Olympics

[tornado]

pretty sure this hints that the Russian athletes are all still doping and cheating...

"More than 30 Russian athletes withdrew from a tournament ..after the unannounced arrival of anti-doping officials."

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-athletes-disappear-from-competition-after-doping-agency-arrives-60204

I sure hope the Olympics use the latest detection technology...just sayin'

[tornado]

kind of what I would have expected...

the NORTH KOREANS are competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics...and there's not a lot of North Koreans in any of the sports...
but one speed skater - just tried CHEATING by tring to intentionally trip his Japanese opponent...

https://i.imgur.com/OGcPal7.gifv

and the guy didn't just do it once....he actually did it TWICE - so it appears his only intent in this race was to take down the Japanese guy

https://nypost.com/2018/02/20/north-korean-skater-disqualified-after-shocking-crash-dirty-tactics/

[Da Coach]

USA not doing real well in the 2018 Winter Olympics so far. Just 8 years ago, the US set an Olympic record with 37 total medals at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics_medal_table#Medal_table

And just 4 years ago at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the US accumulated 28 total medals. Not since 1998 has the US had fewer than 25 total medals.

With only a few days left in the 2018 Pyeongchang, South Korea Winter Olympics, the US has 13 total medals so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Winter_Olympics_medal_table#Medal_table

Of their 13 total medals, the US has 5 Gold Medals so far, 4 in Snowboarding events, and one for Alpine Skiing, 3 Silver, and 5 Bronze.
The skiing, sledding, and figure skating events have been a disapointment for the US so far, and one of the last hopes for Gold in the skiing events, Lindsey Vonn just finished with a bronze medal in one of her events with one more on Wednesday. The women's hockey team will play in the Gold Medal game Thursday, and the men's hockey team plays tomorrow in the quarterfinals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_at_the_2018_Winter_Olympics#Medalists

[Da Coach]

The US picked up one more medal overnight, a gold medal in a women's cross-country skiing event, the first time any American woman has ever won a medal in a cross-country skiing event.
The US now has a total of 14 medals (6 gold, 3 silver, and 5 bronze) and are tied for 4th in total medal count.

The US men's hockey team was eliminated from medal contention with an overtime quarter final loss to the Czech Republic. This was not a surprise as the US team was weakened by the NHL's decision not to allow its players to leave their teams to play in the Olympics.

[tornado]

but wouldn't that hurt the Czech team just as much if not more?
The top 10-15 Czech hockey players in the world all play in the NHL as well - but they wouldn't have as much depth of other players like the US migh thave..

[Da Coach]

Not nearly as much.
Virtually every top American hockey player in the US plays in the NHL or is in lower leagues but under contract with NHL teams. That left an extremely small and mediocre-quality pool of talent to build the US team with.
That is not true with the top players in Europe. The European countries competing in the Olympics, like the Czechs, have a lot of very good players playing in high-level professional leagues like the Russian KHL, the Czech Extraliga, Swedish Hockey League, and many other pro leagues in Europe. And Canada was not affected nearly as much by the NHL ban because they have an infinitely deeper talent pool of amateurs and non-NHL pros to build their team with.
The talent level on the US team is just not very good. The team is made up of a collection of washed up older pros, career minor leaguers who never got NHL contracts, and 4 young college guys who haven't signed pro contracts yet (who were the best players on the team).

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/2/21/17035036/usa-czech-republic-hockey-score-results-olympics-2018

[tornado]

A bigger factor is that all the US players come from different teams, different leagues, and virtually none of them have played together before or even been on the same ice with each other...

That is not true for the current teams from Czech and some other nations, who grew up playing together and who have played a bunch with each other...
Maybe having really TOP talent can overcome other factors - but nobody has their best talent...heck, Russia is hurt the worst since arguably
the three best offensive players in the NHL (and likely in the whole world) are Russians (Ovechkin, Kucherov, Malkin) and they don't get any of them on their Olympic team..
Instead, familiarity with your teammates is a very essential part of a good hockey team, and the US guys are lacking there.