Day 6 at the Winter Olympics: Every Day People and a Sobering Reminder
The mixed doubles final is set, the human side of curling shines through, and Lindsey Vonn’s injury puts everything into perspective. Edition #323
So the curling final has been set. It’s going to be the United States of America going up against Sweden for the gold medal.
It certainly wasn’t a breeze for this Swedish team. They lost against Estonia and Norway. In fact, they barely even made the playoffs. Somehow, though, they won when they needed to, and now they’re moving on to play the United States in the final.
Team USA also didn’t have an easy path. After losses to Great Britain and South Korea, they somehow beat the reigning champs in Italy to reach their first-ever mixed doubles gold medal game.
If you’ve been a subscriber of this newsletter throughout this Winter Olympic coverage, you probably know about curling just based on the amount of time I’ve talked about the sport. But if this is your first time, you’re probably wondering how someone from the U.S. even gets into curling.
While their excellence in curling has brought these two to the Olympics, they are humans just like us. Cory Thiesse is a chemical dependency laboratory technician at North Shore Analytical, a mercury-testing lab. Korey Dropkin is a successful licensed realtor with RE/MAX Results. He’s also a Patriots fan.
I wanted to highlight this just to show the human aspect of the game, which a lot of the time isn’t seen.
Side note: the U.S. has already beaten Sweden in this tournament.
On one hand, everyone’s enjoying the Olympics and all the games. On the other, there’s a horrific injury.
I haven’t talked much about her because I felt like it was already being covered pretty much everywhere, but this is an absolute necessity to talk about now.
Lindsey Vonn, who is in her second season back from retirement, suffered an ACL tear last Tuesday but said she was going to compete in the Olympics anyway. We’re talking about what would be, for most people, a career-ending injury, and she decided to push through it anyway.
If that wasn’t enough, on February 8th, or Day 5 of the tournament, she veered toward the edge of the course, hooked her arm around a gate, got turned sideways in midair, and had no chance to land safely. She landed in a cloud of snow, and Vonn had to be airlifted off the mountain.
“I tried. I dreamt. I jumped,” she wrote.
Let’s keep Vonn in our prayers, everybody.
Around the Games:
UNDEFEATED: The United States and Sweden are both undefeated in women’s ice hockey, sitting at 2–0.
Alpine Skiing (Men’s Team Combined Slalom):
Franjo von Allmen and Thomas Tumler took gold representing Switzerland.
Vincent Kriechmayr and Manuel Feller represented Austria and took silver.
Marco Odermatt and Loïc Meillard also represented Switzerland and took bronze.
Speed Skating (Women’s 1000m):
Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands took gold.
Femke Kok of the Netherlands took silver.
Miho Takagi of Japan took bronze.
Ski Jumping (Men’s NH Individual – Final Round):
Philipp Raimund of Germany took gold.
Kacper Tomasiak of Poland took silver.
Ren Nikaido of Japan took bronze.
Gregor Deschwanden of Switzerland took the second bronze medal.
Outlook:
Day 7 Outlook:
Day 7 Outlook:
Freestyle Skiing: Medal event at 6:30 AM EST / 12:30 PM CET
Short Track Speed Skating: Medal event at 7:03 AM EST / 1:03 PM CET
Cross-Country Skiing: Medal event at 7:24 AM EST / 1:24 PM CET
Biathlon: Medal event at 7:30 AM EST / 1:30 PM CET
Cross-Country Skiing: Medal event at 7:38 AM EST / 1:38 PM CET
Alpine Skiing: Medal event at 8:00 AM EST / 2:00 PM CET
Curling:
Bronze Medal Game: 8:05 AM EST / 2:05 PM CET
Gold Medal Game: 12:05 PM EST / 6:05 PM CET
Luge: Medal event at 12:34 PM EST / 6:34 PM CET
Ski Jumping: Medal event at 2:00 PM EST / 8:00 PM CET
Ice Hockey:
USA vs Canada | Rivalry Game at 2:10 PM EST / 8:10 PM CET
Bulgaria 0. 0. 1. 1
And that’s it for this one. What are your predictions for Day 7? Put them down in the comments below.
As always, if you have any questions about the Winter Olympics, thoughts on the coverage, or anything else, feel free to drop them in the comments or DM me. I’m always happy to answer questions.
Sorry for not posting the Day 6 recap yesterday. I’ve been a little inconsistent the last couple of days, but I’ll get back into the swing of things.
I’ll be back tomorrow with what actually mattered.