Winter Olympics 2018

[Cleoriff]

I am just watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Pretty impressive really.

They will be taking place from 9th-23rd February

During the opening speeches, a few comments were made about 'keeping it clean'

This is to do with the banning of 47 Russian athletes by the IOC after the doping scandal in Sochi 2014

Russia appealed against the decision but the ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sports who issued the final statement just hours before the opening ceremony

Despite the ban 169 Russians will compete as 'Independents'. If they win an event the Olympic Anthem will be played

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42999126

Anyway despite all that, I will be looking forward to some good clean sport over the next two weeks.

Bring it on

[jonsie]

From what I've read the only actual combined team was the women's ice hockey team and to date have only played two games. One was a warm up game with someone or other but I do remember they lost 3-1 which was hardly of great surprise as they had only practised together for a few days and given the language barrier I would think practice would have been very difficult! The only game I think they have played in the Olympics was a thrashing by Switzerland 8-0.

I've absolutely no idea if the ice hockey is straight knock-out or whether it's the same as football and there are group stages? I also believe there are North Korean Olympians competing as individuals.

The only bits of these Olympics I have watched are on News clips as I've had zero interest to be honest.

[Glory1]

@jonsie is there a language barrier? I thought North and South both spoke Korean like East and West Germany, pre-reunification, spoke German. Of course, I could be totally wrong 🤔

Must admit like you I've only caught snippets on the news as I'm not really interested in the Olympics; not to mention recording as much as I do there is so much else to watch 😊

[welshsteve76]

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@jonsiewrote:

From what I've read the only actual combined team was the women's ice hockey team and to date have only played two games. One was a warm up game with someone or other but I do remember they lost 3-1 ...

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It was against Sweden if I remember.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post taht I do enjoy also watching bobsleigh, luge and skeleton.  It's the figure skating, and all the snowboard and slopestyle stuff I don't like.

I do like another event I've not seen yet.  That skiing one with all the bumps   Mogul skiing I think it's called.

I don't think it's an olympic event, but the world cup race where they race each other in the slalom is pretty cool.

[Cleoriff]

The GB womens curling team has knocked out the world champions Canada to get into the semi finals

Spead skater Elise Christie had another disaster and is now out...That lass seems plagued with bad luck. First Sochi and now here....