Olympic Briefing: Late Night Headlines

S O C H I 2014 Winter Olympics
Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye: Finland Blows Out U.S. Men in Hockey.
Austria  wins Men’s  Slalom Gold. Ligety DNF(Did Not Finish). 
Not So Fast: South Korea Protests Women’s Skating Results. 
American-now-Russian Vic Wild wins second Snowboard Gold in Parallel Slalom 

Olympic Briefing: Pushing The Limits

Press Clippings: After the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics end on this Sunday, the world’s winter sports contestants, enthusiasts, coaches, suppliers, and supporters will return home, many to the slopes of their own town, and–in some cases–to a totally different form of skiing: extreme skiing (called “off-piste” in Europe), conducted out of bounds on steep terrain with not a groomed run or flagged gate in sight. How about some warmups? Try this featured video,”Ski The Outer Limits”  considered one of the classics on the sport and presented here courtesy of YouTube.
S O C H I

Olympic Briefing: Late Night Headlines

Press Clippings from the Olympic News Wire:  21 February 2014 at 10:00PM, CST.  The news you need before tomorrow’s competitions.
Mikaela Schiffrin wins Gold in Women’s Slalom; Phenom on top of Podium.
Canada Beats U.S. 1-0 in Men’s Hockey; U.S. can’t get past our friends to the North.
Not so fast: U.S. fails to win a single medal in speed skating. Clothing to blame?
Ukraine takes Women’s Biathlon Relay Gold Medal. Good news for a Country in chaos.

Olympic Briefing: The Last Slalom Runs

Press Clippings: On Saturday, the 22 of February, the last Alpine event of the 2014 Sochi Olympics will take place: the men’s slalom. The women’s slalom is already completed and we have a new prodigy on the top of the podium–Mikaela Schiffrin–and now its time for the men to make their runs. Bode Miller will be missing from the starting gate; he left after tweaking his knee in the GS a few days ago and did not want to risk further damage. After all, Bode, to his credit, wants to compete on the rest of the 2014 World Cup tour. To get you into the mood, we’ve gathered up a few choice videos. Our lead video is from Torino in the 2006 Olympics. Next up is a tribute video compilation of Alberto “La Bomba” Tomba, the dynamic and stylish Italian slalom ace, and finally, Jean-Claude Killy at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics, where he won ALL 3 alpine skiing events (GS, Downhill, Slalom). Enjoy. Coming later this week a massive video tribute to Killy on this site.

Olympic Briefing: Very Best Medal Count Chart

Press Clippings: At the Media Bunker, we hunker down for financial and other news and data from Bloomberg. We like the site, the editors, the reporters, and the guy who started it all. It’s all good. Over the course of the Olympics, we’ve posted up our own Medal Count graphic, but it’s pretty basic: Country, Number of Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals they’ve won, and total medals won. That’s the way most sites do it.
But, admittedly, it’s just quick-hit data for the few people who follow the Olympics on this site.
The Very Best Medal Count Data is at Bloomberg. Period. It’s exact, it’s in depth, and Bloomberg does value-added by including the population of each country that’s won a Medal, their GDP-PPP (Gross Domestic Product-Personal Purchasing Power), Medals per million population, and Medals per $100B GDP. In other words, complete and detailed on the financial side of things, which seems totally appropriate since we’ve heard so much about the $50B that it cost Russian to stage the games (well done, nice facilities, good logistics, a grateful Winter Sports community thanks you). Click to the chart and enjoy it  and then, congratulate all your Norwegian buddies: Norway had by far the highest number of medals per million population ranking. They were at 4.33/medals/million population; the host country, Russia–well, they didn’t fare so well. They were at .18/medals/million population. If you’re choosing up sides for Winter Sports, grab a Norgie.

Olympic Briefing: Late Night Headlines

Press Clippings from the Olympic News Wire:  20 February 2014 at 11:00PM, CST.  The news you need before tomorrow’s competitions.
Russian skater Sotnikova wins Gold in Women’s Figure Skating. Gracie Gold (US) takes 4th. 
Maddie Bowman (U.S.) takes gold in women’s Ski Halfpipe.
Canada comes from behind to beat U.S. in Women’s Ice Hockey Thriller .
Bonjour,  Bro! France Goes 1-2-3 in Men’s Ski Cross. 

Olympic Film Festival: Lindsey Vonn, Slalom Slo-Mo

Press Clippings: Lindsey Vonn is not at the Sochi Winter Olympics, but she is not forgotten, for a variety of reasons. Seeing Lindsey on the air as an expert commentator on skiing is just fine, but seeing Lindsey on the slopes is the best possible view of her. Above, a nice slo-motion film of Lindsey Vonn (thank you, Red Bull) as she takes on the final event of the Alpine skiing disciplines: the Slalom. Slalom skiing is about abrupt, accurate, changes of speed running gates down a slalom course. It’s great to watch in person, but easier to appreciate what is actually happening in slo-mo.