Team Ski Jump, Cross Country Monday

Although all of our Fantasy Olympic teams have used great teamwork even in the individual events, the actual Olympics move into team competition in the ski jump and cross country today.

11 AM PST - Ski JumpingSki jumping awards its final medal in the team ski jumping competition. The team contest is played on the larger K125 hill with the score being simply a sum of the four individual score.

Brittany B. no doubt hoped for more than one gold from her Austrian team, but I think the Buck-Toothed Rabbit Bitches will take the gold here. Switzerland took both individual medals but is really a one-man team, while Austria is the only country with four top ten jumpers.

Finland (Dave Spence/Paragons) is my pick for silver, and has the only group that even approaches the collective talent of the Swiss. Competing for bronze will be Norway (Adam Claus/Ice Lugers) and Germany (Zach Chromiak/Banker's Club), with Norway having the advantage in my opinion.

1 & 1:29 PM PST - Cross Country SkiingBoth the women's and men's team sprints will be contested today, an event that we will probably see 12 minutes of on NBC 11 hours after it takes place. This is a chaotic event where the two-person team takes turns completing the 1.6km sprint course three times per skier.
On the women's side the semifinal heats will begin at 10:45 a.m. followed by the finals at 1 p.m. local time. In a horrendous decision by their manager Zach Chromiak, Norway cross country announced Sunday that double gold medalist Marit Bjoergen will skip the team sprint to focus on the remaining long-distance events. Banker's Club will go with Celine Brun-Lie and Astrid Jacobsen instead, dropping them from a gold medal to a silver in my estimation.

I think the Swedish team of Charlotte Kalla/Anna Haag (Brian Schwartz/Nordique Combined will be the beneficiaries and take gold. Russia's duo of Irina Khazova and Natalia Korosteleva (John Binz/Da Nang Dynamos is also in the mix and is my choice for bronze.

The men's team sprint begins with heats at 11:35 a.m. local time with finals scheduled for 1:29 p.m. Nordique Combined continues to be plagued by injury as Sweden recently announced that their top sprinter Emil Joensson will not compete in the team sprint. While Marcus Hellner is a great sprinter, he's now partnering with Teodor Peterson, who has never finished above sixth in a World Cup. I think that duo will probably settle for bronze.

The Norwegian duo of Ola Vigen Hattestad and Petter Northug, already favored, now has an even better chance at gold. I think the only team that could upset them is the Russian duo of Alexander Panzhinskiy/Nikita Kriukov, despite clearly having a resurrected Cold War era Soviet leader on their team.