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| Events | Ads | Fluff |
* Seriously, don't you hate headlines like that?
* It's the last full day of competition in the Olympics. Are you sad? I'll tell you after tonight, once we see how much fluff NBC is planning to load onto our plates.
* We start tonight with an athlete that isn't competing in these Olympics, says Bob. Well, this isn't a good start. Jessica Long is an American Paralympian who competes in swimming events. This isn't even the right games! Oh, but she's from Russia originally. She was adopted as a baby and brought to the US. Tonight we're going to watch her first meet her Russian birth family. Okay, it was all very sweet and touching but, and I want to state this gently, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS OLYMPICS! Seriously, the only thing connecting this story to this broadcast is the fact the adoption took place in Russia. What's next? Are we going to see a story about how somebody went online and found a Russian bride?
* So, our 20 minutes of fluff are over, so we can finally see some events. You know, events? The things that we're in the last full day of? To speed skating, where we can see another event where the Americans have been completely shut out. It's the men's team pursuit event, and we'll start with Poland versus Canada. Wow! The Polish team was behind for most of the race, but finished strong, picking up almost three seconds on the Canadians in the last two laps and winning the bronze. Well, at least somebody can beat the Canadians in something.
* The gold medal race is South Korea versus the Netherlands, whose mad scientists have apparently perfected the speed skating gene between Vancouver and Sochi. The Dutch don't disappoint here, either, leading from start to finish. It must be those orange suits.
* The women are up next. The Russians beat the South Koreans for bronze, and the gold medal race will feature Poland versus, guess who? The Netherlands. As if to put a final exclamation point on their dominating performance, the Dutch women win by over seven seconds. Hmm... spandex outfits, superhuman performances... maybe the Dutch speed skaters are mutants. I guess I should have been tipped off by their coach, Charles Xavier.
* Back in the studio, what? We're going to get more fluff? Bob talks to Thomas Bach, the new president of the International Olympic Committee. Costas throws a couple of hardballs in Bach's direction, asking about Russia's civil rights and a future US Olympic bid. Bach brushes them off like a career politician which, of course, he probably is if he's the head of the IOC.
* To the Champions Fluff! I mean, the Figure Skating Gala. That's right. There's not medal involved and it's not an ad, so there's only one thing it could be. How unserious is this? You only have to look at the commentators. Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir will be calling this demonstration, and both of them look like they just crashed through a shrubbery to style their hair. Or maybe later they're just going to let all of those starving dogs of Sochi eat berries straight off their heads.
* First up, Gracie Gold skates to "All That Jazz." Yes, nothing says "I'm America's sweetheart on the ice" more than a song about underground jazz clubs that cater to easy women.
* Next up, Yuna Kim of Korea skates to "Imagine," one of the blandest peace songs ever written. Tara opines that Yuna will always be the queen for skating to such a beautiful song about communism. I might be paraphrasing there.
* Heeeey! We get to see another event, here on the last night of competition. Tonight is the men's slalom race, and Todd Brooker gives us an illustrated video showing us how the gates are set up. This is exactly what I was talking about yesterday. Is Todd getting ideas from the Rockwood Olympic Watch? Tell your producers to shoot more wide shots, Todd!
* Ligety-Ligety-Ligety! Ted Ligety, the first American to win a medal in two different alpine events, is going to try for three tonight. Sixth place after his first run might actually get him there. We'll see what happens later tonight.
* But now, let's head over to the Sanki Sliding Center for the loudest event in the winter Olympics, the four-man bobsled. America's Steven Holcomb is the defending gold medalist in this event, but in order to win he'll have to beat Germany's Maximillian Arndt. Is he any good? I don't know, I just love saying his name. Make a really stern face and yell it out loud in your living room. MAXIMILLIAN ARNDT! Sounds very German, doesn't it?
* Well, look at that. MAXIMILLIAN ARNDT actually is good. Steven Holcomb drives his sled, "The Night Train," one hundreth of a second slower than Germany-1. Well, that shouldn't be insurmountable. Russian Aleksandr Zubkov beats Arndt's time by six hundreths. This is going to be tight.
* Holcomb gets some fluff. Years ago his vision had deteriorated so far that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. The depression he had as a result was so bad that he attempted suicide. Fortunately he was unsuccessful. A new type of eye surgery allowed his vision to be repaired and then he won a gold medal. Good story, but still fluff.
* Back to slalom. And here comes Ligety! Whoops! Ted missed a gate. So there goes Ligety. He's not alone, though. Three skiers in a row miss gates on the top of the second run. Team Rockwood member Sandy predicts Sweden's Andre Myhrer won't make it either because he was wild on the first run. She's correct!
* More ice fluff. Russia's Adelina Sotnikova enters the ice waving surrender with two large flags. Wait, those are yellow flags. Maybe I'm just surrendering my soul by watching this. Heh. Adelina demonstrates perfectly why you shouldn't skate around with two large flags when both of them get caught under her skates and cause her to fall down. That's right, she was brought down by fluff! Let that be a lesson to you, NBC.
* Now Meryl Davis and Charlie White are divine, says Tara. Johnny adds that the music they're skating to was recorded specifically for this exhibition. Had they not won the gold, do you think they would have regretted spending time preparing for this gala, which is meaningless? The music, by the way, is Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, which was later ripped off for the pop song "All By Myself." These are the trivial things I distract myself with to keep my sanity while fluff is on the Olympics.
* What?! MORE preview of the Harding-Kerrigan story coming up tomorrow? I'm about ready to go after some NBC producer's knee with a baton myself right now.
* Lookee here! It's an event! Remember those? We're back for the second run of the four-man bobsled. WHOA! Canada-3 tips their sled over! I don't even remember the last time that happened. In fact, says John Morgan, this is only the second wreck of any kind on this track in these Olympics. I guess that's why I don't remember it happening.
* Steve Holcomb and USA-1's second run starts out fast. They don't finish that way, though. They're behind the Latvians. Next up: MAXIMILLIAN ARNDT! Ooo... he's slow, too. Latvia is still in first. The last sled is Russia-1. They're blazingly fast on top, but still only beat Latvia by four hundreths of a second. USA-1 is 17 hundreths behind first, but only one hundredth behind third. It should be exciting tomorrow!
* As he's wrapping up the show with the medal count, Bob mentions the US won no medals today for the first time because the men lost in the bronze medal ice hockey match. Hey! Did you know that the US lost the bronze medal hockey match? Not if you watched tonight's show you didn't, because we had to spend 20 freakin' minutes on Tales From The Russian Orphanages instead of watching events. I'm not bitter.
* Finally, Mikaela Shiffrin gets her medal ceremony for winning the women's slalom last night. She starts singing right away! Has someone on the USOC been reading the Rockwood Olympic Watch? Almost every American has sung on the podium this year. It's awesome!
You knew this was coming, didn't you? The figure skating gala was expected, but the 20-minute adoption journey was so out of right field that only an out-of-touch producer could have thought that was a good idea. Coming up tomorrow: the drugged-out weirdness of the Closing Ceremonies and the horrible, horrible story that we're going to have to watch about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. I shudder just thinking about it. Get your batons ready. See you tomorrow for the end!
