The final QISE primetime begins with the end of the women's biathlon, with Torico from the Duomo sending us to Klaebo. There's a Tucci wrap up, the Speed Skating rerun, and a Kurt Russell-narrated Hockey tribute for the game happening later. Also, the coaches are interviewed.
Then it’s the finals of Two-Woman Bobsled (rerun). Kailie Humphries gets a video package about her difficulties in pregnancy, just before her run. There’s a break in the middle for Freestyle Skiing Mixed Team Aerials (rerun). Humphries gets shameful bronze in the Bobsled.
Then it’s off to the Speed Skating Mass Start rerun--Stolz winds up in fourth in a strange event. The US’s Mia Manganello gets the bronze for the women. We then watch highlights of the Champions Skating Gala. Amber Glenn, appropriately, skates to Lady Gaga’s cover of Sinatra’s “That’s Life”. Chock and Bates perform an overwrought routine involving a huge scarf. Quad God goes fully Emo. Liu does a flirty number--because she just doesn’t care what people think.
The Men’s Freestyle Ski Team gets their golden podium moment to wrap it up.
Then it’s the final Late Night, with the SNL treatment again. Taylor takes us around that day’s US streak, before sending us to the Men’s Ski Cross final in a heavy snow. Overall, the weather cooperated for the games--they weren’t forced to truck snow in to cover the courses, and there were only a few delays.
Snoop checks out the Jamaican bobsledders (of course), before a mini-feature on the sounds of QISE. There’s a rerun of Humphries’ Women’s Bobsled run before the Women’s Mass Start Biathlon rerun. Klaebo gets a video package about his relationship with his grandpa before Mass Start Cross-Country highlights. Over to Mixed Team Aerials highlights before Taylor goes shopping with a social media influencer. Yet another Hockey promo, and then a final wrap-up with bloopers.
We begin the final day extra early--7a Eastern--with Tirico at the Hockey arena. We get pre-game analysis, then we switch to the Women’s Curling gold medal game--just a teaser to go to Peacock. Over to truncated finals of Four Men Bobsled--Germany wins it. Clearly, NBC is only interested in Hockey right now. Oh, Eileen Gu won the Half Pipe in a delayed event.
More pregame--Hockey legend Wayne Gretsky drops by, we check in with the coaches, a playback of the “Miracle on Ice”, followed by Mike Eruzione--yada yada yada.
Finally, the game itself. 2 hours and 42 minutes later (or about five minutes for me fast forwarding), the US win it 2-1 and gold for the first time since 1980. There’s a reason I don’t watch the NHL (and essentially this is an NHL match). A lot of skating around with a minute of action actually resulting in a score. I’m also not happy that QISE allowed the “Dream Team” option for Hockey, with professionals taking over (that sound you might hear is Jim Thorpe spinning wildly in his grave). I believe this was the only time NBC carried a medal ceremony in full. Tirico seems to pontificate for a week.
Lowe taps in at the Duomo for the balance of the day before the Closing Ceremonies. She sends us off to the final runs of the Four Man Bobsled. Apparently, three different sleds flipped over in the early runs, but I don’t think NBC showed them. Guess I’ll have to go over to Peacock before all the QISE coverage disappears.
More Hockey reactions, then it’s Women’s Ski Halfpipe and China’s Eileen Gu, who takes the gold. At this point, I’m working to get “live” in time for the Closing Ceremonies at 2:30p. Carillo narrates a piece on Norway’s Winter QISE dominance--including a four year old ski jumper. I was really expecting a larger presence for Mary, especially with the chaos at the Today Show, but apart from the Opening, her total air time was in terms of minutes.
Over to the Women’s 50km Classic Mass Start Cross-Country. NBC is front-loading commercials again, since it’s harder to include them during the live Closing Ceremonies. I was able to do a quick errand and come back before a set was completed. The athletes are having issues with their skis, tripping as they slap on new ones. Also, there’s a reference to an athlete having food poisoning. What do these people eat at QISE? We hear this a lot. Wouldn’t they have a pre-programmed menu, optimized for their performance?
