Dramatic, unlikely, historic Olympic gold medal for Team USA in women’s cross-country skiing

Matthias HangstPYEONGCHANG-GUN, SOUTH KOREA – FEBRUARY 21: Jessica Diggins of the United States (14-2) stretches across the finish line to win gold ahead of Stina Nilsson of Sweden (12-2) during the Cross Country Ladies' Team Sprint Free Final on day 12 of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Alpensia Cross-Country Centre on February 21, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)In what has been overall a humbling Olympics for Team USA, a gold medal came from an unlikely place: The cross-country ski team. The duo of Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins won the team sprint in a dramatic, lunging finish over Sweden to secure the first Olympic gold for American cross-country skiing ever and the first American Olympic medal in 42 years.
If you follow cross-country skiing (unlikely), you know the hype for the women’s team coming into these Olympics was real. If you don’t follow cross-country skiing (likely), you just need to trust that after a mo..

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Watch the brutal compilation of all of Marv Albert and Reggie Miller’s mistakes from the All-Star Game

Kevork DjansezianAfter witnessing the appalling intro to Sunday night's NBA All-Star Game at the Staples Center, most viewers likely did one of two things: A. Turned it off, or B. Scrolled Twitter and watched everyone tear Fergie and Kevin Hart apart limb by limb. In other words, if you did happen to keep the game on as background noise, you probably weren't closely paying attention to the game's broadcast with Marv Albert, Reggie Miller and Chris Webber.
Luckily for all of us with the inability to focus on two things at once, one astute observer had his ears perked up throughout the game, and heard enough mistakes from Albert and Miller to create a YouTube compilation video out of it. The five minutes of “lowlights” he spliced together are pretty brutal to watch:
Plenty of nit picky stuff here, for sure. But man, there's also some painfully bad gaffes and screw ups that make you immediately Google Marv Albert's age, which is 76, so we should cut the guy some s..

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Why an Olympic bronze medalist is usually happier than whoever won silver

Editor's Note: This story first appeared during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but in the wake of Lindsey Vonn's bronze medal finish Tuesday in the 2018 Winter Games, it's worth revisiting.
When Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar stepped to the podium on Sunday in Rio, all three were appropriately thrilled to medal in the first Olympic golf tournament in 112 years. Rose, who won gold, rightfully looked happiest of all. But if one were to study the expressions of Stenson and Kuchar, it was hard to tell who won silver and who won bronze. In many photos, in fact, it was the bronze medalist Kuchar who wore the wider smile.
FacebookPinterestGetty ImagesAs it happens, this is a fairly common dynamic. Several years ago, psychologists Victoria Medvec, Thomas Gilovich and Scott Madey used the Olympic podium as part of a study of “counterfactual thinking,” which describes the human tendency of focusing on what might have been as opposed to actually what is.
F..

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Cricket legend Kevin Pietersen makes video mocking golfer Kevin Na for his slow play

Cricket legend Kevin Pietersen posted a screen-grab video of Kevin Na taking an inordinate amount of time over a par putt during Sunday's final round of the Genesis Open. Well, an inordinate amount of time for the average golfer. For the notoriously deliberate Na, it wasn't that unusual. Anyway, here's Pietersen's post, which made the rounds on Golf Twitter — in addition to going out to his 3.6 million followers:
https://twitter.com/KP24/status/965323650948878336
But Pietersen wasn't finished on the topic of Na's slow play. On Wednesday, he shared this video of him handling a similar-length putt. In a not-so-similar amount of time.
https://twitter.com/KP24/status/966200223143026690
“That's how it's done, mate.” Point taken. Although, to be fair, one Kevin was putting on a practice green while the other was putting for a $1.3 million prize. We're going to say the appropriate amount of time to take in Na's situation is somewhere in betwe..

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Zion Williamson sent this poor bastard into the Stone Age with devastating block

High school baller Zion Williamson has become a YouTube legend thanks to his sensational, gravity-defying dunks, jams that leave fans in awe and opponents emasculated. Alas, Williamson's rep took a hit in January when he committed to Duke, a place where flair goes to die in favor of flopping and floor slapping.
However, we live in a society that loves second chances, so we're willing to forgive Williamson for his transgression. Especially if he continues to do things that look like they're right out of Space Jam.
Such as this gem during the South Carolina Independent School Association Class 2A quarterfinals, where Williamson sent this poor bastard into the Stone Age with a devastating block:
https://twitter.com/overtime/status/966101947592867840
Got to learn the virtues of the pump fake, young fella.
If that wasn't enough, Williamson dropped in 28 points in the first half alone, notable given the other team had a combined 26. And then there was this:
https://twitte..

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Almost all Olympic athletes will come home to four more years of day jobs

Streeter LeckaAmerican curler John ShusterAs the Olympic games begin to wind down, I wondered what some of these athletes will do when they get back home. They’re not pro basketball players, and they’re not all Lindsey Vonns and Shaun Whites. They’re curlers, speed skaters, bobsledders, biathletes—not exactly sports that attract a bunch of lucrative sponsorships or endorsements that allow athletes to coast through the four-year interim between Olympiads. No, when the games are over, the majority of our Olympic athletes go home to face the reality of their day jobs so they can afford to simultaneously train themselves to exhaustion for four years.
So I looked further into this and immediately felt like a lazy bastard. For a sample of our athletes competing this month in Pyeongchang, a member of the women's luge team is a soldier; one of our curlers is a registered nurse; another luger is a firefighter; and a pairs figure skater is an auto mechanic.
The situation overall is in some ..

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