Olympics Edition — Day 11: Curling curse-outs and podium powerhouses
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Missed ya!
Hope you had a lovely, controversy-free long weekend. The same can’t be said for Milano Cortina, where the Olympic drama rages on. From curling curse-outs to podium powerhouses, today’s newsletter has it all.
Country | 🥇 | 🥈 | 🥉 | Total |
| 🇳🇴 Norway | 12 | 7 | 9 | 28 |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 8 | 4 | 11 | 23 |
| 🇺🇲 USA | 6 | 8 | 5 | 19 |
🥇🛷 American bobsleigh icon Elana Meyers Taylor added to her incredible résumé, winning her first-ever gold in the women’s monobob yesterday, her sixth career Olympic medal. The 41-year-old is now tied for the most Winter Olympic medals won by an American woman. Simply legendary.
- 🥉 And that wasn’t all for the American medal haul: 2022 gold medalist Kaillee Humphries Armbruster rounded out the podium with a third-place finish.
🏒 To the surprise of absolutely no one, Thursday’s women’s hockey gold medal game will feature fierce foes Team Canada vs. Team USA. The icy, spicy rivalry continues.
- How’d Team USA punch their ticket? Complete and utter domination. The red, white, and blue routed Sweden 5–0 in yesterday’s semifinal — just another outing for a squad that’s outscored opponents 31–1 over five games.
🥅 As for the men, the Americans locked up the No. 2 seed ahead of Friday’s knockout rounds, beating Germany 5–1 on Sunday. After finishing group play 3-0, they landed second based on goal differential and will next face the winner of today’s tilt between Sweden and Latvia.
🥈⛷️ Team China freestyle skier Eileen Gu came up just short in defending her Beijing Olympic gold. The 22-year-old earned her second silver of the Games yesterday, finishing just behind Canada’s Megan Oldham, who authored two spectacular jumps to claim gold.
💔⛸️ After last week’s shocking eighth-place finish, American figure skater Ilia Malinin addressed his unexpected men’s program podium miss yesterday, citing “vile online hatred” and “endless insurmountable pressure,” while promising a longer statement on Saturday.
🥌 While the British men’s and the Canadian women and men’s curling teams deal with cheating accusations, the U.S. women’s squad is contending with their own rough patch, seeing their three-game win streak snapped by previously winless Italy yesterday.
- However, the American gals remain second in the standings as they take on Denmark today at 8:05 a.m. ET, while the men lost 8–5 vs. China earlier this morning.
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Olympics
🏅🇳🇴 Norway dominates the Winter Games — but why?
The GIST: You’ve probably seen the viral clips of Norwegian skier Johannes Høsflot Klaebo dominating the competition, but did you notice Norway is also running away with the medal count at the Milano Cortina Olympics? The small country with a population of just 5.6M has already racked up a Games–leading 28 medals, and 12 of them are gold.
- “Winning” the Winter Games is nothing new for the Norwegians, who also boast the all-time Winter Olympic medals record. Let’s discuss the secrets to their success.
🎉 Youth sports are centered around fun. Norwegians do not keep score, mark time, or rank individuals or teams regardless of sport until kids reach at least age 13. This aligns with the national philosophy that emphasizes the “joy of sport for all.”
😮 Norwegian kids are encouraged to play as many sports as possible. In North America, kids often specialize from a young age. Compare that to Norway, where it’s customary to compete in multiple sports through high school and even university, increasing kids’ all-around athleticism and decreasing the risk of burnout before their bodies have fully developed.
🙌 Norwegian youth sports are accessible and affordable. The “pay-to-play” model is pervasive across North America and creates prohibitive barriers to entry. In contrast, Norway’s athletics have public funding, not to mention a booming used equipment market that makes even the most expensive sports, like skiing, more accessible.
- TL;DR? Norway’s Olympic dominance can be traced back to the country’s focus on raising kids to love sport — not for competition, but simply for the sake of joy. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Event | ⏰ (ET) | 👀 |
| ⛸️ Figure skating women’s short program | Today at 12:45 p.m. | 🇺🇸 Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, Isabeau Levito; 🇯🇵 Kaori Sakamoto |
| 🏅⛷️ Freestyle skiing men’s big air final | Today at 1:30 p.m. | 🇺🇸 Mac Forehand, Troy Podmilsak, Konnor Ralph |
| 🏅🛷 Bobsleigh two-man final | Today at 3:05 p.m. | 🇺🇸 Frankie del Duca and Joshua Williamson |
🏒 This season’s hottest style
Jerseys aren’t just a way to represent your team and your bestie — as sports and style grow ever more intertwined, they’re a fashion statement, and that’s especially true in Milan. With NHL players allowed to compete at the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, the league’s jerseys are one of the hottest items at the Games, even for fans who live outside North America.
- And in Team USA’s men’s hockey locker room, one sweater takes on even more meaning: They hang the jersey of late Columbus Blue Jacket and NHL All-Star Johnny Gaudreau, who was killed by a drunk driver alongside his brother Matthew in August 2024. All love.
Today’s email was brought to you by Alessandra Puccio, Lisa Minutillo, Lauren Tuiskula, and Katie Kehoe Foster. Editing by Katie Kehoe Foster. Fact-checking and ops by Elisha Gunaratnam. Ads by Alessandra Puccio and Lisa Minutillo. Managing edits by Lauren Tuiskula. Head of content Ellen Hyslop.