Quick Shiffrin rundown. She has the most slalom World Cup victories of all time … to be more specific, she has more World Cup victories in the slalom than any skier has in any event …

… and she took a DNF in the Olympic slalom in 2022, and skied a bizarrely bad race earlier this Olympics that cost Team USA a medal. She hadn’t won a medal since 2018, despite winning five World Championships, and being named the top overall skier in the world four times.

That drought was set to end Wednesday. Shiffrin was already well on her way to a gold medal after her first of two runs. She already led by .82 seconds, larger than the margin of victory in any ski race in the entire Olympics so far. She just had to do OK.

I am going to post a short series of things that seemed like Bad Omens:

The men’s slalom race from two days earlier, where Atle Le McGrath had a huge lead after the first run, DNF-ed the second, and wound up lying on his back, hiding in the woods.

The skier in bronze medal position, leaving the gate two skiers before Shiffrin, had her pole break during her run, a freak incident that rarely happens. “I just felt like, why today, why in the Olympics?”, she told Swedish press. (Trusting Google translate here.) Obviously, she couldn’t ski with one pole and had to quit.

The skier in silver medal position, leaving the gate just before Shiffrin, missed the very first gate. Shiffrin probably saw it.

Her closest contenders had failed to finish. Her lead, already massive, was now gargantuan. (Is gargantuan bigger than massive? It is, right?)

She could’ve clinched the gold medal by skiing anything faster than a 53.47, which would’ve been the 24th-fastest time of the second run.

It was no longer Shiffrin vs. the World. It was Shiffrin vs. Herself. And well … that’s a matchup she’d lost at the Olympics before.

Every voice in her head had to be screaming. Should she go for it? Should she take it easy? What if she screwed up again? How would she be viewed if she came away from another Olympics with no gold?

Only one thing to do: Shiffrin sent it. It was a fearless run that extended her lead rather than defending it.

Shiffrin won by a margin of 1.50 seconds, more than the gap between second place and 10th place.

1.50 seconds does not sound like a lot — it’s probably taking you more time to read this bullet-point — but it is a freakin’ eternity in this sport.

It’s the largest win in any Olympic skiing event since the 1998 women’s giant slalom, when Italy’s Deborah Compagnoni won by 1.8 seconds.

If you added up the winning margins in this event from the 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 Olympics, you would get 1.51 seconds. In other words, Shiffrin won by the margin of victory from the last six Olympics combined! (I figured this stat out yesterday and they put it on Gold Zone! Shiffrin apparently saw it, which is neat)

However, after tabulating that stat, I realized it was actually kinda unfair to Shiffrin … since it includes her 2014 victory by .53 seconds, by far the biggest of the five margins of victory included. I could’ve thrown a couple more Olympics in there if Shiffrin hadn’t been so great 12 years ago.

By the way, Shiffrin is the first-ever person to win two individual Winter Olympic gold medals in the same event with a 12-year gap in between. Total dominance, with a little break. (Actually, a pretty big break.)

Those of us who only witness Shiffrin at these big events will never fully understand her dominance and her mindset — but today, we got a glimpse. The voices in Shiffrin’s head were surely taking her to just take it easy. But when you’re a skier, you take risks. And when you’re a dominant athlete, you try to dominate. It’s what makes her so great year after year after year …

… and it’s surely what makes her susceptible to failure every once in a while. (Not today, though!)

5-for-5 for Klæbo! He now has 10 career gold medals and is one away a perfect Games! And my goodness, another breathtaking sprint up the hill to win it.

But! Enough about him! How about ANOTHER cross-country medal for Team USA! The Americans had just five medals in Olympics history coming into these games, and now they have three in Milano-Cortina, including two silvers for Ogden!

What a killer race by Ogden and Schumacher. There were six legs in this race — each racer went twice. On Leg #5, Ogden posted the best time of anybody in the field. Then on Leg #6, Schumacher posted the best time by anybody in any leg of the entire race. (Yes, even faster than Klæbo.)

Two silvers ain’t bad when the GOAT is on the course. If Norway hasn’t produced The Skiing Terminator, they’d have some golds.

Klæbo slowed down at the end and for a finish line. And it really looked like Schumacher thought he could pull a Don Beebe on Leon Lett and catch him at the line. Wasn’t to be, but it looks like Team USA is going to keep winning cross-country medals at the Olympics for a while.

