Quick explanation of what’s going on here: Of the three sliding sports (bobsled, skeleton, and luge), the luge is the one that doesn’t require a running start. You propel the sled forward by pulling hard on two poles next to the start gate, then slapping the ground for a few seconds.

That may seem like a minor difference, but it fundamentally changes who is good at this sport. You’re probably familiar with stories of athletes transitioning to bobsled from other sports due to their raw athletic talents — they literally made a Disney movie about this. Speed and strength are hugely important for sports in which you’re running and pushing the sled. And Team USA has medal-winning bobsledders and skeleton athletes who didn’t participate in their sports until after their 20th birthdays.

But luge is a highly technical sport in which pure sliding skill and experience is more valuable than power and speed. You can’t make up for a lack of experience here by running faster at the start or better at pushing the sled.

That makes it hard for outsiders to break in. Only three current nations (Germay, Austria and Italy) have ever won luge gold medals. (I’m specifying current because the team with the most gold medals is Germany and the team with the second-most is East Germany.) Meanwhile, eight have won gold in bobsled and seven in skeleton, which is a pretty recent addition to the Olympics.

All this to say: On Wednesday, a near-miracle happened. Team USA almost joined the club.

America’s best pair was 20-year old Marcus Mueller and 21-year old Ansel Haugsjaa. They’ve been impressive, and even won a World Cup event on their home track in Lake Placid. (In a sport based on experience, it helps that they literally live there and the Germans and Italians do not.) But I don’t think anybody was expecting the Americans to compete for gold, or even a medal. Two German guys named Tobias Arlt and Tobias Wendl who began luging at the age of four and six had won back-to-back-to-back golds. (IDK how they get them started at 4 and 6. I assume they’re not just tossing toddlers down the track at 90 mph.

But on the first run … MUELLER AND HAGSJAA TOOK FIRST PLACE. THEY SET THE TRACK RECORD. IT REALLY HAPPENED. IT’S ON YOUTUBE.

AND THE TEAM IN FIRST PLACE AFTER THE FIRST RUN HAD WON AT EVERY OLYMPICS SINCE 1984. That’s 11 straight Olympics!

Nobody had a second run as good as Mueller and Haugsjaa’s first, increasing their margin of error. They got to go last, and started building their lead.

First it was .04 seconds. Then it was .11 seconds. “One-tenth of a second, and in luge terms, that is a huuuuuuuge margin,” said NBC announcer Leigh Diffey.

And then … on the 14th of 16 curves, with less than 10 seconds left in the race, something went wrong.

Mueller and Haugsgaa went from leading by about one-tenth of a second to crossing the finish line .224 seconds behind the fastest time of Run 2. That wasn’t good enough for silver … or bronze … or fourth … or fifth. By dropping less than one-fourth of a second, they fell from first to sixth place.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing about luge. Because there’s no running start, the margins are paper-thin. Luge is the only sliding sport measured down to the thousandths of a second; skeleton and bobsled get by just fine using hundredths.

The unraveling felt so fast to me. One second I was getting ready to take my little screenshots of them crossing the finish line for my social media posts about their win … and then it was over. They were headed for gold, for history, for a miracle … and then they weren’t.

And if it felt fast for me, sitting on my couch, how much faster did it feel to Mueller and Haugsjaa, sliding down the track at 70 miles per hour? Did they know how close they were to gold? And how long did it take for them to realize they weren’t going to get it?

How many years will they spend thinking about those milliseconds where it all fell apart?

Hopefully, just four.

If you’re an Olympics Fan Of A Certain Age — a little bit older than the actual figure skaters competing in the Olympics for sure — you remember the way Olympic figure skating judging used to work. The skaters would skate, and then a little graphic would pop up showing how a judge from each nation scored the skaters. The Swiss judge gave a 5.7, the Japanese judge gave a 5.6, the Russian judge gave a 5.3 — that damn Russian judge! Always messing things up! — and so on and so forth.

And then in 2002, there was a huge scandal where a French judge colluded to raise the scores of a Russian pair and lower the scores of a Canadian pair in hopes of Russians returning the favor for a French ice dance team. The sport got rid of the old system and created a phenomenally complex system where the skaters are judged on each individual element. They’re still being judged by judges from various countries, of course — but Instead of just saying “Russia thought that routine was a 5.7,” we see the judges graded one element slightly above its expected grade, one element slightly below, and so on and so forth. It feels more objective.

But a judge-by-judge breakdown of the scoring during Wednesday’s final revealed that one judge gave an unusually high score for the French pair and an unusually low score for the Americans.

and that judge was from … drumroll please …

FRANCE!!!!!

AGAIN!

THIS TIME LITERALLY JUDGING FRENCH SKATERS.

