’s not alone in terror threats. I watched helicopters fly ominously over the Salt Lake opening ceremony, and I saw police clear out a block for a suspicious package. In today’s media climate, that would’ve been a good couple of hours of cable programming. Then, it was a couple of sentences in the next day’s paper.

Torino actually had a suspicious vehicle near the Media Center, which was convenient for coverage purposes. It was eventually exploded. As I said at the time, I think the carbinieri just wanted to blow something up.

Hosting the Olympics is a unique experience. Welcome to an elite club, Sochi. Now, please, take care of my buddies over there.

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olympic sports, winter sports

SportsMyriad’s Sochi plans

Posted on by Beau Dure

Overwhelmed by Olympic coverage? Looking for one place that will give you the basic who, what and how (where and when are pretty much assumed — February in Sochi) of the 2014 Winter Games?

That’s what we’re going to do here. And I do mean “we” for real this time. I’ve got a handful of people joining me to give short, sweet recaps of every Olympic medal event and many of the preliminary events.

I still have a couple of openings in the schedule. If you’re a journalism student looking for a little bit of experience writing the concise copy that your future employers will demand, or if you’re an Olympic geek who needs an excuse to take the household TV at 3 a.m., this is an ideal opportunity.

So be sure to add the SportsMyriad feed to Feedly or your favorite reader in the post-Google Reader era, or just check out the duresport Twitter feed, where all new posts will be tweeted. And if you’re interested in writing, please get in touch.

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Can USA break record?

Posted on by Beau Dure

In 2010, U.S. athletes won a record 37 medals. And with so many new events on the agenda, including red, white and blue-bred action sports, the USA should be primed to do even better in Sochi, right?

And yet the SportsMyriad medal projections have the USA coming up just short with 36 medals, while Norway breaks the record with 38. Infostrada holds Norway to 36 but drops the USA down to 30.

That’s not exactly a down year for the USA, but what’s going on? Take a look, and we’ll see if there’s any way to reach the high 30s …

LIKELY LOSSES

Alpine skiing
2010 medals: 8
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 4

Explains a lot, doesn’t it? In 2010, the big guns came through for seven medals — Bode Miller three, Julia Mancuso two, Lindsey Vonn two. Then Andrew Weibrecht came out of nowhere to make it eight. This time, Vonn followed up World Cup dominance with a series of injuries that will keep her out. Miller and Mancuso are trying to peak for one more good run at the medals, but they won’t repeat their five-medal haul. The upside: Mikaela Shiffrin and Ted Ligety are the world’s best in their best events.

Worst case: Shiffrin or Ligety misses a gate, no one comes through in the combined. 1 medal

Best case: Shiffrin medals in giant slalom as well as slalom, Ligety and Miller both nail the combined, Ligety also sails through the GS, Mancuso pulls out one more good race, and someone (perhaps Stacey Cook) surprises. 7 medals

Nordic combined
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

You don’t want to completely count out Bill Demong, a major part of the U.S. breakthrough in 2010, but this is not the powerhouse team with three legit contenders that romped through Whistler.

Worst case: Demong can’t quite turn back time, and consistent World Cup performer Bryan Fletcher can’t lift the team in the relay. 0 medals

Best case: Still hard to see an individual medal, but Demong, Fletcher, Taylor Fletcher and six-time Olympian Todd Lodwick can’t be ruled out in the relay. 1 medal

Short-track speedskating
2010 medals: 6
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 0

Anything can happen in short-track, but without Apolo Ohno, Katherine Reutter and a qualified women’s relay team, it probably won’t. It’s likely all up to J.R. Celski.

Worst case: Celski gets boxed out in all three individual events, and the men’s relay can’t hang with the favorites. 0 medals

Best case: Celski gets a couple of good runs. 2 medals

LITTLE CHANGE LIKELY

Biathlon
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

It’ll happen one of these years, as U.S. athletes keep getting better. Tim Burke got his sixth World Cup podium earlier this season. Susan Dunklee just missed her first podium in a weakened World Cup field.

