2010 Winter Olympics

[Maxx]

Ovechkin never really seemed to find his place in that game, between his issues with his skates and his strange insistence on checking Chara nearly every time they were on the ice together. Plus Slovakia played some excellent defense, I don't think I saw a single Russian break away that game, and Russia had to settle for bad shots all night.

[GhostMachine]

The Russians are bitching because an American won men's figure skating (for the first time since Brian Boitanno did it in 1988) and a Russian who had won gold before came in second. Well, BOO frickin' HOO! I doubt the voting was fixed, but considering that Russia has benefitted from the fix being in a few times in the past *, I frankly wouldn't care if it was. (I generally hate Olympic judging in the first place, btw)

* The `72 Men's Basketball final game that the U.S. won then lost after some communist judge put time on the clock that shouldn't have been added, and the year that they awarded the Russians gold in pairs figure skating then awarded the Canadians gold also after there was a huge outcry rather than stripping the Russians and giving the gold to the Canadians after a French judge admitted there was some vote trading going on. May be other incidents, but those are the two I think of straight off the bat.

[sahyder1]

I actually caught the ending of the Figure Skating....have to agree with the Russians. New scoring system sucks. I don't know if there should be anyone winning gold in Mens Figure Skating without pulling off a Quad jump

[GhostMachine]

I actually caught the ending of the Figure Skating....have to agree with the Russians. New scoring system sucks. I don't know if there should be anyone winning gold in Mens Figure Skating without pulling off a Quad jump

Ah. Well, frankly, I lost any interest in figure skating years ago with all the obvious corruption and bs going on in the voting. Like the year they awarded Oxsana Baiul gold despite the fact she fell on her butt THREE times yet Michelle Kwan and others skated flawlessly. That, and the aforementioned incident with the Canadians and Russians in pairs skating. Still haven't figured out why the Russians weren't stripped of the gold.

(I don't watch men's figure skating at all, just the women and pairs. And I haven't watched any of the Olympics at all this year; just haven't been in the mood)

[SeanDMan]

Slovakia beats Russia in a shootout

Slovakia has a 2-1 record against Russia. You act like this is a shock.

[mikevandam]

The Curling Captain of Denmark sheds it (NSFW)

These games have got to be the most error prone in history

[The Sultan of Swank]

Honestly, anyone who can land a quad, triple. Deserves the gold. Then again, I'm cheering for Canada, and Not America at the Olympics.

[sahyder1]

US Mens Curling team is sitting down their skip for the next game. He's had an awful run so far. http://www.ctvolympics.ca/curling/news/newsid=46645.html?cid=rsstsn

[Ananas]

The people questioning the scoring aren't saying it was fixed, they're saying the system is broken. Their argument is that Lysacek won skating a program with less difficulty over Plushenko who skated a mistake free program with much greater difficulty. This is not unsound logic. And how exactly does it matter if Plushenko's won before? These aren't elementary school graduation awards, you're allowed to win twice.

[sahyder1]

The people questioning the scoring aren't saying it was fixed, they're saying the system is broken. Their argument is that Lysacek won skating a program with less difficulty over Plushenko who skated a mistake free program with much greater difficulty. This is not unsound logic. And how exactly does it matter if Plushenko's won before? These aren't elementary school graduation awards, you're allowed to win twice.

Exactly. I'm far from a Figure Skating fan but had NBC on last night hoping NBC would show me Speed Skating and ended up catching this. Plushenko even mentioned in his interview that he was shocked that the gold went to someone without a Quad in their program. The Quad is nothing new in Mens Figure skating it has to be a part of all programs now...shouldn't it?

[Clawson]

Canada (or COC) has basically conceded that the US will win the medal table. We can still have the most 4th-6th placed finishes though. We're already in the 10s I think.

[The Sultan of Swank]

But Clawson, to be fair. We're a very small nation in terms of population and until what... shortly after the Nagano games... even further than that, our Olympic Athletes were mostly on their own as far as funding and development. Canada likes to see their athletes do well, but we don't and are quite unwilling to throw the same kind of money and give the same kind of importance to our athletes as America. That is except for when we rock the world at Hockey. That's clearly the even which will determine in the minds of most Canadians if these Olympics were a success or not.

Speaking of the hockey, the Swiss certainly gave the good ship Canada a scare last night, but I think we'll only get better. Canada has 3 players who in my mind, always find a previously unknown level of play in international hockey. Dany Heatley, Jarome Iginla and Rick Nash... Especially Nash.

The only issue I have with our team is the D. I don't like Pronger on the team... at all. We already have 1 player on the team for his rep in Neidermayer, but his rep is golden, his level of play is still high, if slipping, but he provides the leadership and experience on a really young D. I don't feel we need that twice.

Living in Niagara Falls now, if the US team makes a very, very, very unlikely run to the gold medal game(I think they'll be lucky to play for bronze), if they were to play Canada, once Canada wins, I'm loading up the truck with people and flags and going across the boarder to gloat about hockey gold, free health care and an honourable reputation in the World.

...

...

God bless the Olympic Games. The most acceptable form of xenophobia.

[badotori]

Skeleton bob is now officially my favourite sport (and name) ever. GET IN THERE, AMY WILLIAMS!

[Ananas]

Here I was thinking Mellissa Hollingsworth was one of our safest medal bets. Jon Montgomery now has two runs to prevent the disaster day for Canada.

[badotori]

Hollingsworth was really unlucky, Doc. Her start was awesome but she took one of the early turns too aggressively, clipped the barrier on the way out and then banged into the opposite one when she tried to straighten herself. She picked up her speed later on (got up to about 140km/h, which is standard at the bottom) but she couldn't pull any time back. She looked distraught at the end of it, but she held herself together pretty well. The pressure just seemed to get to her, which is understandable really.

I was expecting it from Williams in all honestly but, thankfully, she didn't fall to pieces. I still can't believe GB have got a gold, it's mental - first individual gold medal for Britain since 1980.

Edited February 20, 2010 by badotori

[Ananas]

She was distraught. They interviewed her after the race and she couldn't hold back the tears. She said she felt she'd let down her country and her family. It's a shame, because it really all came down to one bad straightaway.

By the way, all Canadians ought to keep an eye on the CTV Olympics website for a video essay by Stephen Brunt. It aired tonight and completely captured the national pride that's bubbling over in this country right now. As I tweeted earlier, Stephen Brunt didn't just knock this one out of the park, it was a Mark McGwire moonshot.

[Ananas]

Jon Montgomery puts down 2 absolutely BLISTERING times today to win gold in men's skeleton!

[sahyder1]

Canada strikes gold again! Thankfully I turned on stream just in time. Will have to watch it again tonight if I can stay up. Way to go Jon Montgomery. What a finish in Mens Skeleton.

[badotori]

Carrying on from the discussion about hot women's curlers, the Japanese team that are playing Britain at the moment are all pretty cute - when considering the stereotypical curler. The only problem is that, on about 80% of their shots, they makes noises that I can only liken to a bunch of really pissed-off kittens just yowling at each other constantly. It gets annoying really quickly.

Ah well, that's my punishment for watching women's curling at 4:30 in the morning instead o' sleeping.

EDIT: The "kitten-like screaming" technique appears to work as they've just had their way with the Brits. 11-4 for in the end (very flattering really) but, it has to be said, their skip played phenomenally well. Took a crazy shot from Muirhead to get them to 6-4 after eight ends, but the Japanese bossed the ninth easily.

Edited February 20, 2010 by badotori

[Ananas]

The afforementioned Stephen Brunt video essay: http://bit.ly/sVoe9