Opening ceremony – live!
Just what can we expect tonight? Cold. Apart from that? Well, the mail is that Ha Hyun-woo will be performing! Nah, me either. But then I’m old and unfashionable. And not Korean.
Anyway, not a lot of action to report this evening, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this lead-up to tonight’s opening ceremony. But come back in a few hours. Bryan Armen Graham will be live-blogging.
Thanks for your company. Let the Games Begin! Soon!
The Eagle has landed, folks:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s official plane lands South Korea’s Incheon International Airport for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Onboard is KJU’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and her entourage including North Korea’s ceremonial leader, Kim Yong Nam. Historic moment for both Koreas pic.twitter.com/YNjEF4aYpL
— Will Ripley (@willripleyCNN) February 9, 2018
Now this is the kind of thing that makes international events like this special; Nigeria’s women’s bobsled team:
— Human Tornado❄️ (@HTizzle) February 9, 2018
I don’t think cricket has ever been put forward as a winter Olympic sport but it surely won’t be long now. That’s one slow outfield. Third man could freeze to death.
In preparing for this blog (I know, right, it doesn’t look like I’ve done any preparation!) I came across this, from 2010. A photo pictorial of some of the most memorable moments in Winter Olympic history:
Personally, you can have your Torvill and Dean, your Miracle on Ice, your Cool Runnings. I think Stephen Bradbury can’t be beat, not least because he won Australia’s first ever Winter Olympics gold, and he did so in an unforgettable manner, but because ‘Doing A Bradbury’ is now part of the Australian lexicon.
What would be one of your main reasons as an athlete to go to the Olympics? Besides all that sex in the athlete’s village. That’s right, free smart phones. So imagine how vexed you’d be if you missed out. Are you imagining? You’d be pretty vexed, right? Heck, you’d summon diplomats wouldn’t you?
Figure skating, Teams:
As I mentioned earlier, the teams event is underway, and Japan’s Shoma Uno shone.
Here’s Reuters’ report of proceedings:
GANGNEUNG, South Korea, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Shoma Uno dazzled with a series of clean quad jumps and fluid step sequences as Japan took the lead in the men’s short programme of team competition in the opening event of the figure skating at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Friday.
Skating to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” the 20-year-old was nearly flawless, snapping out a clean set of jumps including a quad toeloop and triple toeloop sequence that drew cheers from the crowd for a whopping 103.25 points.
Israel’s Alexei Bychenko racked up a season’s best of 88.49 to finish second with his skate to “Hava Nagila,” a Jewish folk song.
Canada’s Patrick Chan, who won silver in the individual and team events at Sochi in 2014, struggled with his jumps, taking a tumble on his opening quad toeloop and his triple Axel. He earned 81.66 points to finish third.
“It was not the best but this is the advantage of a team event - it’s what we can each contribute,” Chan told reporters. “If anything, I think I was too eager on the jumps.”
Nathan Chen of the United States hung on to land his opening quad flip but went on to double his quad toeloop and make an uncharacteristic fall on his triple Axel, earning him 80.61 points.
Luge:
Training runs in the luge took place today and, as usual, the action looked spectacular.
That said, it also looks frightening to someone like me whose only regular relationship with ice is when making a G&T: 140kph if you don’t mind. I’d rank it below ski jumping, however, in the sphincter-tightening scale. How the world laughed at Eddie Edwards but how many of those laughing would ever have launched themselves into space like he did?
One wonders what, if any, part the North Korean ‘cheerleaders’ will play in proceedings tonight? Perhaps they’ll save their breath for competition.
Here’s a piece we ran on the cheerleaders last month:
Curling, Mixed Doubles:
From earlier today, session 3 of the mixed doubles:
9 FEB Curling Mixed Doubles Round Robin Session 3 Results :
— PyeongChang 2018 (@pyeongchang2018) February 9, 2018
2/9 컬링 – 믹스더블 예선 세션 3 경기 결과
🇰🇷KOR 3 vs 8 NOR🇳🇴
🇺🇸USA 4 vs 9 SUI🇨🇭
🇨🇳CHN 4 vs 10 CAN🇨🇦
OAR 7 vs 5 FIN🇫🇮
Congratulations! 축하합니다! #PyeongChang2018 pic.twitter.com/41xy8LNeLn
Curling, Mixed Doubles:
9 FEB Curling Mixed Doubles Round Robin Session 4 Results :
— PyeongChang 2018 (@pyeongchang2018) February 9, 2018
2/9 컬링 – 믹스더블 예선 세션 4 경기 결과
🇨🇦CAN 8 vs 2 FIN🇫🇮
🇨🇳CHN 5 vs 6 OAR
🇺🇸USA 1 vs 9 KOR🇰🇷
🇨🇭SUI 5 vs 6 NOR🇳🇴
Congratulations! 축하합니다! pic.twitter.com/52Occ7w2L0
Horrible news for the young man:
Five months removed from an ACL injury, Aussie skier Brodie Summers has suffered a devastating setback in his final training run.
— 7Sport (@7Sport) February 9, 2018
MORE: https://t.co/qaF5fsrfMc @7olympics pic.twitter.com/ERQTTgePfX
There are 18 nations sending a lone competitor to these games but I dare say you’ve only heard of one of them, Tonga’s Pita Taufatofua.
You might remember him from the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. There the judoist performed his duties as Tonga’s flag-bearer, and in doing attracted quite some following when he walked into the Olympic Stadium shirtless and smothered in so much oil he could have been marinating.
Pita’s now a cross-country skiier despite never having seen snow, let alone skied over it, until two years ago. It’s the Corinthian spirit and all that.
