The Wisconsin Skier

The 2010 Winter Olympics are finished and over. What an Olympics it was. Starting off with a fatality and ending with an epic hockey match.

Congratulations to team Canada on their sudden death win over the US Hockey squad. I confess to being a bandwagon hockey fan and was pumped about handing another loss to Team Canada, but it was not going to happen. Still, it was a great ending, with 24 seconds in the game and with the goalie pulled from the net team USA got the goal to send the game into overtime. I was watching the action at Ski Brule and the whole tavern burst into raucus cheers. However, five minutes later or so team Canada scored its game winning goal. As I said I’m a bandwagon hockey fan so the loss is something that did not bother myself for too long. In fact, it means a lot more to our Canadian brothers & sisters so I am happy for them in their win.
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Much is being made of a rivalry between Julia Mancuso and Lyndsey Vonn.

I am connected to the women via Facebook and Twitter (for whatever that is worth). So I base this post on what I am seeing of their public thoughts and from what I know of skiing and competitors.

I have addressed what it is like to have to rerun a race. It is not something you like to do it costs you race-juice to run, race juice that takes rest and calories to replenish.
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Today in women’s giant slalom Lyndsey Vonn wiped it out and Julia Mancuso was on course and above Lindsey. Well, you may have seen it, Lyndsey wiped out and ran into the fence and Julia Mancuso was yellow flagged and had to stop her race and start over.

Reruns stink!
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Update: YouTube claims the IOC lodged a copyright complaint and therefore the video was pulled from YouTube. I will leave the link in, but do not expect to watch Mr. Kramer’s jerkism on display.

Watch this video, at least the clip where the NBC reporter asks Mr. Kramer who he is and where he is from:

Yes, he asks the reporter Are you stupid?.

Well looky here (from Reuters):

Sven Kramer, the overwhelming favorite to win the men’s 10,000 meters, threw down his glasses in fury after a lane violation Tuesday cost him his second gold medal at the Vancouver Games.

Kramer’s disqualification for a violation with eight laps remaining in the race handed Lee Seung-hoon of South Korea the gold medal at the Richmond Olympic Oval.

Who is stupid now, Sven?
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Phil Mushnick of the New York Post offers some commentary on NBC’s coverage of the Olympic games:

The thing I don’t get is the public’s ugly response to NBC’s “coverage.” Every two years, those who grew to value the Olympics as a news/sports event — as opposed to taped and packaged primetime programming — rage as if they expected better, or even different, from NBC.

There are even intelligent folks who think that the IOC might be upset with NBC for what it has done to (that somewhat frightening and vague term) “Olympic movement.” [emphasis added] But as long as American TV remains the No. 1 underwriter of the Olympics, the IOC wouldn’t care if NBC showed speed skating in slow-motion and downhill skiing from the bottom up — unless the check bounced.

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Wow, no US gold, silver, or bronze today. This is odd, not all that long ago that would not seem so odd, but now it is very odd.

Still, the USA leads the medal count which seems odd to myself as well. I like it, as I much prefer the Winter Olympics over the summer Olympics.

Update: Premature, Davis and White won a sliver at the end of the evening in ice dancing.

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It should be obvious I am hoping to be at the forefront on the reporting of ski news, at least here in this region. Even though there are plenty of people on the site reporting on the Olympics I work to provide commentary and analysis of what I see. I do this for a reason I am an enthusiastic skier and this is the preeminent display of ski competition in the USA.

I am not the only one fired up about the Olympics. I noticed a boost of activity here at The Wisconsin Skier with the coming of the 2010 Winter Olympic games in Vancouver. I am working to encourage that boost hoping for it bring more of you here and to light the fire of enthusiasm for skiing.
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What is this with the handing flowers to the guys who win medals? They should get their medal and a can of Molson, LOL, they can even make it a Molson “Canadian”. I suppose, the men’s figure skaters would happy with the flowers but for the rest it just seems misplaced.

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In the downhill portion of today’s women’s super-combined ski competition the commentators were saying something that may have sounded odd to the non-skier: the hill was very flat. I can not recall if she was saying the lighting was flat but in any event that needs explanation. For today, while the sun was out, the downhill was in the shade and as a skier I am not real fond of skiing in the shade on a sunny day.
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Another version of the Olympic Theme Song (aka Bugler’s Dream) by MasterSchema:

Thank you MasterSchema for allowing me to use the video!

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