Worst case: Anything other than the best case. 0 medals

Best case: Burke puts it all together in the sprint and holds on in the pursuit. 2 medals

Bobsled
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 2
Infostrada projection: 3

The projections might be underselling the USA here. Steven Holcomb won everything in North America, struggled when the World Cup moved to Europe, then rebounded. The women’s team may be taking over from Germany as the world’s best.

Worst case: Holcomb just misses in each event. Only one U.S. women’s sled runs well. 1 medal

Best case: Holcomb doubles up, and the U.S. women get two. 4 medals

Curling
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

The experienced women’s team is a contender but not a favorite.

Worst case: Missed shots, particularly among the skips, and lost confidence. 0 medals

Best case: Erika Brown is dialed in. 1 medal

Figure skating
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 2

For all the moaning over the dearth of talent in the singles events, the U.S. still has a deep team and should therefore thrive in the team event. In ice dancing, Meryl Davis and Charlie White are looking at either gold or silver.

Worst case: Gracie Gold doesn’t repeat her U.S. Championship performance, Ashley Wagner does, and the men and pairs don’t come through in the team event. 1 medal

Best case: Wagner or Gold has a near-flawless performance to reach the podium, and the men and pairs do just enough to get the team going. 3 medals

Freestyle skiing (moguls, aerials, skicross)
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 3
Infostrada projection: 3

The U.S. strength is moguls. Olympic champion Hannah Kearney is still the best. Heather McPhie, Patrick Deneen and Bradley Wilson are contenders. The aerials squad has longer odds. Skicross is a free-for-all, but the USA is only sending one man and no women.

Worst case: Hard to imagine a complete wipeout in moguls. 1 medal

Best case: All four moguls contenders break through. Maybe we hold out hope for Emily Cook in aerials or John Teller in ski cross? 4 medals

Ice hockey
2010 medals: 2
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

The women’s competition is still pretty much the USA and Canada. The men’s competition is wide open.

Worst case: The men get the Russian, Slovenian and Slovakian flags confused, thereby ruining their group-stage games. Or they just struggle in that group and get a low seed for the playoff bracket, likely winning their first game but then falling to one of the group winners in the quarterfinals. The women only get silver. 1 medal

Best case: The women beat Canada in the final. The men beat a tense Russian team in the group stage, cruise through the quarterfinals and win one more. 2 medals

Luge
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 0
Infostrada projection: 0

The USA has never medaled in men’s or women’s singles despite a couple of close calls, and they won’t be favored this time. The doubles teams have fallen off since collecting silver and bronze in 1998 and 2002. But it’s not a bad team, so the new relay event gives them a shot. At least Germany can only win one medal in that event.

Worst case: The U.S. sliders don’t figure out the weird Sochi track with its uphill sections. 0 medals

Best case: Erin Hamlin, the surprise world champion in 2009, repeats her feat of moving up from top five to top three. Chris Mazdzer, Hamlin and the top doubles team are in top form in the relay. 2 medals

Snowboarding
2010 medals: 5
2014 projection: 7
Infostrada projection: 5

The new slopestyle event should help the USA’s medal count. The new parallel slalom won’t. Jamie Anderson is a strong favorite in the women’s slopestyle, Lindsey Jacobellis is still as consistent as anyone can get in snowboardcross, and the USA has no shortage of capable halfpipe athletes.

Worst case: Jacobellis wipes out, Shaun White can’t pull off the halfpipe-slopestyle double, and a few other halfpipe competitors have an off night. 3 medals

Best case: Two medals for White, one each for Jacobellis and Anderson, one more in men’s halfpipe, two in women’s halfpipe. That’s actually what I’ve projected. 7 medals

Speedskating
2010 medals: 4
2014 projection: 7
Infostrada projection: 4

Not sure Infostrada has caught up to take Brittany Bowe’s big season into account. Shani Davis and Heather Richardson are reliable contenders.

Worst case: Bowe gets Olympic jitters, and Davis and Richardson only get one each. 2 medals

Best case: Two for Bowe, two for Davis, two for Richardson, one for men’s team pursuit. 7 medals

LIKELY GAINS

Freestyle skiing (new events: slopestyle, halfpipe)
2010 medals: 0 – events didn’t exist
2014 projection: 6
Infostrada projection: 5

Yes, the new events should be very, very good to the USA. They’ve honed their craft in the X Games, and they’re ready to roll.

