RVAHub’s Olympic Must Watch Tuesday Pick: Women’s Short Track

What to Watch

Our Pick: Women’s Short Track 500M  – Live 12:30 – 2:30 PM NBCSN

Who to Watch: Maame Biney is an 18-year old from Reston, Virginia that you most definitely need to keep an eye on. She has so much charm you can’t help but pull for her.

More from Yasmine Jumaa of the Capital News Service:

Biney is the youngest woman on the U.S. short-track team. At this year’s games, she is up against competitors who have the home turf advantage: 21 of South Korea’s 26 winter gold medals have come from short-track speedskating.

Biney will compete in the 500- and 1,500-meter races. She has an upper hand at the shorter distance since setting a personal record at the Olympic trials of 43.161 seconds in the 500-meter race.

This is just the beginning for Biney, Mills said.

“I think the confidence that came with her performance at the trials, coupled with the experience she’s going to get at these games, will lead to her being among the favorites in the next Olympics in Beijing, China,” Mills said. “She’ll be one of the marquee athletes because her personality is real and her talent is next level.”

In particular, Maame needs to keep her eyes on South Korea’s Choi Min-Jeong and Shim Suk-Hee who are the favorites.

What am I watching? – Short track speed skating is the shorter version of long track skating, go figure. The sport is probably the easiest to explain. Skaters line up, then race around an oval that is 364.54 feet (111.111 meters) long. The only rule that might leave you scratching your head is “impediment” or getting in the way. The line of when it is called is at times blurry.

The sport is relatively new to the Olympics. A demonstration sport in Calgary in 1988 and upgraded to a full Olympic sport with four events in 1992.  In 2002 it grew to eight events: 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 3000 m, and the relay.

Also, Catch: Men’s Halfpipe Medal Round  – NBC 8:30 PM

Shaun White is the American that will be grabbing most of the attention from NBC but he has stiff competition from the young guns. Ayumu Hirano, 19, representing Japan and Scotty James, 23 of Australia are just two of the more obvious threats that Shaun will have to overcome if he wants to claim a record-breaking third gold.

PyeongChang Winter Olympics Breakdown

When: Olympics run from February 9th – 25th
Where: PyeongChang, Republic of Korea. PyeongChang is a county in Gangwon Province of South Korea located in the Taebaek Mountains region. It is home to several Buddhist temples, including Woljeongsa. It is approximately 180 km (110 mi) east southeast of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. (Wikipedia)

Mascot: Soohorang, a white tiger is the official mascot.

Official Olympic Website: PYEONGCHANG2018.COM

How to Watch: NBC, as you’ve probably seen, is the official broadcaster of the games. Full and detailed competition schedules, TV listings and live streaming schedules are available on NBCOlympics.com.

A total of 365.5 hours of Olympic coverage will be aired on NBCUniversal cable networks, which include NBCSN, CNBC, and the USA Network. The big events will be on NBC which if you’re a cable cutter you should be able to get over the air.

What we’re doing: PyeongChang South Korea is the home for the 2018 Winter Games. This is the 24th time athletes have taken to the snow and ice to compete for gold.

There are 15 official Winter Olympics events. All of those breakdown to individual competitions. For example, under the heading of Alpine Skiing, there are a total of 13 events to watch. This means there is a ton to keep track off.

That’s where we come in. We’ll pick the event or story to watch that you might miss.

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