The XXIII Winter Olympics: Day 9

Hooray Beer!

Just as we have a Tongan competing in Cross Country (he didn’t finish last, he finished third from last which means there are at least 2 skiers from traditional Winter Olympic countries that are worse than he is) we have, periodically, sightings of the Jamaican Bobsled Team. This year’s edition is 2 Women, Carrie Russell and Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian, who are more or less from Jamaica (Fenlator-Victorian grew up in New Jersey but these things are a little flexible) who decided to compete as representatives of the Jamaica Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (it’s a thing). Since Bob Sledding is really more dependent on getting a good push at the start than driving (which anyone can pick up the basics of in a few minutes) it’s not like you need a lot of snow.

Not that snow does you much good anyway. To practice you need to rent time on a specially designed track (there are only like 3 or 4 in the U.S.) and get a coach who knows what they’re doing more or less and a sled.

Well, about that coach and sled- the Jamaicans hired a gal by the name of Sandra Kiriasis and she rented a sled for them to use but the team and the coach had “artistic differences” and since the sled was in her name she took it with her when they parted.

Enter Red Stripe (it’s beer). They read about this situation and the head of their marketing department thought it might be amusing to help out so he twitted an offer and the team accepted. He didn’t quite realize that he was committing to $50,000 but hey, that’s why you have an expense account. It’s kind of a heartwarming story and you can read about the team here but I’ll warn you it has one of those infernal auto start videos.

Once again NBC allowed (ugh) figure skating to bump Curling (Nathan Chen somewhat redeemed himself by landing 6 Quads, 4 of them cleanly, to rise from 17th to 5th. Yuzuru Hanyu, Shoma Uno, and Javier Fernandez took Gold, Silver, and Bronze), so I’m getting my results from the papers again. A little over halfway through the Men’s Round Robin Sweden is crushing it without a single defeat. Canada has a defeat and Switzerland 2. USA is tied with Japan for 4th at 2 – 2.

On the Women’s side Sweden is once again unbeaten, Britain and Japan are tied for 2nd, and South Korea, China, and the USA are tied for 4th.

In Hockey Canada and the USA Ladies are in the Medal round and who cares about anything else, eh? On the Men’s side the Czechs, Canada, USA, Finland, and Sweden are likely to advance with a bunch of teams including Russia on the bubble.

Saturday