# tlohde

winter olympics

10:41 08/02/2026
338 words
contents

Some thoughts having watched a bit of the coverage.[1]

ice hockey

What a bonkers sport. I love it. I wonder how far the puck travels over the course of a single game? I like that they can go behind the goal. The goal appears to be very small. Quite how the players (and camera operators) can track the puck during a goal-proximate scrap is beyond me.[2]

big air

It's all got a bit too Cool Boarders. So much so that it's lost its appeal. Mighty impressive nonetheless.

figure skating

I'd like to know[3] more about the scoring system. I struggle with the apparent precision[4] that comes from what is surely a subjective assessment. I like how not gurning or visibly straining whilst holding your heel behind your head and spinning on the spot[5] seems to a skill in itself.

downhill skiing

So. Fast. Thighs of steel. Casually jumping 40+ m at 110+ km/h. Whoa. And the margins⸺mere fractions a second, often less,[6] between competitors over a ~90 second course⸺are tight. And that these differences manifest when skiers are going one-at-a-time. The following drone shots are sometimes great, but having to hear the drone whining in many other shots is slightly annoying. L. Vonn from the USA just crashed and ouch.

speed skating

The slippery velodrome. So cool. Hand nicely tucked behind the back, sometimes held in place with a little bit of rope. I like to think that in another life I could have been a distinctly mediocre speed skater.

coverage

It's an impressive feat. Well done to all the tech folk making it happen. BBC iPlayer just works.

footnotes


  1. yes, it's only day 2 ↩︎

  2. perhaps they can't? ↩︎

  3. but not enough to actively go and look it up ↩︎

  4. 2 d.p. ↩︎

  5. a graphic with the rpm would be nice ↩︎

  6. just saw a german athlete finish 0.04 seconds behind first place - missed the name because I was writing this ↩︎