Each day during the Winter Games, THE DAILY offers our take on the business performances of some of the people, sponsors, broadcasters and other entities around Sochi.
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GOLD: TEAM CANADA SPORTSMANSHIP -- In a nightmare scenario for a home-country competitor, Russian Anton Gafarov broke a ski in the cross country free sprint yesterday. With little chance to catch up but wanting to finish his race anyway, he proceeded on one ski. Moments later someone came running onto the course to give Gafarov a new ski. The good Samaritan? One of Canada's coaches, Justin Wadsworth. Competitors most of the time -- sportsmen at all times.
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SILVER: MATT LAUER -- While Lauer admirably pinch-hit on short notice last night for Bob Costas, who is suffering from a nasty eye infection, we still miss the man who has become synonymous with NBC's primetime coverage.
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BRONZE: TEAM CANADA'S BEER FRIDGE -- A big tip of the hat to our friends north of the border on this one, as Team Canada brought a beer fridge to Sochi that can only be opened with a Canadian passport. That is marketing ingenuity at its best. And as of yesterday, it had not hurt performance, either. Canada's nine overall medals -- four of which are gold -- trail only Norway's 11 medals.
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TIN: LADIES FIRST, PLEASE -- The women and men skiers and snowboarders were stellar on the slopestyle course and halfpipe this week, but the IOC could stand to revisit the way it schedules their respective competitions. Women do not get as much amplitude out of the pipe or height off their jumps in the terrain park as men, so scheduling them after the men does them a disservice.
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