The Gold Standard, Day 8: Meet the multi-sport star of Pyeongchang

Shi Davidi and Arash Madani go over the first eight days of the Pyeongchang Olympics including the great performances of Mikael Kingsbury and Kim Boutin under immense pressure.

It may not be possible to catch all the best moments in a single day of the Olympic Games, but we’re going to try. Every day, we’ll award medals for standout achievements at (and around) Pyeongchang 2018 and feats that may or may not be recognized on the podium (and may or may not even be of an athletic nature).
  
Day 8 of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games featured an out-of-place gold medalist, a Game of Thrones reference and some help from a beer company. What’s not to like? 

Multi-sport threat

While you were sleeping a lot happened and probably the most talked about occurrence was Ester Ledecka’s feat.

The Czech Republic representative won gold in an alpine ski race.

Wait for it …

She’s a snowboarder.

Long story short, the 22-year-old captured the super-G title on Saturday, racing from behind the pack to beat defending champion Anna Veith of Austria by 0.01 seconds.

“‘Til today, I thought I am a better snowboarder,” said Ledecka, a world champion snowboarder who has competed in past ski events, but never found much success.

She’s set to compete as a snowboarder in Thursday’s qualifying in the parallel giant slalom.

Winter has come to Pyeongchang

Game of Thrones manages to creep its way into most events and conversations these days, so why not the Olympics?
 
Thanks to German figure skater Paul Fentz, it happened.
 
He dressed up as popular character Jaime Lannister for his free skate, while music from the HBO show served as the score.
 

 
Needless to say, Twitter was pleased.
 

 
https://twitter.com/Marisa_Ingemi/status/964672367837491201
 
https://twitter.com/pinotchevre/status/964676657725390848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thrillist.com%2Fnews%2Fnation%2Fgame-of-thrones-figure-skater-winter-olympics-paul-fentz

Cool, and refreshing, running

The Jamaican bobsled team was in dire straits this week when its driver coach left abruptly right before a scheduled event.

Sandra Kiriasis was unhappy with a change to her role and decided to leave, and took her sled with her, due to a reported legal responsibility for it.

So, left with no equipment, the Jamaican team was saved by none other than than a beer giant from the Caribbean island.

*Insert any and every beer pun you’ve got!

Red Stripe saved the day, with the above tweet, which was actually serious.

“As a beer born and brewed on the same island as these athletes, we want to ensure they have what they need to proudly compete,” Andrew Anguin, a senior marketing manager for Red Stripe, told USA TODAY.

The Jamaican team will compete next week in the the two-woman portion of the Olympic bobsled competition.

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