Congrats to Sweden for winning 2 golds ( bet that hurts in Norway too )

As usual, us Dutch are depending on the skaters to bring home the metal.

And I definately remember how Tommy Gustavsson gave the Dutch skaters a run for their money.

Too bad that those successes were never followed up on.

In line with a previous post, I've always thought they should combine the snowboarding with biathalon. The biathalon guys ski by while the boarders are going & try to hit one as they come up over the lip .... :-)

Of course, I also think they could improve summer olympics if they just threw a couple shark into the sync swimming pool ... :-)

Seriously, I love 'em and generally stay glued to the tube. To me the one that just doesn't seem possible is speed skating ...

For the record, I think Kwan did the right thing, the Chinese pair earned their medal, the snowboarders are good people, and guys like Miller & Ohno need to rethink their place in the world ...

John

Being at home recuperating from a severe ankle injury, I'm glued to the TV. ( I'm not sure how much live viewing you Americans get, but here in Canada, our CBC has the live telecast start at 0330 and end at 1600 hours followed by repeat programing of the days events from 1800 to 2400.)

A couple of observations.....

....... Kudos to the coach from Norway that gave the Canadian skier a replacement pole, allowing her to go on and win a silver medal.... now that's sportsmanship!....

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/mediagallery/momentoftheday/

.......... Why,....Why,.... Why,.... is curling on the Olympics?!?!?!?...... when was the last time you heard of a curler suffering from a torn AC ligament or missing time due to a ruptured achilles tendon! Worst case scenario...... flatulence from beer and dawgs!...

......... Kudos to the Chinese girl who was launched half-way to orbit by her partner, only to come down crashing with over 7 times her body weight in the splits and still skate 3 minutes later,...

I love the Olympics, as long as they are not proffesionals (get the NHL'ers and the NBA players out of there) and as long as it's a sport!

Frank

Anyone remember the Aussie in the speedskating last Olympics? When he was 4th from 4 skaters and the front 3 wiped out and he stayed on his skates and won the gold :-) (And promptly retired. Quit while you are waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead...)
As for me, the closest I've gotten to toboggans etc. would be reading Calvin and Hobbes

Hats off to that cross country skier who crashed at the start and still managed to get Silver(I think he was an Austrian). Way to go buddy.

Olympics are great to watch, but I still believe that anything that is judged by others can be tainted. Like figure skating, snowboarding and such. I watched the snow boarding and I did notice that the US got Gold and Silver and some of the other boarders performed better tricks. No offence menat here but I do sense some "interesting" judging. Get rid of all the judged stuff and just have the fastest, most goals, longest jumps, etc. End Rant

Go Canada

I know they changed the judging for skating after the last debacle. I think they have something like 12 judges. The high and the low score are thrown out. Then, I think, two random scores are also thrown out. Not sure of the specifics (it is skating, for crying out loud) but I did hear they changed it.

Shaun

Amen to that!
Go Athletes!

Anybody watching the continuing slaughter at the luge track?!?!.... WOW it's nastier than Nascar!

to me, curling is in the same class as bowling.... no offense to any die-hard fans.

Johnny Wier - one of the US figure skating competitors last night was kinda cute with his "liza" shoulder shimmy!!

Did you see the LEGS on a few of those women speed skaters???? Not necessarily the one that won the gold, but oh man!!! solid tree trunks of muscle!! I wonder how they buy pants!

I'd like to see some "ordinary people" events added to the winter Olympics.........
I've begun a list of events that we could all do.

1. Building model airplanes
2. Dorito eating competition (cool ranch)
3. Reach for the TV remote event (also extreem stretching)
4. The Domino's competition....in which each contestant would order a dominos pizza and see who could go the longest without eating a slice.
5. History jeopardy competition

Hermon

Pushing the truck out of a drift
Intermediate snow shoveling
Ice covered front steps downhill...

Shaun

I can't get into the Olympics - the "Talking Heads" of NBC are so lame that it just turns me off.

NBC tries to over blow EVERYTHING no matter how small to make it sexier and more TV like. I hear of one more Bodie Miller story my TV is going into the trash.

God, where's Jim MaKay -"The thrill of victory - the agony of defeat" when you need him.

Hope I don't offend any of our members from the States now but:
YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweden 3 USA 2, and we are on to the finals in the Womens hockey...

I take it US women aren't going to the finals? I am at work...

Shaun

No, they will play for the bronze, against either Finland or Canada.

The Swedish goalie won them the game, she survived about three 2 (wo)man advantages.

Agree, our goalie was great, and saved us lots of times.

Canada - Sweden for the Gold!!!!! Sorry 'bout that Sweden, you'll have to settle or silver.

We'll se on monday. We had never beten USA before, so why don't make it a first against Canada...

I wish them well, and may the best team win. Canada of course

lol jacobellis totally gave away the gold by showing off and wiping out. i'm embarrassed. shermies rule-you would have loved it.

Saw Jacobellis ( sp?) loose the Gold last night as well..., I think the fact that she blew it and knows it is punishment enough ( I mean she did get the Silver , that's not too shabby..) But I think I did see her coach look at her, and turn away from her at the bottom of the race course, just turned and walked away, not even a word, just disgusted with her, did I really see that?
I hope not, not cool..support your athletes in public, rip'em a new one in private, but always be a pro, no matter how stupid the move...
My 2 cents...Go Canada Go!
Pete

I decided to check out the American NBC Olympic coverage last night (watched the Canadian CBC troughtout the day) and I must say, you Americans are getting robbed by what NBC is throwning your way. First of all the coverage is roughly divided into 1/3rd personal interviews, human interest pre-taped material, 1/3rd commercials, and finally actual footage of the Olympics. Unfortunately the only coverage you are getting are in events that the American athelete has all but assured a Gold or Silver ( the power of pre-taping). I'm not a big fan of the CBC, but when it comes to sports, thank you CBC.

Frank

From what I can observe the Olympics has very little interest to the American people unless there is an American involved in the story. The local papers just had a story that the US mostly follows the Olympics through print, news and sports updates. American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and a host of other regular powerhouse TV shows are just crushing Olympic ratings.

Beside, most of the events aren't popular in the states. I haven't seen Luge, Skeleton or Bobsled since the lat Winter Game!!

The ratings also show Americans prefer head to head competition (basketball, hockey, speedskating, swimming) over that of time trial sports, although snowboarding seems to be making some headway this year.

I have to agree, US Olympic coverage sucks. I just read where the Italian curling team beat the 29 time World champion Canadian team. The home crowd serendading them with the Triumphal March from Aida. I laughed till I cried and wished I could have been there in the crowd for that. How magificent. There will be no coverage of something spectacular like that because.....well not Americans, and curling well that's not a manly sport. So here we are stuck all week with half-as**d Olympic coverage, a goofy dancing show and an inane teenage singing contest.....They even cancelled "24" this week.