Phillip Boit

Cross-country skier Phillip Boit of Kenya competed in the men's 15-km classical in Torino, where he finished 92nd out of 97. This is his third Winter Games, though; he drew attention in Nagano in 1998, where he finished last in a 10-km event. He's now one of a handful of African cross-country skiers, able to compete under the basic quota and not necessarily doing a bad job of it. More on Boit -- and how a guy from a running mecca in Kenya ended up on the cross-country ski circuit as part of a Nike sponsorship gimmick -- from Strata, the Deseret News and the BBC, all of which date from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Results for Sunday, February 26

Other than the gold-medal game in men's hockey, the last event in these Winter Games is in cross-country skiing: the men's 50-km free, mass start. (At Salt Lake City it was classic; here it's free.) I awarded the DFL in hockey earlier, so the last DFL for Torino will be awarded for this event. And it goes to 17-year-old Chinese skier Ren Long, who came in 63rd with a time of two hours, 16 minutes and 15 seconds. That's a bit more than 10 minutes behind the gold medallist -- not bad over 50 kilometres. There were 16 DNFs and three DNSes in this race; I had been wondering whether anyone could be out by being lapped in this race, but it doesn't appear to be the case from the results.

Standings to date: China adds one more last-place finish, to end up one of three countries with six. Because it has 80 athletes here, it finishes second to Romania and ahead of Japan. I'll have an entry dedicated to the final tally later today.

Programming note: I'll be wrapping up the Torino Games with a number of entries that, if all goes well, will be posted throughout the day. So even though the last-place finishes are finished, I'm not. Stick around, won't you?

Austrians Pee Cleanly

The urine tests on the Austrian biathletes and cross-country skiers conducted during the police raid on their residence last weekend came back negative, but the investigation continues. (Blood tests were not conducted at the time because they would have affected the outcome of their races, but they have been done since.)

See previous entries: Results for Sunday, February 19; Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Austrian Edition; Austrian Doping Scandal Update.

Results for Friday, February 24

Only a few events to report on today; the Games are definitely beginning to wind down. Tomorrow will be much bigger, though.

Alpine Skiing: The last women's event in alpine skiing was the giant slalom, where 22-year-old Mirella Arnhold of Brazil was 43rd with a time after two runs of 2:49.17 -- about 40 seconds off the pace. As usual, a huge number of competitors did not complete the race: 18 DNFs, three DNSes and one disqualification.

Cross-country Skiing: The big long ski on the women's side is the mass start 30-km free, which saw Romanian skier Monika Gyorgy, 23, come in 50th. Her time was 1:35:25.4, or 13 minutes behind the gold medallist. There were 11 DNFs and one DNS.

Speed Skating: In the penultimate long-track event, the gruelling men's 10,000-metre, American skater Charles Ryan Leveille Cox, 22, was 15th. His time of 14:14.81 was quite a bit off the pace -- more than a minute thirteen behind the gold medallist and nearly half a minute behind the next-to-last-place finisher -- but keep in mind that, even as the slowest skater in that field, he skated more than six miles in less than 15 minutes. Just try to wrap your head around that for a moment. There was one disqualification.

Standings to date: To my surprise, Romania is strengthening its hold on the lead with a sixth last-place finish. Brazil has its first last-place finish -- to my surprise, they have more athletes here than Bosnia or Lithuania, countries with actual, palpable snow. And the Americans also enter the board, finally; I was wondering when they'd show up.

Austrian Doping Scandal Update

The Austrians have fessed up, admitting that the two skiers who bravely turned their tails and fled after the surprise Italian police raid over the weekend "may" have used illegal doping methods. Neither of the athletes in question were on the teams that finished last in the cross-country or biathlon relays, so the DFL standings are unaffected. But that may change: the tests aren't finished yet.

Early Results for Wednesday, February 22

Cross-country Skiing: The men's and women's sprint events ran today; I'm assigning the DFL to the slowest time in the qualification round. The first 30 skiers qualified for the quarterfinals in each event. In the women's sprint qualification, Greek skier Panagiota Tsakiri, all of 15 years old, finished 66th with a time of 2:43.28, more than 30 seconds off the pace. The women's sprint is 1.1 km. In the men's sprint qualification, 22-year-old Edmond Khachatryan of Armenia was 80th with a time of 2:49.98, about 36½ seconds off the pace. The men's sprint is 1.3 km.

Snowboarding: In the men's parallel giant slalom, I'm going with the last-place result in the elimination round, which is less ambiguous than the qualification round. In that elimination round, Austrian boarder Alexander Maier, 31, was ranked 30th; he was disqualified on one run so a comparison of his time is meaningless. One boarder was disqualified during the qualification round.

