Clumsy oeuf order unscrambled
If anyone in South Korea was craving eggs, the chefs with the Norwegian Olympic team had a few to spare.
The team tasked with feeding 109 Norwegian athletes got lost in translation before the Winter Olympics even started, accidentally ordering 15,000 eggs from a local supermarket last week instead of the 1,500 they required.
The chefs used Google Translate to place the order, according to a report by the regional Norwegian newspaper Tronder-Avisa, but came out with a 13,500 surplus. They blamed it on a translation error — the base figure for large numbers in South Korea is 10,000, where much of the world uses 1,000.
Tore Ovrebo, head of the Norwegian team, played down the oeuf overload at a press conference in Pyeongchang.
“It was an extra zero on the orders, so 1,500 to 15,000,” he said simply, according to a BBC report, adding they were eventually able to return the surplus — not until after taking a photo with the crates, which made the rounds quickly on social media. THEM’S THE BREAKS: British snowboarder Katie Ormerod was prepared to persevere despite suffering a minor wrist fracture in training in South Korea on Wednesday, intent on competing in Sunday’s slopestyle event despite the injury.
But the 20-year-old medal hopeful’s Olympic dream ended Thursday when she suffered her second injury in as many days, fracturing her right heel in training.
Ormerod, who became the first British athlete to win a slopestyle World Cup gold medal last year and went home from the 2017 X Games with bronze, posted a photo of herself on the course Wednesday with the hashtag #whenlifegivesyoulemons.
“First training day and the course is awesome!!” she wrote then. “Unfortunately I slipped off a rail in training and fractured my wrist. I’m all good and looking forward to continuing to train and getting ready to compete on Sunday.”
Aday later she was back on social media, posting photos of an X-ray of her fractured heel as well as an image of herself in a hospital bed with a bandaged right foot. The British Olympic Association confirmed to the BBC that Ormerod will have “emergency surgery” on Friday. Mike Hay, Britain’s chef de mission, said the team was “deeply sorry” and “desperately disappointed” for Ormerod.
NOT VONN TIME: It’s no quick trip to South Korea at the best of times for most athletes, but Lindsay Vonn’s trek was particularly long. It took the American ski sensation more than 24 hours to arrive from Munich, after winning back-toback World Cup downhills in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The holdup was a lack of documentation for the Lufthansa Airbus A340 she was booked on — one of 15 around the world grounded for the same problem, Vonn told ESPN.
At least Vonn, who documented the ordeal with live updates on Twitter, wasn’t alone: her dog Lucy became an internet meme over the course of the journey.
“Oh she’s been asleep this whole time! Never barks or whines. She’s happy when she’s traveling, it’s pretty awesome,” Vonn tweeted in reply to a comment.
All passengers, including several German and Italian athletes, eventually switched planes to complete the journey.
EIGHTH WONDER: Catch a glimpse of Japan’s flag-bearer at Friday’s opening ceremonies and you’ll see a man on the verge of history. Ski jumper Noriaki Kasai, 45, will break a tie with Russian luger Albert Demchenko for the most appearances ever in the Winter Olympics with his eighth. Kasai made his Olympic debut at Albertville in1992 and has competed in every winter edition since. He won a silver medal in Lillehammer in1994, adding silver and team bronze in Sochi. With files from Star wire services
Snowboarder Katie Ormerod wins medal for worst luck