Late Results for Monday, February 20

Figure Skating: In the ice dance competition, Ukraine's second team, Julia Golovina, 23, and Oleg Voiko, 25, finished 23rd (one team had to withdraw due to injury) with a score of 128.49. The gold medallists' score was 200.64.

Ski Jumping: The last ski jumping event -- the large hill (K120) team competition -- ran today. Wherein the Chinese team of Li Yang, 25, Yang Guang, 21, Wang Jianxun, 24, and Tian Zhandong, 22, finished 16th in the first round with a score of 206.1 -- about 70 points behind the 15th-place team and nearly 270 points behind the gold medallists -- and did not advance to the final round. (Only the top eight teams did so.)

Standings to date: Both China and Ukraine edge closer to the top with their fourth last-place finishes each.

Correction: Ski Jumping

The problem with being a tyro is that occasionally you screw up magnificently.

In ski jumping, I derived my last-place finisher from the first round of each event. Trouble is, if I had known anything at all about ski jumping at the Olympic level, I'd know that there was a qualification round before the first round. (How much sense does that make?) In any event, a lot of athletes get eliminated in that round, and, if I'm looking at the lowest score generated at the Olympics, then I have to include them.

Which means that my previously reported results for two ski jumping events -- for the normal hill (K90) and the large hill (K120) -- are incorrect. Not only that, but the overall last-place standings have been out of whack all week.

Well, it wouldn't be an Olympics if I didn't bollix up my coverage at least once. Anyway, here are the corrected results:

In the NH individual qualification round, which ran a week ago (the final was Sunday), 16 jumpers did not advance. Last among these was Bulgarian Georgi Zharkov, 29, whose jump received a score of 77.5. He finished 51st.

In the LH individual qualification round, which ran yesterday (the final ran today), a total of 18 jumpers did not make the cut. Last among these was 23-year-old Choi Yong-Jik of South Korea, whose jump received a score of 22.8. He finished 53rd.

In both events, 35 jumpers qualified; another 15 were pre-qualified.

Impact on the standings: Guess what? As of today, South Korea's back atop the standings, with as many last-place finishes as Russia but one-quarter the athletes. Bulgaria, with its second last-place finish, moves up the board to eighth. Estonia moves back down (to 23rd; it shouldn't have made its debut until today) and Canada leaves altogether.

Thanks to this anonymous commenter for pointing out my boo-boo.

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.