Standings to date: Armenia enters the standings in 20th place, Greece moves from 19th to 10th, and Austria moves from 13th to 7th.

Later today: A whole swack of women's events: 1,500-metre speed skating, slalom, aerials, and, in short track, the 3,000-metre relay.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Austrian Edition

The story about the Austrian biathlon/cross-country ski team -- some of whom finished last in the 4×10-km relay yesterday, you'll remember -- and their banned coach keeps getting weirder: Italian police report that they did in fact find doping equipment, two of the 10 athletes tested have been punted from the team for going home without permission, and the banned coach is in custody after crashing a roadblock near the Italy-Austria border. (In other news, the paperwork involving a positive pre-Games test of a biathlete -- not necessarily Austrian -- has mysteriously gone missing.)

Results for Sunday, February 19

Alpine Skiing: Due to bad weather, the women's Super-G has been rescheduled until tomorrow.

Bobsled: The Hungarian team of Márton Gyulai, 26, and Bertalan Pintér, 32, finished 29th in the men's two-man bobsled. Those not in the top 20 apparently did not make a fourth run; their combined time of 2:53.01 was based on three runs -- at that point they were 2.39 seconds back.

Cross-country Skiing: In the men's 4×10-kilometre relay, the Austrian team of Roland Diethart, 32, Johannes Eder, 26, Jürgen Pinter, 26, and Martin Tauber, 29, was lapped during the fourth leg, at which point their race was over; they placed 16th as a result.

Now there's a bit of news behind this last-place finish. The Austrian skiers claim that their race was "ruined" because they were subject to a raid the night before by Italian police looking for evidence of doping, along with late-night doping tests. The raid occurred because of a tip that Walter Mayer was in Torino with the Austrian athletes. Mayer had been banned by the IOC for ten years for being suspected of conducting blood transfusions at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games after equipment was found in a chalet. Despite the controversy surrounding Mayer, however, he's still head of Austria's cross-country skiing and biathlon program. If the Austrians test positive for anything, they will be stripped of their DFL according to precedent.

Speed Skating: 25-year-old Romanian skater Daniela Oltean finished 35th in the women's 1,000-metre with a time of 1:21.70. That was 5.65 seconds behind the gold medallist. There was one DNF.

Standings to date: Austria enters the standings near the back, Hungary moves into eighth place, and, due to a smaller contingent than South Korea's, Romania regains the lead.

Early Results for Saturday, February 18

Alpine Skiing: In the men's Super G, Albanian skier Erjon Tola, 19, was 56th. His time of 1:44.27 was 13.62 seconds behind the gold medallist. There were seven DNFs. Tola is Albania's only athlete at these Games.

In the women's combined, another 15-year-old: Chilean Noelle Barahona finished 30th; her total combined time of 3:26.62 was 35½ seconds behind the gold medallist. A total of 15 skiers either were disqualified, did not start or did not finish before or during one of the event's three runs. Here's a Reuters profile of Miss Barahona.

Biathlon: In the women's 10-kilometre pursuit, 14 competitors were disqualified by being lapped, and there were two DNSes and three DNFs. But of the 41 athletes who were able to cross the finish line, Nina Lemesh, 32, of Ukraine finished 41st with a time seven minutes and five seconds behind the gold medallist. Lemesh won at least one World Cup biathlon event back in 1998.

On the men's side, Latvian skier Kristaps Lībietis, 23, was 56th in the 12.5-kilometre pursuit; he was eight minutes, ten seconds behind the gold medallist. There were three DNSes and one DNF.

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's 4×5-kilometre relay, the team from Estonia was 17th with a time of 1:00:24.4 -- about 5½ minutes behind the gold medallists. The team was comprised of Tatjana Mannima, 25; Piret Pormeister, 20; Kaili Sirge, 22; and Silja Suija, 31.

Standings to date: With three last-place finishes and a small contingent, Chile moves into the lead. Ukraine adds a third last-place finish to move into fourth, Estonia adds a second last-place finish to move into seventh, and Albania and Latvia joins the race in 11th and 24th place, respectively.

Later today: men's 1,000-metre speed skating, individual large-hill ski jumping, and men's 1,000-metre and women's 1,500-metre short track speed skating.

Prawat Nagvajara

Prawat Nagvajara, who finished last in the men's 15-kilometre classical cross-country ski event this morning (see previous entry), is an associate professor of electrical and chemical engineering at Drexel University.

