FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, February 10th, 2018

2018 PYEONGCHANG WINTER OLYMPICS – FEB. 10 PRIMETIME HIGHLIGHTS ON NBC AND NBCSN

“Quite simply, it is ‘Red for gold.’” – Todd Harris on 17-year-old snowboarder Red Gerard winning gold medal in men’s slopestyle

“She was absolutely brilliant. Every technical element was a checkmark from us.” – Johnny Weir on performance by Bradie Tennell in figure skating team event

“They are simply beyond. I will buy that in bulk any day.” – Tanith White on performance by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in figure skating team event

Star-Studded Sunday – Live Primetime and Primetime Plus Coverage Tomorrow on NBC Features Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin, Chloe Kim, and Jamie Anderson, Plus Figure Skating Team Event

STAMFORD, Conn. – February 10, 2018 – Sunday’s coverage of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games from PyeongChang, South Korea, is highlighted by:

  • NBC’s primetime presentation, which begins at 7 p.m. ET live across all time zones, featuring Olympic gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin in the women’s giant slalom on NBC;

 

  • Live primetime coverage of the conclusion of the team event in figure skating on NBC;

 

  • Defending gold medalist Jamie Anderson headlining the U.S. contingent in the women’s slopestyle final in snowboarding, alongside teammates Julia Marino and Hailey Langland;

 

  • Live coverage of 17-year-old sensation Chloe Kim and U.S. teammate Kelly Clark, the most decorated Olympic snowboarder of all time, competing in qualifying-round women’s halfpipe action in primetime plus on NBC;

 

  • Freestyle skiing women’s moguls action in primetime on NBC, featuring Americans Jaelin Kauf and Morgan Schild;

 

  • American Chris Mazdzer pursuing Team USA’s first-ever medal in the men’s luge singles finals in primetime on NBC.

 

Following are highlights from tonight’s evening and primetime coverage of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics on the networks of NBCUniversal:

 

FIGURE SKATING – NBC

Analyst Tara Lipinski on performance of Team USA’s Bradie Tennell in the ladies’ short program of the team event: “She has never been under this type of pressure, and that’s her first skate? This is a competitor.”

Analyst Johnny Weir on Tennell: “She was absolutely brilliant. Every technical element was a checkmark from us.”

Play-by-play commentator Terry Gannon on Tennell: “It’s amazing. She has been and remains seemingly oblivious to pressure.”

Weir on performance by Olympic Athlete from Russia’s Yevgenia Medvedeva in the ladies’ short program of the team event: “Absolutely breathtaking…on another level…she is here for a gold medal.”

Lipinski on Medvedeva: “This is an Olympic champion in the making.”

Weir on Team USA’s chances to win a medal in the team event: “The U.S. has an awesome opportunity in this team event to take silver or bronze. I think Canada has set themselves in a different league, but the U.S. is fighting real hard.”

Analyst Tanith White on ice dance performance by Team USA’s Maia and Alex Shibutani in the team event: “It’s so surprising. Maia and Alex are so strong and precise. That’s really been their strength…all the while this season, they’ve been able to deliver the technical – but today, they just looked a little shaky…right around 80 (points) is where Maia and Alex needed to be…that is a massive hit for Maia and Alex Shibutani.”

White on two-time Olympic ice dance medalist Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada: “They are simply beyond. You know how we say in ice dancing, ‘You want to make the audience buy what you’re selling?’ I will buy that in bulk any day. In fact, I want to pre-order it for the individual event. I’ll take that again.”

Gannon on Virtue and Moir: “The best right now at what they do. In the course of the last decade plus, these two have been simply the best.”

White: “They won’t be touched in this event.”

White on overall scoring of the ice dance portion of the team event: “Everyone’s got these confused looks on their faces when their scores come up, wondering where they lost those technical levels…very strict. In ice dancing, you don’t see those overt mistakes, you don’t see the falls very often, so you’re wondering, ‘Why is this team technically superior to the other?’ But today, they were all just a little bit shaky.”

***

SNOWBOARDING – NBC

Play-by-play commentator Todd Harris following American Red Gerard’s gold medal performance in slopestyle: “Quite simply, it is ‘Red for gold.’ The teenager from Silverthorne is now the golden kid of Colorado.”

Harris after IOC president Thomas Bach greeted Gerard after his final run: “Kind of a big deal when the president of the IOC comes along to congratulate you.”

***

SHORT TRACK – NBC

Play-by-play commentator Ted Robinson on Maame Biney holding off Kim A-lang for second in the Women’s 500m qualifying: “That was a fantastic race by Maame Biney. She may have just turned 18 years old two weeks ago, but she pulled off a veteran move there to hold off that pass.”

Analyst Apolo Ohno added: “She did. The one thing that she had to do was make sure she could stick on Fan Kexin from China, as close as possible, and make sure she could protect the inside position from Kim A-lang from South Korea.”

***

CROSS COUNTRY SKIING – NBCSN

Analyst Chad Salmela on American Jessie Diggins’ fifth place finish in women’s skiathlon final: “Putting a positive on it for Jessie Diggins, it’s not her best event and she still almost medaled. That’s a good omen for the rest of the Games…there is nothing but positives. You just set the highest mark of an American finish, and you weren’t even really a favorite for a medal.”

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OLYMPIC ICE PRESENTED BY TOYOTA – NBCSN

Olympic Ice Presented by Toyota is a live, daily figure skating studio show airing nightly at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

Analyst Scott Hamilton on Nathan Chen: “His practices have been a little bit off and sometimes practice shows up in performance…he knows the expectation and he knows what he is capable of doing. I would expect a different Nathan Chen in the short program.”

Hamilton on Tennell prior to her performance in the team event: “She is so solid technically. She was relatively unknown months ago, and now she is a U.S. Champion leading this strong field of U.S. women into this Olympics. With all the injuries she has endured, and the broken back, for her to be here is unexpected. For everything she has been through, this is easy.”

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ABOUT NBC OLYMPICS

A division of NBC Sports Group, NBC Olympics is responsible for producing, programming and promoting NBCUniversal’s Olympic Games coverage. It is renowned for its unsurpassed Olympic heritage, award-winning production, and ability to aggregate the largest audiences in U.S. television history. NBCUniversal owns the U.S. media rights on all platforms to all Olympic Games through 2032.

— PYEONGCHANG 2018 —