Saturday in Primetime: Julia Mancuso Looks To Tie U.S. Olympic Alpine Skiing Medals Record in Super-G
Shani Davis Races for Gold in Speed Skating’s 1500m; J.R. Celski Skates in 1000m Gold Medal Final in Short Track
LIVE Coverage of Team USA Men’s Hockey vs. Russia Begins Saturday Morning at 7 a.m. ET on NBCSN
All Events Live Streamed on NBCOlympics.com and NBC Sports Live Extra Mobile & Tablet App
Stamford, Conn. – February 14, 2014 – Highlights of Saturday’s coverage of the XXII Olympic Winter Games:
- NBC’s primetime presentation – which begins at 8/7c – features Julia Mancuso (four medals), the most decorated woman in U.S. Olympic alpine history, as she competes in the super-G and aims to tie Bode Miller’s U.S record five alpine skiing medals. American speed skater and four-time Olympic medalist Shani Davis looks for his first gold medal in the 1500m final, while American short track skater and two-time Olympic bronze medalist J.R. Celski makes a run at the podium in the 1000m gold medal final. Also in primetime Saturday is the individual K-125 large hill gold medal final in men’s ski jumping and men’s skeleton featuring Americans John Daly, currently in third, and Matt Antoine, currently in fourth, taking their final runs.
- Tomorrow’s live coverage on NBCSN begins at 3 a.m. ET and is highlighted by Team USA vs. Russia in men’s hockey with coverage beginning at 7 a.m. ET. NBCSN’s live coverage on Saturday also includes the 4x5km relay gold medal final in women’s cross-country, where Kikkan Randall and Team USA look to build upon their fourth-place finish at the 2013 World Championships, and the final runs in men’s skeleton.
- MSNBC hosts live Saturday coverage of the quarterfinal games in women’s hockey with Finland vs. Sweden at 3 a.m. ET and Switzerland vs. Russia at 7:30 a.m. ET. USA will provide live coverage of Switzerland and the Czech Republic in men’s hockey at noon ET.
Following are highlights from today’s NBC coverage of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi:
Cris Collinsworth on Olympic skeleton silver medalist and mother of two Noelle Pikus-Pace bringing her family to training sessions and competitions (to watch the feature, click here): “I don’t think Peyton Manning made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before the Olympics…this isn’t about the money or anything, it’s about the moment. Here’s a family that has now traveled all over the world for this one Olympic moment…it’s a great love story. It’s about a family that is doing something that they’ll never forget.”
Collinsworth on why he loves covering the Olympics: “You remember why you love sports… Here are people with a little bit of the purity of the Games themselves and that’s why I love it so much. I love being here.”
Jonny Moseley on how the new aerials format and evaluation works: “Big air is still king and then form. Look for a nice, straight body line and, of course, the landing has to be clean, not a lot of compression. Five judges, each have 10 points to give. They throw out the high and low score, multiply it by the degree of difficulty and that’s how you get your total score. And then there’s the format – three jumps and they all have to be different and the scores do not carry from round to round.”
Todd Brooker following Bode Miller’s run in the downhill portion of the super combined: “I almost wonder if he’s just been on this course too much, where he’s just a bit stale. It’s like hitting too many balls on the range before you go to the first tee.”
Ted Ligety on his 12th place finish in the super combined: “Really, it’s a choke, to put it simply…I could have easily skied a lot better and a lot harder. It was actually an easy course, easy snow to push on, and I just skied way too conservatively.”
Scott Hamilton on Jeremy Abbott’s performance in the free skate: “He’ll leave Sochi with two great memories. One is wearing that bronze medal in the team event, and this long program. It was stunning…what a comeback.”
Sandra Bezic on Yuzuru Hanyu’s performance in the free skate: “He’s been so brilliant here at the Olympic Games, in the team and in the short program, that we’ve forgotten that he’s 19 (years old).”
Hamilton on tonight’s free skate performances: “It was a tough night. I look at the quality of the performances, and they were really disappointing – but they were so difficult. What these guys are trying to do right now with these quads, and then another quad and triple combinations, all of the spins and everything else – it’s just so difficult. And then you add onto that difficulty Olympic pressure – I just saw two great champions succumb.”
Hamilton on Patrick Chan’s inability to overtake Hanyu for gold in the free skate: “When you’re standing on the ice and expected to win, nobody can prepare you for that – no one. It’s so hard, and my heart just breaks for him. I know with the expectations he’s going to suffer some criticism…the fact that he wasn’t able to rise to the occasion breaks my heart a little bit…all of the promise, he’s been awesome. Tonight, it just wasn’t meant to be.”
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