Monday primetime

Bode Miller, one of my favorite Winter Olympians, won bronze in men's downhill skiing, just 9 hundredths of a second behind gold winner Didier Defago of Switzerland (who skied a basically perfect run), and just 2 hundredths behind silver winner Askel Lund Svindal of Norway. At the Torino games in 2006, Bode was the favorite to win a bunch of medals, but he didn't place in any of the 5 events he was in (he got 4th a couple times). The press really ragged on him for it, which I found extremely annoying. The thing about Bode is that he takes risks, and sometimes that leads to mistakes. He doesn't like playing it safe because he feels like that's a cop-out. He's a damn good skier, and I hate how the press had treated him. NBC's website has a great article on his recent win, though.

NBC showed the medal ceremony for the men's moguls during primetime--Alexandre Bilodeau of Canada won gold, Dale Begg-Smith of Australia won silver, and Bryon Wilson of the US won bronze. They had a little feature on Bilodeau, 'cause he won Canada's first gold ever on hom soil, and because he has a brother with cerebral palsy. His story is really cool and inspiring, to be sure, but they seemed to completely ignore Bryon Wilson. As Wilson was awarded his medal, Bob Costas just kept talking about Bilodeau as though Wilson was from some other country. He's our own and he won bronze! He should be mentioned, too, for crying out loud!

American Seth Wescott won gold in snowboard cross (4 boarders racing) by being steady and letting others make mistakes so he could work his way to the front, just like he did in Torino. He's a super smart boarder. Kinda like Apolo in short track.

Shen & Zhao of China won the gold in pairs figure skating. They became the first to win Chinese Olympic gold for this event. I liked their program's choreography--it went well with the music, but they made a few small mistakes. They had enough of a lead from their short program score to stay on top, though. Good for them!

Pang & Tong of China won silver from being 4th after the short program. They had neat Spanish themed music, nice throws--it was really well-done. I couldn't see any mistakes besides being a little off on synchronized spins. Their free skate program was the best.

Savchenko & Szolkowy of Germany won bronze. Szolkowy (the guy) fell on a jump and they made some small mistakes, but I definitely liked it better than their weird short program. They had cool lifts and spins and nice music--from John Barry's "Out of Africa" score.

Kavaguti & Smirnov of Russia got 4th place, ending the Russians' streak of winning this event 12 times in a row. They messed up their throws and they were pretty out of synch. I didn't really like their performance that much, anyway. I thought Zhang & Zhang did better. Besides, it's nice to be reminded that the Russians are fallible.

The Americans and Canadians didn't skate too well...