Worst case: Torin Yater-Wallace doesn’t regain his form after coming back from injury, wiping out the good 1-2 punch with David Wise in halfpipe. The U.S. slopestyle men don’t follow through on the form from the tough qualifying competition that knocked out current world champion Tom Wallisch. 2 medals

Best case: Wise and Yater-Wallace soar to medals. The slopestyle men sweep. Keri Herman and Devin Logan double up in slopestyle, and Maddie Bowman emerges from a crowded halfpipe competition. 8 medals

Cross-county skiing
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

Kikkan Randall has been on a roll in freestyle sprints for a few years now. In the Olympic rotation, this year’s sprint is freestyle.

Worst case: Randall gets caught in traffic in the one of the sprint heats, and no one else emerges. 0 medals

Best case: Randall wins, and the U.S. women also medal in the team sprint or maybe the relay. 2 medals 

Skeleton
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

Noelle Pikus-Pace just needs to make sure Britain can’t challenge the legality of her sled.

Worst case: Pikus-Pace crashes. Not likely. 0 medals

Best case: Pikus-Pace wins her duel with Britain’s Libby Yarnold, and Matt Antoine follows through on a solid World Cup season. 2 medals

Ski jumping
2010 medals: 0
2014 projection: 1
Infostrada projection: 1

The men would be thrilled with the top 20. Lindsey Van won the first women’s world championship in 2009 but hasn’t been in good form recently. That leaves Sarah Hendrickson, the current world champion who was easily one of the two best in the world before her knee injury. Hendrickson made it back in time to make the team, but what sort of form can she recapture?

Worst case: Hendrickson isn’t all the way back. 0 medals

Best case: She is. 1 medal

OVERALL

Take the worst cases, best cases, the “reasonable worst” (not utter catastrophe but a run of bad luck), the “reasonable best” (people with a pretty good chance of medaling), the Infostrada projection and the SportsMyriad projection.

Table 35 – Sheet1

So if everything goes reasonably well — or if the number of surprise medalists matches the number of surprise non-medalists — the USA can match its record of 37 medals. But it won’t take much to slide to 30. Bad form in Alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and speedskating could see that number drop into the 20s.

The most likely scenario is this: The USA’s gains in freestyle skiing and maybe Nordic events aren’t quite enough to overcome the losses of Lindsey Vonn and Apolo Ohno, along with the decline of the Nordic combined golden generation and the USA’s elder Alpine skiers. But they’ll give it a good run.

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Weekend update

Posted on by Beau Dure

No major changes to the medal projections this week, but we still have some news that’ll shake up the lists of contenders. Changes are in italic.

Alpine skiing: Good news for the U.S. men’s combined hopes — Ted Ligety won a supercombined, and Bode Miller added a few slalom points (his first World Cup points in slalom since 2011) to a fifth-place downhill run. Ligety is projected for silver; add Miller to consideration.

France’s Alexis Pinturault won the men’s slalom and was second to Ligety in supercombined, also boosting his status as combined favorite. Switzerland’s Patrick Keung won the downhill — the 30-year-old is having a career year in the speed events and might need to be considered in both.

The weekend women’s races were wiped out, but Mikaela Shiffrin handily won a slalom last week.

The U.S. team will be announced Jan. 26, but the only people on the bubble aren’t likely to be medal threats.

Biathlon: The USA’s Susan Dunklee finished fourth in a World Cup sprint, just 0.6 seconds off the podium. Unreal. Not too many conclusions to draw from other results, though it’s time to add Sweden’s men to the relay contenders.

Bobsled: Yes, Lolo Jones and Lauryn Williams made the Olympic team. More importantly, all three U.S. sleds are running well, with Williams teaming with Jamie Greubel to win a World Cup race. Also, Steve Holcomb broke his European slump with a two-man win.

Figure skating: The European championships saw a few contenders in action. The women’s competition was the most interesting — Russia’s Yulia Lipnitskaya, all of 15 years old, tool gold ahead of teammate Adelina Sotnikova and Italy’s Carolina Kostner. Russia swept the pairs; German contenders Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy withdrew with illness.

