.
Nope, of course I am absolutely not qualified to discuss the actual sports, so please take over the comments and enjoy!
Meanwhile, like many of my fellow couch potatoes, I’ll revel in the sideshows. My Norwegian-born mother-in-law always assured me that the really dangerous Norwegians took their genes out of the Scandinavian pool some centuries back, but then again, per the Washington Post, “Every four years, they come from Norway to plunder your gold”…
DAEGWALLYEONG, South Korea â If you surmise that your Olympic nation is as strong or as cool as Norway, then you are suffering some sort of delusion. In your defense, itâs not like the Norwegians sit around up at the 59th parallel crowing about being the greatest. They just come to the harder, hardier version of Olympics, the Winter Games, bring along their majestic lungs and return home with medals by bushels.
They probably pay the odd baggage fee.
They have merely 5.3 million citizens yet a global all-time lead with 329 winter medals, making them a medals-per-capita Godzilla. In the first Winter Olympics, they led the medal table in Chamonix, France, in 1924, and in the most recent Winter Olympics, they finished third in medals and tied for first in golds in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. (And they might yet pull ahead in those latter charts, given they tied with doping-scandalized Russia.) Their past six Olympiads saw them finish first, second, third, sixth (in their big bummer of 2006 in Italy), fourth and third, with medal counts of 26, 25, 25, 19, 23 and 26.
This time, theyâre talking, in calm, matter-of-fact tones, about outdoing themselves with 30…
But this year, I would submit, the Norwegian curling team has finally lost the Weird Fashion competition to… THE MEXICAN ALPINE SKI TEAM!
(Yes, that’s a Day of the Dead theme, designed by the guy on the right of the photo, Mexico’s ski-team emeritus Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe.)
ruemara
I’d wear it.
PhoenixRising
Calavera-themed ski suits. Want. Don’t even ski.
Aleta
Norwegians are merciless skiathloners.
Amir Khalid
Maybe it’s because I’m a creature of the tropics, but I’ll never understand winter sports.
Anne Laurie
@Aleta: Well, they basically invented it! (According to the Norwegian-American Spousal Unit, it combines two things Norway has in profusion: Snow-covered hills, and a need to defend oneself against outside invaders.)
Duane
It’s possible one of the female Russian skaters could force me to turn over my state secrets, under certain conditions.
randy khan
@Amir Khalid:
Think of it this way: Many of them are efforts to make people forget they started doing these things as a matter of grim survival.
SRW1
The Norwegian medals projection may possibly down to 28 as the heavy co-favorite Johannes Boe fired an astonishing 4 out of then 10 blanks in the biathlon sprint competition (the weird thing where where they ski a little, shoot their rifles on targets, ski some more, shoot again, and then ski some more). As the time losses from the sprint are taken to the pursuit competition, Boe’s already too far back to still have any hope of a medal there.
On the other hand, the Norwegian cross country skiers, who do their skiing without the shooting interruption, annihilated their competitors and took home all three medals. So the overall projection of 30 may till be on.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
Cabin fever is a very real thing.
So is the need to get from Point A to Point B when there’s an expanse of snow and/or ice trapping people indoors. Just as young lions play-hunt and young deer play-race, young Snow Clan people compete in winter sports to learn the skills they’ll need as grownups.
Also, the exertion helps keep you from freezing to death…
pamelabrown53
Did anyone see 17 year old Red Gerard win the gold in men’s snowboard slopestyle? I love watching the snowboarders.
NotMax
What day is the ice fishing event?
“Wow, Chip, the Norwegians just tied the record for fastest use of the auger. Big boost for their team.”
“Yeah, Biff, but it’s still anybody’s contest. The Americans remain far ahead in beer consumption so far, and that’s worth a lot of points.”
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: you could spend every winter skiing in the alps if you didnât spend all your money on guitars!
ETA: NTTAWWT
Mary G
@pamelabrown53: I always worry because it seems like the snowboarder events have gotten so extreme they will all end up miserable at 40 from arthritis, but I did see that, and his family was great. Four brothers, two sisters, mom and dad had started a gofundme to travel to the Olympics, and I guess United got word of it and comped their airfare too. They were so happy for him pulling it out right at the end, and he kept putting helmets back on to hide a few tears. It was charming.
danielx
@NotMax:
Is there a lutefisk competition?
Steve in the ATL
@danielx: right after herring pickling
Ajabu
@Amir Khalid:
Cosigned.
pamelabrown53
@Mary G:
Great family story; thanks for sharing. It certainly is a dangerous sport. Very daredevilish. I watch in amazement.
Yutsano
@danielx: @Steve in the ATL: Don’t foodshame. Kimchi comes from the same necessity of preserving calories as long as possible.
Having said that…lutefisk barely qualifies. I tasted it once…that was enough. You have to be REALLY hungry to eat that.
Gin & Tonic
@danielx: Surviving gets you a medal?
John Revolta
Yeah in all fairness these events do seem to be kinda custom-designed for certain nationalities to excel.
Now if you design an event where you have to sell a suitcase full of watches, run across six lanes of traffic and jump a turnstile faster than a Norwegian, gimme a call.
Jay
@randy khan:
Explain curling,………
NotMax
@Yutsano
Shouting “Ufda!” after each morsel helps.
:)
Mary G
@pamelabrown53: They sound like a fun group:
Makes sense that they would spawn a daredevil.
FlyingToaster
@Jay: Winter Sport for serious nerds.
Aleta
I wonder when pairs winter sport with a dog will be included in the Olympics. Not ice skating of course. The rich history of dog participation in winter sports should be celebrated. The snowboarders could pull something off. Cross country skiing looks downright unnatural without the dogs. Running up ahead plunging their noses in the snow.
