Results for Tuesday, February 21

Biathlon: The ill-fated Austrian team, at the centre of a doping investigation along with their cross-country counterparts (see previous entry), came in 17th in the men's 4×7.5-km relay. The team of Daniel Mesotitsch, 29, Friedrich Pinter, 27, Ludwig Gredler, 38, and Christoph Sumann, 30, finished six and a half minutes off the pace with a time of 1:28:26.4.

Bobsled: In the women's bobsled, the Japanese team of Manami Hino, 26, and Chisato Nagaoka, 29, finished 15th with a time of 3:57.49 -- seven and a half seconds behind the gold medallists and a bit more than two seconds behind the next-to-last-place-finishing Austrians. There was one DNS.

Nordic Combined: In the last nordic combined event, the large hill/7.5-km sprint, Ukrainian Volodymyr Trachuk -- who finished last in the individual Gundersen on the 11th (see previous entry) -- was 48th.

Speed Skating: 22-year-old Li Changyu of China was 40th in the men's 1,500-metre; his time of 1:53.32 was 7.35 seconds behind the gold medallist's. There was one DNF.

Standings to date: Ukraine and China add their fifth last-place finishes apiece, and are first and second in the standings, respectively; Japan adds its third and Austria its second.

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.

Qualifying Rules: Nordic Combined & Ski Jumping

Part of a series looking at just how hard it is to get to the Olympics; see previous entry. This time I'm looking at nordic combined and ski jumping -- both sports have quotas and a requirement that you be an active competitor outside the Olympics.

Nordic Combined: There is a total quota of 55 athletes; each country can send no more than six, enter no more than four in one event, and send only one team to the team events. Athletes in the world nordic combined league table qualify; others can participate if they've gotten a top-three finish in the FIS Junior World Cup table or a place in the top half of the World Cup "B" competition league.

Ski Jumping: There is a total quota of 75 athletes, with the same limits per country as with nordic combined. To qualify, athletes need to have points in the FIS Grand Prix or World Cup or "at least one point in the FIS Continental cross-country Cup during the qualification period." Eddie the Eagle doesn't live here any more.

Results for Saturday, February 11

Biathlon: In the men's 20-km individual event, Stavros Christoforidis, 31, of Greece, finished 88th with a time of 1:13:13.3, nearly 19 minutes behind the gold medallist. Christoforidis, ranked 43rd on the Nations Cup circuit, apparently didn't shoot well, receiving a total of 11 penalties. There was one DNS.

Nordic Combined: The Individual Gundersen event works like this: your score from two ski jumps determines how far behind the leader you start in the 15-km cross-country ski race. An athlete who's a strong skier but a weak jumper would start further behind but catch up during the race, and vice versa. It all takes place in a single day, and your result is determined by the race result. After two jumps, Ukrainian Volodymyr Trachuk, 21, was last with a score of 140. As a result he started 8:10 behind the leader, and remained at the end of the pack, finishing 48th with a time of 43:45.2, just over 12 minutes behind the gold medallist. There was one DNS before the second jump, and one DNF during the race.

Speed Skating: South Korean Yeo Sang Yeop, 21, finished 28th in the men's 5,000-metre event with a time of 6:58.13 -- 43½ seconds behind the gold medallist.

Freestyle Skiing: In women's moguls -- the official sport of reconstructive knee surgeons everywhere -- Yoon Chae Rin finished 30th in the preliminary round with a relatively low score of 7.07 (out of 30; the gold medallist got 26.67 in the preliminary round and 26.50 in the final). But here's the impressive part: Yoon is only 15 years old.

Standings to date: These four results open our last-place standings for the Torino Winter Games -- and, so far, South Korea has opened an early lead with two last-place finishes. But I expect that this will change in fairly short order.