In ice dancing, add new European champions Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte (Italy) to the contenders.

Spain’s Javier Fernandez predictably won the men’s event ahead of Russia’s Sergei Voronov and Konstantin Menshov, both of whom will apparently sit out in Sochi while ageless contender Evgeni Plushenko will indeed get that berth.

Freestyle skiing: The U.S. team announcement is out and injured halfpipe contender Torin Yater-Wallace made the cut. Slopestyle champion Tom Wallisch did not. That actually won’t affect the projected medal count — just move Nick Goepper up to gold and Gus Kenworthy up to silver. The USA is ridiculously deep in this event.

Two-event contender Devin Logan has clinched a spot in women’s slopestyle but is not going in halfpipe.

Moguls contenders Patrick Deneen and Bradley Wilson have clinched their spots.

John Teller made a case to be considered in skicross with a World Cup win, while favorite Alex Fiva (Switzerland) is faltering.

Ski jumping: Sarah Hendrickson is back on the ramp. That team will be named Wednesday. Meanwhile, Japan’s Sara Takanashi has won eight of the last nine World Cups.

Nordic combined: Still not sold on the USA in Nordic combined, but Bryan Fletcher had a promising fifth-place finish.

Cross-country skiing: Still sold on Kikkan Randall, who won another freestyle sprint.

Short-track speedskating: Chinese favorite Wang Meng collided with a teammate in training and broke her ankle. She’ll bump out of the gold-medal spot in the 500, bumping up Fan Kexin (CHN), Seung-Hi Park (KOR), Arianna Fontana (ITA).

We’ve all seen what happened at the European Championships, right? That won’t change the medal projections.

Speedskating: No big surprises at the World Sprint Championships men’s competition. Dutch two-event contender Michael Mulder won the overall ahead of the USA’s Shani Davis, who isn’t great at 500 but traded wins in the two 1,000-meter races with Kazakhstan’s Denis Kuzin.

China’s Jing Yu won the women’s overall and will bump into contention in 500. The USA’s Heather Richardson took overall bronze and won one of the 1,000s.

Based on the Euro Championships, bump Yvonne Nauta (NED) ahead of Claudia Pechstein (GER) in the women’s 5,000.

Snowboarding: Two-time medalist (gold, silver) Hannah Teter got that last U.S. halfpipe berth ahead of Gretchen Bleiler and Elena Hight. The others: Kelly Clark, Arielle Gold and Kaitlyn Farrington. They’re all contenders.

The men’s halfpipe squad also has four legit contenders: Shaun White, Taylor Gold, Greg Bretz and Danny Davis.

Starting to worry about parallel events contender Roland Fischnaller (Italy).

OVERALL

The only medal projection changes are in speedskating (women’s 5,000) and short-track speedskating (women’s 500). The next changes: +1 bronze to Italy, +1 bronze to Netherlands, -1 bronze to Germany, -1 silver to China. (Also, South Korea bumps one bronze up to silver.)

Germany is officially down to fifth in the medal count, which still seems strange and will require a bit more investigation. Farther down the table, Italy and China swap places.

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Jan. 14 update

Posted on by Beau Dure

Time for a few tweaks given the results (and untimely injuries) of late — and when you add it all up, we have a new leader:

Alpine skiing: Lindsey Vonn’s absence shakes things up a bit and pretty well insures the USA won’t come near its total of eight medals in 2010. Ted Ligety (third overall) and Mikaela Shiffrin are still favorites, and Norway’s Aksel Lund Svindal (second overall; downhill and super-G leader) is still as dominant as ever.