Five of nine judges thought Chock and Bates had a better free dance than Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry. And then the French judge rated Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry EIGHT points higher than Chock and Bates. The scores are such outliers compared to the eight other judges and so clearly stacked in the favor of the French skaters that it’s hard to imagine the judge arrived there legitimately.

You can actually go through the results and see the French judge giving the French pair the highest scores of any judge on component after component, and then giving the American pair the lowest scores of any judge on the same components.

A French judge also gave a high score to the French pair and a low score to the American pair in the rhythm dance.

Apparently, the numbers don’t quite work out for the French judge’s numbers in the free dance to be the sole factor in swinging the result here. (This is according to people on Figure Skating Reddit, and I trust the people on Figure Skating Reddit WITH MY LIFE.)

But even if that’s the case … that French judge was clearly trying to give the French pair the win. If that’s possible, the whole system is broken. You can try to make the system as objective as you’d like, but when you look under the hood, it’s still just biased humans plugging in numbers about what they liked — and perhaps who they liked.

WELCOME TO THE OLYMPICS OF BIATHLON MESS! That’s right, we got another one.

The winner in this event is Julia Simon, the French competitor who used credit cards that belonged to her teammate and coach to buy a bunch of stuff. From The Guardian:

“Simon … used the card details of the team physiotherapist to make purchases between 2021 and 2022. She denied the crime for three years, claiming she had been a victim of identity theft, before finally admitting her guilt in a court hearing in Albertville last October after she was found to have photos of the credit card on her phone. “I confess the accusations but I don’t remember committing them,” she said at the time. “It’s like a blackout.”

I hate when I don’t remember stuff that I did multiple times over an extended period of time!

Simon admitted to the crime and was convicted in October. That meant her ability to compete in the Olympics came down to — quite literally — another French judge. She got a suspended 3-month prison sentence, meaning she was free to go unless she committed more crimes.

She also got a 6-month suspension from the French ski federation … but she only had to serve a month of it before the Olympics, with the other five delayed until later. The one-month suspension started on November 7 to December 7th, meaning she was able to compete in most of the international biathlon season, which begins in late November.

People shouldn’t always be judged on the dumbest, most embarrassing thing they’ve ever done. But I do think it’s fair to wonder whether Simon’s suspension here was specifically tailored to allow her to win in the Olympics after she won eight combined gold medals at the last two World Championships. And she shushed the crowd as she crossed the finish line — something she said was “for one person and they know who because we had a talk” — so she doesn’t seem super contrite about the incident.

Meanwhile, the teammate whose credit card got stolen, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, finished 80th. She said that she was subjected to online abuse over the incident. “The story came out in 2023, after Julia Simon’s great season, and for many people I was the troublemaker.”

Moving on: shoutout to Bulgaria for that bronze! They hadn’t won a Winter Olympic medal since the 2006 Torino games, but have already won two in Milano Cortina. They also had a bronze in the parallel giant slalom snowboarding. I feel like we can also give them credit for the bronze won by Italy’s SOFIA Goggia! haha lol

Franjo von Allmen, the first true legend of the 2026 Olympics. He’s just the third men’s Alpine skier with three golds in a single Olympics, and the first since 1968. And the fact that he nearly gave up the sport makes his feat that much better.

But wow, what a performance from Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who repeats as silver medalist.

Remember when I talked about how Breezy Johnson has no World Cup wins but has now won at the Olympics and World Championships? Cochran-Siegle is similar: He’s 33 and has 84 career World Cup starts in the Super-G with one podium, back in December 2020 … and he now has two Olympic medals.

More like Ryan Clutchran-Siegle!

I’m workshopping it.

One gold medal down, three to go for Stolz.

Stolz looks like he’s ready to live up to the hype. He smashed the Olympic record and won by a half-second — the largest margin of victory in this race since 1984.

Stolz’s next race is the 500m on Saturday — not his best, but he’s the defending World Champion.

EXTREMELY tough beat for Australia’s Jakara Anthony, the reigning gold medalist who had totally dominated the sport over the past four years (when not injured.)

The way slalom works is totally different from the other freestyle skiing events. It’s not about your “best run” — you have to win the final run of the day outright.

Anthony posted the best score in qualifying and the best score in the second round …

but took a bad turn in the final and finished 8th of the eight remaining competitors. No gold. No medal. Brutal.

But it’s okay because …

IT MEANS TEAM USA WON GOLD AND SILVER WOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT’S MORE AMERICAN THAN PROFITING OFF THE UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OTHERS LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO (eagle noises)

According to Sarah Spain — whose Good Game podcast focused on women’s sports has been doing AWESOME on-the-ground reporting from Italy — American gold medalist Liz Lemley has never watched 30 Rock and had no idea there was a character named Liz Lemon. Which makes sense. Because she was born in 2006.

