[St Charles Owl]

Here's another one then Ritchiebaby....

Seeing as South Korea are using artificial snow on the mountains (presumably, seeing as all the other mountains are looking snowless), would it be possible for GB to put in a bid to host the Winter Olympics some time in the future?

Biggest problem I would see with a winter olympics in the UK is the lack of a mountain high enough to run a lot of the events. The main skiing event need at least a 1000m vertical drop over the length of the course and Cairngorm for example is only 500m from the top to the base camp. You could make the snow but if the temperatures are not cold enough in the daytime then the conditions over a course will alter greatly for the first skiers compared to the last as well.

[ritchiebaby]

Well done, SCO. As you rightly suggest, even if our mountains were high enough we don't have predictably cold enough temperatures over a whole month.

Our Women curlers fell into the same trap as the Men, having 1 bad end that undid all the earlier good work, eventually losing by 5-10 after 9 ends. I know how it feels, as I not only missed the last 6 ends of the Semi-final due to my own curling but also fell into that trap, losing by the same score. However, regroup and get back on track in the Bronze Medal game against Japan, who lost 7-8 to Korea after an extra end in the other Semi-final. It will be at 11.05 tomorrow with the Gold Medal game of Sweden v Korea at 00.05 on Sunday.

The Mens' Bronze Medal game saw another fall from grace for Canada with Switzerland winning 7-5 after 9 ends. The Mens' Final between Sweden and USA is at 06.35.

There will be a huge inquest in Canada (think of a Spanish Inquisition Lite) as, for the first time since curling came back into the Olympics in 1998, both the Canadian Men and Women failed to win a medal. Their Mixed Doubles won Gold but this will be a major embarrassment back home.

Emily Sarsfield advanced in her Ski Cross race, but was eliminated in the 3rd Quarter-final.

Tomorrow sees Billy Morgan competing in the Big Air Final and, if he feels confident enough to pull off his quadruple jump trick, could be a medal contender. The 3 runs start at 01.00.

In the Alpine Team Event the GB team of Charlie Guest, Alex Tilley, Dave Ryding and Laurie Taylor take on USA at 02.11 for a place in the Quarter-finals.

GB's 4-man Bobsleigh teams start their competition runs tomorrow at 00.30 and 02.07. Lamin Deen, Andrew Matthews, Tony Olubi and Ben Simons are 15th crew on the track and Brad Hall, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleason and Joel Fearon are 17th. In the 6 official training runs, Deen was around 10th-15th and Hall around 15th-20th.

Andrew Musgrave competes in the 50km Cross Country Skiing event at 05.00 and finishes around 2.5 hours later. He finished 4th in the Freestyle in the 2017 World Championships, but this race is in the Classic Style and will not suit him as much.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

Billy Morgan gets a bronze in the Big Air snowboarding event. After falling on landing his first jump, he was left with 2 jumps and had to land them both. He did his bit by doing that. With others making mistakes, he held on to the bronze.

[ritchiebaby]

It's just as well Billy Morgan won GB's 5th medal as the GB Women curlers failed with their final shot to nothing in the last end, losing 3-5 to Japan in the Bronze Medal game. Eve Muirhead's rink, although playing reasonably well, never really hit the heights and it was perhaps a big risk to go for a big shot, after not going for one earlier in the game, but then again I'm not an Olympic curler! Still the GB Women were ranked 4th with the Men 5th, so a decent effort, but ultimately short of the target and expectations.

In the Mens' event, USA beat Sweden by 10-7 to win their first Gold Medal and their first medal since 2006. With the scores level at 5-5 after 7 ends, the Americans conjured up 5 shots to take the game out of reach of the Swedes.

In the Alpine Team Event, GB beat USA by 0.19 seconds after tying with 2 wins each. GB met Norway in the Quarter-final, but this in this instance they were beaten by a time differential of 0.21 seconds after again tying 2-2 in wins. Norway eventually won the Bronze Medal.

GB are well down the field in the 4 Man Bobsleigh with Lamin Deen 17th and Brad Hall 18th, both over 1.3 seconds behind after 2 runs. Germany have 3 in the Top 5 and it looks like it's between them and Korea for the medals with Canada 0.58 seconds behind the leader.

As expected GB didn't do well in the 50km Cross Country, with Andrew Musgrave finishing 37th and Callum Smith in 54th out of 69 starters.

Only one day left for what has been a successful Olympics for the hosts and certainly GB, who have had their best ever return with 1 Gold and 4 Bronzes. It could easily have been more with a bit more luck and a bit more composure, but leaves us with even greater hope for Beijing in 2022.

[ritchiebaby]

At last my sleep patterns can get back to normal after the end of the Games today. I watched a clinically dominant Swedish Ladies' curling team defeat Korea 8-3 with an end to go, followed by disappointing performances from the GB 4 Man Bobsleigh teams who finished 17th and 18th. This event was memorable for 2 reasons - a) the German and Korea teams shared the Silver Medal in a dead-heat, a bit like the German and Canadian teams sharing the Gold Medal in the 2 Man Bob and b) the winning German 2 man team of Thorsten Margis and Francesco Friedrich also were an integral part of the winning 4 Man team.

Just an aside for the stat nerds - only 4 curlers made 100% contributions during the event - Lisa Weagle (Canada) against Japan, Sofia Mabergs (Sweden) against Korea in the Final, John Landsteiner (Canada) against Norway and Ben Hebert (Canada) against Switzerland in the Bronze Medal game. Note 3 Canadians and 0 medals, 1 Swede and a Gold Medal. Who pays attention to stats anyway?  

Thanks for your company this time round and I might be recovered enough to give some reports on the Paralympics starting on 9 March.