Changes:

  • Men’s downhill: Erik Guay (CAN) up to silver, Klaus Kröll (AUT) down to considered, Adrien Theaux (FRA) up to considered
  • Men’s giant slalom: Alexis Pinturault (FRA) up to bronze, Manfred Moelgg (ITA) down to considered
  • Men’s slalom: Mario Matt (AUT) up to silver, Ivica Kostelic (CRO) down to considered
  • Men’s combined: Pinturault up to gold, Ligety up to silver, Svindal up to bronze, Kostelic down to considered
  • Women’s downhill: Vonn out, Maria Hoefl-Riesch (GER) up to gold, Tina Maze (SLO) up to silver, Tina Weirather (LIE) up to bronze, Marianne Kaufmann-Abderhalden (SUI) up to considered
  • Women’s super-G: Vonn out, Anna Fenninger (AUT) up to gold, Tina Maze (SLO) down to silver, Lara Gut (SUI) up to bronze, Julia Mancuso (USA) down to considered
  • Women’s giant slalom: Jessica Lindell-Vikarby (SWE) up to considered
  • Women’s slalom: My medal picks are currently 1-2-4 in the World Cup standings. They’ll stay put.

Biathlon: Andreas Birnbacher (Germany) has been sick, so we won’t knock him out of the projections just yet. Not too many surprises on the men’s side, though France’s relay team needs to improve. The surprise in the women’s competition is the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Soukalova, who’s leading the World Cup standings. France’s Marie Dorin Habert has a ruptured tendon in her ankle, so we’ll remove her from consideration.

Changes:

  • Women’s sprint: Soukalova (CZE) up to bronze, Olena Pidrushna (UKR) down to considered
  • Women’s pursuit: Soukalova up to silver, Valj Semerenko (UKR) up to bronze, Andrea Henkel (GER) and Pidrushna down to considered

Bobsled: The early-season races in North America have skewed the current standings toward the U.S. and Canadian teams. The men haven’t done as well in Europe. Manuel Machata isn’t getting many opportunities for Germany, and Latvia’s Oskars Melbardis isn’t in great form.

Changes:

  • Men’s two-man and four-man: Drop Machata from considered
  • Women’s: Elana Meyers (USA) up to silver, Sandra Kiriasis (GER) down to bronze, Cathleen Martini (GER) down to considered, Jamie Greubel (USA) up to considered

Cross-country skiing: Dario Cologna (SUI) is trying to come back from ankle surgery. We’ll leave him in for now. A couple of other skiers have skipped the odd World Cup event or the entire Tour de Ski, so the World Cup standings from this season aren’t that meaningful. One surprise: American Simi Hamilton won a freestyle sprint.

Changes: 

  • Women’s sprint: Denise Herrman (GER) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (NOR) up to considered

Figure skating: Most of the pre-Sochi competition is complete aside from the European Championships this week, so the projections won’t change much. The Four Continents will only have a couple of Olympians in action. But qualification and national championships have made things interesting. Ashley Wagner placed fourth, and her inclusion is mildly controversial. Evgeni Plushenko on the fringe of Russia’s plans, Japan’s Miki Ando retired after missing out an Olympic berth, and projected gold medalist Mao Asada was third in Japan’s championships. At least defending gold medalist Yuna Kim won handily in South Korea after skipping the Grand Prix season. Gracie Gold’s score from U.S. Championships would be the highest in the world this year, but would international judges be as generous?

Changes:

  • Women’s: Gracie Gold (USA) considered. Miki Ando (Japan) out. Considered list now specifying the likely Russian skaters: Adelina Sotnikova and Julia Lipnitskaia

Freestyle skiing: The X Games and World Cup events may still shake things up.

Changes in aerials

  • Men: 2010 World Cup champion Anton Kusnhir (BLR) missed the 2012-13 season and has come back with a win in Deer Valley and another podium. Countryman Alexei Grishin, the 2010 gold medalist, is making a comeback and was third in Deer Valley. They’re up to considered.
  • Women: We’ll see who makes China and Australia teams. USA’s Ashley Caldwell and Emily Cook up to considered.

Changes in moguls

  • Men: Medal contenders are 1-2-3 in World Cup. No change.
  • Women: No change, though Miki Ito (JPN) is trying to come back from a knee injury.