After seeing news coverage from the 1998 Nagano Games of Kenyan skier Philip Boit (who himself finished 92nd in Nagvajara's race this morning), Nagvajara, who is from Thailand, made it a goal to qualify for and attend the Olympics himself. At Salt Lake City in 2002, he was (as he was again this year) Thailand's lone athlete. He was lapped, and therefore disqualified, in the mass-start race in which he competed.

For these Games, his goal was to finish the 15K in under 50 minutes, which he didn't quite make.

At 48, he's one of the oldest athletes in Torino, and these will be his last Games. He has some interest in starting up a short-track speed skating program in Thailand, though.

More about Professor Nagvajara from the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Triangle, Drexel's student paper. Drexel has a page up to honour Professor Nagvajara; here's a press release the University issued last week.

Early Results for Friday, February 17

Cross-country Skiing: In case you're wondering, no, the skiers from Brazil, Kenya and Ethiopia did not finish last in the men's 15-kilometre classical, though they were in the back of the pack. No, the last-place finisher was 48-year-old Prawat Nagvajara, the lone athlete from Thailand at these Games. He finished 97th; his time was 1:07:15.9, more than 29 minutes behind the gold medallist. (More on Professor Nagvajara in a moment.) Only two skiers were more than 20 minutes back; another eleven skiers were more than 10 minutes back; there were two DNFs. It looks like this event may be one of the more open ones at the Winter Games (see the qualifying rules); many of the athletes who are the sole representatives of their countries were in this race.

Snowboarding: The finals for the women's snowboard cross have not yet been run, but I'm already able to assign a last-place finish in this event based on the qualification runs. 25-year-old French boarder Julie Pomagalski was disqualified on her second run and had to make do with her first-run time of 1:36.32, which was 8.47 seconds behind the leader and left her in 23rd place; the top 16 advanced.

Standings to date: Thailand is now the first country to have as many last-place finishes as athletes; France enters the top ten.

Later today: men's skeleton; women's alpine combined.

Early Results for Thursday, February 16

Biathlon: Chilean competitor Veronica Isbej adds another last-place finish (see previous entry) with her 83rd-place result in the women's 7.5-km sprint. She had a total of four faults -- not by any means the worst result in shooting -- and a final time of 33:52, which was 11:20.6 behind the gold medallist. There was one DNS. There's some coverage of Isbej's previous last-place finish in the Chilean media here and here, if you read Spanish (I don't).

(Note: Multiple last-place finishes by an athlete simply means that they're tough, courageous and qualified enough to enter more than one event. Kudos to them that are even capable of finishing last more than once.)

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's 10-kilometre classical, 20-year-old Vedrana Vučićević of Bosnia-Herzegovina finished 70th with a time of 42:45.8 -- nearly 15 minutes behind the gold medallist and nearly nine minutes behind the 69th-place finisher. There was one disqualification (Beckie!) and one DNF.

Nordic Combined: In the team event, the Russian team of Ivan Fesenko, Anton Kamenev, Dimitry Matveev and Sergej Maslennikov, sixth after jumping, were less successful in the cross-country ski relay and finished ninth. Two teams withdrew during the jumping portion.

Snowboarding: In the men's snowboard cross -- it's basically motocross on snowboards, quite neat actually -- there are heats, just like short track. Once you get into the 1/8-finals the events don't appear to be timed, but, after the two qualifying runs, German boarder Alex Kupprion, 27, had the slowest combined time: 1:24.66 -- 4.73 seconds behind the leader after the qualifying round. Kupprion was in 36th position; the top 32 advanced to the 1/8-finals.

Standings to date: Russia moves into third place, Chile moves into fifth, and Bosnia and Germany join the race.

Later today: women's skeleton, women's and men's team pursuit in speed skating, and men's figure skating.

Early Results for Tuesday, February 14

Biathlon: Karolis Zlatkauskas of Lithuania, who turns 21 on Sunday, finished 90th in the men's 10-kilometre sprint with a time of 34:33.8, which is 8:22.2 behind the gold medallist.

Cross-country Skiing: In the women's team sprint (two women, three 1.1-km laps each), the slowest heat time came in the first semifinal, where the Ukrainian team of Marina Malets Lisogor, 22, and Tatiana Zavalij, 24, came eighth with a time of 19:14.1; the gold medal pair's time in the final was 16:36.9.

And in the men's team sprint (two men, three 1.3-km laps each), Turkish skiers Sabahattin Oglago -- who came last in the 30-km pursuit (see previous entry) -- and Muhammet Kizilarslan, 19, finished last in their semifinal with a time of 19:46.5; the gold medallists' time in the final was 17:02.9.

