Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone.

Choose your songs carefully. Sometimes they hit a little close to home.

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• Figure skating coming up, says Mike! NBC has been waiting for this day for two weeks. Let them have their moment.
• But first, the Men's Team Pursuit in big track speed skating. There are two teams with three skaters each. The teams start on opposite sides of the oval and race eight laps around the track. The race is over when the third person of the fastest team crosses the finish line. How do the racers stay close to each other? Racers two and three have a hand on the butt of the person in front of them. No strangers in this race! There are two semi-finals, and Italy races the Netherlands in the first one. As good as the Dutch have been in all of the speed skating sports this year, you'd expect them to do well, but they don't function well as a team. Italy wins.
• The Americans revolutionized this sport. Skaters used to alternate who was in front every couple of laps, but the US pioneered the front skater staying in front and the other two drafting close behind by the butt touching. They've won three world championships since they started doing this. The next semi-final is China versus the US. Wow. The US is killing China in this race. Italy and the Netherlands were at least close. The US beat China by eight seconds.
• This isn't really fluff since it's at the event, but NBC shows Casey Dawson of the US getting ready, and he's putting everything in a pink backpack. Sideline reporter Lewis Johnson says that the three members of the US pursuit team have a fantasy football league, and the loser gets punished. This year Dawson has to carry the pink backpack. The year before Ethan Cepuran had to carry a frying pan everywhere they traveled. Awesome.
• It's race time! The US starts strong but about a third of the way through the race, they lose synchronicity. From that point on, Italy gains time every lap and wins by several seconds. The US gets silver, beaten by their own technique.
• Hey NBC! It's time to pay all your bills! The Women's Short Program figure skating starts now! And first up is a skater from the country of Individual Neutral Athlete, Adeliya Petrosian. Her coach is back stage because, being a Russian, she can't be rinkside. Russia? Where's that? Is it near Individual Neutral Athleteland? Geography is hard. Anyway, Petrosian is currently leading.
• Japan's Ami Nakai is next and I don't know if I've ever seen someone this happy on the ice before. Most skaters try to prove their seriousness by looking "fierce" for four minutes. But Nakai is just a big ray of sunshine. She moves into first. That's good. I don't like singing the anthem of Individual Neutral Athleteland.
• The next skater is Leona Hendrickx from Belgium. Do you think her original name was "Hendricks" and she changed the last letter to an X for marketing purposes? The judges buy some of what she's selling. She's in third.
• American skater Amber Glenn gets a special video message from Madonna. Now Amber is shaking with excitement, hoping she can live up to Madonna's expectations. Come on, Amber, Madonna just wants you to express yourself!
• Around the Games! Events were delayed because of snow. Seems weird, doesn't it? Winter events delayed by snow? In hockey, the Swedish men beat Latvia, so they'll play the US in the quarterfinal tomorrow.
• To the mountains, for Men's Big Air Freestyle Skiing. First up, American Troy Podmilsak. He doesn't fall, so he's currently in first. He's passed by Norway's Tormod Frostad. Next is the American favorite, Mac Forehand. He skis down the hill backwards, jumps, spins, lands backwards and doesn't fall. Is that good? Good enough for a close second. Two runs to go!
• Run two: TPod lands poorly. Low score. Frostad: looks really good and gets an even higher score. Forehand: great jump, great landing, great score. He's second behind Frostad going into round three.
• Round three! Podmilsak is a long way from the first place, but that was a good jump. Good enough? Oof. Nope. Fourth place. Austria's Matej Svancer moves into second with a good jump. Now Forehand needs a good jump to beat bronze. Wow! Best landing of the night! He's ecstatic about it. And he should be. He moves into first. Now the pressure is on Frostad. Oooo… it's going to be close. Frostad wins. The other skiers congratulate him by saying "Duuuuuuuuude" and hugging each other. Well, I don't know if they said dude, but I wouldn't be surprised.
• Stanley Tucci is eating puccia, a type of Italian bread, which a baker made by hand so Stanley could have a sandwich. Like every other thing he's been eating, it looks delicious.
• An update on Team USA in Italy! The Women's Curling team beat Denmark, but the men lost to China and Italy. Two-man bobsled, the US team of Del Duca and Willamson finished fourth. In the women's Team Pursuit speed skating, the US finished fourth.
• The Blade Angels all get handwritten letters from their parents. Awwww… they're all so happy they cry. Save it for the kiss-and-cry room, Angels! Fluff.
• Finally, some skating! Alysa Liu goes first. And I think she'll probably finish that way, too. That was an incredibly clean routine. I don't think she missed anything. Huh. Second. Shows what I know.
• Isabeau Levito is the next American on the ice. She looks just as effortless as Alysa. Is she in first? I would say yes, but I was wrong just one skater ago, so I wouldn't place any bets based on my judging. Fifth? What?! I clearly understand nothing about this sport.
• Anastasiia Gubanova from Georgia is up next. She does… good? I don't know anymore. I'm going to predict that she gets sixth just because I seem to get everything wrong when I predict high. Fourth. I might as well just draw numbers out of a hat.
• Kaori Sakamoto from Japan skates, and she's the favorite, says Terry. She's trying to get the crowd on her side by picking a song by Andrea Bocelli. You could make a worse choice. Another good performance. I'm not even going to try to make a prediction. "Not seventh." There's my prediction. Second place. Finally! My prediction was correct.
• And now it's Amber Glenn's turn, fresh from being endorsed by Madonna. But first she gets some fluff. She stares straight into the camera and narrates her life story as she does her makeup. Taylor Swift's "Life of a Showgirl" plays while she tells her story. The other two Americans didn't get this kind of fluff, so she'd better earn it.
• Skating to "Like A Prayer," Glenn tries to add gold to her three consecutive national championships. Eek! She pulled out of one jump. That's not good. But everything else looked fine. Tara says not making that jump cost her seven points. Ouch. Well, if we've learned anything in these Games, nothing is inevitable. But she's clearly upset while waiting for her score to come in. Oof. She's in 12th place, nine points out of bronze contention.
• Mone Chiba of Japan closes out the night with "Last Dance" by Donna Summer. Tara says it was pure joy. She's in fourth.
• Amber talks to Andrea Joyce afterwards. She says she lost focus on the jump she missed. What will she do for the free skate? She wanted to enjoy today, but now she's hoping she can find happiness in the free skate. Don't give up, Amber! Mikhail Shaidorov was in fifth after the short program and won gold!
• Alysa, however, wanted to be out there longer to take in the feeling. How is she not nervous? She doesn't know. She just likes to skate.
• Back together at last! It's Snoop and Martha Stewart at La Scala, the famous Milan opera house. They're both dressed to the nines, and they get a real opera singer, Aigerim Altynbek, to perform for them. Snoop tries his voice as an opera singer. The opera director turned away, cringing. Martha was impressed by both Altynbek and La Scala. Even Snoop was impressed by the venue. Afterwards, they watched the figure skating we just watched. Snoop liked Mone Chiba skating to "Last Dance." Who didn't? It was pure joy!
• Mikaela Shiffrin and Simone Biles are talking about pressure. They both reached out to each other in their moments of crisis. Still fluff, though.
• Post-credits fun! Mike Tirico serves gelato to Snoop and Martha Stewart. "A scoop, for Snoop," he says. That was random.

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What have we learned this year in figure skating? Don't count anyone out, even if you think it's inevitable. Yes, that's the same closing sentence I used yesterday. It just seemed appropriate to use it again. Amber has a big hole she has to dig herself out of, but we've seen it can be done. Just be like Ami Nakai and put on a happy face! See you tomorrow.

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