Still addicted to the games. Can't help it. They are sports par excellence and nothing else comes close; not any sport's World Championships, not football's Super Bowl, not soccer's World Cup, not anything. And I'm especially fond of the winter olympics. I love mountains, I love snow, and let's face it, halfpipe blows beach volleyball right out of the water. Not saying the summer games are inferior, just that the winter games, for me, are more exciting.
What stands out to me in this olympiad so far?
1) Nodar Kumaritashvili: Luger who died in a practice run, forcing race officials to lower the start line, which caused competitors to use words like "boring" to describe the course. Absolutely tragic, but he died doing what he loved and at the absolute pinnacle of his sport's competition. (You'll go four years before you hear anyone mention luge again after the winter olympics.)
2) Crappy Vancouver weather. I don't think anyone would argue that the weather has been maybe THE story of the games so far. It's caused course conditions to stink at pretty much every outdoor event so far and thrown athletes off their game at multiple venues.
3) However, weather ALSO caused the women's downhill to be postponed which gave Lindsey Vonn enough time to recoup from injury to be able to embarrass the rest of the field. Most dominating women's world cup season ever? So far! (six wins in seven downhills)
4) Two reasons to hate South Korean short track skaters: First, they're talking trash, and second, they're backing it up. Gotta love Lee Ho-suk's ALL-TIME biggest blunder in the 1500m though. They had the sweep locked! But he just couldn't leave it be, so Apollo Ohno and J.R. Celski took silver and bronze when he crashed into his own teammate. Thank you Lee!
5) Shaun White is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! His win in the men's halfpipe was the stuff of legend. I truly believe he belongs in the pantheon of sport next to men like Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. He has truly transcended snowboarding. And he has a great nickname too. Who doesn't love "The Flying Tomato?"
6) Wang Meng. Yep, a female Chinese short track skater. She's probably the most dominant athlete on earth in comparison to the rest of sports. I mean, the Flying Tomato is cool, but Meng is 101-1 since her gold medal in Torino in the 500m. 101-1! AND the only loss was because she tripped, she beat herself. The woman hasn't been legitimately beaten in over FOUR YEARS! And, yes, her victory in this year's games was every bit as dominant at White's was in halfpipe. Epic. If she skated more distances, she'd be in the pantheon as well.
