Olympic Team Event: Strategies and Subs! (Threads Merged)

[Marco]

Perhaps for Beijing 2022, they need to score the free skates (10, 8, 6, 4 and 2) instead of (10, 9, 8, 7 and 6) to add suspense.

 

[screech]

No matter what some fans might think about the team event, it's special to the actual skaters. Patrick unapologetically says:

“At the end of the day, a medal’s a medal. I’m going to hold this medal tight to me. It’s going to be as good as the individual event. I’m sorry, that’s how I’m going to enjoy and that’s for me to decide.”

 

[missing]

I think the team event was a great success and would recommend keeping it in place at the start of the Olympics.

It was a great introduction of the sport to the once every four year watchers. It reminded me more of a Grand Prix Final than any other competition, but it had the benefit of teams rather than individuals competing against each other. A night where from 8-11 PM in prime time on network TV, people who don't always watch the sport got to see five of the best (or at least most historied or interesting) skaters in three different fields compete for something that clearly meant a great deal to each of them, was bound to generate interest in the sport. Proof of that was how many of the skaters and how much of their music trended on Twitter. I saw Marai and Adam still trending this morning.

Even those irritating red/yellow/green stickers were relatively easy to decode for casual skating fans.

If you think of the team event as a bonding exercise for athletes who don't usually get to define themselves as team, as a lifetime achievement award for skaters who really kind of deserve an award of that nature, and an easy way (much easier than watching a couple of dozen pairs teams flailing about) for casual fans to become acquainted/reacquainted with star skaters, then you can see what a success it was.

 

[Sasha'sSpins]

^^^THIS!

I love love love the Team Event and I hope the IOC always keeps it as part of the figure skating events! I wish there was a Team event in earlier years. This year's Olympic Team Event by far is my favorite of the two we've had so far! I'm going to cherish it forever because Patrick got his gold and my favorite skaters in each discipline were on the U.S. squad and now they too will forever be Olympic medallists! No matter what happens in the Individual Events, Canada, the U.S., and Russia have all secured Olympic medals!

eta: I hope that Mirai and Adam's sparkling skates and personalities help generate even more interest in the sport! Happy interest for once, not macabre interest due to a knee whacking or a scandal!

And I hope that Adam and Mirai BOTH gain more sponsors/endorsements (if they had any to begin with)!

 

[NoStefaniaNo]

I think it's a fun event, but the placement confused my friends. At least one thought that it was the entirety of skating in the winter Olympics. These are young cordcutters so their Olympic experience is limited to what they see clips of when they are out at a bar with a TV or chatter on social media.