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| 2:39 | 1:01 | 0:10 |
| Events | Ads | Fluff |
* Live from the Fortress of Solitude, Bob immediately kicks us off to men's ski jumping. There's no messing around on Sunday! Probably because they assume that most Olympic fans have probably been watching a lot of the day already. I know I have been!
* What's not to like about the ski jumping coverage? NBC has a 1st-and-ten line showing how far the jumpers are flying. They have GoPro's mounted in the track so you can see the jumper passing over you as he approaches and as he departs. There are super-slo-mo cameras focused on the jumpers as they both take off and land. And then, of course, there's the spectacle of a human being flying through the air for a length longer than a football field. If only there were some Americans left in this competition. Get on that, USOC!
* Uh-oh. Mary Carillo is in the studio to tell us that she was in Siberia. She went to the city of Yakutsk and visited an ice museum to see the King of Frost. Who knew there were actually tourist attractions in Yakutsk? All I knew about it before is that it was hard to hold in Risk. Anyway, Mary then sees hardy horses and reindeer who can stand the minus-50 degree temperatures. Basically, it was six minutes of telling us how cold it was. And what is the purpose of this? To give us local flavor, right? Local. Uh-huh. A road trip from Sochi to Yakutsk is 5,732 miles. By comparison, a roadtrip from Fairbanks, Alaska to Key West, Florida is a mere 4,980 miles. NBC should look up what the word "local" means. Fluff!
* To the Iceberg Skating Rink, where we get to see the women's free skate portion of the team skating. Team Rockwood member Sandy thinks that Canada's Kaetllyn Osmond needs to wear an outfit that looks less like a thong from behind. I must be losing my touch, as I didn't even notice that. Gracie Gold of the US lives up to her name, skating flawlessly. Hopefully she didn't just use up her best skating on a team that's likely to finish in third place.
* Russia wins gold in the Team Figure Skating event as Vladimir Putin looks on with an expression that seems to say "I must break you."
* Charlie White and Meryl Davis travel with their parents. Or at least, their parents travel around to follow them skate. It's a story about skating moms! With all of the footage they found with Charlie and Meryl as kids, you'd have to have a heart of stone to not find this adorable. But still, fluff!
* To the slopes! Today it's the women's snowboarding slopestyle competition. Ty Walker, US snowboarder gets a little bit of fluff on how she first decided to compete after seeing The Flying Tomato win his first Olympic medal. Unfortunately, her fall is going to keep her from matching her idol.
* But enough of the hippy sports, let's move on to a sport where falls don't get met with a giggle, they get met with an ambulance. The men's downhill. Snowboarding is for Spicoli. The downhill is for James Bond.
* Steve Perino interviews the US downhill coaches who are literally up in a tree. About 50 feet up. The coaches get above the course in five different locations so they can get video of the practices and see more of the course at once. Perino gets video by having a GoPro on his head. Great interview, NBC!
* Remember the ski jumpers from earlier in the show? They were sailing about 110 yards through the air. NBC just created a graphic showing that US skier Travis Ganong sailed 80 yards through the air during the longest jump on the downhill course. So downhillers reach 85 miles per hour and jump nearly as far as ski jumpers on a less-controlled course. This is why downhill is so exciting.
* The camera work and analysis in the downhill is amazing. Skycams show you just how fast everyone is moving. Super-slow-mo replays show just how Bode Miller lost his edge and cost himself time. Close ups of the skis show where each individual skier loses control of his skis. And compared to the snowboarding events, there's no question about who the leader is. Split times don't have to account for judges preferences. You're either are faster or you're not. Bode Miller was not. He only finished half-a-second off the leader, but that put six other people between him and first place. Ah, downhill, how I love you!
* Enough of that. Back to the snowboarding! "She just threw down a 1080!" At least, that's what the announcer just told me. You know what that is? Three twists. It doesn't sound as cool if you just say, "She did three twists," does it? Snowboarding terms are deliberately confusing to make everything sound more impressive. The downhill doesn't need to do that.
* Jaime Anderson of the US wins gold! Apparently the Americans own this sport.
* Now to a sport that's already decided, team ice skating. Going into the final free skate round, it's already assured that the Russians will win gold, Canada will win silver, and the US will win bronze. That sort of makes this whole thing anticlimactic, doesn't it? Maybe one of the teams can just do a kneel-down like in football and we can end this thing early.
* I can never get a real clear look at the Russian couple's faces, but from the hair and outfit, the guy looks kind of like Kevin Bacon in "Footloose." It's Ren on Ice! Seriously, how can no one have ever thought of producing that before? That could tour state fairs all over the country.
* Charlie Davis and Meryl White take the ice while their moms take notes in the stands. See how well that tied in with the earlier fluff piece? If anyone was still watching, I'm sure they'd be impressed. Who am I kidding? Of course people are still watching ice skating. NBC would fill all two weeks of the Olympics with ice skating if they could. That's Olympic ratings gold!
Even with a questionable trip to Siberia we were limited to 10 minutes of fluff tonight. The first weekend is history and we're off to a good start. But heaven help us if Mary Carillo decides to take a road trip all the way back from Yakutsk. We'll never get back to events. See you tomorrow!
