Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Your cheatin' heart medicine.

Your cheatin' heart medicine will make you lie.
You'll fake remorse in kiss and cry.
But your drug test will leave you blue.
Your cheatin' heart medicine will tell on you.

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• We start the night again at the Snow Dragon, as the Chinese like to call it. Or, as Leigh Diffey likes to call it… the HOUSE OF SPEED! It's heat three of the two-man bobsled. Will the Germans win this event or will it be the Germans? Or maybe, the Germans? It's so unpredictable!
• Well, maybe Great Britain can beat the Germans. BOOM! Oh no! The British sled flips on its side and slides for-evvvvvvvvvv-er. You don't realize how fast these things are going until you see how far they slide when they're NOT on their runners.
• Steve Kornacki takes a break from his giant iPad to describe what it's like to ride a bobsled. Short version: intense. It's actually a cute piece even if it is fluff. And it's only a minute long. Not too bad.
• The first US bobsled still has a chance for a top ten finish. The second US sled finishes 27th. No top ten for them. After heat three, the Germans are 1-2-3. I'm shocked!
• To figure skating, where Kamila Valiyeva is going to get to skate. But if she finishes in a medal position, the Olympics won't give her a medal. Why even let her skate, then? What do Terry, Tara, and Johnny think about that? They're all against it. It's funny watching Johnny dressed in his outrageous hot pink suit get indignant about cheaters, but he's absolutely right when he calls out the Russian Crime Syndicate for flouting the rules.
• Mariah Bell, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, takes the ice for her short program. She has one fall, but otherwise skates very well. Tara calls her a sunshine Care Bear.
• American Alysa Liu sits on the sidelines waiting for her turn, surfing the web on her phone. I hope that's a burner, Alysa. China is spying on you!
• I'm always amused I see the skater's coaches with their "Kiss and Cry" credentials. How did that phrase become official terminology? Do you think there's a waiting area in hockey called "Sweat and Bleed"? There totally should be.
• We are LIVE for the Men's Slopestyle final. American Alex Hall is dominating this event after the first run. But in Slopestyle, like almost all of the freestyle events, only the best run counts for a final score, so anyone could win at any time. But a high score in the first round puts the pressure on everyone else to score high or else.
• Run two for Colby Stevenson of the US has a few small errors, so it's not worth keeping. Alex Hall follows him and gets the second highest score in the competition. He can only keep his best score, but if it were possible, right now Alex has scores that would earn both the gold AND the silver medal.
• Nick Goepper of Park City, Utah knocks Hall's second score out of second place. Americans have the top two places going into round three.
• In round three, Hall's and Goepper's scores are so high that the other skiers have no choice but to try crazy things to get higher scores. The results? Lots of crashes. That's making this round go quickly. Colby, currently in sixth, needs to do well in his last run if he wants America to sweep this event. He misses a rail at the top of the run and just takes it easy the rest of the way down. No sweep for the US.
• Alex Hall also misses a rail at the top, so his third run won't count. Will one of the remaining skiers pass him? Nick doesn't. Norway's Birk Ruud doesn't. And finally, Andri Ragettli of Switzerland… misses a jump. Alex Hall and Nick Goepper finish gold-silver for the United States! This puts the US third in the medal count, behind the leading Norwegians and the cheating Russian Crime Syndicate.
• Speaking of the cheating Russian Crime Syndicate, it's time for the leaders to skate in the Women's Short Program.
• Japan's Wakaba Higuchi starts us off, skating to a cover of Elton John's "Your Song." Does Sir Elton have some kind of licensing deal with the Olympics this year? How many skaters have used one of his songs? It seems like a lot.
• Alysa Liu is done letting the Chinese Communist Party read her emails, and now she's ready to skate. And she does really well. She moves temporarily into second place.
• Now to the last group, which features not only the probable winner, but also an internationally known cheater.
• Karen Chen starts. She looks strong until she falls about two minutes into her short program. I'm not sure how much that will count against her, but it surely cant be good. Eighth place. Eek.
• Now the cheater. Kamila stumbles early. Nothing performance-enhanced about that. It's so weird watching this because Tara and Johnny are so opposed to her skating that they won't even comment on her performance. They're normally so happy-go-lucky that it's shocking to hear them turn a cold shoulder to someone. Valiyeva takes the lead, which the IOC has said they won't recognize.
• All the leaders are falling in the short program tonight. I thought Chen was done for when she fell, but if things keep up like this, she will still be near the top of the pack when it's time for the long program.
• Alex and Nick get their post-race interview on the slopes. Nick seems unusually calm for someone who just won an Olympic medal. So does Alex. I guess that's just the vibe of the sport.
• A third Russian Crime Syndicate skater moves into the top three. Are they all cheating? Yep! I mean, I don't have any evidence, but c'mon. Do you think the only cheating Russian in the Olympics is a 15-year-old?
• Japan's Kaori Sakamoto ends the night and does really well. Well enough to knock the criminals off the leaderboard? Well, one of them anyway. She's in third. Americans are in 8th, 11th, and 13th. Not too good.
• Around the games! France's Quentin Fillon Maillet won a silver in the biathlon. That makes five medals this Olympics for him. FIVE! If he wins another, he sets a record because no one has ever won six in one winter games. But wait! Norway's Marte Olsbu Roeiseland has ALSO won five medals this year, and she could win six, too. Ireen Wuest of the Netherlands has now won her 13th medal in speed skating. Amazing!
• A minute of fluff at the end of today's show teases what's coming up tomorrow. Mikaela! That's what.

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Why does the IOC, who controls everything else with an iron fist, outsource their performance enhancing drug policy? That seems like a pretty big oversight. Oh well, it's just dragging down the entire Olympics. No problem! See you tomorrow!

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