The Beijing Games were a win for the host nation and women, but NBC viewership hit rock bottom and a doping scandal further damaged the Olympics brand.

Winners:

• China: Beijing got mostly what it wanted. Its closed-loop system — however costly — held COVID largely in check, and talk of China's human rights record was mostly drowned out by a carefully-scripted narrative. China also won 15 medals (previous best: 11).
• Norway: For the second straight Winter Olympics, the tiny Scandinavian nation — which has a smaller population than Wisconsin — finished with the most medals (37) and golds (16), the latter of which set a record for most at a single Winter Games.
• Women: The most gender-balanced Winter Olympics ever featured momentous milestones, including Elana Meyers Taylor becoming the most decorated Black Winter Olympian, and Eileen Gu becoming the first action-sport athlete to win three medals at one Winter Games.
• German sliders: Germany won gold in nine of the 10 bobsled, luge and skeleton events, plus another six silvers and a bronze. That gave them more overall sliding medals (16) than all other countries combined (14).
• American redemption arcs: Lindsey Jacobellis crashed in Torino, Nathan Chen fell in Pyeongchang and Nick Baumgartner grinded for 12 years with nothing to show for it. Now, they're all gold medalists.

Losers:

• NBC: An average of 10.7 million people watched the Olympics in primetime, the smallest audience for any Winter Games. In total, ratings were down 36% from 2018. (Silver lining: Peacock was great.)
• The Olympics brand: Russian figure skating prodigy Kamila Valieva's image may ultimately rebound, but the Olympics brand could forever be tarnished by last week's doping scandal and shocking saga.
• Team USA: The U.S. won eight gold medals, its fewest since 1998. And for the second straight Olympics, one of its stars — Simone Biles in Tokyo, Mikaela Shiffrin in Beijing — fell unfathomably short of expectations.
• North American men's hockey: For just the second time this century (2006), the U.S. and Canada both failed to medal — a fate that would have surely been avoided if NHL players had participated as originally planned.
• Speed skating record holders: Between long track and short track, athletes broke 17 Olympic records and two world records in Beijing.

Go deeper:

• Look: Final medal count (Axios)
• 🎥  Watch: Best action shots (YouTube)

Saturday's Dunk Contest was an atrocity. Guys struggled to complete their dunks, which lacked creativity, and it was legitimately hard to watch on TV, let alone from inside the eerily quiet arena.

Driving the news: Some are calling for the event to be canceled, or at least put on hiatus, which actually has precedent.

• After a terrible showing in 1997, the 1998 event was replaced by a shooting contest called "2-Ball." The following year, a lockout canceled the entire 1999 All-Star Weekend.
• Then, in 2000, Vince Carter made the Dunk Contest great again with an iconic performance that will perhaps never be topped.

The big question: Will the Dunk Contest return to glory in the coming years, or should the NBA be concerned about its future?

• On one hand, perhaps all it takes is a few big names — or the next Vince Carter — to revitalize the event. High-flyers like Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon dazzled the crowd in recent years, and these things tend to be cyclical. Patience.
• On the other hand, there are only so many ways to put a ball through a hoop: Could we be running out of dunks? That's part of why more stars don't participate — it's become too gimmicky, and there are more ways to embarrass yourself than actually shine.

More All-Star Weekend:

• Curry catches fire: Steph Curry hit 16 threes and scored 50 points en route to winning All-Star MVP. When he's on like that, barely even watching his shots go through the net, it's something to behold.
• Elam Ending shines: The new All-Star Game format — which replaces the game clock with a target score — continues to be a success. If the NBA adds a midseason tournament, might they use it?
• LeBron makes headlines: LeBron James spent the weekend sending messages — to the league, the Lakers and maybe the Cavaliers. Naturally, he also hit the game-winner.
• Other winners: Karl-Anthony Towns won the 3-Point Contest; the Cavaliers trio won the Skills Competition; Team Barry, led by Cade Cunningham, won the Rising Stars Challenge.
• Shaq's speech: This was fantastic.

Go deeper: 2022 NBA All-Star Weekend exit survey (The Ringer)

Meikayla Moore put a resounding end to the USWNT's scoring drought on Sunday with a first-half hat trick. One problem: She plays for New Zealand.

Driving the news: Moore scored three own goals in the first half of the USWNT's 5-0 win over the Kiwis in the SheBelieves Cup — one in the fifth minute, one in the sixth minute and one in the 36th minute.

The big picture: It's feasible that this has never happened before, at any level of soccer. Think about that: There have been millions of matches over centuries, and we may have just seen the first ever "backwards hat trick" — at least with all three goals coming in the same half.

🏁 Photo finish: Rookie Austin Cindric won Sunday's Daytona 500, edging second-place Bubba Wallace by 0.036 seconds.

🏀 Howard suspended: Juwan Howard received a five-game suspension for throwing a punch at a Wisconsin assistant. Wisconsin coach Greg Gard was fined but not suspended.

🐎 Derby DQ: Medina Spirit, who died unexpectedly in December, was officially stripped of the 2021 Kentucky Derby win on Monday. Trainer Bob Baffert was suspended and fined.

🏈 Flores hired: The Steelers hired Brian Flores as a senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach. He will continue with his race discrimination lawsuit.

🎾 Djoker's return: Novak Djokovic won his first match of the year on Monday, advancing to the second round of the Dubai Championships.

⚾️ Good read: How "Sex and the City" sent me down a fake baseball rabbit hole (Emma Baccellieri, SI)

"The reboot ... gave me the perfect MLB lockout mystery. Here's my journey down a rabbit hole into the world of fake baseball broadcasts."

