Outstanding athletes to watch during the 2018 Winter Games

Excerpted from Time.com, By SEAN GREGORY and ALICE PARK Updated: February 8, 2018 11:31 AM ET

Every Winter Olympics has its breakout stars—the rookie defying the odds to win her first gold medal, the legend defying time to win his last. The 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea has no shortage of candidates on both counts, from teen phenoms like Russian figure skater Alina Zagitova and American snowboarder Chloe Kim, to hardboiled veterans like U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn and the man known as Legend, 45-year-old Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai.

From French figure skaters to Nigerian bobsledders, here’s your GUIDE to the Olympic athletes to watch.

Magnus Kim - South Korea rejoiced when cross-country skiing phenom Kim, 19, announced he would compete for the host country in PyeongChang. Kim’s mother is South Korean, his father is Norwegian and Kim held citizenship in both countries. In 2016, Kim became the first South Korean to win a gold medal at a major international cross-country event, when he took two golds and a silver at the 2016 Youth Winter Olympics. No Asian country has ever won an Olympic cross-country medal. While skiers from Norway, Sweden and Italy provide stiff competition, Kim has home-field advantage—and the hopes of a nation behind him.

From Salt Lake Tribune

Maame Biney - Maame, 18, became the first African-American woman to qualify for a U.S. speedskating team. She moved to Maryland from Ghana at age 5, and took up the Winter Olympic sport when her father spotted a sign offering lessons. Biney started out in figure skating. An instructor, noting how fast she was moving on the ice, suggested Biney try speedskating instead. The high school senior is taking online classes during her intense Olympic year, and is interested in studying chemical engineering in college.

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Selfie of North and South Korea together as one Team!

By Doug Criss, CNN

When you have a few moments to spare, there's no better time to do a group selfie.

Before they entered the Olympic stadium and marched under a unified flag at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, the athletes from North and South Korea took one for the ages.

The photo shows the two country's athletes sporting identical blue hats and white coats, emblazoned with a Korean unification badge, similar to the Korean unification flag they marched in under.

Source, CNN Sports

vox.com

Are you watching? Opening Ceremonies for 2018 Games broadcast via NBC Sports

Excerpted from Sports Illustrated, your media guide to watching the Olympics from PyeongChang, South Korea, By RICHARD DEITSCH 

How to watch the Olympics - media guide

What is the time difference for these Olympics?

PyeongChang is 14 hours ahead of New York, 15 hours ahead of Chicago...“Contrary to popular belief, the 14-hour time difference works very well for live primetime coverage,” said Jim Bell, President, Production and Programming of NBC Olympics. “People initially think it’s all the way on the other side of the world, but the time difference is 14 hours, so that means that 8 p.m. Eastern is 10 a.m. the next day in South Korea. When many of the marquee events—figure skating, alpine, snowboarding—will be taking place."

What sports will be featured in primetime?

Figure skating, alpine skiing or snowboarding will be featured live in primetime every night on NBC from Feb. 8 to Feb. 25, excluding the night of the Opening Ceremony...

NBC Sports PR put out a very helpful day-by-day guide here. I’d recommend it. 

What is the biggest change for PyeongChang coverage versus Sochi?Well, it’s the first time in history that NBC will air its primetime show live across all time zones. On most nights of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, NBC’s primetime broadcast will begin at 8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. CT, 6 p.m. MT, and 5 p.m. PT. It will be followed by local news, and then primetime plus—consisting of live continuing coverage from PyeongChang, which will air until 2 a.m. ET on many nights. A replay of the primetime program will then follow.

What should I know about the Opening Ceremonies?

NBC’s fully-produced presentation of the Opening Ceremony will be co-hosted by Mike Tirico and Katie Couric. It will air at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on NBC.

Excerpted from NBC News, January 07, 2018

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — By the time the 23rd Olympic Winter Games get around to their Opening Ceremony on Friday, hundreds of athletes will already have been in action for a day and a half, starting Wednesday night with a new version of the ice chess otherwise known as curling.