Changes in skicross

  • Men: Dave Duncan (CAN) up to silver, Andreas Matt (AUT) up to bronze, Chris Del Bosco (CAN) down to considered, Filip Flisar (SLO) down to considered
  • Women: Katrin Mueller (SUI) up to considered

Changes in slopestyle

  • Men: Waiting for U.S. team announcement to shake things up.
  • Women: Kaya Turski (CAN) is fighting a knee injury. Devin Logan (USA) up to considered

Changes in halfpipe

  • Men: Watching health of Torin Yater-Wallace (USA). Justin Dorey (CAN) up to considered.
  • Women: Roz Groenewoud (CAN) had — you guessed it — knee surgery. We’ll see how she recovers. Devin Logan (USA) up to considered — yes, in two events

Luge: They’ve run seven of nine World Cup events this season, so that should be enough to give us a clearer picture. Still a whole lot of Germany.

Changes

  • Men: David Möller (GER) up to silver, Dominik Fischnaller (ITA) up to bronze, Andi Langenhan (GER) down to considered, Chris Mazdzer (USA) up to considered
  • Women, doubles, relay: No change

Nordic combined: Most medal contenders are having solid seasons, particularly World Cup leader Eric Frenzel (GER) and Jason Lamy-Chappuis (FRA).

Changes

  • Normal hill: Mikko Kokslien (NOR) up to bronze, Bernhard Gruber (AUT) down to considered

Short-track speedskating: No change. We’ll keep an eye on the Euro championships and make sure all the picks are healthy, but the major pre-Sochi competitions are long complete.

Skeleton: Feeling a little more bullish on Matt Antoine (USA) but not quite moving him up into the medals.

Changes

  • Men: Tomass Dukurs (LAT) up to bronze, Frank Rommel (GER) down to considered
  • Women: Shelley Rudman (GBR) up to bronze, Marion Thees (GER) down to considered

Ski jumping: He used to look like Harry Potter. Then he looked like Trevor Horn. Now he’s back — Salt Lake/Vancouver champion Simon Ammann (SUI) was third in the Four Hills. And 40something Japanese jumper Noriaki Kasai is fourth in the World Cup. In women’s, we’re still holding out hope for the rehabbing Sarah Hendrickson (USA).

Changes

  • Men’s large hill: Simon Ammann (SUI) up to bronze, Noriaki Kasai (JPN) up to considered, Anders Jacobsen (NOR) down to considered
  • Women’s: Irina Avvakumova (RUS) up to bronze, Carina Vogt (GER) up to considered, Coline Mattel (FRA) down to considered

Snowboarding: Just did the picks 14 days ago; no point in changing anything until after the X Games.

Speedskating: These picks were also recent, and the European Allround Championships didn’t give us any reason to change.

No changes in curling or ice hockey, and no changes are likely unless we have a sudden wave of injuries or other changes.

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Hockey

Posted on by Beau Dure

Once upon a time, the Olympics were the only time the world’s best athletes faced each other in many sports. That’s not true in most sports these days, but it applies to men’s hockey. The men’s World Championship takes place during the NFL playoffs, thereby depriving the tournament of most of the world’s best players. And those tournaments play a big role in the rankings that we need to take with a whole bunch of salt.

The women’s competition is a little easier to predict. The best players are all available for international events, and the USA and Canada keep playing each other. They’re also unquestionably the top two teams in the world. Finland has finished third in 10 of the 15 World Championships and two of the four Olympics. Russia finished third in 2013 and is playing at home.

Into the boards we go …

MEN

Gold: Sweden
Silver: Canada
Bronze: Russia

Also considered: Finland, USA

2013 world ranking: Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Canada, USA, Switzerland, Slovakia

2013 World Championships: Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Finland, Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia

2010 Olympics: Canada, USA, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Switzerland

WOMEN

Gold: USA
Silver: Canada
Bronze: Finland

Also considered: Russia

2013 world ranking: USA, Canada, Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Slovakia

2013 World Championships: USA, Canada, Russia, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden

2010 Olympics: Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, China, Slovakia

KEY PLAYERS

Men

Canada: Sidney Crosby (C, Pittsburgh), Ryan Getzlaf (C, Anaheim), Steven Stamkos (C, Tampa Bay – injury concern), Corey Perry (RW, Anaheim), Martin St. Louis (RW, Tampa Bay), Duncan Keith (D, Chicago), Drew Doughty (D, Los Angeles), P.J. Subban (D, Montreal), Carey Price (G, Montreal), Roberto Luongo (G, Vancouver)