Gonzaga is the unanimous No. 1 team for the first time this season, and the Bulldogs have already clinched their 10th straight regular-season conference title, Jeff writes.

• On the rise: No. 2 Arizona has its highest ranking in four years, No. 18 Arkansas had this week's biggest jump (five spots) and No. 25 Iowa is ranked for the first time this season.
• Bracket watch: The selection committee's top 16 reveal had Gonzaga, Auburn, Arizona and Kansas as the four No. 1 seeds. Houston and USC, both in the AP top 16, were replaced by Tennessee and Texas.

Wooden watch: Kentucky's Oscar Tshiebwe has emerged as the favorite to win National Player of the Year, but it remains one of the most wide open races in recent memory. The top contenders:

• Tshiebwe, F (Kentucky, Jr.): 16.4 pts, 15.2 reb, 1.4 blk, 1.9 stl
• Johnny Davis, G (Wisconsin, So.): 20.9 pts, 8.3 reb, 2.3 ast, 1.2 stl
• Kofi Cockburn, C (Illinois, Jr.): 21.7 pts, 11.2 reb, 0.8 blk, 60.8% FG
• Ochai Agbaji, G (Kansas, Sr.): 20.0 pts, 5.1 reb, 1.6 ast, 43.7% 3PT
• Drew Timme, F (Gonzaga, Jr.): 18.0 pts, 6.3 reb, 2.5 ast, 59.6% FG

Apologies to: Keegan Murray (Iowa), E.J. Liddell (Ohio State), Bennedict Mathurin (Arizona), Jabari Smith (Auburn), Jaden Ivey (Purdue).

Go deeper: NIL deals help Tshiebwe bring mom to the U.S. (The Athletic)

Kim Mulkey's first season in Baton Rouge is off to a great start: No. 8 LSU is in the top 10 for the first time since 2009, and the Tigers' 23 wins are already their most since 2012, Jeff writes.

• Up and down: No. 18 North Carolina (up six spots) was the biggest riser, while No. 22 Georgia Tech (down six spots) was the biggest faller.
• Bueckers update: 2021 Player of the Year Paige Bueckers is participating in team drills for the first time since early December (knee surgery) and could return post-regular season.

Wooden watch: Caitlin Clark is the clear favorite for National Player of the Year, but Aliyah Boston isn't going down without a fight.

• Clark, G (Iowa, So.): She leads the nation in scoring (26.8 points) and is averaging a near-triple-double (8.0 rebounds, 8.2 assists). No player this century — man or woman — has ever done what she's currently doing.
• Boston, F (South Carolina, Jr.): The best player on the nation's best team. She's averaging 16.8 points and 11.9 rebounds, and has recorded 19 straight double-doubles (SEC record).

Apologies to: NaLyssa Smith (Baylor), Naz Hillmon (Michigan), Ashley Joens (Iowa State), Haley Jones (Stanford), Aneesah Morrow (DePaul).

Go deeper: South Carolina, Stanford on a collision course (ESPN)

Getty Images photographers picked their favorite photos from the Olympics' second week and provided exclusive commentary on how they got the shot.

Caption: Germany's Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi slide during the two-woman bobsleigh heats. They went on to win gold.

Sliding events are unlike anything I've shot before, so I loved the opportunity to try new techniques. Photographers were free to roam and look for new angles and shadows to get creative, like in this image.

Caption: Russia's Kamila Valieva reacts after her free skate, during which she fell several times and tumbled from first place to fourth.

Kamila Valieva dominated the headlines throughout the Games, and the pressure was there for all to see during her final skate. This image tells the story of the past two weeks in Beijing.

Caption: France's Simon Desthieux fires a shot during the Men's Biathlon 10km Sprint, which combines rifle shooting with cross-country skiing.

I wanted to capture the concentration and focus of biathletes. With some luck, the right scouting, and the proper gear, I was able to photograph a shell casing from a bullet nearly hitting Desthieux's eye.

Caption: Athletes compete during the Women's Cross-Country Team Sprint Classic Final.

I wanted to capture the fierceness of this competition, using shadows and light. Your eye goes straight to the athletes as their bodies lean around the bend, as well as to the harsh lines made in the snow.

Today's Champions League knockout stage action features three American stars: Christian Pulisic (Chelsea), Weston McKennie (Juventus) and Timothy Weah (Lille).

• Lille at Chelsea (3pm ET, CBS): The defending champs, fresh off their first Club World Cup title, host struggling Lille (11th in Ligue 1).
• Juventus at Villarreal (3pm, Paramount+): Villarreal is in the knockout round for the first time since 2009; Juve reached the final in 2017 but hasn't gotten past the quarterfinals since.

More to watch:

• 🏀 NCAAM: Michigan State at No. 25 Iowa (7pm, ESPN); No. 8 Villanova at No. 21 UConn (8pm, FS1)
• 🏒 NHL: Predators at Panthers (7pm, ESPN+)
• 🏁 Netflix: "Race," a six-episode series about Bubba Wallace's NASCAR rise and his role in social justice issues, premieres today.

Deion Sanders shared the outfield with a future Hall of Famer when he made his MLB debut with the Yankees on May 31, 1989.

• Question: Who was it?
• Hint: 1990 AL MVP.

Answer at the bottom.

Source: Giphy

1. 🥎 Through the fence
2. 🏀 Now that's a dunk
3. ⚾️ What a grab
4. ⚽️ What a goal
5. 🏒 Brings it down
6. 🏒 Chip pass
7. 🏀 Ja Morant!
8. 🏀 Buzzer beater!
9. ⚾️ Home run robbery
10. 🏀 What a finish

Watch all 10.