Standings to date: Turkey and Ukraine are giving South Korea a run for its money: they now have two last-place finishes each. Lithuania joins the board.

Later today: Women's luge, women's 500-metre speed skating, and the men's combined event in alpine skiing.

Qualifying Rules: Biathlon and Cross-Country Skiing

As I mentioned earlier, one of the things I'm interested in exploring this time around is what it takes to actually qualify for the Olympics.

Though last-place novelty acts have frequently left the impression that it can be spectacularly easy to participate in some events (especially if you're from certain countries), this is not the case. Or at least it's no longer the case: I was aware, dimly, that the IOC et al. cracked down on such participation so that there will be no future iterations of Eddie the Eagle or Eric the Eel. And that sort of thing certainly didn't happen in Athens, much, I think, to the disappointment of some.

But this time I want to quantify it a bit. What does an athlete need to do to get to the Olympics, specifically? Over the course of the Torino Games, I'm going to take a look at the qualifying rules for the winter sports. In this post, I'm going to look at the biathlon and cross-country skiing.

The biathlon has a quota of 220 participating athletes; to qualify, competitors must have posted a good result in the European World Cup or the Junior World Championships, or have participated in a previous World Cup, World Championship, or Winter Olympics.

In cross-country skiing, there are no such caps on participation. It's a bit more open, but it's not open to all. Receiving 100 points in a FIS cross-country skiing competition is sufficient to qualify an individual athlete. In addition, each country can send one male and one female athlete under the basic quota system -- provided that athletes under the quota have obtained at least some FIS points (but not more than 200; presumably they'd qualify under the other rule) and have participated in at least five FIS competitions. So you don't have to be a top skier to participate under the basic quota, but you do have to be a legitimate competitive skier.

Early Results for Sunday, February 12

Alpine Skiing: Romanian skier Florentin-Daniel Nicolae, 25, finished 53rd in the men's downhill this morning. With a time of 2:00.93, he was 12 seconds behind the gold medallist and a bit more than a second behind the next-to-last finisher. There were two DNFs.

Cross-country Skiing: Two pursuit races ran this morning. The explanatory book for cross-country skiing at Torino (1.5 MB PDF file) explains how pursuit works:

The pursuit competition comprises two parts for which one medal is awarded (in the past there were two medals for each part of the pursuit). The first part of the men’s pursuit competition will be a 15 km mass start Classical Technique race. After the 15 km, the athletes come to the stadium, change their skis and the ski poles in allocated boxes as quickly as possible whilst the clock is still running and continue the competition with 15 km in Free Technique. The first athlete to cross the finish line after the second part of competition is the winner. The first part of the ladies' pursuit competition will be a 7.5 km mass start Classical Technique race. After the 7.5 km, the athletes come to the stadium, change their skis and the ski poles in allocated boxes as quickly as possible whilst the clock is still running and continue the competition with 7.5 km in Free Technique. The first athlete to cross the finish line in the second part of the competition is the winner.

In the women's 15-km pursuit, 26-year-old Maja Kezele of Croatia finished 64th with a total time of 51:36.3, which was 8:47.6 behind the gold medallist and nearly 20 seconds behind the skiier finishing 63rd. There were three DNFs. Later, in the men's 30-km pursuit, Turkish skier Sabahattin Oglago, 22, finished 66th with a total time of 1:28:03.8 -- more than 11 minutes behind the gold medallist and 45 seconds behind the next-to-last skier. There was one DNS and a whopping 10 DNFs.

Snowboarding: In the men's halfpipe (not the water pipe, silly), Polish snowboarder Mateusz Ligocki, 24, finished 44th in the preliminary round and did not advance. I don't know what happened; his score of 4.0 is quite low compared with the 30s and 40s in the final round.

Standings to date: Turkey's small Olympic delegation (seven athletes by the numbers available to me) means that their single last-place finish puts them in third place.

Alexander Penna in 2002

Matt posted a great link in the comments to this essay by a volunteer at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games describing the last-place run of Brazil's Alexander Penna in the 50-km classic cross-country ski competition. (Brazilian skier. Insert favourite joke here.) It's an absolutely riveting read and well worth your attention. I mentioned before that if there is a spirit of the games, it exists closer to the back of the pack than the front, and this is more evidence for it. Is it there only for the hopeless causes, or does it also exist for those who want to win, or even those who might have a fighting chance at it? Maybe our hearts are warmed by the fact that they're simply there, with no expectations to be crushed.