NBC snowboarding announcer Todd Richards talked about the judging in this event as if it were a grave international tragedy. He yelled WHAT?!? after almost every score went up on the board, and repeatedly said things like “I won’t pretend to have any idea what’s going on with the judging here today.”

After the cameras stopped rolling and he could really speak his mind, he took to Instagram to say “that was the worst judging I’ve ever seen in an event, ever,” that their decisions were “setting snowboarding back” and finished it off with an emphatic “absolute SHIT judging.”

Richards’ main disagreement was that Fukada won the event with 720s on her final two jumps while Sadowski-Synnott landed 1080s. If you look closely at the scoring, Sadowski-Synnott did receive higher scores on those tricks, but it was outweighed by Fukada’s performance on the rails at the top of the course. From an outsiders’ perspective, I’ve gotta say: the jumps seem way harder than the rails, and I don’t get why they’re evenly weighted.

One of the most essential Olympics experiences is when one of the announcers absolutely loses it over how much they think the judging sucks, allowing those of us at home to nod along and say “you know what, he’s right” despite not having watched the sport in four years. Thank you, Todd — this was the good stuff.

Sweden was always going to win this — they’ve now won four of five women’s cross country events and had a prominent crash in the fifth that led to them getting silver. Unbe

Jessie Diggins posted some good times, but the American team finished off the podium in 5th place. But after medaling the other day, we talked about how Diggins tends to focus more on whether she went 100 percent than how she placed. And yeah, she went 100 percent today.

Xu repeats as gold medalist, the first person ever to win multiple Olympic aerial gold medals…

But I was really interested by a comment the announcers made on Scott’s silve medal jump. Replay showed that she clearly dragged both of her hands on the ground on the landing, which would be a huge deduction, but the announcers said the judges simply don’t have access to replay and may have not noticed.

THEY’RE FLIPPING AND TWIRLING LIKE A BILLION TIMES AND THEY CAN’T WATCH ANYTHING ON REPLAY?!?!?!?

An American gets bronze in the final snowboarding event of the Olympics! Exciting!

Sorry. I can’t do this anymore. With all due respect to Canter and his achievement, I must ask: What happened to our great snowboarding nation?

Snowboarding was introduced to the Olympics in 1998, with just two events, and Team USA didn’t win either. In each of the next six Olympics, from 2002 to 2022, Team USA won the most snowboading gold medals.

And this year: zero???? The only one who really came close was Chloe Kim.

Looking at the medal table, it’s clear. America’s Gen Z youth are too obsessed with bobsled, long-track speed skating, and cross-country skiing. They are not interested in being Xtreme. They have no time for our nation’s traditional events like the halfpipe.

I just asked my 18-month-old son, Trucksyn, what he knew about snowboarding. He’d said “dad, shut up about your boring old person sports! I’m too busy building monobob tracks in Minecraft!” I wanted to be mad at him … but isn’t it us who let them down? Much to think about.

I’d watch out if I were Scandanavia. France has now won five of total biathlon gold medals at these Olympics.

(To be clear once again: Not in favor of a Winter War, or any sort of war. Although I am most focus on not restarting World War I, I also don’t want to restart World War II or any of its associated conflicts.)

Biathlon Scandal Update: That’s three gold medals at these Olympics for Julia Simon, the biathlete convicted of credit card fraud whose suspension was suspended until after the Olympics.

This was a 4-woman race, and France had six female biathletes at the Olympics … and France chose not to include Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, the athlete whose credit cards were stolen, in this team. Tough break.

at some point in these Olympics I decided that if a team of 2 athletes won a medal, I’d list all their names, but four is apparently too much. A man must have a code.

Canada wins the gold!

(And another missed podium for William Dandjinou, who I may have overhyped.)

Jens Van ‘t Wout won ‘t Wo gold medals earlier this week — I had no idea there were ‘t Wo of them! van ‘t Wout times ‘t Wo!

(If you thought that sucked to read, imagine how much it sucked to type)

The Dutch fell in this one! South Korea has now won this event 7 of 10 times at the Olympics.

That’s a 14th Olympic medal for Italy’s Arianna Fontana, the fifth-most all-time and second-most among Winter Olympians. She has one race left, the 1500m, and can jump into a tie for third.

BTW, apparently Fontana lives in Tallahassee in the offseason. How did I make a whole video about speed skaters from Ocala, Florida and not realize there was a 14-time medalist who lived in Tallahassee? And what the hell, why would you move from Italy to Tallahassee?

