The comeback kid
After slipping to silver in the Atlanta Games, Russia’s Alexei Nemov finally got the gold in the men’s all-around gymnastics competition. There were few who believed Nemov was a serious contender for the Olympic victory as recently as May, and Nemov kept everyone in suspense by letting China’s Yang Wei stay close throughout the event. Nemov clinched the gold with a 9.775 on the parallel bars, his last apparatus.

All Romania, all the time
The Russians will have to settle for having just one all-around gymnastics medal in Sydney. ABC News reports that the Romanians pulled off a triple play in women’s gymnastics, with Andreea Raducan, Simona Amanar and Maria Olaru placing one, two and three. Raducan is the first Romanian Olympic champion in women’s gymnastics since the legendary Nadia Comaneci won in 1976. Though the Romanian victory was decisive, the competition was not without controversy. An incorrect vault height threw many contenders off their game, particularly medal favorite Svetlana Khorkina. After suffering a bad landing on a vault, earning a score of 9.343 in the event, she shook off her coach’s attempt to comfort her and never regained her concentration. Khorkina then slipped on the uneven bars during her routine, finishing the competition in 11th place.

Possible sweep turns to dust
Women’s tennis was supposed to be one of the Americans’ surest events coming into the Olympics, but the United States shouldn’t expect to sweep the medals in that event after all. The Washington Post reports that tennis star Lindsay Davenport had to quit the competition because of a foot injury, leaving U.S. Open champ Venus Williams and veteran Monica Seles to carry the flag. “It’s been a really tough year, and to pull out of a tournament you know will probably be the highlight of your career, it’s just devastating,” said Davenport. “I’ve had to pull out of a lot of tournaments before, but obviously nothing quite compares to this one.” Davenport’s absence should smooth the way for Williams to win it all and extend her current 28-match winning streak. But there can’t be an all-American final. If they continue to win, Seles and Williams will meet in the semifinal round.

Dream Team gets victory and boos
Sometimes winning isn’t enough. Just ask the latest incarnation of the U.S. men’s basketball “Dream Team.” According to the Associated Press, the Americans traveled a rocky road to their 85-76 victory over Lithuania. To some team members, however, a win is a win. “We didn’t play with energy. We didn’t play like we were having a good time,” Alonzo Mourning said. “But we knew we were going to win that game no matter what the margin was.” The margin was close. At one point in the second half, the Lithuanians managed to earn a one-point lead, the first time any Olympic squad led a U.S. “Dream Team” after halftime. The Americans did regain the lead, but their opponents were never really out of it. With a little more than a minute left in the game, Lithuanian center Eurelijus Zukauskas could have brought his team to within three from the foul line, but missed both of his shots instead. The Americans sealed their victory after that, but they couldn’t escape the wrath of the crowd, which booed them at game’s end.

Korean delegates erupted in cheers in the conference hall after IOC President Jacques Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words: “The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the 23rd Olympic Winter Games in 2018 are awarded to the city of Pyeongchang.”

The vote totals weren’t immediately released.

A majority was required for victory, meaning Pyeongchang received at least 48 votes among the eligible 95 voters.

It was the first time an Olympic bid race with more than two finalists was decided in the first round since 1995, when Salt Lake City defeated three others to win the 2002 Winter Games.

Had no majority been reached in the opening round, the city with the fewest votes would have been eliminated and the two remaining cities gone to a second and final ballot.

Pyeongchang had been determined to win in the first round after its previous two defeats. The Koreans had led in each of the first rounds in the votes for the 2010 and 2014 Games but then lost in the final ballots to Vancouver and Sochi.

Pyeongchang, whose slogan is “New Horizons,” campaigned on the theme that it deserved to win on a third try and will spread the Olympics to a lucrative new market in Asia and become a hub for winter sports in the region.

The Korean victory followed the IOC’s trend in recent votes, having taken the Winter Games to Russia (Sochi) for the first time in 2014 and giving South America its first Olympics with the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Now, the International Olympic Committee has reportedly written a letter to the Canadian National Olympic Committee “to find out a few more details,” and the team has issued a public apology. What’s the big deal, you might ask? For one, 18-year-old team member Marie-Philip Poulin was snapped holding a beer, and she’s just under the legal drinking age in British Columbia. OK, so that’s inappropriate, I guess — only, in her home of Quebec, the drinking age is 18. Are people really that scandalized that someone just weeks away from her 19th birthday was caught imbibing in Vancouver after winning an Olympic gold medal?

I suspect not. Judging by the online chatter over the “incident,” the age issue is but one more complaint shoveled onto the pile. Primarily at issue is that some perceive it as a display of poor sportsmanship, which I find kind of hilarious for two reasons: 1.) Ice hockey is one of the most impolite professional sports around (within five minutes of the first men’s hockey game I attended, two players had already resorted to fisticuffs on the ice), and 2.) Have these people never witnessed the hooting, hollering, fist-pumping, champagne-popping, and exclamations of “I’m goin’ to Disneyland!” at, like, any major sporting event? 

I hate to be predictable, but I gotta say it: I suspect there’s also a definite undercurrent of sexism here. For example, one blogger wrote:

My question is: Why ‘ladies’ play men’s sports and look so awkward (unlady like) in the process? Being a woman is all about being a woman (grace, softness…). Figure skating is by all standards a women’s sport, as we witnessed yesterday in Kim Yu-Na’s performance. Simply brilliant.

So ladies, make an attempt to look like females, stay away from men’s sports, don’t try to be like men, you know, that’s what the men are for.

Aw, I think he’s scared of the big bad lady athletes. Poor dude — we just aren’t used to seeing women engaged in such stereotypically manly celebration. Not only are they drinking beer, they’re also chugging champagne and smoking cigars. Looking through the photographs, you can almost hear their self-satisfied guttural belches — and, you know what? It makes me swoon in full-blown girl-crush mode. I mean, my cheeks actually ache because every time I catch a glimpse of those snapshots, I grin uncontrollably. Now these are some women I’d like to grab a beer with.

Why don’t all the haters take a note from these Canadian ladies: Grab a Molson’s and chill out, eh?