Day 2 Stuff I forgot...

Feb 13...
I realized I overlooked a chunk of rants from my notes from Day 1 of competition, which is understandable considering the lack of mounting excitement and tension heading into these games.

That said...

The Short Track is remarkably intense. It's hard to watch without sitting on the edge of your seat chewing on the inside of our cheek. By the last lap I'm sucking blood. I may be restating things I've said before... it's all a big puddle of Olympic knowledge at this point and we've only just begun. The ironic anti climactic moment is the fact that I've already mentioned the fact Ono won the Silver after the two dip shit Koreans took themselves out therefore making any points surrounding it boring, redundant and moot. Moving on...

This was the day competition kicked off with the 37 minute rendition of the "We are the World" redux. Riveting stuff.

In other news I find it very interesting that the Whistler Sliding Center ruled "athlete error" in the tragic death of the Georgian Luger yet made drastic changes to the run. If it was his fault why were changes necessary? They slowed the run down from 95ish to 86ish mph by changing the ice, adding protective walls, shaving the corners, shortening the track by 200 yards and making the "50/50" curve the "95/5" curve all for a track that was already "perfectly safe". Curious.

It's only been a few days and the list of things gone wrong at these games is quickly mounting for Canada. Weather, the Luger death and safe/unsafe track, the lighting of the torch malfunction and on this day, and really the only inexcusable blunder is the ridiculously negligent treatment of the indoor skating rink. The ice was melting, the room temperature was wrong, the zamboni operators weren't experienced enough to fix the problem and when they tried they ruined the surface making it bumpy causing the head official of the building to get on a zamboni himself and resurface the entire arena delaying scheduled races by nearly 2 hours. Absolutely unacceptable and embarrassing. You need an MIT degree to figure out how to keep these arena's and the ice optimal for competition but the blunder lies in the fact that they had 4 years to prepare for this moment and the people involved should know how to deal with these problems. They didn't. Bad Canada.

Did I mention that Vancouver is the warmest Winter Olympic site in history, which began in 1924, at a stroking 38 degrees yet the coldest recorded temperature on the planet was -81 degrees (not counting wind chill in 1947? As I type it I realize I mentioned it previously. A prime example of being from the Department of Redundancy Department.

I also wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't at least mention the Canadian speed skating uniforms and they way they perfectly cupped the competitors balls much like a glove fits a hand. If you're a heterosexual male then be happy you missed it.

In the Primetime news, America's All American girl Lindsey Vonn caught a massive stroke of luck when weather pushed her event back by three days. Vonn is the best American skiier ever and defending 3 time World Cup Champion but she's dealing with a serious shin injury that could possibly prevent her from even competing let alone medaling. The extra three days is a godsend.

Short Track Speed Skating. What a great fucking event. Seriously. Time is irrelevent, the only thing that matters is crossing the line first and not physically interfering with the other skaters. Apolo Ono came out in the Semi's basically lolly gagging around the rink in 4th place until BAM he makes his move and blasted to the lead with a lap to go. One of the few can't miss Winter events.

Moguls. Another event where the HD picture is priceless. For the first time in Olympic history the viewer is able to see the 3D look of the challenging course in 2D. So cool.

Watching the three medalist ski moguls going that fast, that tight all while being that relaxed is impossible to fathom. It's the event that walks the fine line of being perfect and being out of control. A little less, you get beat... a little more, you eat shit.

In that event some interesting drama. USA sitting in gold medal position until she gets nipped by a Canadian with a slower time but tougher trick giving what appear to be the very first Canadian Gold on their home soil until the last competitor to go was an American that snatched that elusive medal leaving Canada empty handed yet again. Don't worry.... they finally played "Oh Canada" the following day when they one Gold in the Men's Mogul.

Luge. Uneventful. Lay down. Slide. Blah blah blah.