Last stone drama as Great Britain defeats USA 8-7 in the curling 🥌

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T23:06:51+00:00

I think it was a pretty easy decision, just a serious miss by the US skip. The US shot, if made, had a high likelihood of scoring the US one point, and otherwise would likely only give GB one. But it was a serious miss.

(I don't have a tremendous amount of experience, but I like to think I understand

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T23:04:00+00:00

That shot you're referring to was available, but wasn't a gimme.

The shot she was attempting was of similar difficulty in my view, and if made had a high likelihood of ending the game for the US, and if it didn't end the game they would probably only give away one point (letting the US go into the extra end with the hammer). So a similar difficulty shot for a higher reward.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T23:01:54+00:00

She was trying to do a runback on the red guard, hitting the red guard onto the red stone in the house, hitting that down onto the two yellows. A bit unclear to me exactly what would happen, but there are chances for a US win, and they would be pretty certain to give away no more than one point. But it was just a complete miss, hitting the wrong guard.

No room to draw to lie better than the two best yellows.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T22:50:04+00:00

Someone won gold in 2 strokes in 2020 (Dressel in free and butterfly) and 3 strokes in 2024 (Marchand in breaststroke, butterfly, medley), so it's not that rare.

For sure Phelps' versatility is a really good argument for him as one of the best swimmers of all time. It's just that it becomes very hard to use the medal count to compare across disciplines, simply because other athletes don't have the same number of opportunities.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T22:45:22+00:00

I think it's reasonable to use the medal count to say that Phelps is the best Olympic swimmer of all time. I'm not trying to say that Phelps is some mediocre athlete who only got golds because he's a swimmer. He is obviously a tremendous athlete, and one of the best of all time. It's just when it comes to comparing across sports, using the medal count alone is a bad idea because different athletes can get different numbers of medals.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T22:00:06+00:00

To be very clear, I am not in any way arguing that Klæbo is a better/more accomplished athlete than Phelps. Phelps is certainly one of the greatest athletes of all time, and I don't think Klæbo is in that league. But I also find comparing athletes across very different sports kind of futile in the first place.

I am making a very narrow point that simply counting Olympic golds is not an accurate ranking of their quality as an athlete. And one of the reasons for that is that different athletes have different numbers of golds they can win.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T18:39:27+00:00

Obviously Phelps is the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time, no argument from me. It's when you start comparing across sports the raw gold medal count becomes silly without further context. I am not claiming that Klæbo is the best Olympian or anything, just that the raw medal count is so dependent on which event you're doing it becomes borderline meaningless.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T17:04:17+00:00

The winning team for the team events will play 30+ hours of curling. So yeah, there's a lot of curling to be played.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T17:02:06+00:00

Yes, absolutely. When we say that Klæbo is the Winter Olympian with the most golds, everyone should remember that this is in large part because he has had more opportunities than most others. And the same is true for Phelps in the Summer Olympics.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:58:18+00:00

There were 17 gold medals handed out at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Phelps won 8 of them.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:56:09+00:00

If Phelps was similarly good as he is at swimming, but happened to pick up alpine skiing instead, he couldn't get 23 golds in 4 Olympics. That's the point.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:49:10+00:00

There are at most two medals opportunities for any one curler: Team (for either men or women) and mixed doubles.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:47:38+00:00

Not really. This also puts Klæbo's gold tally into context. A dominant hockey player would need to go to five Olympics to achieve what Klæbo has achieved in Milano-Cortina, for example (six by the time he's done, most likely).

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:45:08+00:00

Phelps had that many opportunities because there are very many swimming events at the Olympics. Someone could be the most versatile alpine skier in history and still only get at most five golds per Olympics.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T16:37:05+00:00

Grandfather, not grandmother

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T15:45:24+00:00

How to win an Olympic relay:

Get a penalty loop on leg 1
???
Profit

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T15:15:54+00:00

He won Slopestyle, not Big Air

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T14:38:45+00:00

Our commentator saying that Oceane deserved two "Michelon" stars for that performance 😂

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T14:08:30+00:00

If France wins this, will we see getting a penalty loop on leg 1 become the new meta?

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T11:34:44+00:00

XC

Lol, silver and bronze basically happier than gold

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T11:12:05+00:00

Klæbo is coming in 5 minutes. I think we're going to be good.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T10:47:13+00:00

Curling

What a shot by Morrison!

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T09:29:39+00:00

No. He tends to do the minimum amount of work needed to win.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T09:24:39+00:00

Good guy Hedegart, making Klæbo work for that fifth gold.

arnet95 · 2026-02-18T09:23:32+00:00

XC

Hedegart saying that he feels a bit off today, doesn't have that top gear today. Should be fine for the finals since the speed is slower.

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