More medals!

We went one, two in women's downhill skiing. Lindsey Vonn won gold and Julia Mancusa won silver. While I didn't get to watch them compete live, I watched the medal ceremony, and I felt so happy for Lindsey. She had a leg injury recently, but she still pulled off a gold medal performance. It was great luck that the bad weather hit, allowing her some extra time to recover. Plus, the course was especially tough because the snow was hard and packed together--a lot of people crashed. I'm really impressed that Lindsey was able to do so fracking well with pain in her shin!

No medal for the women's short track 500 (Katherine Reutter skated well early on, but didn't make the cut for the A final). Canada got silver, though. The men's final for the 5000m relay hasn't been skated yet, but our team qualified for the A final. And Apolo and JR qualified passed through their 1000m heats, as expected. (Also, the US women's 3000m relay team will be in their final.)

American Shani Davis of won gold in 1000m speed skating. No surprise there. American Chad Hedrick won bronze--also no surprise. And a Korean filled in the silver spot--again, no surprise. Nice results, but not altogether exciting. I love that Shani got to win two olympics in a row, though. He was the first black athlete to win an individual event Winter Olympic gold in 2006, and he does it again the next time to also become the first man to win back to back golds in the 1000m.

We also got gold and bronze in the men's snowboarding halfpipe through Shawn White and Scotty Lago, respectively. Shawn pulled off his "Double McTwist 1260," a crazy turny, flippy trick that he made up and that no one else has tried to land. He's pretty entertaining--he throws out a lot of peace signs, and he's been doing tricks since he was a little kid! He's the Tony Hawk of snowboarding.

As for other countries, Germany got another medal (bronze) in luge (men's doubles)--they've won 5 out of 9 possible medals. And Norway has won 3 medals in cross country so far (nothing for the US). It's nice to see other countries dominate sometimes, too.

Bob Costas interviewed Stephen Colbert on the late night coverage. I could hear the set crew laughing as it was being filmed. It was pretty funny, no thanks to Costas. NBC isn't used to having a Comedy Central man around (that's why they waited till late at night to air it). At the end, he went over and curling up by the fire to get warm, saying, "That's what I love about NBC--the authenticity. Everything's real."

Speaking of late night coverage, Mary Carillo is the host for that segment, and I really like her. She's a good interviewer--much better than Costas--and she actually knows what she's talking about, probably because she used to be an athlete (tennis). Chris Collinsworth is good, too (former football player), but he only does special stories. I wish he was an anchor.

Great day for men's figure skating--not so much for everything else

We haven't won any medals in luge, but the Germans have won 4 out of 6! Gold and silver for the men, and gold and bronze for the women. They did really well in Torino, too.

In Torino, Lindsey Jacobellis lost gold in snowboard cross because she did a trick on the last jump in premature celebration and ended up falling, letting the 2nd place girl pass her. Lindsey still got silver, but it was really disappointing, because she had gold in the bag until that slip up. She had a chance to redeem herself this year, but she didn't even make it into the final run--she went off course in the semifinal. Too bad. =/ Maelle Ricker won this time, gaining Canada their first snowboard cross gold, which is nice.

In the men's figure skating short program Yevgeny Plushenko of Russia got the highest score. I didn't care for him performance, though. The choreography looked like random spasms--they were really fast during slow music. It just looked weird.

Evan Lysacek of the US is in second. His music was Stravinski's "Firebird," and he did the music justice--nice jumps, amazing footwork. I saw no mistakes at all, and I never took my eyes off him. He's only trailing Pleshenko by .55 points.

Daisuke Takahashi and Nobunari Oda of Japan are in 3rd and 4th, respectfully. They did really well, but I thought Oda's skating looked really mechanical.

Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland (5th) skated to "William Tell" music, with cool spins and great musicality. It was really fun to watch. He messed up a couple jumps, though.

The ever flamboyant Johnny Weir of the US (6th) skated pretty well. He had quite a strange costume, as usual.

Jeremy Abbott of the US skated to Jeff Beck's cover of "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles. He skated really well, but he missed 2 big jumps, so his chances of medaling are pretty much out the window. It's really sad. I liked his performance a lot.

