^^ Eh, why are you getting your knickers in such a twist. Gain some perspective. You can say Nathan flopped. Phil Hersh says he flopped.
Of course, Nathan did not live up to expectations and to what we are so used to seeing from him. In the past, he's had difficulties and usually managed to save jumps and stay on his feet, aside from when his boots were such a mess at 2017 Worlds and he had all he could do to try and stay on his feet with unsound boots. And even then he was so gutsy in going for 6 quads!
Whatever, I respect all the athletes who go out there on the ice to do battle. It takes an enormous amount of courage, and its easy for us sitting on the sidelines to throw darts.
Clearly a number of factors confronted Nathan at his first Olympics outing in the team competition, but bottom line he seemed uncharacteristically distracted by nerves and the OTT expectations. Although we've previously seen this kind of thing happen for athletes at their first Olympics, few would have expected to see Nathan succumb to the pressure. The men's sp team event was very underwhelming for most of the skaters, aside from Bychenko, Rizzo, and partially Shoma. And still IMO, Nathan's effort was not a complete flop, as he did successfully land the first quad flip ever performed in Olympic competition, and he gained points for the team. What the Knierims did was crucial obviously since Nathan did not get the 9 to 10 points that was expected, while the Knierims gained more points than was anticipated for them, and they skated beautifully.
No one said anything about the placements in pairs and men's in the team competition being equal re U.S. team results. You are really reading my comments in such an overexaggerated negative way. In no way was I trying to diminish what the Knierims have achieved. I'm stoked for them, and glad they are having fun with this very deserved hard-won experience. And oh boy, I never said J/C 'phoned in' anything. Vanessa doubled her sbs triple which is very uncharacteristic for her since their last season breakthrough. Both Vanessa & Morgan are generally good and consistent with most of their tech elements. Clearly, the judges dinged them on that jumping pass enough to where J/C did not move ahead of the Knierims, which would have been anticipated on paper. Why not ratchet down
your temperature! The U.S. team is in second place at the moment and the rest of the team event should be gripping and quite close. It's only just started.
Under any scenario, silver has been considered less likely for the U.S. team to manage, even if not out of the realm of possibility. After Nathan's failure to obtain the expected points, even the bronze is going to be more of a battle. So kudos to the Knierims for picking up Team USA and keeping medal prospects alive.
Meanwhile, it's your choice to be petty and to get your useless digs in about my innocuous comment on not being able to have perfect recall about every past U.S. pairs team.
T/M had no pressure except step-up and stop underperforming. 
They were planning to zing it and bring it, regardless of what Kolyada had done (Young Kolyada and Nathan both showed nerves in their first Olympics). T/M were textbook and determined, and yet they still lack personality on the ice, IMHO. Anyway, judges are always giving T/M fairly high points regardless whether they make mistakes. 
And they get humongous points when they skate like they can, which they did under whatever amount of pressure, albeit it's the best they've looked all season.
