Miscellaneous Winter Olympic Musings 2018

Gimme a C!

You may have noticed that I changed the spelling of the South Korean city hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics from "Pyeongchang" to "PyeongChang."  I capitalized the C when I saw that the South Koreans had done the same.  Apparently the locals in PyeongChang did so when their town got confused with Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.  I heard an anecdotal story about how a Kenyan on his way to PyeongChang in 2014 for a conference ended up in Pyongyang instead.  Not fun for him, I hear.

Be that as it may, Pyeongchang - which had changed its name from Pyongchang by adding an "e" in 2000 in an earlier effort to avoid confusion with Kim Jong Un's hometown - decided to capitalize the "C," although most sportswriters haven't reciprocated and have continued to use a lowercase "c."  Me, I chose to respect the Koreans' wishes.  I tried using the new spelling, with the capital C, in my tags, but Blogger.com kept changing it back to the old one.   I had to check all of the posts I used the tag on and change them all to conform the tag to the new spelling . . . and I inadvertently reverted one of posts (my January 24 post about inter-Korean dialogue because of the Winter Games) to an unpublished draft in the process.  For those of you who may have been looking for it, there's your explanation.  Of course I republished it. 

Anyway, the competition.  Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, gold medalists at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the silver medals at the 2014 Sochi Games, won the title again last night, and even though ice dancing is a subjective sport, based on judging and not who crosses the line first, it is more fact than opinion to say that they earned the gold medal over everyone else.  I saw it myself.  Maya and Alex Shibutani, the so-called Shib Sibs, came in third for the bronze. The Shibutani siblings are probably the most popular American brother-sister act in figure skating since the Carruthers siblings at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics . . . and maybe even the most popular brother-sister act of all since the Carpenters.    

Despite the Russians, the U.S. men's hockey team made it to the quarterfinals after beating Slovakia in a rematch, 5-1.  They may, however, have to face the official non-official team from Russia again.  And even thought the U.S. women's team has been more successful against their Russian counterparts than the U.S men's team has been against their Russian counterparts . . . I still say that neither Russian hockey team should be in PyeongChang at all.

And then there's skiing sweetheart Lindsey Kildow Vonn . . . 

. . . currently appearing in a Bounty commercial showing her in a house built on a slant to play on her living life on a slope . . . 

. . . in one of the slinkiest ski outfits I've ever seen! :-D 

Just remember, when the Summer Olympics are on, one of my ladyfriends enjoys checking out the posteriors on male divers, so please hold your comments about how misogynistic I am.  

Anyway, Madame Vonn skis for gold in the downhill in South Korea Wednesday morning . . . which is tonight in the U.S., and so it will be broadcast live tonight.  It's too bad I won't get to see it - I have to go out tonight for a standing commitment.

Oh well, I missed Mary Lou Retton's perfect ten in 1984, as well as other legendary Olympic moments, so this is nothing new for me.

But I hope Lindsey Vonn wins tonight.  Because if she does, she'll be invited to the White House, and she's already made it clear that she will refuse the invitation because Trump nauseates her.  Breitbart News is already rooting against her for it.   So go ,Lindsey, go! :-) 

A gold medal would be a real quick-picker-upper for her. :-)

And To the Winter Olympics . . .

Finally - 2018 Winter Olympic commentary! 

Red Gerard (his first name is short for "Redmond") won the first gold medal of the 2018 Winter Games for the United States in slope-style snowboarding.  The 17-year-old Coloradan had a few tense moments in the liter twists and turned of his sport, but he managed to hold on and win an upset despite the heavy competition - much of which wiped out.     

I'm still having trouble telling the difference between ice dancing and pairs figure skating, but in the former event, there's no mistaking Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir for anyone else.  Virtue - who is definitely going to be on my beautiful-women picture blog when I return to focusing on athletes there - and Moir rocked, figuratively with their dance moves and literally with their choice of music - a medley of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil," a Latin instrumental version of "Hotel California," and Santana's cover of "Oye Como Va."  Hear how it goes - this pair is going to go gold like Red.

Speaking of the Reds, the North Koreans were at the Winter Olympics to take part with their southern brethren in the Games, and not just against each other.  The North and South Korean female ice hockey players are competing side by side.   And they got shut out side be side, losing to Switzerland.  But the big loser in the thawing of relations between the two Korean governments may be the United States; while representatives from Pyongyang and Seoul were talking and making nice - and South Korean President Moon Jae-in was being invited to go to Pyongyang for further talks to warm relations and cool tensions - Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, was being belligerent and rude toward North Koreans and also South Koreans by refusing to acknowledge the Olympic diplomacy going on around him.  More proof that the rest of the world has given up on Americans to do the right thing even if they have exhausted all of the alternatives.

But at least we're not the Russians, who have been banned from sending a national team because of doping.  Russians without a history of doping who are competing are competing as themselves, not as representatives of a country, which likely means that the only Russians you'll see at these Games are figure skaters.

Yevgenia Medvedeva is hot. ;-)

It's safe to assume that all of the Russian surnames at these Games will have the feminizing "a" at the end, yes . . .  

One more controversy about the Winter Olympics' location has also been settled.  It's spelled "PyeongChang," not "Pyeongchang" - the "C" is capitalized.

I hope that has cleared up any misunderstanding.