What are the chances of a biopic being made about Taufatofua down the track, do you think? Something along the lines of Cool Runnings and Eddie the Eagle (I don’t think we can count I, Tonya as a biopic in the same vein)?
And who would play Taufatofua. Too obvious to say Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson?
One wonders how Eddie Edwards discovered who’d be playing him in 2016’s Eddie the Eagle?
Photograph: PA
“Hi Eddie. Mate, there’s going to be a movie based on your life and Hugh Jackman is on board!”
“Handsome Hugh is playing me? Now that’s a nice bit of casting!”
“Ah, no, Eddie. Mr Jackman will be playing your trainer. You will be played by Taron Egerton.”
[Eddie gets on to Google...]
“I’ll take it!”
Updated
News today that the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the appeals of 47 Russian athletes and coaches to be allowed entry into the Winter Olympics at the last minute.
Here’s the full story:
It’s cold in PyeongChang. While that’s a pre-requisite for a Winter Games there have been worries that it will be too cold. What’s too cold? About 12 degree C in Melbourne, I’d say, but no, it gets worse. For the opening ceremony tonight the expected temperature is -2C to -5C.
That might not sound sooo bad, but during the opening ceremony rehearsal the added windchill made the temperature feel more like -23C.
Athletes have already complained that the cold is warping their skis to the point they have to be thrown out.
Skiing, Moguls:
Aussies Britt Cox and Matt Graham have done enough today to advance to the finals of the moguls.
Cox, world champion and 2017 World Cup series winner finished 6th in the women’s event behind Perrine Lafont of France, while Graham finished 9th behind world champion Mikael Kingsbury of Canada.
Graham, apparently, was not overly pleased with the judges’ scores.
And if there’s an issue many people have with the Winter Games it’s the number of events that rely on judges. First past the post is simple and less open to controversy. Throw judges into the mix and things can get murky.
Snowboarder Scotty James raised the point yesterday:
Figure skating, Teams:
In 2014 a new Olympic medal for figure skaters was introduced —a team medal. Countries enter skaters in each of the four disciplines—men’s, women’s, pairs, and ice dancing. The top finisher after the short program earns 10 points, second-place gets 9, etc etc.
So far we’ve seen action in the pair skating short program at the Gangneung Ice Arena. The top three were:
1. TARASOVA Evgenia / MOROZOV Vladimir (Olympic Athletes from Russia)
2. DUHAMEL Meagan / RADFORD Eric (Canada)
3. SAVCHENKO Aljona / MASSOT Bruno (Germany)
The men’s singles have also been held:
1. Shoma UNO (Japan)
2. Alexei BYCHENKO (Israel)
3. Patrick CHAN (Canada)
Further to what I was saying in my intro about us dusting off our armchair expertise in winter sports...
Every Winter Olympics when watching figure skating...
— Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) February 9, 2018
[skater lands amazing jump]
Me: "Wow, that was beautiful."
Commentator: "Ooooh, critical mistake there. That'll cost 'em."
One of the more remarkable stories in the lead up to these games was the news that South Korea and North Korea will field a unified women’s ice-hockey team in PyeongChang. To some it’s a controversial move, to others it’s yet another chapter in the role sport can play in diplomacy and bringingpeopletogetheracy.
It's the Olympics, on the rocks!
Dust yourself with talc, squeeze into a skin suit and get your skates on, folks! It’s that time in the quadrennial sporting calendar once again when we dust off our, cough, expertise in a bunch of sports we sometimes go four years without laying eyes on! Yes, that’s right, it’s the Winter Olympics!
In about six hours the 2018 Winter Olympics will officially commence with the opening ceremony at the 35,000-seat Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
For those who don’t know (and unless your nickname at school was Rand McNally that’s probably most of us) Pyeongchang is a mountainous county (population 44,000) in Gangwon Province, South Korea, which is about 130km due east of Seoul and about 100km south of the demilitarized zone dividing South Korea from North Korea.
Close enough, then, for North Korea’s dear leader Kim Jong-un to nip down in his Morris Minor and show us his lutz (I’m sure he’s an exceptional figure skater). Okay, while he’s unlikely to make an appearance at any point over the next fortnight his younger sister Kim Yo-jong is expected to be a VIP at tonight’s opening ceremony. Awkwardly, she could be sitting rather close to US vice-president Mike Pence who is standing in for America’s very own dear leader, Donald Trump, an immensely accomplished man who, no doubt, could see Kim Jong-un’s lutz and at the very least double it.
But I digress. Tonight’s closing ceremony will see most of the almost 3000 athletes from the 92 competing countries make their appearance. Notably, Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore (all renowned for having woeful bobsled facilities) will send competitors to a winter Games for the first time. Warm woolly hats off to them.
Hosts South Korea, meantme, will field a team of 122, the USA have sent 244 athletes, while Great Britain and Australia have teams of 59 and 51 respectively. Australia’s team will be led out tonight by flag-bearer Scotty James, reigning half-pipe (snowboard) world champion and now a three-time Olympian. And he’s still only 23!
While tonight’s opening ceremony will officially launch this, the 23rd Winter Olympic Games, as usual, some of the Games’ seven sports (there are 15 disciplines in all) have jumped the gun so as to fit everything in before the closing ceremony on February 25. Competition in alpine skiing, biathlon, curling, luge and ski-jumping are already underway and I’ll update you accordingly over the next three hours when the muse takes me.
In the meantime, have a read of our man Sean Ingle’s Games preview:
Paul will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Sean Ingle on an all-Korea women’s ice hockey team, a possible German answer to Michael Phelps, a Nigerian bobsleigh team and the likely swansong of Lindsey Vonn:
