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Twenty years after Kerrigan vs. Harding vs. Baiul, this week could be Yuna Kim vs. Julia Lipnitskaia vs. Gracie Gold

I watched The Price of Gold last night, and it was really solid — I almost forgot how big a three-ring circus that whole period of time was, especially Kerrigan screaming “WHY????” and then Oksana Baiul actually winning the gold, and the… Continue Reading

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How do figure skaters like Gracie Gold, Yulia Lipnitskaya, and Ashley Wagner spin so much without getting dizzy? Thank Malcolm Gladwell.

I’ve been watching the Olympics semi-consistently and some pretty interesting themes have emerged over the first couple of days. I like skiing, for sure, and seeing Matthias Mayer get a gold was cool (sorry, Bode Miller), but what’s been the… Continue Reading

Brazil, Canada and Australia have some of the lowest homophobia rates in the world

That above chart is from The Atlantic Cities; as you may know, the Sochi Winter Olympics begin this evening, and Russia hasn’t exactly been the friendliest of places for homosexuals leading up to the Games. If you look at the map, red… Continue Reading

Torstein Horgmo and Shaun White are already out of slopestyle at Sochi. What’s going on with this course?

That’s a little teaser trailer for the official mobile game of Sochi, slopestyle edition. Slopestyle as an event is debuting at Sochi in terms of the Olympics, i.e. it’s never appeared at an Olympic Games before. Here’s a pretty brief… Continue Reading

Mikaela Shiffrin, Nolan Kasper and others will be big skiing names at the Sochi Olympics. You can thank Burke Mountain Academy.

Even though I don’t completely understand why a city would pay for the Olympics, they do start up in a few days — and that’s somewhat exciting, if only for my misguided feelings of nationalism. (I jest.) I’ve started trying… Continue Reading

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Why do we still have the Olympics, in reality? (Also, goddamn it costs a lot.)

Charles Lane over at The Washington Post had a good article recently about the Olympics — and namely, why-in-the-hell-exactly-we-still-do-this-thing-on-the-regular. I’m inclined to agree. Sochi has been beset with problems, including: It’s directly in a conflict zone, basically. There are more terror warnings… Continue Reading

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Well hot damn, the 2014 Sochi Olympics are in 100 days. Um, should we be worried?

Russia’s about to welcome the world to Sochi, beginning a stretch somewhat akin to Brazil’s current stretch: in addition to these Winter Olympics, Sochi is hosting the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix from 2014 until at least 2020, and is… Continue Reading