TeamUSATracker: Final Night of Olympics
895 Days Until Paris 2024, 1,448 Days Until Milano Cortina
FINAL DAY OF THE OLYMPICS
18 Team USA athletes are scheduled to compete on Day 16 including Sophia Laukli as Laukli makes her Olympics debut in the last scheduled event for Team USA.
7 members of Team USA Figure Skating will also skate in the Gala staring at 11 PMET. Six members from Team Figure Skating Competition will skate where Team USA won a Silver Medal and have not had a Medal Ceremony to receive those medals because they competed against someone who won Gold but was doping(therefore their medal should be upgraded to Gold) . The Court of Arbitration and Sport proved once again they are most worthless organization in the history of sports and showed another example why some US athletes have called them anti American and racist in the past week dismissed an appeal by Team USA for medal ceremony to be held before the end of the Olympics.
From AP Article
Losing the case means the U.S. skaters will receive their medals months, maybe even years, from now, after (protected person) case winds its way through hearings and appeals.
“We’re disappointed in the decision. It’s unfortunate that these deserving athletes will leave Beijing without their medals,” said Ramsey Baker, executive director of US Figure Skating. “We are proud of the historic accomplishments of our team and we look forward to joining them, their families and friends, and the entire United States in celebrating their achievements from these Olympic Games
220 members of 227 members of Team USA (including alternates) will have participated in action at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics according to @TeamUSATracker records. The 4 members of Team USA (not alternates) who did not participate in an event were Caitlin Patterson (8th cross-country skier on a very talented US Cross Country team ), Mo Lebel (because of a knee injury was replaced in a likely start in combined event) plus Eunice Lee (very common for the 5th skater not to skate in short track relay ) and Pat Nagle (3rd string Goaltender for USA Men’s Hockey, who did dress but DNP vs China)
WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT
8 PMET: Mixed Parallel Team Event (USA Network) - weather permitting
Postponed from yesterday - #6 Team USA will face #11 Slovakia in Round of 16…If they win they face the winner of #3 Italy/ #14ROC if they move on to QFs.. #1 Austria & #2 Switzerland are favorites. Even Austria is seeded number #1 based on results in Beijing #2 Switzerland could be the heavy favorite.
Yes.. this is Mikaela Shiffrin last event in Beijing.. but the strength of Team USA is Paula Moltzan and River Radamus who finished Top 8 in PSL at the 2021 World Championships. The goal is to win 3 of the 4 races head to head because if it goes 2 to 2 it goes to a tiebreaker on time (per FIS rulebook the nation with the lowest combined time of the best individual lady and the best individual man (or second best in case of a tie for the best time) will win the heat)
Moltzan and Radamus helped Team USA advance to QFs at 2021 World Championships and besides Ryan Cochran-Siegle… The 4 members of the team ( Radamus, Moltzan, Shiffrin, and Tommy Ford) had the best four individual finishes for US Ski Team in Beijing.
Full team is Paula Moltzan, Mikaela Shiffrin, River Radamus, Tommy Ford, AJ Hurt, Luke Winters and they can come up with a new lineup every round.
830 PMET & 10:20 PMET: Run 3 and Run 4 of 4-Man Bobsled (Peacock/NBC)
Final Runs are on NBC. Team USA is in 13th position (Hunter Church, Charlie Volker, Kris Horn, Josh Williamson) and 14th position (Frank del Duca, Jimmy Reed, Carlo Valdes, and Hakeem Abdul- Saboor) and both sleds are an improvement from 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics for Team USA.
USA Men’s Bobsled continues to recover from Steve Holcomb’s sudden and tragic loss as you can see in this article by Tim Reynolds. John Morgan (Bobsled Analyst on NBC) has pointed out the USA Men’s Bobsled is really about improvement as these young pilots & crossover push athletes (future drivers) could be medal threats in 2026, 2030, or 2034 .
10 PMET: Cross Country Skiing Women’s 30 KM (PEACOCK)
Currently on Peacock TV - Maybe NBC cuts in with Chad Salmela if we get another “Here Come Diggins!!” moment.
Jessie Diggins is a medal contender in every race she runs and Rosie Brennan has an outside chance to medal given Brennan’s distance performance on the World Cup this year.
A fun fact about Jessie Diggins is that as long as Diggins is top American finisher (and finishes about #24)- Diggins will have the best finish for a US women’s cross country skier in all 11 Olympic events (Cross Country Skiing switches every four years between classical and freestyle stroke so to set this record it has taken Diggins 2 Olympics 2018 & 2022 to get a Top 10 finish in every stroke minus tonight’s 30KM Freestyle). As I noted in the thread below this race is not often run so to predict the 30KM Freestyle (the Marathon of the Winter Olympics) you need look back at the 2019 World Championships where Diggins finished 4th and complained of her legs cramping at the end of the race.
With weather delays check out @TeamUSATracker Google Doc for the latest information 2 of the 3 events above had time changes in the last 24 hours.
WHAT IS HOT TOPIC ON SOCIAL? BOBSLED TECHNOLOGY
Germany has dominated every sledding sport - - more golds and more medals, sliding events than any nation ever had at any Olympics
The only team to win a Gold Medal in a sliding sport other than Germany in Beijing is Team USA. As I noted in this tweet
Well the most successful bobsledder in Team USA History (5 Medals), 5 for 5 in Olympics Events (perfect 100%), 1 of only 4 in the world (only American) to be perfect in over 5 races and Elana Meyers Taylor weighed in on the discussion and broke down why Monobob is the only race that balanced the German’s technology.
Obviously Bobsled is a lot more like Formula One than Swimming but that raises two questions re technology will the rest of the World catch up by 2026 or is the technology maybe too good?
Final Thread on the Medal Count:
24 medals
10 4th place finishes
7 5th place finishes
11 “near misses” as deemed by @TeamUSATracker (in addition to the 17 Top 4 or 5 finishes)
Overall: 52 medal contending performances with 2 more events to go with🇺🇸 medal contenders.
Can’t be more proud of Team USA. With a medal tonight will tie for the 2nd best Winter Olympics outside of North America.
Also better than expected: Beat all Gold Medal Predictions from Experts. Best Olympics in Asia.
Outperformed Gracenote’s Gold prediction 22 (the best analytical prediction out there ) and could have tied Sports Illustrated (the oldest medal prediction service out there ) with better luck or if you are a biased Team USA fan like myself maybe some better judges in Speed Skating.
Thank you all for reading @TeamUSATracker. There are 895 days until Paris 2024 Olympics and most sports have still not laid out specific qualification standards for Paris. If it is like Tokyo - the earliest qualification will begin is fall or winter 2022.
Please feel free to leave me a comment on anything Team USA related and if you have a World Championship or future Team USA event that you are look forward to in the upcoming year. Go Team USA!!!