Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Maybe some things are inevitable.

You can't keep the best skier in the world down forever.

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• Hockey, hockey, everywhere! The Men's quarterfinals were today. The Germans lost to Slovakia. Canada had to go to overtime to beat Czechia. Finland had to go to overtime to beat Switzerland. And the US, yes, had to go to overtime to beat Sweden. Final four, baby!
• Let's start in the hills for Men's Team Sprint final in cross-country skiing. Will Norway be here? Of course they will. If Norway wins, then Johannes Klaebo will have the record for most Winter Olympic gold medals. Each racer on a two-person team goes 1.5 kilometers before switching to his teammate. We join the race in progres, and after the third exchange, everyone is in one big pack. I'm predicting a crash. Someone's going to be overly aggressive and take about five other skiers down. On the second-to-last lap, Ben Ogden of the US is leading the pack. He's already won one medal in these Games, could he pull out another one for the US? At the final transition, Norway has retaken the lead and their final skier is… Klaebo. Well, I guess this is over, then. Maybe the US can get silver. Wait a minute… American Gus Schumacher is right on Klaebo's tail. Put your hand on his butt, Schumacher! It works for the speed skaters! Klaebo runs up the hill again. What is with this guy? He's superhuman. But Schumacher is stretching out his lead over the third-place Italian. Klaebo, of course, finishes first, but the US gets silver for their second cross-country medal in these Olympics, which is also the second cross-country medal in the last 50 years. Great job!
• Time for a coffee break with Stanley Tucci. He's here to get espresso and pastries. Now I want to go to Italy and get espresso and pastries. And I don't even drink espresso.
• To the mountain for Men's Slopestyle. Favorite Red Gerard from Colorado looks… flawless? I mean, I think so, but my judging skills are off this year. He's the leader, so maybe I was right. Next up for us is American Jake Canter. He's currently second. Next up is Japan's Taiga Hasegawa. Now he's the leader. After him, China's Su Yiming. Now he's the new leader. I'm sensing a pattern here.
• Google has ads where they explain the rules of whatever event we're watching. Shouldn't that be the job of analysts? No, their job is to say, "sick!"
• Red Gerard fluff! He watches some old video of himself winning gold in Pyeong-Chang and gets all misty.
• Gerard's second run… oof. He doesn't fall, but the landing was ugly, so he pulls out of the rest of the run. Only the best two scores count, so this one will get tossed.
• Canadian Mark McMorris, a previous bronze-medal winner, has broken a lot of bones. He's been placed in a medically-induced coma. He's broken his face. A couple of weeks ago he had a concussion. And now he's here for more! Maybe he should consult a psychiatrist. He falls on his second run, but doesn't break anything.
• Run three! Gerard needs a clean run. Oooo… he slips, but not in a good way. So no medal for him tonight.
• But Jake Canter still has a chance! He was third heading into this run and he's really happy when he gets to the bottom. Will he move up? No, but he's still in third. He might get bronze.
• It's the last run for McMorris. Can he lay it down? Literally, yes. On his face. He's out, but at least he didn't break any bones.
• Watching this is a little anti-climactic. Hey? Who's this snowboarder in round three that we haven't seen before? Do you think he's going to win or crash? I'm betting crash. I'm correct. Canter finishes with bronze.
• Snoop and Martha were watching the women's ice skating yesterday and Snoop was getting into it. Cute, but fluff.
• To a different mountain, it's the Women's Slalom, where favorite Mikaela Shiffrin will try to win an Olympic medal for the first time in eight years. Good luck, Mikaela!
• American Paula Moltzan was doing really well, but near the bottom of the hill she almost missed a gate and had to scrub all her speed to make the following one. In a sport where two tenths of a second can be the difference between gold and bronze, she finishes her first run a second-and-a-half behind the leader. She's probably out.
• Shiffrin fluff! Let's watch some more home movies! She liked skiing as a kid. In Sochi, she won gold. Did she sing then? Yes! So that's good. She's ready to win again!
