2026-02-14 09:55:36
Before Ilia Malinin had his disastrous free skate to lose gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, there was Yuma Kagiyama—who skated a near-perfect short program only to underperform in his free skate on three out of his four quadruple jumps. And before Kagiyama had his disastrous free skate to, seemingly, lose silver, there was Adam Siao Him Fa—who had a brilliant short program only to miss three of his four quadruple jumps, dropping him all the way to sixth.
Which is to say that, by the time Malinin came up to skate on Friday, his winning gold seemed like a foregone conclusion for everyone in the world, Malinin included. One can imagine that when the primary goal becomes "don't mess up," it becomes exponentially harder to do so. Take all that—and put it on a skater who historically has been driven by doing the impossible and totally unnecessary—and this might well be the result: Malinin fell twice. He popped, or effectively aborted, two more jumps. His final score left him not just without gold, but completely out of medal contention. Japan's Kagiyama won silver after all, his countryman Shun Sato took bronze, and Kazakhstan's Mikhail Shaidorov earned a shocking gold. It was the most deserving podium based on Friday's skates, and also the podium nobody ever considered.
If Malinin were only skating to win gold, he probably would have done it. But there was so much more that Malinin could have done, so he tried for each and every record, when he knew and everyone else knew that all he had to do was not mess up. He wanted to be the first to land a quad Axel on Olympic ice. You could tell because he popped the jump and only landed a single Axel, when all he had to do was not mess up. He wanted to be the first to land seven quads on Olympic ice. You could tell because he went for the broadly despised quad loop, rather than a triple, and popped that into a double loop, when all he had to do was not mess up. The records vanished first; the gold medal was lost later. Malinin walked away from the rink in eighth place.
2026-02-14 03:32:01
Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday at Defector during the NFL season. Got something you wanna contribute? Email the Roo. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it.
Prior to last week, I had never eaten at a Wawa. I knew of Wawa’s food offerings, because Defector Media has a sizable, and vocal, Philadelphia contingent. The most vocal among that contingent was the late Dan McQuade. McQuade was so intensely Philadelphian that I thought of him any time I encountered anything related to that city, and I still do. This goes especially for Wawa, and especially for its sandwiches. I’d pumped gas at a Wawa before, but you and I know that doesn’t make for a full Wawa experience. It’s like saying you’ve been to a city because you had a layover there. No, in order to evaluate Wawa correctly, I had to avail myself of all it had to offer. I have now done just that.
A bit of background here: Motorists in 2026 might think of Wawa mainly as a service station that also happens to sell food. But that’s putting the cart before the hoagie, because Wawa was founded in the early 20th century as a dairy farm, and a dairy farm only. The name “Wawa” itself has a layered meaning. It refers to both the Lenape tribe’s word for the Canada goose (hence a Canada goose in its logo), and to the area of Delaware County that those same geese used as a favored rest stop while migrating. According to this 1989 writeup in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wawa area of Delco still very much exists, although only in somewhat romantic terms:
2026-02-14 01:47:02
On Thursday, the Philadelphia Phillies released outfielder Nick Castellanos after months of threatening to do so. All offseason, I have read reports that the Phillies wanted to get rid of Castellanos, either by trading him or cutting him, if they had to. The underlying tone of these reports was that the Phillies would rather eat the rest of his contract ($20 million) than have to work with him again. This is not only terrible negotiating, because you indicate to other teams that you will most likely release him and pay his contract, and then they can sign him for cheaper instead of trading you for him. It's also petty.
The pettiness reached its peak yesterday, when the Phillies finally announced that they were releasing Castellanos, and at the same time he posted on Instagram two separate handwritten letters: one titled "Philadelphia" and one titled "Miami Incident."
