RVAHub’s Olympic Must Watch Tuesday Pick: Women’s Downhill Medal Round

Our Pick: Women’s Downhill Medal Round – Part NBC Primetime coverage starting at 8 PM

The two sports that I think of when Winter Olympics is mentioned are Ice Skating and Downhill. One focused on artistry, the other is simply about getting down a mountain faster. The simplicity of Downhill appeals to my simple mind and often the victor is the person that shows just a little bit less fear.

Things don’t always go as planned.

Who to Watch:

American Lindsey Vonn, 33, seeks a second downhill gold eight years after victory in Vancouver; any medal would make her the oldest woman in Alpine history to climb an Olympic podium. Lindsey is no stranger to success on the World Cup circuit with a lifetime total of 37 World Cup downhill wins and 7 women’s titles. One person, we were expecting to see was Mikaela Shiffrin. Mikaela withdrew from the downhill after the Olympic committee changed the date of the Nordic Combined. Mikaela was a long shot in the downhill.

Competition for Lindsey comes in the form of Italy’s Sofia Goggia who clocked the fastest time in Saturday’s training run and Liechtenstein’s Tina Weirather who came in second. It is worth noting that during her training runs Lindsey stood up at the end of the course, which sandbagged her time a little.

What am I watching? 

In all forms of Downhill, both at a local youth-level as well as the higher FIS international level, racers are allowed extensive preparation for the race, which includes daily course inspection and discussion with their coaches and teammates as well as several practice runs before the actual race. Racers do not make any unnecessary turns while on the course, and try to do everything they can to maintain the most aerodynamic position while negotiating turns and jumps.

Unlike Slalom and Giant Slalom, where racers have the times of two runs combined, the Downhill race is a single run. Times are typically between 1½ and 2½ minutes for World Cup courses and must be over 1 minute in duration to meet international minimum standards. Tenths and hundredths and, occasionally, thousandths of seconds count: World Cup races and Olympic medals have sometimes been decided by as little as one or two hundredths of a second, and ties are not unheard of. (Wikipeida)

Also, Catch: Men’s Curling – CNBC 5:00 PM

Team USA takes on Switzerland in round-robin Men’s curling action.

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.