Czech Republic: Jaromir Jagr (RW, New Jersey), Jiri Hudler (C, Calgary), David Krejci (C, Calgary), Patrik Elias (LW, New Jersey), Radim Vrbata (RW, Phoenix), Marek Zidlicky (D, New Jersey)

Finland: Mikko Koivu (C, Minnesota), Valtteri Filppula (C, Tampa Bay), Jussi Jokinen (LW, Pittsburgh), Olli Jokinen (C, Winnipeg), Saku Koivu (C, Anaheim), Kimmo Timonen (D, Philadelphia), Tuukka Rask (G, Boston), Antti Niemi (G, San Jose)

Russia: Alex Ovechkin (LW, Washington), Evgeni Malkin (C, Pittsburgh), Pavel Datsyuk (C, Detroit), Ilya Kovalchuk (LW, SKA St. Petersburg), Alexander Semin (RW, Carolina), Andrei Markov (D, Montreal), Alexei Emelin (D, Montreal), Sergei Bobrovsky (G, Columbus)

Slovakia: Marian Hossa (RW, Chicago), Zdeno Chara (D, Boston), Jaroslav Halak (G, St. Louis)

Sweden: Henrik Lundqvist (G, NY Rangers), Daniel Sedin (LW, Vancouver), Henrik Sedin (C, Vancouver), Henrik Zetterberg (C, Detroit), Nicklas Backstrom (C, Washington), Erik Karlsson (D, Ottawa)

USA: Patrick Kane (RW, Chicago), Zach Parise (LW, Minnesota), Ryan Kesler (C, Vancouver), Phil Kessel (RW, Toronto), Ryan Suter (D, Minnesota), Ryan Miller (G, Buffalo), Jonathan Quick (G, Los Angeles)

Women

Canada: Marie-Philip Poulin (2013 World Championship leading scorer and MVP), Catherine Ward (top-scoring defenseman at 2013 Worlds), Hayley Wickenheiser (20-year veteran), Gillian Apps (bruiser). Had some turmoil with coach Dan Church stepping down in late December.

Finland: Jenni Hiirikoski (2013 World Championship defensive award), Noora Raty (140 saves at 2013 Worlds), Michelle Karvinen (team-leading three goals at 2013 Worlds)

Russia: Nadezhda Alexandrova (2013 World Championship goaltending award; 98.63 save percentage at Worlds), Yekaterina Smolentseva (three goals at 2013 Worlds), Anna Shibanova (active defenseman)

USA: Brianna Decker (six goals in 2013 Worlds), Amanda Kessel (six assists in 2013 Worlds), Jessie Vetter (starting goalie)

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medal projections, olympic sports, winter sports

2014 medal projections: Curling

Posted on by Beau Dure

Suppose basketball, globally, had a bunch of teams in the USA and a few elsewhere. Then for Olympic basketball, each country selected one team from within its country. Maybe the USA sends the Miami Heat, Spain sends Barcelona, etc. That’s curling, except that we put Canada in place of the USA.

Curling has a lot of competitions through the year, some on the World Curling Tour. Check the list of men’s teams on the WCT, and you’ll see a lot of Canadians. Then you have the World Championships and Olympics, in which each country is limited to one team.

Obviously, it’s a bit more competitive to win Canada’s slot than it is to represent a lot of other countries. But that doesn’t mean Canada is always a shoo-in, especially in women’s curling. Scotland is the sport’s birthplace, and a lot of European countries are moving up. The U.S. men had to fight for an Olympic spot this time around, winning must-win after must-win to make it to Sochi.

Your humble blogger here loves curling. And he loves having so much information so nicely compiled. The World Curling Federation has a gateway site full of Olympic-related curling news. Some nice person at Wikipedia is collecting links to each country’s team nominations. And the World Curling Federation has overall rankings along with the Olympic qualification rankings combining the results from the last two World Championships. That gives us more data than we’ll have for men’s hockey, which we’re going to predict with a dartboard and some Molson.

