WHAT HAPPENS IN THE VILLAGE, STAYS IN THE VILLAGE: Your biennial Olympic Village condom story, though unlike Beijing the Vancouver condoms do not say "faster, higher, stronger" on them, but there is a special US Curling condom named "Hurry Hard." Ahem.
Your live commentary on the men's figure skating finals is welcome here.
added: Detailed NYT analysis on why a well-performed triple lutz is generally a better risk for men's skaters than attempting a quad. And for our Grade of Execution junkies, the full scoresheets are online.
Sad/happy marionette! Hip-hopping!
ReplyDeleteIn other medal news, of course: Torah! Torah! Torah! (Tziva lanu Moshe) wins the ladies half-pipe.
ReplyDeleteAdam, that song was going through my head from the moment they said her name. I've seen it on paper, but to have the commentators talking about it just stuck it in my head.
ReplyDeleteReally missed Dick Botton tonight. So little useful commentary. As I tweeted, Scott Hamilton's grunting is not commentary. (Matt pointed out that grunting is commentary from John Casey, and I'd pay good cash money to have John Casey do the figure skating analysis.) Also, I do not need Scott Hamilton to tell me that someone fell down. I have eyes. I'm fully aware that in figure skating, falling down is bad. Come to think of it, I think it's bad in every sport.
Is there any Olympic sport where the athletic prowess differential between men and women is more obvious than snowboard half-pipe? You look at the air that even the lowest scoring boarders got in the men's competition and it smokes the women by a country mile. In most other sports, the difference feels like a matter of 10 or 20 percent. In half-pipe, it feels like a whole different sport.
Darnit, that was me. I don't know why my name won't stay put when I post from home.
ReplyDeleteOn the second question: basketball.
ReplyDeleteAm I just biased because he seems like a bit of an ass or is Plushenko really spastic when he's not jumping? Not at all impressed with his other skills.
ReplyDeleteLoved it. Just completely loved the men's free skate. (Of course, I was also watching it on Canadian TV, so it was live and well-commentated.) One thing I especially loved: Evan's victory, to me, completely validates the new scoring system. Based on the live results available at vancouver2010.com, the difference in scores between the two boiled down to a couple of extra points that Evan got on a step sequence and a spin. That's IT. Awesome. (Plus, I'm not and never have been a fan of Plushenko, so seeing Mr. "Without the quad, it's not men" lose because someone simply outskated him pleased me immensely.) I was also quite happy to see Patrick Chan skate really well (except, of course, for the fall), so it was a measure of redemption, at least.
ReplyDeleteDid you love how arrogant Plushenko was in his NBC interview? He freely admitted that he expected to win *solely* on the basis of the quad and the fact that Lysacek didn't have one. He thought there was no way he could lose, and he blamed the new scoring system... and made sure to point out the differential was less than 2 points. Is he kicking himself now, thinking if he'd come out of retirement a few months earlier, and trained a little more, he might taken the gold, again? Who knows.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Randy -- Lysacek's win was incredibly sweet. He's the anti-Plushenko, earnest, hard-working, grateful and gracious. The best man won.
And as a reminder for those who missed the Opening Ceremonies live chat: Not Tribe. She's LDS.
ReplyDeleteRandy - are those results still available? I went to vancouver2010.com but so far can't find them and I'm curious to see how the scoring system works.
ReplyDeleteThey're here.
ReplyDeleteI was watching that and thinking jerking your arms around while skating cannot be considered artistic (or at least good artistic) because come on down to the rink at millenium park and watch me do just that. It is about the only thing I can do while skating.
ReplyDeleteMarsha, I totally agree on Scott Hamilton. He seems like a nice guy and all, but his commentary sucks. How many times does he need to tell us that jumps in the second half of the program get a 10% bonus? And that that's when the skater is tired? Or that someone making a mistake is "opening the door"?
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I remember watching the winter Olympics and he was commentating and when someone fell, his comment was, "That was so.... BAD!" Brilliant.
Plushenko's coach said that he was robbed of the gold medal, solely based on his quad. He also said this, which I find just so irritating:
ReplyDelete“Any judge who thinks this is the right champion is a Cyclops,” Mishin said. “Without the quad, there is no difference between the men’s competition and the women’s. Why not let them skate together? Why not have it as a unisex competition in the Olympics?”
Yes, his loss has nothing to do with the fact that he was weak sauce on the ice, all of his turns tilted and barely holding on to the endings. Why bother skating the rest of the program at all? Just go out there, do a quad, and collect your medal... anything more is just a woman's program, apparently...
New post up from Gretchen, if you want to ctrl-c, ctrl-v this right over ....
ReplyDeleteAnyone read Elvis Stojko's commentary? Sounds like he's looking for a new Olympic skating event that consists only of jumps. Guess it could be like skiing - downhill vs. ski jumping...
ReplyDelete<span><span>http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/figure_skating/news?slug=es-thoughts021810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns</span></span><span></span>