• Let's watch her and see if she can! Eek! She almost missed a gate in the middle, but somehow still finished as the current leader. That's the kind of thing you can do when you're the best in the world. After the first round, Shiffrin is in first by eight-tenths of a second. Mike says that's the second-largest lead in the first round of this event in the history of the Winter Olympics. That's amazing.
• Today in the Games: Sidney Crosby of Team Canada hockey got hurt. Will he miss the next game? That could be disastrous for Canada. Let's see some more hockey highlights of the US win over Sweden. Goal! There weren't that many, so they showed the overtime goal.
• At a different mountain for Women's Aerial Freestyle Skiing. And what is that? They ski down a mountain, really fast, then they hit a big ramp, spin a bunch of times, then land. This is the medal round, so only this jump counts. American Winter Vinecki does all right. Kaila Kuhn is a little better. But neither of them are as good as the one Australian and three Chinese jumpers who finish above them.
• Back to the Event of the Night, the second run of the Women's Slalom. Paula Moltzan starts us off with her second attempt at the mountain. She does better this time, but she started so far behind it probably won't matter.
• A bunch of other skiers go down. Each one gets a little faster than the previous one, but none of them are pulling away from the pack. Is it inevitable that Mikaela will win the slalom? Ooooo… we shouldn't tempt fate!
• Near the top of the run, Sweden's Cornelia Oehlund breaks her pole on one of the gates. She was in the top four and without that pole, her run gets chaotic and ends before she can cross the finish line.
• Oh! The next skier, Lena Duerr of Germany hit the first gate and she's out. I don't think I've ever seen a skier get out so fast.
• And now it's Shiffrin's time. Will she be nervous seeing that Duerr only made it 50 feet down the course? She makes the first gate, so I guess not. She's aggressive all the way down and wins by a second-and-a-half! The largest margin of victory in an alpine event in 28 years. Wow!
• Inside we go to the Women's Short Track 3000M Relay final. There are no Americans here, so choose which team you'd least like to see crash. Whoops! The Netherlands goes down! Hope you didn't have them. Korea, Italy, and Canada finish in that order.
• And now the men get their shot with the Men's 500M final. This will go fast. Two Canadians and three Dutch skaters go four-and-a-half laps. Canada's Steven Dubois wins, his fifth Olympic medal.
• Mikaela arrives at the Olympic village and everyone cheers for her. So now Mike is going to Facetime her live at her own party. Mike asks how it feels. It's been a pretty spectacular day, she says. She drops an s-bomb that gets bleeped out. She doesn't seem to have noticed, but her friends in the background did. She says she just had her first espresso martini. Well, that would explain it.
• Now it's medal ceremony time. Will Mikaela sing? YES! From the very first note. That's the singing style of someone who's been waiting to get to the top of the podium. Great job, Mikaela!
• Snoop and Martha are dining tonight. Is Stanley Tucci joining them? It seems like he should. They're at Enrico Bartolini Al Mudec, a three-star Michelin restaurant. They start with hors d'oeuvres. Martha asks what Snoop thinks. It's like a sour cream taco at Taco Bell. I don't know if that's a bad review for Enrico's or a good review for Taco Bell. Snoop doesn't seem to thrilled to be eating calamari. Next is rabbit. He can't eat Bugs Bunny. Nor is he particularly proficient at twirling spaghetti around a fork using a spoon. But he does compliment the chef on the spaghetti and meatballs, so it all works out.
• Team USA versus Team Canada! Hockey! Tomorrow! They don't like each other! So many exclamation points! Fluff!

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It was a golden day, today. Johannes Klaebo won his 10th gold medal, making him the only other Olympian with Michael Phelps to have 10 or more golds. Mikaela Shiffrin won her third gold medal, making her the only American alpine skier to ever have three. That's a lot of history in one evening. I need some rest to comprehend it all. Maybe I should have an espresso martini. Or maybe not. See you tomorrow!

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