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2018 Winter Games in Pyongchang


Piotrek

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Yesterday saw the second (and probably the last...) medal for Poland during the Games. This time for the ski jumping team. I was at work during the event, but I read afterwards that the silver medal was decided by the last jump. Silver of bronze, it's still a great achievement- the first ever olympic medal for the Polish ski jumping team :D

 

@God.

I see general von Mackensen on your avatar :D

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Congrats :) it's fun to get medals :D

 

Yes it is, the fur hat is just Awesome :D And a operation genius for his time, however I can't say that I agree so much on his political views :P As most German generals were pretty conservative (here, old German and Prussian conservatism) during WW1. 

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A surprising gold for the US today, however we now have the most medals in all categories and Marit Bjørgen is the most winning winter-olympic athlete of all time :D This Olympics had a slow start (for us), but it really picked up :D

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I just looked at the men's ice hockey results and, man, Germany came really close to winning gold :o That's not something you would normally expect.

Is their team so good or is that all because of lack of NHL players?

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23 minutes ago, Piotrek said:

I just looked at the men's ice hockey results and, man, Germany came really close to winning gold :o That's not something you would normally expect.

Is their team so good or is that all because of lack of NHL players?

Probably a combination of both. Obviously the competition wasn't as good as it would've been with the NHL players, but they played very well as a team even without as much individual talent as other teams. 

 

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8 hours ago, ev13 said:

Probably a combination of both. Obviously the competition wasn't as good as it would've been with the NHL players, but they played very well as a team even without as much individual talent as other teams. 

 

Germany was also coached really well and they played with a sort of grit ("firewagon hockey") type of play and I think that's due to them getting as far as they did without really expecting to. They really had nothing to lose in the gold medal game, they were already making history even with the silver medal. Right from the faceoff right before they tied it at 2-2 they looked like they had a fire in their belly lol and they played like that for the rest of the game. I really wish they could have won. I think it could have gone either way since it was so close. It was a great game either way, probably some of the best Olympic hockey I've ever watched even without the NHL stars.

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I watched part of the Olympics in the evening, but missed out on a lot of it because it was late at night, and I have to work in the morning. I'm so disappointed I couldn't stay up late enough to watch the curling finals, and I missed out on the women's hockey finals! I saw the celebrations afterwards, but it would've been more exciting to see them as they happened, but there were some other amazing moments I was able to see.

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Throughout the Olympics I only watched ski jumping, much like during the Sochi Games.

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I'm looking forward to sled hockey in a few weeks during the paralympics. If you've never seen it I recommend it; those guys are so freaking tough and I find the adaptation of the sport quite interesting. I'm so happy the paralympics are being broadcast here on all the major networks. I remember when they never got tv coverage at all.

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It's all finished... :(

My favourite moment by far: Ester Ledecka winning her 'accidental' gold medal in the giant slalom on borrowed skis and how confused she was. The Austrian skier who won silver wasn't too pleased, though, with her devoting all her effort on this one discipline and losing out on this 'chancer' :lol:. Ledecka then went on to win another gold in her discipline, snowboarding.

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1 hour ago, Palovana said:

I'm looking forward to sled hockey in a few weeks during the paralympics. If you've never seen it I recommend it; those guys are so freaking tough and I find the adaptation of the sport quite interesting. I'm so happy the paralympics are being broadcast here on all the major networks. I remember when they never got tv coverage at all.

Oh yes! There's more! I definitely will watch that!

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8 hours ago, Piotrek said:

Throughout the Olympics I only watched ski jumping, much like during the Sochi Games.

I haven't watched ski jumping in a long time but is Adam Malysz still competing? I remember being mad as a kid because he always used to ruin Finlands chances of winning gold :D 

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@ev13

Adam Małysz retired in 2011 (and, unlike Janne Ahonen, had the good sense to stay retired) and, afterwards, competed as a car racer for a few years. Now he works as an official in Polish Ski Federation.

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1 hour ago, Piotrek said:

@ev13

Adam Małysz retired in 2011 (and, unlike Janne Ahonen, had the good sense to stay retired) and, afterwards, competed as a car racer for a few years. Now he works as an official in Polish Ski Federation.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head about Ahonen :D They did have some epic battles though.

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@ev13

By the way, what's up with the ski jumping in Finland? It's been a complete disaster for the last few years. Any hope in sight?

 

Today I read an article that sought to summarize the Polish results during the Games. The conclusion was not very groundbreaking, just what any sane observer could see- much of the great results in the recent years ("great" relative to the Poland's previous poor results during the Winter Games) were due to star individuals who were mostly an exception, rather than the norm, in the Polish winter sports. Justyna Kowalczyk, may have won 5 medals overall, but she has been a unique phenomenon in the Polish cross-county skiing and there's no successor in sight (much like in the case of Tomasz Sikora who won silver in biathlon in 2006). In most other sports Poland doesn't have even one such athlete. The only sport in which there is some continuity of good results and (possibly) some hope for the future is ski jumping, and that's mostly thanks to the "Małyszomania" 10 years back. But even in this case the youngest of our accomplished jumpers, Maciej Kot, is 25, and those younger than him are very much hit-or-miss. Overall, there's little infrastucture, too few good coaches and, most of all, way too little interest. The author concluded by quoting a Norwegian skier who, asked about the secret behind her county's success said "we're born with the skis on our feet" alluding to the fact that practising winter sports (not just watching) is a part of the culture there.

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@Piotrek

Well, after Ahonen first retired, there was this another guy that was supposed to take his place, but couldn't overcome his personal issues, so the ski jumping team was left without top tier talent, and with the top coaches going elsewhere the rest of the jumpers did not have great coaching either. After couple of unsuccessful years they started to lose the major sponsors. By 2014 the Finnish ski association had cut down the ski jumping budget from 1.2 million to 400000€, and had fired the team manager and never replaced him. So now they are in a situation where they can't afford assistant coaches, physical therapists, equipment managers etc. I remember reading an article a while back that even Ahonen was sowing his own and other guys' jumping suits in his spare time.

 

There has been some talk that they are trying to take the steps to get Finland back on top, but the association doesn't support athletes under the world cup level, so upcoming talent has to work full time just to pay for coaching, equipment, travel and competition fees so most of them choose another sport or just have to quit.

 

Added to those things that due to no ski jumping manager, there is no one to guide the operation to one direction, so there is a lot of fighting about which is the right way between individual coaches and athletes.  

 

Actually a quote from you summarizes the situation, with the addition of no financial support : 

 

19 hours ago, Piotrek said:

Overall, there's little infrastucture, too few good coaches and, most of all, way too little interest

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

aqua_ace  the 2018 para lympics are on tv for 2 weeks and they have sled hockey, and women's and mens skiing and mens curling

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