FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, February 15th, 2022

2022 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES – FEB. 14 PRIMETIME HIGHLIGHTS ON NBC & PEACOCK

“Talk about a tale of two styles. This is Swiss-like precision up against just a heavy metal drummer, which is Goggia.” – Steve Porino on comparing gold medalist Corrine Suter of Switzerland and silver medalist Sofia Goggia of Italy in women’s downhill

“It’s a gold in the cold for Mathilde Gremaud! From silver in PyeongChang to gold in Beijing.” – Todd Harris on Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud winning gold in slopestyle skiing

“A dream come true for her, and maybe the seed for dreams for future Olympians no matter what color. What a moment.” – Mike Tirico on Team USA’s Erin Jackson receiving her gold medal on the podium

Women’s Short Program, Featuring Team USA’s Karen Chen, Alysa Liu and Mariah Bell, Presented Live Tomorrow (Feb. 15) at 5 a.m. ET on USA Network & Peacock; Encore in Primetime on NBC & Peacock

STAMFORD, Conn. – Feb. 14, 2022 – NBC Olympics continued its primetime coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, China, tonight on NBC and Peacock. Mike Tirico serves as NBC Olympics primetime host and opened coverage from NBC Sports’ International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Conn.

Tirico provided an update on the latest news surrounding the Russian Olympic Committee’s Kamila Valiyeva, who was cleared to compete by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, including a comprehensive review and timeline of the events dating back to a failed drug test in late December.

Last night, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski joined Tirico for an in-depth conversation on the controversy surrounding the CAS’s decision to allow Valiyeva to compete. Click here to watch the full conversation

Tirico on Valiyeva and the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ruling: “This is far from the last we’ve heard of this story. It’s worth keeping in mind the merits of this case have not been adjudicated yet, nor has any result of a confirmatory sample. The Kremlin, which is probably busy at this point, has come out and said they fully support Valiyeva and her innocence. Reminder, this is all happening to an athlete representing a nation that’s competing under sanction. Athletes from Russia are competing as representatives of the Russian Olympic Committee due to Russia the country running a state sponsored doping program in 2014.”

Highlights of upcoming coverage include:

    • The women’s short program portion of the women’s individual skate will be presented tomorrow live at 5 a.m. ET on USA Network and Peacock (encore in primetime on NBC) and is expected to feature a trio of Americans: two-time Olympian Karen Chen, two-time U.S. champion Alysa Liu, and Mariah Bell. Kamila Valiyeva of the Russian Olympic Committee is also expected to compete
    • First-time Olympians River Radamus and Luke Winters are expected to headline the American men’s team in the slalom event with the first run presented tomorrow live in primetime on NBC and Peacock. Radamus earned a fourth-place finish in the giant slalom on Saturday
    • The final in the men’s freestyle skiing slopestyle will be presented tomorrow live at 8:30 p.m. ET on USA Network and Peacock. Two-time Olympic medalist Nick Goepper and two-time Olympian Alex Hall are expected to contend for medals
    • The U.S. women’s curling team, skipped by two-time Olympian Tabitha Peterson, plays Canada in round-robin play tomorrow live at 8 p.m. ET on CNBC and Peacock

 

Following are highlights from tonight’s primetime coverage of the Winter Olympics on the platforms of NBCUniversal:

ALPINE SKIING – NBC & PEACOCK

Steve Porino on gold medalist Corinne Suter of Switzerland compared to silver medalist Sofia Goggia of Italy in women’s downhill: “Talk about a tale of two styles. This is Swiss-like precision up against just a heavy metal drummer, which is Goggia.”

Dan Hicks on Goggia: “There’s no other skier in the world with more of a go-for-broke style…I would say on this Valentine’s Day, Goggia is more than thrilled with that. She had no idea if she was going to be able to come back and even compete in these Olympics…but here she is.”

Steve Porino on Goggia: “It’s like watching Mission Impossible — you don’t know if she’s going to clip the green wire or the red one, but she is always going all-in and she has that ability. When the lights go out, she can believe that she skis the ground and that is unique to her. She just has this ability to take risk that others are not willing to take.”

Ted Ligety on Goggia: “She lives and dies by the sword…She has this crazy ability to just keep her skis going straight down the fall line no matter what her upper body is doing…That was the full Goggia show.”

Ligety on Mikaela Shiffrin: “She has the skills to be amongst the best in the world, if not the best in the world, in the downhill, but she is a risk-adverse skier. She doesn’t like to throw it all on the line unless she has to.”

