Back to last night, and back to Women's Skating - Free Skate. Tara refers to a skater as a "great actress...but not an Oscar winner".
But we're here for the drama of the final group. No one from the US is on the ice--they're on the bus back to the QISE village by this point. Tara and Johnny reiterate their disgust with the Valieva saga, with her noting that "the adults around her have failed her". She then goes to the magic board to show how a skater stays in the mix without the most complex jumps due to "grade of execution".
The first not-Russian, Trusova, is all about grinding out jumps (5 quads), basically ignoring the artistic portion. I'm sure my mom is complaining about the "noise" of her background music. Sakamoto, a Japanese skater in the mix, has a much better balance, with Johnny referring to her jumps as "skipping stones". The second non-Russian, Shcherbavoka, had a clean performance, but "only" did two quads.
...and then it was Valieva (Valiyeva? I keep seeing different spellings.) A slip on a Triple Axel. Another slip. And then a fall on her final quad. She left the ice sobbing. The scores came in--Valieva came in fourth. When Terry notes that leaving Valieva off the podium means that medals will be awarded, Johnny replies: "Thank God". There's a lot of crying all around. Shcherbavoka, the gold medalist, appears to be in shock. Trusova, the silver winner, screaming in Russian about hating the sport and never going on the ice again. Sakamoto, winning the bronze, opening weeping in a coach's arms.
The "Court of Arbitration for Sport" made the Valieva decision partly to avoid "mental harm" in not allowing her to skate--how'd that work out?
Torico extricates us from all this, moving over to Women's Ski Halfpipe, with Gu getting her second gold for China. Torico wraps things up, noting that QISEOC President Thomas Bach had just criticized the Not-Russians for their treatment of Valieva post-skate. He then stated that the QISEOC needs to stand up and fix this once and for all--suggesting either excluding the Russkies from future games, or directly take over anti-doping programs--or risk the QISE movement altogether. Shots fired by NBC!
Two side stories before we move on--
Broadcast cameras caught the Russian coach savagely berating Valieva after her skate, saying "Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me--why? You let it go after the axel. Why?" All this as Valieva sobbed away.
As the US skating team members wait for the final results of the Valieva investigation, which will determine if they get a gold or silver, QISEOC has announced they will gift a set of QISE torches to them. Kind of a consolation prize while they wait for the UPS guy to deliver their medals down the line.
Maria Taylor takes us into Late Night, sending us to Nordic Team Combined (pretty sure this is a rerun--I've lost track). We then cut away to Terry, Tara, and Johnny, going over the events of the evening but not really adding anything. Then it's off to Curling, where the US battled Canada (they would eventually lose). Taylor noted that the US team has a big fan--Mr. T! Late night wraps up with Men's SkiCross. It's such a fast event that we go all the way from quarterfinals to the gold medal race.
Before we go on, I wanted to note that I've been scanning through the Today Show each day. They quickly went from QISE-crazy (with the bizarre outside backyard-y set) to quick daily reviews as US's hopes dimmed.
Lowe welcomes us to the last weekday afternoon of coverage. By this point, it's already the last weekend in Beijing, so we're going to get a lot of reruns, starting with the Women's Ski Halfpipe. Lowe does squeeze in an interview with Julia Marino, who got the US's first medal in these games, in Snowboard Slopestyle. Then it's Biathlon, the Women's 12.5 km Mass Start. Torico narrates a video package on American Jordan Stolz, a short track speed skater--I'm guessing we will see a lot of these over the next few days. NBC has been holding onto them in case of weather issues causing delays to fill time. Then the Men's version of the Biathlon 12.5 km Mass Start and a rerun of Men's SkiCross.
Prime Time kicks off with Torico in the studio, tossing it to Two Women's Bobsled. I noted that both of the American medal winners in the Monobob are acting as "pilots" for different two-women sleds. I guess that means the pilot role is more complicated, with the others in the sled basically dead weight after the initial push. Then we move to Pair's Skating--Short Program. Johnny's on again, calling the US pair "a souffle worth waiting for".
More to come.