Wrapping up late night's coverage--
We roll into the Team Skating competition. Johnny likened the Canadian dance to wearing mittens--huh? Meanwhile, the US couple did some sort of astronaut theme. He looked like he's ready for TRON.
Torico brings us back to reality, with a quick story about Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai and her allegations against a Communist official. Since this came out months ago, Shuai disappeared for a period of time, and is now only seen in tightly controlled photo ops. She had some of those in the last day or so, attending QISE events. NBC is holding China's feet to the fire (at least once in a while).
Off to "Big Air", another X-Game-y event involving skis and tricks. It's EXTREME Ski Jumping! The big story there is Eileen Gu--a Chinese-American competing for China. She's become the face of the sport. Back to skating, with the ladies wrapping up the Team event. The not-Russian performed the first QISE quad jumps for a female, and Tara was ecstatic. She did fall later, but it seems like risk v. reward is the thing now for scoring. "It's like a special effect--is it even real???" Men's Individuals start later today.
Late night, and the finals of Men's Slopestyle. "Shred Shed!"--say that 3 times fast. We learn about the "Taco Analogy": even when they fall apart, they're still good. We also got a great shot of a "watch party" back in the US, with a little kid on mom's lap, everyone screaming--but the kid is out for the count. Vonn returns for a post-Shiffrin review. Then, the delayed Men's Downhill--a long camera shot makes it painfully clear that the snow is artificial, with a whole lot of nothing around the course.
Before we move onto the afternoon, we have to talk about The Today Show. Normally, they would be center stage onsite at QISE, with a huge ornate set and tons of local color. But COVID forced them to stay in NYC--so they created an outdoor set complete with a backyard fire pit. Savannah and Hoda are all bundled up on the couch. Hope NYC doesn't get any storms in the next two weeks. On the ground at Beijing, Craig Melvin shows the draconian controls in place.
The afternoon starts with Lowe giving a COVID update--US figure skater Vincent Zhou, who won silver in the team competition, had to pull out after a positive test the day of the individual event. Off to Women's Biathlon--the 15K event. The squeaking noise you hear as they ski is what happens when artificial snow gets very cold. The staggered start makes it even harder to keep track of what's going on. For some reason, they cut to someone talking about Premiere League Football. (I looked her up--Katie Nolan does "short form" material for NBC--she's their "millennial" correspondent). So there's NOTHING at QISE to cover? Maybe they're trying to get the Led Lasso crowd. More ski jumping--this time a "mixed team" event. That seems to be a trend at the games, in order to load up more events.
Moving to Prime Time--Torico sets the table, then sends us off to Short Track. It's another event where the American competitors were quickly eliminated. I'm sure NBC is unhappy to have so few "rah-rah" stories to cover. We switch to Long Track (aka traditional) Speed Skating. It starts with a bizarre amount of dramatic music--they really cleared out the stock music library. Then it's Big Air and Eileen Gu.
More to come.