The pomp and pageantry of the official Opening Ceremony won't get under way in PyeongChang until 6 a.m. ET Friday. But by daybreak Thursday ET, the brooms will already have been out for eight games of mixed doubles curling; men's ski jumping will also be well under way by dawn. Meanwhile, one of the most popular events, figure skating, glides into action Thursday night.

"It's fun, but it's cold," said Rich Lepping, chairman of the U.S. Curling Association, who watched as U.S. siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton won their first match in the inaugural mixed doubles curling competition Thursday morning against a team of Olympic athletes from Russia...

Men's individual normal hill ski jumping, which takes off with qualifying at 7:30 a.m. ET Friday, will feature one of the stars of the Games, three-time medalist Noriaki Kasai of Japan. At 45, Kasai — known as The Legend — is taking part in an unprecedented eighth Winter Olympiad."It's an amazing record," Kasai told The Japan Times. "I'm really excited. My goal is the same every time, and it's to win a gold medal."

NBC is airing 176 hours of live coverage in the United States, concluding with the Closing Ceremony on Feb. 25. NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, meanwhile, will stream more than 1,800 hours of coverage.

Erik Ortiz and Alex Johnson, reporters

Lifetime Olympic Bans Overturned by Court

Excerpted from BBC Sport, 03 February, 2018 --

"Despite International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach's condemnation of Russia's 'unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympics', the neutral competitors cleared to take part will be the third biggest group at the Games in Pyeongchang - behind only Canada and the United States.

And on Thursday a court overturned lifetime Olympic bans on 28 Russian competitors..there were 232 Russians competing at Sochi, when the host nation topped the medal table. Since then, 13 of those Russian medals - including four golds - have been stripped from the athletes because of doping.

However, Thursday's Court of Arbitration for Sport decision to overturn doping bans given to 28 Russian athletes means these may end up being given back - and Russia could once again sit top of the 2014 standings. Confused? So is the IOC...

Russian athletes are also expected to 'refrain from any public form of publicity, activity and communication associated with the national flag, anthem, emblem and symbols' at any Olympic site.This includes a ban on sharing or posting any such images or messages on social media...

Russian athletes from Sochi Games in 2016; www.dailymail.co.uk

And why should athletes who can prove they play by the rules not be allowed to take part in the biggest sporting event of their lives? The IOC found a compromise, and even though the Russians have complained at the exclusion of some of their top athletes, it has been accepted.

Many people will deplore the way this has played out, they will feel that Russia has been let off lightly, even though its athletes must adhere to a strict set of regulations governing their behaviour during the Games."

Olympic Update for Sunday, Feb. 04

Excerpted from The Guardian U.S. Edition -- 

AP in Incheon

Wearing a blue logo of a map symbolising peace between North and South Korea, the most talked-about team at the Winter Olympics was in action on Sunday in a friendly that drew thousands of spectators.

The two countries’ female ice hockey players, who only began practising together as a team about a week ago, showed plenty of fight in their first competitive match but never really threatened world no. 5 Sweden who beat them 3-1 in Incheon, South Korea. Korea will play Sweden again on 12 February during the tournament proper. 

https://vectortoons.com

The outcome didn’t seem to matter to the capacity crowd of 3,000 at the Seonhak International ice rink. Fans waved miniature flags showing a unified Korean peninsula, chanted “we are one” and screamed whenever their team went on the attack. The arena erupted when the South Korean forward Park Jong-ah cut the deficit to 2-1...

The Korea team is part of a rapprochement between the two countries for the Pyeongchang Games, which Seoul sees as an opportunity to revive meaningful communication with Pyongyang following an extended period of animosity and diplomatic stalemate over North Korea’s nuclear programmes.

The Olympics begin Friday, with Pyeongchang, which will host the skiing, snowboarding and sliding events, and Gangneung, a coastal city about an hour’s drive away, which will host the ice hockey, skating and curling events. North Korea plans to send hundreds of people to the games, including athletes, officials, artists and a 230-member cheering group...

The Observer view on the Winter Olympics and tensions with North Korea

 

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