Today’s the day! It’s time for the biggest sports crossover event in four years: when NBC tries to convince football fans to stick around after the Super Bowl to watch a random Winter Olympic event after the game.

That’s right. Tonight at roughly 8:51 p.m., in the middle of the third quarter of the Super Bowl, trumpet music will play and Mike Tirico will say something like this: “and that brings up 2nd and 10 for the Patriots … and stick around after the game to watch USA vs. Estonia mixed doubles curling! Big game for their medal hopes!”

And then Cris Collinsworth will say “boy, I just love to watch the Olympics, just incredible stuff from these Olympic athletes.”

And then the Seahawks will continue beating the Patriots to a pulp. (Fingers crossed.)

Honestly, I still get chills thinking about Al Michaels doing a promo for the Kallie Humphries vs. Elena Meyers Taylor women’s monobob showdown during the Rams-Bengals Super Bowl in 2002.

This is Day 2 of 17 of our daily Olympics newsletter. Here’s the link to subscribe and here’s the link to upgrade your free subscription to a paid one. To be clear, there are absolutely no benefits to a paid subscription. You’re just making it possible for me to continue doing this. Without your support, I couldn’t dedicate three weeks of my life to increasingly unhinged coverage of these Olympics.

Thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, and thanks for supporting!

– Rodger Sherman

LOLLOPALOOZA

Great news, folks. THE OLYMPIC HOST COUNTRY BUMP IS BACK!

Every two years, the country that hosts the Olympics wildly outperforms expectations. Here’s a quick summary:

21st Century Olympics where the host country won the most gold medals and total medals in national history: Beijing 2008, Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022
21st Century Olympics where the host country won the gold medals in national history: Salt Lake 2002, Vancouver 2010, Rio 2016
21st Century Olympics where the host country won the most total medals in national history: Sydney 2000, Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018
21st century Olympics where the host country won the most gold and total medals since an Olympics they hosted before World War I: Athens 2004 (topped by Athens 1896), London 2012 (passed only by London 1908), and Paris 2024 (passed only by Paris 1900.)

And it’s happening again in Italy, starting with a stunner on the speedskating track.

Speed skating is not traditionally an Italian sport. It’s Dutch. Three separate skaters from the Netherlands had won back-to-back-to-back gold medals in this event. They even swept the podium — gold, silver, and bronze — in 2018.
But Saturday, Italy’s own Francesca Lollobrigida dominated the event on her 35th birthday. NBC thankfully uploaded a clip of the Italian call — the announcers made the name 🤌🤌🤌Francesca Lollobrigida🤌🤌🤌 sing like Bocelli.(I have just been walking around the house saying the name 🤌🤌🤌Francesca Lollobrigida🤌🤌🤌 for about 18 hours now. It might be my new favorite Italian name to say, surpassing 🤌🤌🤌Danilo Gallinari🤌🤌🤌 and 🤌🤌🤌Marco Belinelli🤌🤌🤌)
Lollobrigida wasn’t a nobody — she won silver in the 3000 in 2022 and won the 5000m at the world champs last year. But she hadn’t reached the podium in any 3000m World Cup races this year, and was an outside candidate for a medal …
And then she had a personal best, set the Olympic record, and became the first woman in Italian history to win a speed skating gold medal.
Italy had only won two speed skating gold medals in history … both during the 2006 Torino Olympics! So every speed skating medal in Italian history has been during one of their two home Olympics! (Italy has won a lot of short-track speed skating medals, which is different.)
Can we be sure this was because this speed skating rink happened to be in Italy? Of course not. Maybe it was a Birthday Bump! Or maybe it was a Being Cheered On By Your Adorable Toddler Bump.

@nbcsports
Francesca Lollobrigida’s son was LOVING it after she skated her way to gold. #winterolympics

But there was a moment right before Lollobrigida took the ice when the cameras caught her lacing up her skates. The entire stadium was singing “Volare,” and before the biggest race of her life, Lollobrigida got caught up in the moment, smiling and singing along.
There are a lot of good explanations for why Olympic hosts perform so well. Their countries often invest more heavily in Olympic sports ahead of their games; they’re already pre-accustomed to the food and the weather and the conditions; The Olympics feature specific courses and venues which home athletes can get accustomed to ahead of time, which can be particularly useful in sports like bobsled or skiing. Perhaps their opponents are jetlagged, or are affected by the accommodations. Maybe they forgot to bring an adapter for the European outlets and have to share chargers with their teammates.
But seeing Lollobrigida smiling and singing before the biggest race of her life, all those logical reasons seem to fall short. Sure, every skater in the building Saturday had been training to get to that race for their entire lives — but when you finally get to that rink, and 10,000 of your closest friends are there singing your country’s favorite song, the biggest moment of your life has to feel just feel a little bit more perfect than the biggest moment in everybody else’s life. Performing in a host Olympics has to feature a million little moments like that which can’t quite be explained or replicated in other, non-Olympic sporting events. And a few minutes after singing Volare together, Lollobrigida and her Italian fans were singing together again — this time, the national anthem.