To the rink we go …

MEN (skips in parentheses)

Gold: Canada (Brad Jacobs)
Silver: Sweden (Niklas Edin)
Bronze: Britain (David Murdoch)

Also considered: Denmark (Rasmus Stjerne), Norway (Thomas Ulsrud)

Olympic qualification ranking: Canada, Sweden, Britain***, Norway, Denmark, China, Switzerland, USA 8th*, Russia 11th**, Germany 14th

2013 World Championship: Sweden (Edin), Canada (Jacobs), Scotland (Murdoch), Denmark (Stjerne), Norway (Ulsrud), China (Riu Liu), Switzerland (Sven Michel), Czech Republic, USA (Brady Clark), Russia (Andrey Drozdov), Japan, Finland

(Sochi skips who weren’t at Worlds: USA’s John Shuster, Germany’s John Jahr)

Overall ranking: Canada, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, China, USA, Germany, Russia

2010 Olympic medalists: Canada (Kevin Martin), Norway (Ulsrud), Switzerland (Ralph Stöckli)

WOMEN

Gold: Sweden (Margaretha Sigfridsson)
Silver: Britain (Eve Muirhead)
Bronze: Canada (Jennifer Jones)

Also considered: Switzerland (Mirjam Ott), USA (Erika Brown)

Olympic qualification ranking: Sweden, Switzerland, Britain***, Canada, USA, Russia**, Denmark, South Korea, Japan 10th*, China 11th*

2013 World Championship: Scotland (Muirhead), Sweden (Sigfridsson), Canada (Rachel Homan), USA (Brown), Switzerland (Silvana Tirinzoni), Russia (Anna Sidorova), Japan (Satsuki Fujisawa), Denmark (Lene Nielsen), China (Wang Bingyu), Italy, Germany, Latvia

(Sochi skips who weren’t at Worlds: Canada’s Jones, Switzerland’s Ott, Japan’s Ayumi Ogasawara, South Korea’s Ji-Sun Kim)

Overall ranking: Sweden, Canada, Britain, Switzerland, China, Denmark, USA, Russia, Japan, South Korea

2010 Olympic medalists: Canada (Cheryl Bernard), Sweden (Anette Norberg), China (Wang)

*-qualified for Olympics through Olympic qualification event

**-qualified for Olympics as host nation

***-“Britain” is really “Scotland.” England and Wales have their own teams, but they’re not contenders for Olympic berths.

BIOS

Men

Niklas Edin (Sweden): Fourth in 2010 Olympics. Third in 2011 and 2012 World Championships, then world champion in 2013.

Brad Jacobs (Canada): Second in 2013 World Championships. Won three of six World Curling Tour events in 2013.

David Murdoch (Britain):  Fourth in 2006 Olympics; fifth in 2010. World champion in 2006 and 2009; second in 2005 and 2008; third in 2010 and 2013.

John Shuster (USA): Played on Pete Fenson’s 2006 Olympic bronze medalist team. Moved on to skip his own team in 2010 Olympics and struggled. Joined Craig Brown’s team, then moved back on his own with a reshuffled lineup.

Rasmus Stjerne (Denmark): World junior champion in 2009. Fourth in 2013 World Championships. His father was a World Championship bronze medalist.

Thomas Ulsrud (Norway): 2010 silver medalist. Three-time World Championship bronze medalist. But most importantly, check out the pants.

Women

Erika Brown (USA): On two World Championship runner-up teams (1996, 1999) and the U.S. team for the first official Olympic competition in 1998. Now reunited with Debbie McCormick, who was also on the 1998 team and went on to be a world champion skip (2003). McCormick skipped the 2010 team and joined up with Brown for a team with tremendous international experience, finishing fourth in the 2013 World Championships.

Jennifer Jones (Canada): 2008 world champion; third place in 2010 Worlds. Has eight Grand Slam wins.

Eve Muirhead (Britain): Only 19 when she skipped at 2010 Olympics. Went on to take silver in 2010 Worlds and win the 2013 world championship. Also plays bagpipes.

Mirjam Ott (Switzerland): 2002 and 2006 Olympic silver medalist; 2012 world champion. Seven World Curling Tour wins in the last four years (four in 2010-11).

Margaretha Sigfridsson (Sweden): Four-time World Championship runner-up (2002, 2009, 2012, 2013). A rare team setup — she’s skip, but she throws the first rocks.

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