OK, completely unrelated now, but since I’m talking about the Ocala speed skaters: BRITTANY BOWE AND HILLARY KNIGHT GOT ENGAGED YESTERDAY! Wooooo! And then Hillary had to go back to prepping for the gold medal hockey game.

This took place in the women’s cross-country team qualification event. Just to clarify: There were no medals in this race and all the medal contenders had finished minutes earlier, so he didn’t interfere with the competition. He didn’t really interact with any of the racers until after crossing the line, when he sniffed an Argentine racers’ butt.

I looked it up. I looked at the official rules of cross-country skiing, produced by the Federation Internationale de Ski. And I can confirm: Ain’t no rule that says a dog can’t play cross-country skiing.

Dogs LOVE running on cross-country courses. Just before the Olympics, Jessie Diggins posted a pic of herself playing with a dog that interrupted her training. And in 2017, A Good Boy Or Girl interrupted a cross-country World Cup race in Quebec. He actually tried playing with the race leaders — look at him running right past Klæbo!

And this also has a tendency for happening in Italy. In 2022, a dog ran down the Super-G course during an alpine ski race in Bormio, a few hours from the cross-country course in Tesero, interrupting the race for a pretty significant period of time.

The dog apparently belongs to the relatives of a race official, who tried leaving him at home but underestimated his ability to escape and desire to be around people. The dog is a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog named Nazgûl, and—

hold up.

A CZECHOSLOVAKIAN WOLFDOG????

NAMED NAZGÛL?!?!?!?!?

Man. I love dogs. I love all dogs. I have personally pet 132 breeds of dog at the Westminster Dog Show, a feat I could only accomplish because I personally love dogs and because dogs also love me and enjoy being pet by me. But if you told me “here’s my Czechoslovakian Wolfhound, named Nazgul” I would simply walk away. Any combination of “no-longer-existent country in the breed name” + “wolf” + “evil character from Lord of the Rings “ and I’m out.

Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs are apparently mixed between German Shepherds and — you guessed it — WOLVES. Because GERMAN SHEPHERDS are not large and powerful enough.

Despite his name, the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog named Nazgul was an extremely good boy, eager to chase the camera and befriend skiers.

When he crossed the line, they triggered the photo finish technology:

I have only one recommendation: Bring back Olympic dog sledding or Olympic skijoring (but with dogs instead of horses.) We can’t wait for the next Nazgul. We have to let pups into the Olympics instead of merely hoping that they’ll show up and that they’ll be friendly Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs.

First up was Canada-Czechia — a game the Canadians had won 5-0 in group play. Except this time, the Czechs were in it all game, and actually took the lead late in the third period. It looked like the gold medal favorites might lose before the semifinals for the first time since 2006.

But the Canadians forced OT on a ridiculous tip by Nick Suzuki, then won on this OT goal by Mitch Marner. Here’s the link to the Inuktitut language broadcast of the goal.

In the second, defending gold medalists Finland faced against Switzerland, a team that hasn’t won a medal since 1948 and was without captain Kevin Fiala. Then Switzerland went up 2-0 in the first period.

But Finland scored two goals in the final seven minutes, forced overtime, and won on a game-winner by Arturi Lehkonen in OT.

This was awesome! As a Team USA fan, it was so fun watching all the other gold medal contenders get pushed to the brink! Ha-ha! Sowing rules, WAY better than reaping.

But Team USA only managed a single goal against Sweden, and with 90 seconds left, Mika Zibanejad scored an equalizer. (Sadly: Go Rangers, baby.)

Luckily, Quinn Hughes got the game-winner in OT, shortly after waving off the bench attempting to sub him out.

Gonna be honest: I hate the 3-on-3 overtime in the Olympics. I know why they can’t just keep playing and playing and playing, like they do in the NHL playoffs — they gotta squeeze this whole tournament into two weeks — but we haven’t seen these countries play with NHL players in 12 years. It would be a bummer if somebody lost on a weird tiebreaker in curling, we can watch those same curlers in other events all year long if we feel like it. We only best-on-best men’s hockey at the Olympics! And most Olympics don’t even have it! And it’s getting decided on this gimmick?

But damn. Hockey with NHL-ers in the Olympics RULES. Three more games to go, and they’ll all be must-see.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS!

TEAM USA VS. CANADA!

FOR THE GOLD MEDAL!

