Sunday, February 15, 2026

One event. Two events.

NBC can't count, but at least one of their Events of the Night lives up to the hype.

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• Last night, Jordan Stolz won his second gold medal in speed skating. Is he skating tonight? No! But the women are for the Women's 500M! Sarah Warren of the US is in the first pair we see. The drone chases her around the backstretch, but she's not fast enough. Not everyone can be The Firejet.
• I like that in the 500M speed skating race the official who fires the "starting gun" is standing right next to the starting line.  It's not really a gun, it's just an electronic trigger that flashes a light and triggers a sound when it's time to start. It looks a lot like a  red plastic version of a Jem'Hadar phaser. Yes, now you can all start chanting "nerrrrrrrrrrd."
• Social media star Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands has picked up 2 million more followers since she won gold in the 1000M race a few days ago. Tonight she is currently in first after her race. Will she pick up 2 million more with another gold? We'll find out.
• But first, Erin Jackson of the US got her start in inline skating and then moved to ice. Who should we get to talk to her about that? How about Snoop! He shows up at her house wearing, of course, a jacket with her picture on it. Seriously, how many of these does he have? Now she's going to teach him to skate at the local rink. He wisely cuts that short before he breaks something and they resume the interview. At Beijing when she won gold, she became the first black woman ever to win gold in the Winter Olympics. Snoop tells her to go get another.
• So now Erin is ready to race against Femke Kok of the Netherlands. That's a tough match. Dang. Femke is FAST. Jackson looked fast at the beginning, but Kok set an Olympic record and wins gold. Jackson finishes fifth. There's no telling how many more follows Jutta got.
• Hockey time! The US played Germany this afternoon. There are a lot of clips of a mic'ed up Brady Tkachuk intimidating Germans. It must have worked since they won 5-1. The US finished undefeated in their group, so they move on to the medal competition.
• To the mountain for Men's Dual Moguls. I guess there are no Americans in medal contention because the only racers we see are Canadian Mikael Kingsbury and Japan's Ikuma Horishima. Ikuma finishes the run first but he misses the last jump, so Kingsbury wins gold on points. All three medalists posed with their toddlers leading Mike Tirico to call it the Dad Podium. Awwwww.
• Around the Games! The Women's Biathlon, skiing and shooting, was won by Italy. In Women's Curling the US won once, and in Men's Curling, the US won twice. The Women's Monobob has Elana Meyers Taylor doing well after two runs, with two more to come tomorrow. Monobob is such a weird word. Why not do that for all the bobsled races? "Next up, the Quadrabob!"
• Back to some figure skating! Tonight is the start of Pairs' Figure Skating. The first couple up for the short program is Emily Chan and Spencer Howe from the US. Spencer enlisted in the US Army in 2024 and checks in with his drill sergeant to keep him updated on where he is. That seems unnecessary. Wouldn't you think your sergeant would know you're in the Olympics? That would be a hard thing to lie about.
• Yesterday I said you should find someone who loves you the way NBC loves Marco Odermatt. I should have said to find someone who loves you the way NBC loves Eileen Gu. Seriously, what's the attraction to this traitor?
• Americans Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea are up next skating to "Hallelujah." They seem really good to me. And by that I mean no falls. But they do have a gold medal already in the team competition, so they are good, right? Let's see if the judges agree with my uninformed analysis. Fourth place? Clearly I'm more qualified to be a judge.
• "A Day With Deanna." Canadian figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek is 42 years old, so we're going to follow her around her skating training day. She trains like 12 hours per day. Now I'm exhausted. She trains more in a day than I do in a week. Or two weeks. This is fluff. Exhausting fluff.
• Now it's time for her to skate with her partner Maxime Deschamps. Maxime slips and almost falls. Maybe he needs to train as hard as a 42-year-old. AAA! Right near the end their blades collide and she falls. Oof. Tenth place.
• Back to the mountains for the Women's Giant Slalom. The sun is shining and the weather is beautiful! Let's race! The first two racers, Thea Sjernesund from Norway and Sara Hector from Sweden, finished with the exact same times. Next up is Mikaela Shiffrin, trying for her third gold medal in this event. She finishes a quarter-second back.
• Paula Moltzan gets her shot at a second medal this year. AAAA! Near the bottom of the run she flew over a hill and almost lost control. She pulled it together and is currently fifth. She's probably lucky to get that.
• Ha! Albania's Lara Colturi ties Sjernesund's and Hector's time, so now three people are tied for first. Has that ever happened? It would seem unlikely.
• Stanley Tucci is on the mountain with a chef making him "the skier's breakfast." Sausage, cheese, sauerkraut, and egg all on some bread. I mean, I don't like kraut, but the rest of that looks amazing.
• Federica Brignone from Italy is back to try for her second gold this week. The Super-G winner, who horrifically broke her leg about a year ago, is fast! She knocks three people out of first place. Two skiers later all three are out of the top three.
• And now for the The Event of the Night which is… the second run of the Women's Giant Slalom. So… the same event we've been watching? Did part one count as the Event of the Night? I guess not. Whatever. The mountain still looks great.
• It's time for Paula Moltzan's second run. Eek! She almost fell. That's going to cost her some time. She's third for now, but that's unlikely to hold up. Shiffrin is next. And by next I mean next for us. But she finishes in sixth, and Moltzan is now tenth, so we must have missed at least six other skiers.
• WHAT IS GOING ON? Norway's Sjernesund moves into first and Hector is next. What time does Hector get? THE SAME EXACT TIME! AGAIN!! Surely THAT has never happened before. Albania's Colturi follows them. Can she make the trifecta? Nope. Lara is slower. There are only three skiers left. Will the pair end up sharing a medal?
• Sofia Goggia of Italy is first of the three. Will she pass them? No! Goggia is eighth. Lena Duerr of Germany is second to last. She stumbles near the top and doesn't fall, but that will cost her some time. But she's fast on the bottom. But no! Now SHE is in eighth. Last up, Brignone. There will either be two golds and a bronze in this race, or one gold and two silvers. Let's see which one! Birgnone's skis fast and wins her second gold in Italy, and Sjernesund and Hector give her the "we're not worthy" bow at the finish line. Maybe this IS the Event of the Night! That was fun!
• In her post-race interview, Brignone said she would exchange both gold medals for no injuries. You know, in case you were wondering just how much a broken leg hurts.
• Back to ice skating for the second Event of the Night. I don't think NBC understands what "Event of the Night" means. You can't have two of a singular thing, NBC!
• First up, Georgia's Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava. They skate well. At the end, Tara says they don't have a hair out of place. Well, yeah. Look at them. If I had that much lacquer on my head I wouldn't have a hair out of place, either.
• The last pair to skate is Minerva Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany. Man, they're good. I don't know anything about figure skating scoring and even I can tell. That's how good they are. Tara agrees with me. So does Johnny. Their score: almost five points better than second place. To give some perspective, there's only five points between second and tenth. It would be easier for tenth to move up to second than for second to move up to first. I'd say we already know who will win gold, but I think we've all learned that lesson this week, right?
• Medal count! The US is stuck at 17, but they're still in third place.
• It's time for some cross-country skiing. The Men's 4 x 7.5 km race went to Norway – shocker! – which means that Johannes Klaebo has nine Olympic gold medals making him the winningest Winter Olympian ever.

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I like watching the skiing events, but sometimes even I get a little jaded. "Oh look, another competitor within a quarter of a second." So to see two racers exactly tied after two runs was really interesting. Brignone's story is great so I'm glad she won, but wouldn't it have been awesome if there would have been a three-way tie for gold? Maybe next time! See you tomorrow!

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