Title: “Smooth Solving Ahead”
Prompt: The 2022 Winter Olympics begin today in Beijing; this week’s contest answer is a previous Winter Olympics host city.
Answer: LAKE PLACID
Correct entries: 695 overall, of which 673 were solo solves
Missable Week 1, and indeed 21 solvers saw the bodies of water in the grid and jumped the gun with SALT LAKE CITY. But there was more to the mix than just water:
17-A: [1992 Alison Krauss song] = GENTLE RIVER
20-A: [Rachel Carson book whose title ambiguously references either a body of water or a season of the year] = SILENT SPRING
32-A: [With 35-Across, where Martians vacation (I’m guessing)] = SEA OF / TRANQUILITY. Which is actually on the Moon, not on Mars, so oops. Though who are we to say where Martians vacation? Me, I’d wanna get off Mars for my week off.
52-A: [It stretches from Sydney to Santiago] = PACIFIC OCEAN
58-A: [They’re said to run deep] = STILL WATERS
So we’ve got not just water references in the theme entries, but also allusions to calmness/peacefulness/relaxation. Which leads us not to SLC but to LAKE PLACID, host of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympic Games.
Acrown says:
Serenity now!
Steve Blais points out:
Also a horror film starring the late, great Betty White.
And mkmf says:
My first Downs Only solve. Thanks for adding those. Nice challenge.
We’ll keep doing these on Week 1. Ignorable if you don’t like them, but many seem to dig the challenge.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer, which is located in one of the eight U.S. states that begins with the letter N, is a city that often appears in crosswords.