Great short program by Shen/Zhao.

There's only one. And chances are he's going to fuck something up.

Oh crap. Some guy I've never heard of won a bronze medal for Croatia in a biathlon (we have people that do biathlon?????). Great for him though.

Here's the skate order for the pairs final. The last 2 groups should be fun to watch and this sets up perfectly for Shen/Zhao.

1 - GER HAUSCH Maylin, WENDE Daniel
2 - UKR KOSTENKO Ekaterina, TALAN Roman
3 - EST SERGEJEVA Maria, GLEBOV Ilj
4 - POL SULEJ Joanna, CHRUSCINSKI Mateusz

5 - GBR KEMP Stacey, KING David
6 - FRA JAMES Vanessa, BONHEUR Yannick
7 - SUI MORAND Anais, DORSAZ Antoine
8 - USA DENNEY Caydee, BARRETT Jeremy

9 - USA EVORA Amanda, LADWIG Mark
10 - RUS BAZAROVA Vera, LARIYONOV Yuri
11 - UKR VOLOSOZHAR Tatyana, MOROZOV Stanislav
12 - ITA DELLA MONICA Nicole, KOCON Yannick

13 - CAN LANGLOIS Anabelle, HAY Cody
14 - CHN ZHANG Dan, ZHANG Hao
15 - RUS MUKHORTOVA Maria, TRANKOV Maksim
16 - CAN DUBE Jessica, DAVISON Bryce

17 - RUS KAVAGUTI Yuko, SMIRNOV Aleksandr
18 - GER SAVCHENKO Aliona, SZOLKOWY Robin
19 - CHN PANG Qing, TONG Jian
20 - CHN SHEN Xue, ZHAO Hongbo

Yay....Already 3 gold medals for Switzerland.

17 - RUS KAVAGUTI Yuko, SMIRNOV Aleksandr

They should have cancelled the idea of trying the quad salchow. It wasn't even necessary in order to win technically. However, I don't think they would have won even if they had skated perfectly because that music was terrible.

18 - GER SAVCHENKO Aliona, SZOLKOWY Robin

Again with the music, what is going on here? The fall on the double axle is disappointing because skaters of that level just shouldn't be falling on a jump like that. It's to damn easy. Other than that, it was a good performance.

19 - CHN PANG Qing, TONG Jian

I enjoyed the music, the expression and the technical performance. I thought she had two footed her 3loop but it was extremely slight if that. After their scores it seemed they had made up 2 of the 5 points they were down going into the free. I thought they gave the best performance and technically deserved gold with that performance.

20 - CHN SHEN Xue, ZHAO Hongbo

I thought their music was okay. They do have great expression and are perfect technically. It's a shame that lift failed but their win shows how important a lead in the SP can be as it's that much harder for your opponent to catch you (even a former world champion one at that) when you yourself are former world champions and olympic medalists. Good performance overall though.

Love the performance by Pang and Tong. That was practically perfect. And Zhao and Shen certainly didn't give their best performance, especially making that rare mistake, but still very happy to see them winning the final elusive gold. The emotion was heartfelt.

OMG. This win has started a hilarious fight between Croatian and Slovenian press. Even the Czechs had their take on it.

Lindsey Jacobellis got disqualified in the semifinal?

Yeah, she missed a gate in her race. Gold for Canada!

Germany has had a very strong day, 2 golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze. Great to see Wang get a bronze in speed skating!

Wooo! Canada gets it's first gold in snowboard cross.

Poor American Lindsey Jacobellis. She crashed after the first turn.
Another Olympic disapointment for her.

Jacobellis*

Plushy, Evan, and DAisuke are essentially tied at the top in the men's competition but Evan and Dai have the advantage in the long. They were able to match Plush's score without doing a quad triple. Hello! I think Evan is very probable to win the gold thursday as long as he gets past that triple axle.

As for the others, Lambiel is a great skater and he's won a world title without a triple axle in the past but it is not going to be possible in this competition but with what he scored in the short he's possible for bronze as well as Oda and Weir. I thought Weir was a bit undermarked but they said something about his triple flip. Maybe it had a neg GOE. Idk.

So sad what happened to Abbott. He's really technically capable of matching the scores posted by the top 6 but he just crashed today. Ultra disappointing. Then Joubert imploding on that Lutz. The Quad mistep he probably could have weathered but not having a combo at all was devastating.

I'm going to go with:

1. Evan
2. Daisuke
3. Plush
4. Oda
5. Weir

Amazing day for the US, all well deserved medals. Lindsay Vonn, wow. Mad respect.

That was one tough downhill course. Incredible athletes they are.

Shaun White is a beast.

He went all out on his victory run. Most people would take it easy.

The Russian is cut!

Fuck you Plushenko!!!

Its an American domination at the Olympics, easily will win the Olympics.

There is still skiing, Apollo Anton Ono on Short Track for them.


However there are a ton of Nordic events that Germany and Norway will likely dominate in.

There is woman's speed skating, which Canada and Europeans dominate on.

Just saw Evan' interview with Costas. He is such a great guy. Of course one could say when you win the gold, it's easier to take the high road, but he is very genuine and sweet, with a sense of humor too.

Canada is truly having a terrible showing. The Hamelin brothers tonight were just disastrous. South Korea has leap frogged over Canada thanks to a gold and silver in the 1000m short track.

Meanwhile, the US continues to rake in medals, with Ohno winning his 7th speed skating medal and becoming the most decorated American winter athlete. At this pace, it is certainly the US' year. They are overperforming everywhere; I'm very impressed.

Peace,
Mike

These games have just been one fail after another for Canada.

Pretty disappointed with Canada, but they should not have been playing up this ridiculous patriotism bullshit. That's simply not us, it's America's shtick, let them keep it. I think a lot of Canadian athletes just caved in under the pressure.


But also, I just don't think our athletes are all that good. I'm not particularly impressed by the US, since they should be doing well given their 308m population and unparalleled resources. We should take note from the smaller European countries and see what it is they're doing right. Norway has fewer people than the Greater Toronto Area and yet they're ahead in the medal count...

The first time China won 3 golds in one Olympics, even though all three were the favorite going in.