Snowboarding: Men's Big Air

🥇Kira Kimura, 🇯🇵Japan🇯🇵

🥈Ryoma Kimata 🇯🇵Japan🇯🇵

🥉Su Yiming, 🇨🇳China🇨🇳

It’s the Olympics, so you know what time it is … say it with me, all together now …

TIME TO GET MAD AT THE JUDGES ABOUT THE SCORING OF A SPORT I ONLY KINDA UNDERSTAND!

Team USA’s Ollie Martin nearly won the first American medal of the Olympics, as he was hanging on to third place with just two riders to go. Then China’s Su Yiming, the defending Olympic champ, passed Martin with a high-difficulty jump with a sloppy landing. Su almost fell, needing to use both of his arms to keep himself upright, and held his head in his hands after the jump as if he knew he’d messed up. And yet after an extremely long deliberation period, the judges gave Su the bronze.
As a snowboarding expert of almost 30 minutes, this was an outrage. His hands hit the ground! That’s an AUTOMATIC deduction … I think. I mean, probably, right?
Martin will have his chance to get his medal eventually. He still has the slopestyle event, where he might be a bigger medal threat than he was here. And he’s only 17, so he’ll hopefully be around for a few more Olympics.
And according to The Athletic, he was competing with a broken arm, so he’ll presumably be better if he ever gets to the Olympics with all his bones intact.

Alpine Skiing: Men's Downhill

🥇Franjo von Allmen, 🇨🇭Switzerland🇨🇭

🥈Giovanni Franzoni, 🇮🇹Italy🇮🇹

🥉Dominik Paris, 🇮🇹Italy🇮🇹

First of all: My goodness, the Alps are pretty as hell.

Second of all: I’m a big Franjo von Allmen fan. While most Olympic ski racers are pre-selected at early ages to focus on skiing full-time, von Allmen wasn’t considered good enough and served an apprenticeship as a carpenter for four years. And he kept flashing a “horns” symbol that he says is inspired by the Simmental cow breed that originated in from his home region in Switzerland. Hook em, Franjo!

Cross Country, Women’s Skiathlon

🥇Frida Karlsson, 🇸🇪 Sweden🇸🇪

🥈Ebba Andersson, 🇸🇪 Sweden🇸🇪

🥉Heidi Weng, 🇳🇴 Norway 🇳🇴

Disappointing day for American Jessie Diggins, who fell 90 seconds in the first half of the race — where the skiers had to use the “classical” skiing form, which Diggins is worse at. She’ll have better chances to medal in the 10km freestyle and the team sprint.

Also, how come Swedish men and women have names ending in “—sson” but in Iceland the men are “—sson”s and the women are “—dottir”s?

Ski Jumping, Women's Normal Hill

🥇Anna Odine Strøm, 🇳🇴 Norway 🇳🇴

🥈Nika Prevc, 🇸🇮 Slovenia 🇸🇮

🥉Nozomi Maruyama, 🇯🇵Japan🇯🇵

OK I wrote about two events today as if they were virtual locks — Prevc in this one and the Dutch women in the speed skating — and both of them were busts. This is why I’m not doing Olympics gambling picks this year. (And a lot of you have asked!)

Folks, I’ve got a new video I’m really excited about: It’s about how Ocala, Florida — population 60,000 people, tens of thousands of horses, and exactly zero ice rinks — produced three Team USA Olympic speed skating medalists from the 2022 Olympics.

I interviewed 2022 speed skating bronze medalist Joey Mantia — and the woman who actually made it all possible, legendary speed skating coach Renee Hildebrand.It includes a deep dive into the world of international speed inline roller skating.

(OK look, I know that Ocala is actually not located near the beach and that there are no such things as beach alligators. But the actual video does not contain factual inaccuracies like that. Just the thumbnail.)

I really love the story. Normally you have to grow up near mountains or money to make the Winter Olympics, and then you have these three kids who grew up at a local roller rink where you can host your 8-year-old’s birthday party, whose journeys have now taken them across the world.

I made this video before I realized how much Ocala native Erin Jackson was going to be one of the faces of the Olympics — she was Team USA’s flag bearer and is in basically every commercial.

(I also made this video without realizing there was some little white dot of junk in my gross beard and I’m more embarrassed about it than anything in my entire life.)

Please watch — and please subscribe to the youtube channel. These videos take a ton of effort and I think they’re pretty good!

I’d like to celebrate THE RETURN OF GOLDZONE!!!!!
And also, to thank somebody at NBC headquarters for including my posts celebrating THE RETURN OF GOLDZONE on actual GoldZone:
There I am!
To be honest, GoldZone is a little bit less useful for the Winter Olympics than the summer ones — there were 329 medal events in 48 sports at the 2024 Paris Olympics as opposed to just 116 in 16 sports in Milano-Cortina, so every day is less crowded with events and you can pretty easily watch all the gold medals with only a few true dual-screen moments. But I will still probably keep my main TV screen on GoldZone for most of the next two weeks.
Ilia Malinin made his Olympic debut … and finished second to Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. More like the quad demigod! The team event wraps up today, and I’ve got a full breakdown below.
The American curling dream has turned into an American curling nightmare! Cory and Korey started out Saturday undefeated and lost both of their matches, including one against winless South Korea. They’re probably still headed to the 4-team playoff round, but if they can lose to the worst team in the field, it’s not a lock.
The biggest L of Day 1 has to go to the NBC snowboarding announcer who was caught on a hot mic saying the big air final was boring:

