The Winter Olympics live stream starts off on Thursday night in the United States and in the morning from the Sochi Games for the snowboard slopestyle qualifying and Alpine skiing training and it will be streaming from NBC on the NBCOlympics.com website starting at 1 am ET and will continue through the morning before the NBC Sports Network airs the primetime events.
The first event for the snowboarding competition has the slopestyle qualifications for the men and later on in the day the women will take the mountain and that starts up at 5 am ET on the schedule following men's downhill training. Shaun White was expected to compete in the slopestyle event on top of the halfpipe, but he surprisingly pulled out after dealing with a wrist injury he sustained while working on a practice run and he later spoke about the dangerous conditions of the course and he wasn't the only border to comment on it. One participant already had to drop out after breaking his collarbone and now the biggest draw in White will not be competing either.
Mark McMorris is considered to be one of the favorites and the Canadian rider comes in with a rib injury he sustained at the Winter X Games in Aspen and while he too commented about the harsh conditions on the course, he will be competing in the event. The break for while actually comes at a great time, as the wrist injury he sustained was just the latest for him after shoulder and ankle injuries and this will give him time to recover. Some have criticized White for dropping out, accusing him of focusing on just the halfpipe because he was not favored to win the slopestyle, but he wasn't having any of that. White said he wants to put his focus on the halfpipe, which he has won two Olympic games in a row, including in 2006 at Turin and in Vancouver four years ago.
White is looking to win a third straight medal and said that he did not want to risk getting injured more seriously, which would put his halfpipe participation in jeopardy. The slopestyle competition starts on Thursday and will finish with the men's semifinals and final on Saturday, while the women's medals will be given out on Sunday. The United States is looking to be one of the leading nations at the games and snowboarding is one area where they could dominate. The hockey team comes in after making it to the gold medal game in Vancouver before losing to Canada and Russia will be looking to perform well at their home Sochi games with Alex Ovechkin.
The events on Thursday are streaming on the NBCOlympics.com website and comes before the halfpipe picks up on Tuesday as the two-week event really gets going. The games have been a bit of a mess to start and not just with the slopestyle course, as much of the construction has yet to be completed despite $50 billion going into the games and now the opening ceremonies will start on Friday and in a way it's fitting that events will begin before that.
