Bob Sledding 2026

We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.

How heavy was it snowing in Cortina?  They cancelled the third round of the team ski jumping, and gave the medals based only on the first two rounds.  Apparently, it’s believed that when you are flying 300 feet through the air without a parachute, being able to see where you’re going and supposed to land is A Good Thing.  By the way, the official name of the event is “Men’s Super Team Large Hill,” which sounds like a bad translation by a guy who does them for tech manuals.

There was an interesting race for the Bronze Medal in the men’s Team Pursuit speedskating.  Halfway through the two-team race, favored Netherlands (which has been crushing speedskating) were two minutes behind China…but kept cutting the margin in the final three laps.  And in the end, China held on to win, but only by .09 seconds.  In the Gold Medal race, the U.S. has been the dominating in the sport (having revolutionized it in their tactics several years back), but Italy has been very strong all year, and ended up winning by a huge five seconds, as the U.S. team took the Silver.

The Women's Short Program in figure skating began.  There were some very good programs in the early groups, notably Adeliya Petrosian of “AIN” (International Neutral Athletes, a designation to athletes from Russia and Belarus that are banned from the Olympics for invading Ukraine).  U.S. women haven’t gotten a singles figure skating medal in 20 years.  The three Americans are among those who would skate in the later group among the medal contenders, including Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu, who I’ve written about a bit, and Isabeau Levito, whose mother is from Milan, and whose grandmother not only lives in the city, but only 13 minutes from the rink.  They came into the event among the other top challengers, including Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, who got the Bronze Medal in the 2022 Olympics. 

In this top group that skated later, there was a superb program by another Japanese skater Ami Sakai, who somewhat unexpectedly jumped into Gold Medal contender position.  The top four skaters (including Alysa Liu in third) are bunched up so close to all be in position to win.  Isabeau Levito skated very well and is in distant (though challenging) contention for a medal, in eighth place.  But three-time and defending U.S. National Champion Amber Glenn, who skated an otherwise excellent program, had one major mistake, an under-rotated jump with two spins, not three, and that dropped her down to 12th, creating a huge hurdle for herself to even medal.  It’s so unfortunate – unlike Ilia Malinin who is 21, she is 26, and this might well be her only Olympics.  Happily, she was part of the Team Event and her skate helped the U.S. win the Gold Medal there.  The U.S. came into the event with an outside chance of sweeping the three medals.  But now, Japan is in a far-better position to do that.  And the U.S. could even be shut out, though Alysa Liu has as good a chance as any to win the Gold.  That’s how close the top skaters are.  It’s all up to the longer, Free Skate program.

In the Men’s 4x7.5km Biathlon Relay, France got off to a poor start, but was able to recover and come back to win its first-ever Gold Medal in the event.  The U.S. team did not medal, but finished fifth, their best-ever finish.  So, lots of “best evers” – but the best thing was the medal ceremony and seeing (and hearing) the French team blasting out a full-throated rendition of “La Marseilles.”  Given that the event entailed rifles and racing through the wilderness, you almost expected to see Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the background.

More to come…