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The first full day. The first medals. The 2018 Winter Olympics begin in earnest Friday for those in the United States, which is actually Saturday in South Korea.
Don't be confused by NBC showing the opening ceremonies at 8 p.m. ET. That's on a 14-hour delay. But you won't miss much if you watch that—just some round-robin action in curling's mixed doubles event and a bit of snowboard slopestyle qualifying.
If you'd like to see the first medal event, either set your alarm or get comfortable with your caffeinated beverages of choice. You might see a bit of U.S. history. Then be sure to stick around for one of the marquee events for South Korean fans—short-track speedskating—in which you'll almost certainly see some milestones.
There are five medals at stake on Day 2: biathlon, cross-country skiing, short-track speedskating, ski jumping and speedskating.
Here are the top stories for U.S. viewers to watch from Friday evening into Saturday morning.
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No U.S. woman has ever taken an Olympic medal in cross-country skiing or biathlon.
But until last year, no U.S. woman had ever taken a World Championship medal in biathlon, the sport that combines cross-country skiing and shooting.
Susan Dunklee changed that with a silver in the mass start race last year, adding to her collection of World Cup podium finishes. She hasn't had a strong season but will relish the first of several chances to end Team USA's Olympic drought in the 7.5-kilometer sprint, which uses a time-trial format so that athletes are racing the clock rather than each other.
Cross-country skier Jessie Diggins has had a terrific season, taking third overall in the Tour de Ski and winning a 10-kilometer freestyle race in late January. The skiathlon (half classical style, half freestyle) isn't her best event, but she has finished in the top five on the World Cup circuit and comes into South Korea on a roll.
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Remember the 2002 World Cup in men's soccer when South Korea, the host nation, scored a goal against the USA and celebrated by mimicking a skater? That was a protest, months after the fact, of a decision to disqualify Korean skater Kim Dong-sung and award a gold medal to the USA's Apolo Anton Ohno. Yes, South Korea loves short-track, so it's safe to say the Gangneung Ice Arena will be rocking.
And barring a late change in the roster, we should get a chance to see Maame Biney (that's MAH-may bye-knee), the 18-year-old from Ghana by way of Virginia who will be the first African American skater to compete at the Games. She's set to race in the early round of the women's 500 meters.
Biney isn't a medal favorite, but in the topsy-turvy, crash-filled world of short-track skating, you never know. She's eighth in this season's World Cup standings, and she finished third in this event at the 2017 World Junior Championships.
How did she take up short-track? According to her International Skating Union bio, she was going too fast for figure skating.
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The last race on the short-track schedule of Day 2, the men's 1,500-meter final, may also be the USA's best chance for a medal anywhere on this first full day of Olympic competition.
J.R. Celski has a long list of career accomplishments. He has three Olympic medals: two from 5,000-meter relays and one from the 1,500 meters in 2010. He finished fourth in the 1,500 at the 2014 Olympics, and he has nine World Championship medals.
The 27-year-old Californian has persevered through many injuries, starting with a gruesome cut in 2009 (see the video if you're not squeamish). After the 2014 Sochi Games, he took some time to get surgery on his labrum and recover.
He's in good form this season, setting a personal best in the 1,500 of 2 minutes, 10.937 seconds, in October, and he finished third in this event at the last World Cup stop in Seoul.
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Remember the guy from the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics who looked a bit like Harry Potter and won both individual ski jumping events? Switzerland's Simon Ammann shed the glasses and did it again in Vancouver in 2010, giving him four gold medals in North American Olympic ski jumps. He's still competing.
But at 36, he's still a youngster compared to Japan's Noriaki Kasai. The 45-year-old is set to jump in his eighth Winter Olympics.
The top contenders are all a bit younger. Poland's Kamil Stoch, who won both individual events in Sochi, is the World Cup leader at age 30, closely followed by 26-year-old German Richard Freitag and 22-year-old German Andreas Wellinger. But Ammann has a knack for peaking at the Olympics, and he finished third and fifth in his last two World Cup jumps before the Olympics.
Kasai finally won his first individual Olympic medal in 2014, taking silver on the large hill just a short distance behind Stoch. He also has team medals from 2014 and 1994, when he was merely a 21-year-old in his second Olympics. Little wonder he has inspired a couple of tribute songs, most recently by a Polish rapper.
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The 2014 Olympics had 10 individual long-track speedskating events and two team events. That adds up to 32 medals (three in each individual race, one in each team event).
The Netherlands won 23 medals of those, including eight of the 12 golds.
But the Dutch haven't been dominant in this World Cup season in the first race on the Olympic program, the women's 3,000 meters. Irene Wust, who won this event in 2006 and 2014, was third and sixth in her two World Cup starts. Canada's Ivanie Blondin leads the standings, just ahead of Czech legend Martina Sablikova.
The USA was shut out of the medals in long-track skating in Sochi. This event isn't likely to end the drought, even though the top American is herself a former Dutch skater, Carlijn Schoutens.
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