Setting the stage here: Team USA and Canada have played in seven of eight women’s hockey Olympic gold medal games and 23 of 24 Women’s World Championships. It’s the greatest rivalry in the Winter Olympics, and maybe international sports in general.

I am, quite frankly, getting my hopes up. Because Team USA has been kicking the crap out of Canada recently. They’ve won seven games in a row against Canada, outscoring the Canadians 24 to 7 in the recent Rivalry Series and shutting them out 5-0 in the group stages.

I am also terrified.

Who at the Milano-Cortina organizing committee put the women’s figure skating and the hockey gold medal match at the same time? I just wanna talk!

The hockey should end by the time the medal contenders skate. But overtime could mess that up.

Japan’s Ami Sakai and Kaori Sakamoto are in the gold and silver positions, with Team USA’s Alysa Liu in third. Only 2.02 points separate them.

Nakai, at just 17 years old, will have to deliver on a massive stage. She’s never even skated in a World Championships before. But she was nails in the short program.

Sakamoto has already done her free skate at these Olympics, in the team event, and posted the best score of the event. The fact that Team Japan chose her to skate the free probably indicates their coaches feel she can outscore Nakai.

I am hoping Liu has a chance after she won Worlds last year with a dynamic free skate that outscored Sakamoto— her routine to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite, which she is performing again in Milan.

In Boston last year She seemed stunned by her own victory, walking off the ice saying “what the hell?” and “how did I do that?” Here’s hoping she manifests that magic again. I will try help by spending my day performing random actions listed in the song MacArthur Park. We are leaving cakes out in the rain. We are forgetting recipes. We are going to make this happen.

It’s another Jordan Stolz raceday!

The other day I wrote about how the 500m is not necessarily a Jordan Stolz event, and he might not win … but he did. And this is a Jordan Stolz event. He’s won every World Cup race this year and 11 of the last 12.

I think he’s gonna win.

IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING! The first new Winter Olympic sport in over 20 years makes its debut Thursday.

One thing we love about the Winter Olympics is watching a sport we watch every four years and going “oh yeah, that’s how that weird sport works!” But this is entirely different! We’re going to get to watch a sport we’ve never watched before and learn how it works!

I’m so excited!

SKI-MO! SKI-MO! SKI-MO!

Quick reminder of what this sport is: It’s skiing up a mountain, then skiing down a mountain. There’s also a section where you have to take your skis off and run up the mountain a bit.

There are several triathlon-like transitions where the athletes have to manipulate their equipment before proceeding to the next part. (I really like the part where they jump to remove strips from the bottom of their skis to go downhill.)

Normally races are about 2 hours long, but this is a sprint version of the event. The races will last about 2-3 minutes.

Both events have dominant competitors. The women’s heavy favorite is France’s Emily Harrop, who has won every race for almost a year … but took second in last year’s World Championships.

The heavy favorite in the men’s race is Spain’s Oriol Cordona Coll, the back-to-back World Champion who enters the Olympics on a long string of victories. If he wins, it’ll be the first gold medal for Spain at a Winter Olympics since the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo!

Just to be clear: The gold medal races are at 7:55 and 8:15 a.m., but the heats and semis will be earlier in the day. Although chances are I’ve already published after it’s all happened anyway, so what’s the point of me even mentioning it.

This is a team event, pairing up two competitors from each country.

So you’d assume that Norway would have paired Jens Lurås Oftebro, who won the first two Nordic Combined gold medals of these Olympics with his brother, Einar Lurås Oftebro, who finished 6th and 12th in the two individual events.

It would only be right! The Ofte-bros!

But no. He is instead paired with Andreas Skoglund, who finished fourth and seventh in those events, to maximize his chances of winning a third gold medal.

I hate Nordic Combined. They couldn’t even give us the Ofte-Bros.

Real bummer here, as American Quinn Dehlinger has had to withdraw with a knee injury after a training accident. Dehlinger had won back-to-back silver medals at the last two World Championships and was a real medal contender. He won’t compete in the team event, where Team USA won the gold medal in 2022, either.

It’s just brutal. As you know, these athletes work their whole lives to reach the Olympics … and to get so close and not be able to take part … it has to feel so unfair.

As any Olympics pedant will tell you, the official definition of “an Olympian” is someone who has competed in the Olympics. Those who qualify, go to the Olympics, and suffer unfortunate mishaps before their event starts unfortunately do not qualify.

Here’s hoping Dehlinger recovers and gets to officially become an Olympian in four years. But four years is a long time to wait.