Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018: Previewing What to Watch for on Day 2
How strange would it be for the USA to be shut out in an "X Games" snowboarding event while taking a medal in biathlon?
That's one plausible outcome for Day 3, which is Feb. 11 in South Korea but Feb. 10-11 here in the USA. The U.S. team is far from certain to take a medal in men's slopestyle, while an actual world champion takes to the biathlon course.
We'll also get a first look at the U.S. women's hockey team, and we'll see one of the marquee events of any Winter Olympics.
Here are the storylines to follow as you watch through the night.
Can Chris Mazdzer Grab a Surprise Luge Medal?
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American slider Chris Mazdzer didn't come to South Korea as one of the luge favorites. He has had a few good World Cup results and placed fourth in the 2016 World Championships, but he hasn't finished above 13th in two previous Olympics. He also hasn't had a great World Cup season.
But he must like this course. He had a couple of good training runs upon arrival in South Korea, and he was a respectable fifth in the first run of the Olympics. In the second run, he found another gear with the second-fastest time of the run.
At the end of the evening, with two of the competition's four runs done, Mazdzer stood fourth, a mere 0.001 seconds out of third place in this rigidly timed event.
If he can find another thousandth of a second on Saturday, he may be on the podium.
Can U.S. Men Defend Slopestyle Gold?
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If an event includes snowboards and tricks, Americans have to be No. 1, right? This is the country of Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter, Danny Kass, Gretchen Bleiler, Ross Powers, Jamie Anderson and the man himself, Shaun White.
And the first Olympic slopestyle competition did, in fact, yield American gold. Sage Kotsenburg unleashed the "Holy Crail" when he needed it to win a spectacular event.
But Kotsenburg has retired. The podium in the recent X Games: Norwegian teen prodigy Marcus Kleveland, rising Canadian star Darcy Sharpe and Canadian comeback king Mark McMorris.
The USA isn't out of it. Red Gerard, all of 17 years old, finished fourth in the X Games and leads the World Cup standings after a win in January. He's the only American to qualify for the final.
Can the U.S. Women's Figure Skaters Hold Their Own?
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The team event rolls on Saturday with two more short programs: ice dance and women's. Then the pairs free skate.
We know the U.S. ice dancers will be near the top. We know anything the pairs entry can give is a bonus, though Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim finished a strong fourth in the short program to help the USA stand in second place after the first of the competition's three days.
The question is the women. In 2014, Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold came through to help the USA claim bronze. Neither skater is around this time.
Mirai Nagasu is back in the Games after being controversially omitted in 2014. Karen Chen and Bradie Tennell upset more experienced women to win the last two U.S. championships. Who's ready to step up?
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Aksel Lund Svindal Races in Fastest Event on Skis
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Bode Miller will be broadcasting. The top U.S. men's skier in the World Cup downhill standings, Bryce Bennett, is barely in the top 20. So one of the marquee events of any Winter Olympics will proceed without a strong U.S. contender.
But we don't watch the Olympics just to see Americans. It's time to pay proper respect to the Norwegian legend, two-time World Cup overall and two-time World Cup downhill champion Aksel Lund Svindal. The 35-year-old skier took one of each medal in 2010 but was shut out in 2014, finishing fourth in the downhill.
Svindal is one of the favorites again this time around, along with World Cup downhill leader Beat Feuz of Switzerland and Italy's Dominik Paris.
Also, because it's Alpine skiing, assume anyone from Austria has a good chance.
U.S. Women's Hockey Starts Another Challenge for Gold
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Women's hockey championships usually work as follows: A bunch of teams play round-robin games, and then Canada and the United States play an epic final.
All 18 Women's World Championships have featured the North American rivals, with Canada winning 10. But the USA has won the last four.
Now the U.S. team is out to stop the Canadians' Olympic streak. The USA won the first Olympic gold in 1998, but Canada has taken the next four. Sweden is the only team to break up the familiar final, upsetting the USA and taking silver in 2006. Every other time, it's been an American heartbreak, none moreso than in 2014, when Canada battled back from a 2-0 deficit in the last four minutes and won in overtime.
The format is tricky, though. The top four teams are in Group A, with the next four in Group B. The top two from Group A go straight to the semifinals, while the bottom two in Group A have to fight past the top two in Group B.
So it's a forgiving format in the sense that an early loss doesn't doom any of the top teams. But it's unforgiving in the sense that the USA opens with one of the toughest possible teams in frequent bronze medalist Finland.
Can Norway's Martin Johnsrud Sundby Win Elusive Gold?
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When you think "Nordic," think "Norway." Whether it's ski jumping, Nordic combined or simple cross-country skiing, Norwegian Nordic athletes are always a threat, playing a big role in the Scandinavian country's lead in the all-time Winter Olympic medal table.
Three-time World Cup overall champion Martin Johnsrud Sundby is a World Cup-medal machine, even by Norway's standards. He has entered 188 individual World Cup events and finished on the podium 70 times. But he hasn't had a ton of success in the Olympics. In 2010, still early in his career, he finished no higher than 15th in any individual races. In 2014, he finished fourth in the 50-kilometer mass start and took his first individual medal, a bronze, in the 30-kilometer skiathlon.
He hasn't won a World Championship gold, either. He has a bronze and three silvers, with two of those silvers in the skiathlon.
What's a skiathlon? It's a grueling event in which skiers switch from classical style to freestyle midway through. It's also first up on the Olympic cross-country program this year.
It might be Sundby's best shot at capping his distinguished career with an individual gold medal. But he'll need to hold off a pack of tough challengers, including another Norwegian, overall World Cup leader Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo.
Biathlon World Champion Lowell Bailey Takes His First Shot
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The United States has as many Olympic medals in biathlon as Jamaica, Egypt, Brazil and any other country that doesn't get a lot of snow. Zero.
But thanks to Lowell Bailey, the USA finally has a world champion in the sport. The three-time Olympic veteran, who has posted a handful of good World Cup results over the years, hit all 20 shots in the 20-kilometer individual to win a world title last year.
Depending on his results, Bailey will have up to four chances (plus two relays, which would be a bigger upset) to win the USA's first biathlon medal. His finish in today's 10-kilometer sprint (yes, biathlon uses the word "sprint" rather loosely) will determine where he starts in the 12.5-kilometer pursuit the next day.
And that would surely give the singer-guitarist a bit more to sing about.
Can North America Sweep the Women's Moguls?
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French teenager Perrine Laffont posted the top score in the first round of qualifying to secure her spot in the women's freestyle moguls final. But those scores are tossed out in the final, and she will be facing a strong pack of skiers from the United States and Canada.
In order (though, again, the scores won't carry over to the final), the next few qualifiers were Canada's Andi Naude, the USA's Morgan Schild, Canada's Justine Dufour-Lapointe (the defending champion) and the USA's Jaelin Kauf (the World Cup leader).
All told, the USA and Canada claimed 10 of the qualification spots on offer on the first day of competition. The chances of a medal or two going back across the Pacific look quite good.
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