Bob Sledding 2026
We watch the Olympics all day so you don’t have to.
I mentioned the other day that I liked the short track speedskating races, which are like demolition derby, and that the team relays were even more fun, like a prison riot crossed with a Marx Bros, with bodies overlapping in and out of the action. (Among other things, on the team relay, skaters give a push to their teammate about to go next.) Well, in the U.S. women’s team qualifying race, a skater gave a push to her teammate taking off, and she ended up pushing her to the ground. Impressively, the fallen skater was able to touch her teammate back while sliding along the ground, who then took off. Unfortunately, you can’t afford to lose even a second, and they ended up finishing third and only the top two teams qualify.
And if you still think I’m exaggerating in my description of short track, in the finals with nine teams racing, three of the teams crashed, and a fourth was bumped far enough to be taken out of medal place. The announcer described it as…“like a demotion derby.”
As much as one may watch of the Olympics over time, you still learn new things. In this case, it’s that in short track racing, the left blade on skates is not centered like on the right (and on all regular ice skates) but shifted a bit to the left. That’s because skaters are racing around a small oval and always leaning left, so having the left blade in the center would make the athlete imbalanced.
There was a fascinating oddity in the first run of the Women’s Giant Slalom. The first skier did the run in 1:03:97. The second skier’s time was -- 1:03:97. And those two held a long time until the tenth skier, who made her run in -- 1:03:97!! It was a three-way tie for a long while. And oddly, after the second and final run (times are combined), there were two skiers tied for first place until the very last skier – Federick Brignone of Italy, who had won the Super-G with a great comeback time after suffering a devastating injury earlier in the season. And she ended up winning the Giant Slalom, as well, for her second Gold. In a lovely moment, the two skiers previously tied for first (and now ended up tied for the Silver Medal) ran up to Brignone and – with smiles on their faces – dropped to the knees and began to bow in high admiration with their arms outstretched.
In large hill ski jumping, Domen Prevc won the Gold Medal. But what’s of note is that four Prevc siblings are ski jumpers, and together across several Olympics they’ve won nine Olympic medals. I can only imagine what dinners are like at the Prevc house at holidays, when they all get together and debate bragging rights.
I’m glad to see the bobsledding competition start. It was with the “monobob,” a single person race (for women only) that was introduced in 2022. This was to give women the same number of bobsled events as men. Both have the two-person bob, but men also have the four-person (which is probably my favorite, for a few reasons, one of which is – since in the bobsled, everyone is largely hidden inside the sled – I find it more fun at the beginning of the race seeing so many people jumping into the sled compared to the other disciplines).
The pairs figure skating began today with the short program. I enjoy pairs for several reasons, unique to the discipline than the individual event -- the side-by-side spins (to see how they match up), the throws (to find out if the woman actually lands after being tossed 15 feet through the air...), and it's hard not to appreciate (and chuckle at) in such an aesthetic sport an element that's called the "death spiral." Nineteen teams competed, but only the top 16 get advanced to the free skate. I thought the U.S. team with Emily Chan and Spencer Howe, who were the Bronze Medalists in the U.S. National Championship, skated well -- from my ignorant, amateur eye, though confirmed by the announcers and point totals. But early scores are always a bit muted to leave wiggle room for judging the skaters coming later, most of whom are higher ranked. And the top U.S. team, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea, who got the Silver Medal at the U.S. Nationals were easy to see why they're top contenders for a medal, just smooth as butter -- though I don't believe that's official judging terminology. Though all the top pairs were excellent, though what was odd is how many of them had slight mistakes, even the reigning world champions from Japan struggled and dropped to fifth place.
I did note with pleasure that the first team from Italy skated their performance to an energetic version of "Volare", which is precisely how the song is supposed to go, unlike Mariah Carey's dirge rendition at the Opening Ceremony.
We’re going to take a little detour here and talk a bit about the announcing.
