Time to drink your gin-and-tonic-ah

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Did anyone else see the clip of the Norway speed skating coach's mistake that cost Kramer the gold? Early in the race Kramer was cruising and in the correct lane when his coach fucked up and told him to switch lanes. He then finished the 25 mile race and was told he was DQ'ed. Obviously he was furious. I feel bad for both of them. And if I were that coach, I'd move to Sweden.

Video: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ass...ramers+dq+000m

TM

I was so happy for Kramer when he finished the race with such a wide margin of victory even though the skater which whom he was paired for that round gave him no competition at all. Then I felt bad for him.

They take their speed skating very seriously in the Netherlands so that coach will probably get death threats. I thought it was a little bit of bad form for the Korean "gold" medalist to be acting so "woo woo I won" when he got his ass kicked and only "won" because a coach messed up in a way that had no real effect on the result because of the margin of victory.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Did anyone else see the clip of the Norway speed skating coach's mistake that cost Kramer the gold? Early in the race Kramer was cruising and in the correct lane when his coach fucked up and told him to switch lanes. He then finished the 25 mile race and was told he was DQ'ed. Obviously he was furious. I feel bad for both of them. And if I were that coach, I'd move to Sweden.

Video: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ass...ramers+dq+000m

TM

Since it was his coach, it was worse than the Belarus xc skier in the relay on Monday who, while near the lead in the semifinal, went on the inside lane for the next lap instead of the outside lane for finishing:

NBC Olympics

[Fugee]

There was a background story on the Turkish woman figure skater than made me wonder. Her mother was an aerospace engineer and her father owned restaurants but when they determined the daughter had figure skating skill they gave it all up and moved to Canada so she could train and were working menial labor jobs.

Unless they thought somehow that figure skating success would lead to her getting rich the way the Korean skater has from commercials etc., I don't understand giving up your profession and livelihood so your kid can skate. Sacrificing for education I get -- but for skating? (And I love figure skating -- it's just not something I can get into sacrificing your whole life over.)

Maybe it's a good thing I'm not a parent.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Ah. Only saw the clip of him fucking up. Don't know where I got 25 miles from.

TM

Maybe the announcers, who called it the "25 mile lap race" in the clip.

BTW, how did it work out the rest of the race? Because presumably he kept switching lanes on each lap and must have been in the Korean's lane the entire time as a result.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Did anyone else see the clip of the Norway speed skating coach's mistake that cost Kramer the gold? Early in the race Kramer was cruising and in the correct lane when his coach fucked up and told him to switch lanes. He then finished the 25 mile race and was told he was DQ'ed. Obviously he was furious. I feel bad for both of them. And if I were that coach, I'd move to Sweden.

Video: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/ass...ramers+dq+000m

TM

In January, I was trolling Dutch newspapers because much of northern Europe was hit with a massive ice storm. I wanted to see how much Holland had frozen over and to see whether there was enough ice for the Elfstedentocht, a 200 km 11 city skating race to run (there wasn't). Every day in January, the country would get more and more excited about the prospect of the race, and I think the ended up running a modified version when it was clear that not enough of the course would be safely frozen over.

In the meantime, the country ran out of ice skates to sell. When Mary Carillo did her piece earlier in the Olympics about how obsessed Dutch ice skating fans were, I thought she maybe held back a little.

That coach needs to move to Indonesia or Argentina, and he needs to request asylum.

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally Posted by Fugee

There was a background story on the Turkish woman figure skater than made me wonder. Her mother was an aerospace engineer and her father owned restaurants but when they determined the daughter had figure skating skill they gave it all up and moved to Canada so she could train and were working menial labor jobs.

Unless they thought somehow that figure skating success would lead to her getting rich the way the Korean skater has from commercials etc., I don't understand giving up your profession and livelihood so your kid can skate. Sacrificing for education I get -- but for skating? (And I love figure skating -- it's just not something I can get into sacrificing your whole life over.)

Maybe it's a good thing I'm not a parent.

