The Winter Olympic Virus, Day 14: Part Two: The Rest of It (???)

• The second-biggest controversy of these Games is two American women, both born in the United States, but both choosing (an adult by renunciation, and a minor by some other means) to compete for China.
• Born, and according to the Olympic website, still residenced in San Francisco, Eileen Gu had renounced her American citizenship and decided to ski for China (through the birthplace of her mother) in the freestyle skiing events.
• As a result, China has two golds and a silver from her that the USA would get had Gu not renounced.  Gu has been completely slammed in the US social media, as one might expect (and happened to the minor figure-skater who was also born here and chose to skate for China!), but Gu will ski out of these Games probably the biggest positive story of the Games, and probably the biggest positive story for the hosts, who now stand fourth on the table on silver tiebreak to the USA!
• Sports-fixing expert Brian Tuohy, through ESPN's David Purdum, notes that more people bet on the women's bobsled competition which followed the Super Bowl than any other Olympic event at PointsBet -- for the reason Tuohy suggests:  They lost money on the Super Bowl and tried to get it back!

Medal Count through two weeks:

• Any chance the Russians had at catching the Norwegians for the total was gone the moment the final biathlon mass start events yielded four Norwegian medals, including their fifteenth gold.
• That fifteenth gold is a new Winter Olympics record.  Old record was 14, held three ways:  Canada (Vancouver 2010), Norway (Pyeongchang 2018), and Germany (Pyeongchang 2018).
• So Norway will win the gold medal total, Germany is second with 10.  USA and the Chinese hosts have 8 apiece, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland have 7 apiece.
• Total:  Norway will win that too, they have 34 now to Russia's 27.  Canada is third with 24, Germany with 22, USA with 21.
• In the 11 biathlon events of these Games, the Norwegians won 14 of the 33 medals, including six gold..
• Russia has actually bested the Norwegians in one of their best events -- cross-country skiing.  Nine medals to six.
• 21 gold medal countries, 28 overall.  
• The only maiden of any kind broken is the gold medal maiden for New Zealand with Zoi Sadowski-Synnott in the snowboard slopestyle championship.
• Eight medal events tomorrow, four on Sunday.