Suffragette City
Saw a video of the Norwegian curling team putting their pants on without using their hands..Yes it was amusing!
AnotherBruce
@Duane: Think of it as a breakthrough in American Russian diplomacy.
PhoenixRising
@Mary G: Cleveland: you’ve gotta be tough. And a little crazy.
StringOnAStick
The scary thing about all the acrobatic snowboard competition is the risk for serious spinal chord injury. There’s a young local guy here that became a quadriplegic in a snowboard freestyle competition at the X Games.
Jay
@FlyingToaster:
As a Canadian, I curl,
But I have no idea how curling in any way, relates to early historic winter survival skills,
Beer drinking isn’t really a survival skill compared to say, biathalon, which has similarities to skiing down game,
And the sweeping thing has no relation to winter survival, unless you live in Vancouver or Victoria, in the rest of Canada, we shovel.
Aleta
@pamelabrown53: He was great!
Emerald
And then there was that Norwegian today who FELL AND HIT HIS HEAD AND BROKE HIS SKIPOLE at the beginning of the race, was out of it, and came back to win freaking going away.
They took one, two, three in that event.
Sheesh. Glad they’re not still going Viking.
Aleta
@NotMax: It could be more thrilling if first they built their shack and towed it out.
Duane
@AnotherBruce: I’m willing to sacrifice for the good of all. Country first.
Aleta
@Jay: Surviving cabin fever.
rikyrah
@Jay:
The moment when you realize that CURLING is an OLYMPIC SPORT and people receive MEDALS for it????
Aleta
@Anne Laurie: Didn’t Norwegians train Allied US troops in winter warfare and skills? (Don’t know where they trained though.)
FlyingToaster
@Aleta: Shetland, Orkney, and Caithness.
NotMax
@FlyingToaster
Excellent moniker for a white-shoe law firm.
;)
PhoenixRising
@NotMax: I thought those were the names of the Queen’s Corgis.
NotMax
@PhoenixRising
Oddly enough, those are Larry, Darryl and Darryl.
:)
Jay
@Aleta:
You don’t have to curl, you can just drink beer.
Sm*t Cl*de
Having the Nordmarka cross-country skiing forest / park in the middle of your capital city probably helps.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Anne Laurie:
Now the Finns, they got lots of #2, not so much of #1.
If there were any Winter Olympic events that involved “sneaking up behind invaders in the snow and slitting their throats before they notice”, I know who would take home Gold.
Origuy
@Aleta: Skijoring is a sport where a person on skis is pulled by a dog or dogs, or a horse. The problem with a sport involving animals being in the Olympics is that you either have to deal with the import regulations of the host country or supply the animals locally. Horses are flown to the equestrian events in the summer games, which is very expensive. They held the events at the Beijing games in Hong Kong, because of the prevalence of equine diseases in Beijing.
Origuy
Lutefisk has nothing on the Icelandic HĂĄkarl, which is fermented shark. The meat of the Greenland shark is poisonous when fresh. Traditionally, the shark is beheaded and gutted, and the flesh is buried under compacted gravel for 6-12 weeks. It’s then hung to dry for several months.
You have to be hungry to try to eat poisonous shark.
Adria McDowell
I am here for those fashions, especially the Mexican ski teamâs threads. Epic.
And FUCKING BIATHLON. That shit is insane. Itâs basically like the skiing equivalent of âhere, run five miles and then stop and shoot at this nickel sized target from not less than 50 meters* away, and do it will itâs cold out. Oh, and do it at least five times. Donât miss, or you have to take penalty laps. Enjoy!â Those folks can shoot better than your local American âmulishaâ yokels.
*I donât actually know actual distance, but all of that shit is crazy hard. Itâs very impressive.
singing truth to power
@NotMax: You don’t eat “morsels” of lutefisk, you eat globs of it, dripping with melted butter. I happen to love it, and only with the past few years discovered that salt and pepper make it even better, along with a side of rutabaga. None of those boring meatballs for me!
NotMax
@singing truth to power
Cuisinal license. Like calling Patagonian toothfish “Chilean sea bass.”
;)
MCA1
@Yutsano: And to be fair, there are plenty of not obscure, much tastier ways to preserve fish than letting it dry out and then reconstituting it in fricking lye. My understanding is that lutefisk was a complete fluke, an accident where someone spilled a bunch of fireplace ash on some old fish, tried to wash it off and then when it looked like a jelly dared his buddies to eat it, or something.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Amir Khalid: The best ones are just versions of races. And by best ones I mean the ones that don’t require judges. Cross country skiing is just a race through the woods on snow…basically the winter version of a cross country running race. I used to do it regularly growing up in Michigan because it was a way to get outside in the winter, and it really is great exercise, and the snow covered woods are pretty spectacularly beautiful, and the snow makes them super quiet. As long as you are dressed appropriately you can stay perfectly comfortable.
@Steve in the ATL: My dad (Swedish descent) still makes pickled herring. He gave up on lutefisk though…it’s not so much the taste (it’s really bland) as the texture (very rubbery).
@Jay: It doesn’t relate to winter survival except as a means of entertainment during long, long winter months. It’s basically a version of shuffleboard on ice. It’s a passtime that can be done on the ice, which is pretty essential when you’re stuck with ice and snow for the better part of 5 months.
pluky
@Yutsano: Not just calories, vitamins. Pickled cabbage is an excellent long term storage vehicle for vitamin C, something really hard to get over a northern winter.
Shell
Are they praying to La Santa Muerte?