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Joey Cheek joins NBC Olympics with Tom Hammond for PyeongChang

By Nick ZaccardiDec 21, 2017, 3:05 PM EST
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Joey Cheek, the 2006 Olympic 500m champion, will make his NBC Olympic commentary debut with Tom Hammond covering speed skating in PyeongChang.

Cheek, 38, won three Olympic medals between two Winter Games — 1000m bronze in 2002 and 500m gold and 1000m silver in 2006.

After winning gold, Cheek donated his $25,000 prize money to the charitable organization Right to Play, which was founded by five-time speed skating gold medalist Johann Olav Koss of Norway.

Cheek would later donate another $15,000 after winning 1000m silver in Torino. It was Koss, who won three golds in three world records in 1994, who inspired Cheek to become a speed skater.

Cheek retired after the 2005-06 season and made his broadcast debut in 2015.

Hammond will cover his 13th Olympics for NBC, which included figure skating play-by-play at the last four Winter Games.

Golf Channel’s Steve Sands will serve as the speed skating broadcast reporter, as he was in Sochi.

NBC’s PyeongChang Olympic coverage starts Feb. 8, one night before the Opening Ceremony.

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MORE: Breakdown of 2,400 hours of Pyeongchang programming

Single-season win record eludes Mikaela Shiffrin in Austria, finishes 5th in giant slalom

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By Nate ClarkDec 28, 2018, 9:11 AM EST
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After Mikaela Shiffrin won her single season World Cup record-tying 14th race on December 22 — also her 50th career win on tour — she was asked if records mattered to her.

“It’s not really my motivation to break records,” Shiffrin said. “My big motivation is to ski well.”

After a short break for the Christmas holiday Shiffrin continued her 2018-19 World Cup season by skiing well in Semmering, Austria, however, others skied faster.

Shiffrin led the field by a slim .02 hundredths of a second lead after her first run. Austria’s Stephanie Brunner, skiing in front of her home crowd, initially posed the most-imminent threat to Shiffrin’s record-breaking day, while the FIS point leader in GS heading into the race, Italy’s Frederica Brignone, finished her first run .18 hundredths back in sixth place.

Ultimately, it was Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova who played spoiler to Shiffrin. Vlhova jumped from fourth to first after her second run. Skiing last, Shiffrin was unable to put together a run to bump Vlhova off the top podium spot and finished .66 hundredths behind the winner. Full results are here.

Shiffrin was looking for her 15th win of 2018 in Semmering, which would have made her the winningest skier in a single year on the World Cup.

Tomorrow Shiffrin can break two records with one event. In addition to the single-season win record, Shiffrin has a chance to take the top spot for career World Cup slalom wins. Watch the second run of women’s slalom tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM ET, streaming live on NBC Sports Gold.

In men’s World Cup downhill racing, Italy’s Dominik Paris won for the third time in his career on home snow in Bormio. Full results are here.

Paris’s first downhill win at Bormio was a tie in 2012 with Austria’s Hannes Reichelt. His second came in 2017, when Paris was able to hold off two of Norway’s “Attacking Vikings,” Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud, for the win.

U.S. skier Travis Ganong was back in Bormio on Friday, nearly a year after he tore a ligament in his knee on the same mountain in a brutal crash that resulted in him missing the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. A day before the race in training, Ganong’s struggles on the Italian slopes continued. Ganong went down again, this time avoiding injury, but after further discussions with his coaches, he withdrew from Friday’s race.

The World Cup event at Bormio wraps up for the men on Saturday with Super G. Watch live on the Olympic Channel at 5:30 AM ET or stream it on NBC Sports Gold.

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MORE: How to watch Mikaela Shiffrin ski for history this weekend

Russian anti-doping seeks Putin’s help to release lab data

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Associated PressDec 27, 2018, 2:30 PM EST
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MOSCOW (AP) — The head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency has asked President Vladimir Putin for help in getting key doping data released to World Anti-Doping Agency inspectors.

WADA reinstated the suspended RUSADA in September on the condition Russian authorities hand over lab data, which could help confirm violations uncovered during an investigation that revealed a state-sponsored doping program designed to win medals at the 2014 Olympics and other major events.

WADA officials said this month they left Moscow empty-handed after Russian authorities prevented them from accessing data. Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov, however, told local media the WADA team would return.

In an emotionally charged letter released on Thursday, RUSADA chief Yuri Ganus appealed to Putin to reverse the decision and allow the data to be given to WADA inspectors. Ganus warned that refusal to do so would hurt Russia’s efforts to clean up its sports from doping.

“We’re standing on the edge of the abyss, and I’m asking you to protect the present and the future of our clean sports, the current and future generations of athletes,” Ganus said in the letter.

Ganus did not name the specific officials who are standing in the way of the transfer of data but Russian authorities have unexpectedly demanded its equipment be certified under Russian law. WADA said it had not been aware of that demand. The deadline to turn over the data is Dec. 31.

Russian International Olympic Committee member Yelena Isinbayeva earlier on Thursday said the situation with the transfer of data is “close to critical” and called on the officials to comply with the WADA requirements.