Maybe they just wanted to move to Canada. As that kid said, "Where else but in America, or possibly Canada, could a family find such opportunity?"

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by greatwhitenorthchick

Maybe they just wanted to move to Canada. As that kid said, "Where else but in America, or possibly Canada, could a family find such opportunity?"

That reminds me: Flag!

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Ah. Only saw the clip of him fucking up. Don't know where I got 25 miles from.

TM

It's 25 laps.

It's still one hell of a long race, and to blow it like that is sad. Some people are blaming the coach entirely, other saying the skater shares blame because he should always know which lane to be in.

Apparently cost him a gold and 300k euros.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Fugee

There was a background story on the Turkish woman figure skater than made me wonder. Her mother was an aerospace engineer and her father owned restaurants but when they determined the daughter had figure skating skill they gave it all up and moved to Canada so she could train and were working menial labor jobs.

Unless they thought somehow that figure skating success would lead to her getting rich the way the Korean skater has from commercials etc., I don't understand giving up your profession and livelihood so your kid can skate. Sacrificing for education I get -- but for skating? (And I love figure skating -- it's just not something I can get into sacrificing your whole life over.)

Maybe it's a good thing I'm not a parent.

That's just ridiculous (assuming it's true and the background story isn't puffed).

Our plan with our kids was always to strive for mediocrity in sports -- be good enough to have fun but not so good that you lose perspective, or focus on that rather than school, or (especially) so I have to spend every weekend and every vacation driving around the state to watch you play another group of kids.

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

Maybe the announcers, who called it the "25 mile lap race" in the clip.

BTW, how did it work out the rest of the race? Because presumably he kept switching lanes on each lap and must have been in the Korean's lane the entire time as a result.

The Korean wasn't racing with him -- he was in an earlier pairing.

Part of the problem was that the skater who was in Kramer's pairing was so far behind him (almost on the other side of the rink) that he wasn't a factor in the lane changes.

The missed lane change was near the end of the race, maybe a couple laps from the end. It really made no difference to the result so that made it especially painful.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Fugee

The missed lane change was near the end of the race, maybe a couple laps from the end. It really made no difference to the result so that made it especially painful.

How did it make no difference to the result? Did he still have an equal number of inside/outside lane laps to do? Because if he took an extra inside-lane lap, seems like that should help his time. Or was it simply that, say, the last two laps should have been outside then inside and he went inside then outside?

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

It's 25 laps.

It's still one hell of a long race, and to blow it like that is sad. Some people are blaming the coach entirely, other saying the skater shares blame because he should always know which lane to be in.

Apparently cost him a gold and 300k euros.

Kramer was going into the correct lane but his coach was yelling at him to get over into the inner lane. If I were tired from racing and my coach was yelling at me to change lanes, I'd be more inclined to think the coach was right and I was wrong.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Some people are blaming the coach entirely, other saying the skater shares blame because he should always know which lane to be in.

If the coach, whose sole job it is is to yell instructions at you, tells you you're in the wrong lane, get over, shouldn't you listen? He clearly did switch the correct lane, only to be told hit was not the correct lane. How one can blame the skater is beyond me.

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

How did it make no difference to the result? Did he still have an equal number of inside/outside lane laps to do? Because if he took an extra inside-lane lap, seems like that should help his time. Or was it simply that, say, the last two laps should have been outside then inside and he went inside then outside?

I say it made no difference because he had such a large margin of victory that if he had done switched when he should have it would only have made the race closer, not changed the result.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Fugee

Kramer was going into the correct lane but his coach was yelling at him to get over into the inner lane. If I were tired from racing and my coach was yelling at me to change lanes, I'd be more inclined to think the coach was right and I was wrong.

According to the skater, he wasn't tired and was on pace.

According to the guy who won the silver, the skater should know whether or not he's supposed to change lanes.

Certainly the coach is at fault. Should the skater have known he was wrong? I have no idea -- I don't speed-skate. It's a split-second decision, you're being yelled at by your coach who you trust completely... but it's your race, your money on the line, and you are the best in the world at this particular event.