Torico interviews new QISEOC President Kirsty Coventry. She says “conversations will pick up” about Russia rejoining the games in full. She tip-toed around the whole “with the dangerous environment for non-whites, should the 2028 games be pulled from the US?” question. We’ll see how the QISEOC responds if (when?) the World Cup has empty stands and boycotting countries this summer.
Sweden takes the Cross-Country event in a rout, with Jessie Diggins ending her career in fifth. Lowe plugs a Peacock documentary on Diggins. The final medal count--Norway takes #1 with 41 total, the US with 33, and Italy with 30. Breakdown for the US is 12 gold, 12 silver and 9 bronze.
Lowe wraps up regular QISE programming, and we move onto the Closing Ceremonies, with Tara, Johnny, and Terry hosting. It’s being held at a World Heritage Site--the Coliseum (Arena di Verona) in Verona. At least in terms of closing ceremonies, it’s almost intimate.
The theme--”Beauty in Action”. We’re backstage at the opera, with Italian luminaries participating. Highlights from operas are performed, there’s dancing, crazy costumes--kind of a fever dream. There's a jester character going through catacombs, then a phlanx of flags and their bearers arrive outside. One of the flag bearers is on their phone--put it in airplane mode, lady!
The action moves to La Scala, and an orchestra performance, before switching back to the Arena for “Faces of Italy”--huge photos of regular people representing the country. Some formalities--the flag of Italy is carried in. Italy’s medal winners come out as the flag is raised and the anthem is played. The music comes from La Scala, apart from a trumpet soloist onsite. There’s a mysterious woman in the La Scala audience we already met--I’m sure we’ll see her again.
The QISE flame is brought in by the 1994 winning Italian Cross-Country team. There’s no cauldron here, so down they go in a hole. The flags and bearers come inside, escorted by what seem like monks, followed by the athletes. The whole thing is accompanied by a wedding band in the middle of the action.
The European Union gets a salute with “Ode to Joy”, followed by shots of the athletes in action. Then it’s a video presentation/art installation on the training process. Now it’s time on Shprockets when ve dance! Those with sensitivity to flashing lights may want to look away. There’s trampolining, spinning mirrors, a woman in a plastic wrap dress, some Cirque du Soleil action--its something you might enjoy on edibles.
They then award the Women’s and Men’s 50km Cross-Country medals (traditionally, the final alpine events do receive this honor--the equivalent of the Marathon in the summer games). King Klaebo!
A musical tribute to the volunteers--sounds like a rave. There’s one guy--88 years old--who also volunteered at Cortina in 1956. Then a tribute to athletes who have left us--glad Terry told us, or we wouldn’t have known--followed by a tribute to water and the environment. (Johnny: “Thank you water.”) Then we begin the handoff--Greece’s anthem and flag, the QISE anthem and flag being lowered. The smaller QISE flag goes from Milan/Cortina to QISEOC President Covington to the new trustees from the French Alps. The French anthem wraps up the handoff, as French medal winners are escorted in, looking like they’ve been called to Carousel.
Now it’s time for the French Alps official introduction video. It’s very dark and atmospheric--they usually are a bit lighter in nature, and there’s been a production number in the past. There’s the official speeches, and the cauldrons are extinguished with a piano accompaniment. And here’s the mysterious lady from La Scala (had to look her up--an Italian actress) along with the characters we saw at the beginning.
Now it’s time for some Italian rapping. Well, I’m sure the kids like it. An Italian singer with plenty of face tattoos sings a nice song. There’s more of the jester guy going through catacombs to wrap up the ceremony. NBC follows it up with a promo of LA28--we’ll see if it happens as scheduled, assuming by then LA isn’t part of the breakaway West Coast Republic.
The skating announcer team sends us off to a filler Milan QISE review with Torico before another Sportsball match. And other than a repeat of the Closing Ceremonies in Prime time, that’s it.
Overall, QISE went off with only minor hitches. Early concerns that the facilities wouldn’t be ready seemed to evaporate. No crises, no weather emergencies. The idea of dual host sites actually worked better than expected--this might become the standard for Winter QISE.
Whether I’m reporting from Ohio or the Great Lakes Alliance in 2028, I’ll see you then for Los Angeles.
#Its_a_me_QISE