I think the play-by-play announcers have been very good, with the expert analysts generally doing a fairly respectable job, not excessively jingoistic and pretty objective, even when their enthusiasm for their particular sport goes into overdrive. Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir in figure skating have seemed to have found a good balance for their solid analysis and shtick, which at one point a few Olympics back was getting too much about them, but now blends together pretty well. I like, too, that they actually analyze during a program, rather than just sit back and say, “Let’s just watch and listen.” I wish they’d even do more, since this is a sports event, after all, (and one that most people don’t know the specifics), not a theatrical performance. But they do a lot more than has often been the case with others in the past. And as always they work wonderfully with Terry Gannon. If there’s one analyst who isn’t terribly effective, it might be Todd Richards doing the Halfpipe. He calls out the names of the “tricks” the competitors are flying through the air – but the names are meaningless, just inside lingo, without describing what they entail, which he tends not to do much too often. After the run, he does an acceptable job analyzing what was done, just not during it.
For their broadcasts, NBC once again has Snoop Dogg as a roving whatever he does. It's such a waste. He never seems to have put much if any time to find out anything about the subject or person he's covering, asks little of note and does next to nothing to enlighten or entertain the audience. When I watch the Olympics, I enjoy learning about the culture and competitors. But that requires an actual reporter or someone who at least show they care, rather than pop in and think that them being there is what makes the moment important. It doesn't.
They're also using Stanley Tucci to do little reports on food (mostly) and culture. "Little" is the operative term. While he does care about the subjects he's covering -- and it shows -- he's given almost no time to say almost anything meaningful. He did a story today on a place that makes a special pizza -- it seemed to last about 45 seconds, almost none of which showed the process. But just him saying how unique and delicious it was.
I've long mentioned how great Mary Carillo is on these kind of reports -- smart, insightful and funny. For those who remember the "On the Road" pieces the great Charles Kuralt did for CBS News, that's the level of what she did for Olympics Games. (And to give her stories even a greater richness, she was an accomplished athlete herself. In fact, a few years back, Mary Carrillo was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.) And she's there at the Milan Games, she helped with the Opening Ceremony. But for the past few Olympics, NBC has woefully underused her. Pretty much only for a little bit of commentary and no around-town reports on culture, for which she excels. The Games are still early, so I live in hope that NBC will take advantage of what they have and use Mary Carrillo more fully. But given that they have Snoop Dogg and Stanley Tucci there, I'm not expecting it much. And so far, up until Friday, a week later, I hadn’t seen it.
Happily, though – it turns out that NBC is using Mary Carillo (somewhat), just not on the main broadcasts. She’s a correspondent on the syndicated “Olympic Zone” broadcasts that appeared on many/most NBC stations right before the Primetime show. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to Man, there is no “Olympic Zone” website (as far as I can tell) and so no archive of the pieces Carillo has done. But I found a piece she did for the "Olympic Zone, although I can’t embed it either. It’s a funny one on the fine art of drinking coffee the right way in Italy. I can't embed it, but recorded it off my computer monitor. The sound quality is tinny, but fine. It might take a few moments to load -- or not.
But I hadn’t seen her on the Mothership NBC since the Opening Ceremony. And then (finally!!) NBC aired a fun piece she did in honor of Valentine’s Day, about Verona – 100 miles from Milan – and its relationship with Shakespeare and “Romeo and Juliet”. I can’t embed it either, though I recorded it off my monitor, as well. As before, the sound quality is tinny, but fine. (And again, it may take a few moments to load).
I wish there were videos of the Olympics pieces Mary Carrillo does so well on the local and Olympic culture – and there should be because she’s done so many – but happily I did at least find one that she did for these Olympics on the “Olympic Zone.” It’s about why there are so many great skiers from Norway. This isn't anywhere near the best she’s done, but it’s quintessential Carillo with humor and mostly a lot of charm – and it’s the only full video of her pieces from any Olympics I can find only YouTube, so the quality is excellent, and you can see one of her pieces as intended. Unfortunately, NBC blocks their Olympic videos from embedding, here, so you'll have to click on the link in the box below to see it online. Man, they sure make it difficult to see Mary Carillo videos...!
Still, though, compare these three to the short, empty, surfaces things Snoop Dogg and Stanley Tucci are doing…
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