Porino on Shiffrin: “She has the biggest bag of tricks out of any skier out there — the tucking, the turning, the gliding, the aerodynamics. However, when it comes to the shady conditions right now, it is really a matter of grit and appetite for speed.”

Hicks on Shiffrin: “She was out with Covid just before the Games, she’s had back problems so that has really cut into her training even further for a racer that just depends on all of that training to get ready to go.”

Shiffrin to Todd Lewis: “Once again today, it was super fun…It’s another day of really good experience on these longer skis and trying to figure out places where I have the natural instinct to want to go faster…The feeling was a lot faster so that’s good to have today, especially going into another training run and the combined.”

Lindsey Vonn on the condition of the snow: “Firmer, faster, and even a little bit slick…You’re coming into that turn with more speed, and because of the snow conditions, you really can just get compressed in the legs and your skis just slide out from underneath you…It’s difficult. You have to be able to be prepared for those conditions and sometimes you can see it in inspections and sometimes you cannot. So, these girls are having to rely on their strength, their tactics, and hope that when they come to those turns that everything will hold up.”

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FREESTYLE SKIING – NBC & PEACOCK

Todd Harris on Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud in slopestyle: “It’s a gold in the cold for Mathilde Gremaud! From silver in PyeongChang to gold in Beijing. The last athlete to qualify in 12th place, and she gets the win.”

Tom Wallisch on Eileen Gu’s final silver medal-winning run: “Clutch! That’s all I’ll say. That was a clutch run…A great run, so solid, but we did see Mathilde really stylish on those jumps…So, Eileen was very close there, but just a few tenths of a point away from that gold medal that Mathilde threw down.”

Harris on Gu before her final run: “She is a clutch individual — you don’t just graduate a year early from high school and then get accepted into Stanford with a monster SAT score.”

Wallisch on bronze medalist Kelly Sildaru of Estonia: “She is so comfortable in this position, competing for so many years, even at the young age of 19. She is tried and true and knows what it takes.”

Wallisch on how the cold conditions impact slopestyle: “On a very cold day, the snow can feel like Styrofoam. It’s grippy, it’s grabby, and the metal of those rails when it’s freezing cold can be absolutely slick. So that combination of edging along the snow and then on those slick rails, it’s just very hard to be perfect on them…On a freezing cold day, it’s so hard to keep your feet from going numb and you need that dexterity, that ability to move and feel your ski in the boot to do some of these technical maneuvers.”

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BOBSLED – NBC & PEACOCK

John Morgan on Germany pilot Francesco Friedrich: “This is Tom Brady. Who [else] do you want to talk about in this sport? What he’s done in the last eight years — the only setback he had on his resume was the 2014 Olympics. The Germans changed sleds…if they would have stayed in these…sleds that they’re in now, he would have medaled in that Olympics also.”

Morgan on the two-man Jamaican bobsled team: “It’s just great to see these guys out here, and they might not win a medal, but they certainly are still the most famous bobsled team in the world.”

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TIRICO ON IMPACT OF MEDAL WINS BY ERIN JACKSON AND ELANA MEYERS TAYLOR

“Over almost 100 years of Olympic Winter games history, only two Black Americans had ever won a medal in an individual event. That is, before yesterday, when in less than 24 hours, two more women added their names to the list – Erin Jackson winning gold at the speedskating oval, and then bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor, a three-time medalist in the two-woman event, took silver in the monobob. In a moment when diversity has become an even bigger topic in the living room and in the boardroom, in the midst of Black History Month the timing is all the more notable. Inclusion in winter sports has long lacked…transformation doesn’t typically happen overnight, but the sight of Meyers Taylor and Jackson on the medal stand no doubt offers a power message of representation to young athletes that these sports could be their terrain as well.”

Tirico on Jackson’s gold medal: “A dream come true for her, and maybe the seed for dreams for future Olympians no matter what color. What a moment.”

ABOUT NBC OLYMPICS

NBCUniversal will provide coverage of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games from Feb. 2-20. The Opening Ceremony will be presented on Friday, Feb. 4, live in the morning and again in primetime on NBC and Peacock. Similar to recent Winter Games, NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage begins the night before the Opening Ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 3. Coverage begins on Wednesday, Feb. 2, on USA Network and Peacock. NBCUniversal is presenting its 18th Olympic Games, 12th consecutive overall, and sixth straight Winter Games, all the most by any U.S. media company.

— NBC OLYMPICS —