My favorite performance was by Takahiko Kozuka of Japan, who skated to Jimi Hendrix's "Bold as Love." His pants were made to look like jeans, and his shirt was very psychedelic; he had cool footwork and a nice ending. He's in 7th for now.

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...

Olympics time!

The opening ceremonies were last Friday. I enjoyed them a lot--more than Beijing, even. It wasn't too gawdy, but it wasn't too mediocre. I loved the special effects with the video projected onto the floor, especially when it looked like whales were swimming across what looked like a giant pool. There was also a lot of people spinning around in suspended in harnesses, which was impressive to watch. The tap dancing fiddlers were cool, too. Canada is a strange mish-mash of cultures--English, French, Scottish, Inuit.

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A lot happened on Saturday.

I was reintroduced to Chris Collinsworth, who always does the Olympics coverage with Bob Costas. (I love Collisworth. Costas, not so much.)

We won gold and bronze in women's moguls, which is always exciting to watch--4 people fell in the finals, including 2 Americans (no severe injuries).

The best part was the first short track speed skating event, 1500m. Americans Apolo Ohno and JR Celski were up against a slew of Koreans, and it looked like they were going to sweep the board, but 2 of them ended up falling, allowing Apolo to slip in for silver and Celski got bronze. That medal means Apolo is tied with Bonnie Blair as the most decorated US winter olympian. He'll probably end up being the Michael Phelps of this year's Winter Games.

Apolo in the semifinals: He likes to start in the back and sneak his way up to the front.

The worst part was the bad training accident on the luge track. Nodar Kumaritashvil from Georgia died in a bad crash. NBC decided not to air the footage, which I think was a good idea. You can find it online real easily, though, if you even want to see it. It's not pleasant. They changed the coarse a little because of it, and the start point is now lower.

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On Sunday, I was at the Collegian office all day, so I missed both the prime time coverage AND the late night replay (it was a long night). So I had to catch up online at nbcolympics.com. It's a great site. They have full replay videos on there, but I can't get to them because I don't pay for a cable service (you have to register your cable info in order to watch the premium videos). The recaps and highlights were pretty good, though.

American Bryon Wilson got the bronze in men's moguls, and Alexandre Bilodeau won Canada's first gold of the games, which is also their first gold won on home soil, which is neat for them. the silver went to Dale Begg-Smith, who is actually from Vancouver, but he competes for Australia--I guess 'cause he moved there. Kinda weird. Anyway, Jonny Moseley did the break down video on the website. (Moseley competed in Salt Lake City in 2002 with his new trick called "The Dinner Roll," which didn't win him a medal (he got 4th), but made him awesome.) I love Moseley--he's party of the reason why I first got into the Olympics way back when.

After the short program for pairs figure skating, the top Chinese team (a married couple--Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo) broke their own world record score. They skated to a really cool instrumental version of Queen's "Who Wants to Live Forever," and their jumps and choreography were spot on. They won bronze at the last 2 Winter Games, so it'd be kinda nice to see them finally win gold (I'm rooting for them), but the Germans are only .70 points behind them (I thought their program was kinda boring--they were dressed as mimey clowns, but the music and footwork was slow). The Russians are in third (their program was alright--the music was boring, though). 2 other Chinese teams, Pang & Tong and Zhang & Zhang are in 4th and 5th, respectively (their music was nice--the Chinese know how to pick good music... and costumes... and choreography).

Americans Amanda Evora & Mark Ladwig are in tenth, which kinda stinks, but if they do amazingly in the free skate and some other teams mess up they could still have a chance to medal... maybe... (probably not). The other American team is in 14th place. :(

Johnny Spillane won silver for the US in men's nordic combined (ski jumping/cross country--jump score determines start time on race). He started with a pretty good jump, and then skied really well. The race had a really close finish--Spillane was leading until Jason Lamy Chappuis, a French guy, passed him in the last few meters. The highlight video is really funny. The commentator is screaming at the top of his lungs, he's so excited! And everyone collapses after crossing the finish line. Haha! They were definitely pushing themselves!

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P.S. - Sam and I had a good time celebrating Valentine's Day Eve on Saturday. We ate at Johnny Carino's, shopped at Vintage Stock, went to see The Princess and the Frog (which he liked), and watched the prime time Olympics coverage. It was nice.