2026-02-14 00:16:00
It would be hard to make up a more charming athlete story than that of Giannis Antetokounmpo. His life is a line connecting unlikely and poignant points: poverty as a son of Nigerian immigrants in Athens, lower-division Greek basketball as a malnourished teenager, speculative No. 15 draft pick by the Milwaukee Bucks, NBA championship, unambiguous place as one of the best players in league history. Coming from the Mediterranean to the Midwest, he tried to jog to a Bucks game in 18-degree weather, and supposedly wiped the windshield of a moving car with his wingspan. He discovered what is most beautiful about America: a "smothie." He picked up almost 50 pounds and ball skills, and won two MVP awards. He plays with an unmatchable motor and has innovated in the fields of arm extension and stride length. Perhaps the greatest transition threat ever to touch a basketball, he is pretty funny, too.
This cool basketball player who was once enraptured with blended drinks has amassed a lot of emotional goodwill in my head, and yet, in the span of a single season, he has managed to spend down most of it. Say what you will about LeBron's Decision, but at least he made one. Even James Harden is more direct when he's done with a team, whether he's doing a reverse hunger strike or delivering extemporaneous remarks to Chinese fans. Antetokounmpo has taken a somewhat routine process in his sport and turned it into a tedious and vaguely self-righteous odyssey.
The critical shift was when his Bucks co-star Damian Lillard tore his Achilles tendon during the 2025 playoffs. In that instant, Antetokounmpo could have started packing his bags, and no reasonable Milwaukee fan would have begrudged his exit. The all-in trade for Lillard didn't work as anticipated, and the pairing had just been brought to a brutal anatomical end. Antetokounmpo had already fashioned himself into a league-destroying monster and won them the 2021 title. What else could you want the guy to do? He fulfilled any fan base’s most reckless draft-night fantasies, and then some. It was an apt time for a mid-prime superstar to pack up and try to contend on another team.
2026-02-13 23:58:30
What is to be done about NBA tanking? Based on the pissy administrative response from the league to some recently and spectacularly egregious examples of Tank Mode, you might think it is the most pressing problem facing a league that has a few of those. Thankfully, the solution is easy: Book a fight in the schoolyard, where the people doing the fighting aren't the students but the teachers. Sign us up for that one every day.
Commissioner Adam Silver took the bait on Thursday when he decided to fine the Utah Jazz $500,000 and the Indiana Pacers $100,000 for failing to meet even the subterranean standards for competitive dignity during the past week. The Jazz have been particularly noteworthy—which is a first for them on any front over the past decade or so—and so received five times the tsk-tsk-tsk that the Pacers did. And while every owner regards half a million scoots the way you do a twice-used Kleenex, and while most of your more ambitious lousy teams would gladly pay $500,000 per game the rest of the way if it got them the top pick in the draft, Jazz owner Ryan Smith clearly didn't like the spotlight that came with being fined the equivalent of Brice Sensabaugh's left leg.
So he did what any wounded rich guy would do—he went on antisocial media and used the delightful fifth-grade logic of "Yeah, but we don't do it all the time." Smith might have made a better case had he pointed out that the Jazz were not the first team to think of sitting out the healthy starters that had played the first three quarters of the game, but a billionaire scorned is a billionaire scorned. You have to grade these things on a curve.
2026-02-13 22:02:41
Work in the outdoor industry long enough, and you’ll learn that only certain jobs in the U.S. are allowed to be taken seriously. Spending your days emailing about nothing is a “career.” Drafting slogans to feed the AI machine? Impressive. Combining the abilities of an EMT, chef, navigator, and athletic coach? Well, you’re just playing outside.
Outdoor recreation work is often seen as summer camp for adults, an in-between seasonal way for young people to play around and earn some cash while they figure out what they “really want to do.” But when a bear shows up at your campsite, an avalanche swoops down, or you step over a root wrong and snap your ankle 30 miles into the backcountry, a guide might be the only thing standing between you and your fast-approaching mortality.
So what’s a hard-working guide to do? How does the outdoor recreation industry earn its well-deserved respect? For some, the answer is unions.