Look, I don’t want to restart World War I or anything, by pointing this out, but I’m obsessed with how whenever Italy wins a medal in the Winter Olympics you look up and it’s somebody named Wilhelm von Schlassenhöffner.

In case you didn’t know, there’s a part of Italy called Südtirol just south of the Austrian border where the majority of the population speaks German. It’s near the Alps and therefore produces a lot of Italy’s best skiers and sliders. (Also, Jannik Sinner!)

Again, I am not trying to restart World War I. I just love reading Wikipedia pages about various cultural and linguistic enclaves and exclaves! I think they’re cool!

But here’s a list of Italian medalists from recent Winter Olympics: Dominik Fischnaller, Luca Spechenhauser, Gerda Weissensteiner, Armin Zöggeler, Christof Innerhofer, Gerhard Plankensteiner, Oswald Haselrieder, Hansjörg Raffl, Wilfried Huber, Hugo Herrnhof, Gottlieb Taschler, Johann Passler, Peter Gschnitzer

I AM NOT TRYING TO RESTART WORLD WAR ONE. NOT.

I THINK IT IS GOOD WHEN PLACES HAVE UNIQUE CULTURAL HISTORIES, AND WHEN WE REMEMBER THAT NATIONALITY IS NOT STRICTLY DEFINED BY THE LANGUAGES WE SPEAK OR OUR LAST NAMES.

I just like picturing somebody saying 🤌SIMON KAINZWALDNER🤌 in a stereotypical Italian accent. Is that so wrong?

WHEN I SAID THIS SPORT WAS A MAKE-WORK TO ARTIFICIALLY BOOST NORWAY’S GOLD MEDAL TOTAL.

It’s like if Team USA dominated basketball and volleyball and were like “the Olympics must add the Western Hemisphere Combined of basketball-volleyball” and sent a squad of our greatest 6’8 guys and girls to whip ass. BE FOR REAL.

Update on yesterday’s story about the Sturla Holm Lægreid, the Norwegian biathlete who bizarrely used his post-medal interview to confess to infidelity in hopes of winning back his ex: It didn’t work, and he says he regrets trying it. I am starting to think this guy may make bad decisions from time to time.

Call it the mini-cle on ice: Italy’s men’s hockey team has zero current or former NHL players and only got into the Olympic tournament because the host gets an auto-bid, but they quickly took a 1-0 lead against Sweden, a team whose roster is entirely NHL players and are expected to contend for a medal. Sweden then proceeded to kick the living crap out of them, setting an Olympic hockey record for most shots on goal (60.) But Italy will always have that one goal!

Reader Philip emailed me about a peculiar moment in short track speed skating: One of South Korea’s coaches was spotted approaching race officials with a crisp $100 bill:

The “Super G” is just short for “super giant slalom,” which is a race that’s faster than the giant slalom but not as fast as the downhill. The other options were calling it the Even Bigger Than Giant Slalom or the Freakin’ Huge Slalom.

Lindsey Vonn probably would’ve been the favorite here, tbh. Bummer. By the way, she has had three surgeries since her crash on Sunday as doctors try to fix her complicated fracture in her leg.

Without Vonn, I’m intrigued by Italian Sofia Goggia, who is the current World Cup leader in the Super G but has never won the event at the Olympics or Worlds.

In case you didn’t get that joke earlier, the capital of Bulgaria is Sofia.

Surely the best medal event for Jessie Diggins — she won the World Championship in this event in 2023 — but she’s reportedly been dealing with an rib injury since a crash in her first event.

Remember, you don’t have to tune until the very last run, as we learned yesterday.

The gold favorite is the Canadian defending champion Mikaël Kingsbury, who has won three straight medals in this event including gold in 2018. Smartly, he didn’t finish first in qualifying after seeing what happened to Jakara Anthony.

I love all the snowboard racing events! I’m rooting for 44-year old American Nick Baumgartner, who won in the mixed relay event at the last Olympics.

I’m rooting for another gold medal from Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida after her win in the 3,000 — she’s actually probably better in this event, having won the 2025 World Championhip.

This is kind of a wild event: Each nation’s four sleds (men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles) race in one continuous heat. When one gets to the bottom, the sled at the top starts.

Germany has won this event every time … but this year it feels like we’ll get a showdown between Germany (which won both singles events) and Italy (which won both doubles events.)

I’m kinda excited to watch! It can’t break my heart this time!

It’s Chloe Kim time!!!!!!

There were some concerns that Kim wouldn’t be ready for the Olympics after missing several months with a shoulder injury; she seemed to put those to rest yesterday by finishing first in qualifying.

Remember: “speed skating” is the one where there are only two racers on a track the size of a track-and-field oval, and “short track speed skating” is the one where four skaters are on a hockey rink crashing into each other.

There’s absolutely no point in learning who’s good at short track speed skating because they’ll inevitably get taken out in a violent crash with 50 feet to go before the finish line.