Hot mic! At the conclusion of the men's big air snowboard final that I was watching on Peacock, a voice came on and said: “That was boring. That was so boring. Qualifier was way more exciting.”
— Mitch Goldich (@mitchgoldich.bsky.social) 2026-02-07T20:01:20.731Z

I mean, I didn’t think it was that boring!!!! I had a fun time watching it, Snowboarding Announcer Guy!
Gus Kenworthy has drawn a lot of attention for peeing the phrase FUCK ICE into the Milan snow:

Specifically what caught my attention: The urinary accuracy. I mean, how did he stop and start the stream to dot that I! Gus might have won a silver medal in Sochi, but he could win a gold medal for Peensmanship. (Also accurate: The message, but that’s obvious.)

BTW I’m REALLY struggling to separate all the different types of skiing with separate emojis.

⛷️💨Cross-Country Skiing, Men’s Skiathlon, (6:30 a.m.)

Folks, it’s time to talk Johannes Høsflot Klæbo! He’s one of the greatest Winter Olympians of all time, and Milano-Cortina could be his crowning achievement.
Klæbo already has five gold medals, having won three in Pyeongchang and two in Beijing.
However, he’s turned into something superhuman in recent years. In 2025, he swept every single gold medal at the cross-country World Championships — the skiathlon, the sprint, the 10k, the 50k, while participating on winning teams in the team relay and the sprint relay. Nobody had ever done that before.
Historically, Klæbo specializes in shorter events rather than events like the 20k skiathlon — he’s back-to-back-to-back-to-back world champ in the sprint — but he’s still the heavy favorite here.

🏂🏔️ Snowboarding Men’s AND Women’s Parallel Giant Slalom (7:00 a.m. ET)

Fun event! It’s basically downhill snowboard racing, except instead of the thing they do with skiing where one person goes down the slope at a time, the racers are side-by-side and compete in a knockout-style bracket.
The favorite on the women’s side is back-to-back Olympic champion Ester Ledecka
… who is also the reigning Olympic champion in the women’s downhill skiing event that’s also being held today! She was the first athlete ever to medal in two sports in the same Olympics in 2022 when she won this snowboard event and that, but wasn’t able to try it again this year because the two events are being held on the same day on different mountains.
“I cried a bit few times about it, but we did the best we could,” Ledecka said. “I understand that it's not easy to coordinate the program, but I believed that it could be done. Massive logistical L by the Olympics here.

🔫⛷️Biathlon Mixed Relay (8 a.m. ET)

This event could be the real test of the Home Olympics Bump. Italy has never won the mixed relay at the Olympics or the World Championship, but they’re expected to be legit contenders here.
Yes, the biathlon (skiing with guns) is different from the skiathlon (just two different types of skiing.)

💨⛸️ Speed skating, Men's 5000m (10 a.m. ET)

None of the three medalists from the 2022 Olympics are back, and American Casey Dawson is a dark horse after winning gold at a World Cup event in Calgary this year.
However, the favorite is Norway’s Sander Eitrem, who became the first man to skate the 5,000 in under six minutes just two weeks ago.

🛷Luge, Men's Singles (11 a.m. ET)

Germany has won 11 of 16 all-time medals in this event (if we include East Germany and the 1964 United Team of Germany) and that’s not changing this year.
We’re already through two of four runs, and back-to-back World Champion Max Langerhan had the best time in both runs. He’s got a .172-second lead on Austria’s Jonas Müller, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but is larger than the total margin of victory at the 2018 and 2022 games.

✨⛸️✨Figure Skating,Team Event (1:30 p.m. ET)

Three skates left to go here, and after the first five skates of the event, this is basically a toss-up between Team USA and Japan. Let’s break it down.
Quick summary of how this is scored: Each country’s team receives points on how they rank in each skate. When Team USA got the highest score in the ice dance free skate, they got 10 points, Italy had the second-best, so they got 9 points, Canada got third, so they got 8, etc. But there are only five teams remaining after the qualifying round, so the worst you can do is fifth place, which gets six points.
Right now, Team USA is up five points. But…
In the pairs skate (1:30 p.m.), Japan has the best team and Team USA probably has the worst. In the short program, Team USA finshed behind every team in the field, and this pair also finished behind all these countries in the 2025 World Championships. So Japan is probably getting four of those points right back.
In the women’s free skate (2:45 p.m.), Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto is probably expected to outscore Team USA’s Amber Glenn, although Glenn did beat her at several events in the 2024-25 season. If Sakamoto wins and Glenn finishes second, it’s tied.
That sets up a decisive men’s free skate (3:30 p.m.) You’d expect Team USA’s Ilia Malinin to win … but he just finished second in the short program to Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama!
Honestly, incredible work by NBC and the Olympics to set this up so this intensely dramatic figure skating event leads directly into the Super Bowl.