<p>I watched every performance of the ladies figure skating yesterday and today (8 hours) and feel the order of medal finishers was appropriate. I think it’s unfair to the winners to imply there is some controversy going on when really that’s a stretch. </p>
<p>The right person won…the young woman from Russia. I agree with emilybee. </p>
<p>Anyone see the photo of the possible wolf roaming the Sochi dorm? It’s in the LA Daily News, taken by an athlete from this area.</p>
<p>I think the wolf was a Jimmy Kimmel prank.</p>
<p><a href=“UPDATE: Jimmy Kimmel Posts Wolf Video on U.S. Luger Kate Hansen’s Twitter Account – Deadline”>http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/jimmy-kimmel-sochi-wolf-hoax-kate-hansen/</a></p>
<p>It also seemed to me that Johnny Weir agreed with the Judges. He was much more effusive in praising the Russian girl’s performance than Kim’s. </p>
<p>[Here’s</a> an analysis](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/20/sports/olympics/womens-figure-skating.html]Here’s”>How Sotnikova Beat Kim, Move by Move - The New York Times) of the scoring for the two top women’s figure skating long programs. You can see why the Russian won: she scored more points with more difficult material. </p>
<p>Like Kurt Browning said in a different NYTimes article, “it’s not about skating anymore, it’s about math”. The rest is just our vague impressions which seem meaningless and leave us frustrated if the one we liked better was out-mathed by the other. </p>
<p>The hockey game was a staggering loss. I can’t imagine that USA Women’s hockey will be able to recover from this loss for a generation. Any time this group takes the ice against Canada, they will have to fight that nagging doubt in the back of their minds. They will never be fully confident that they can win. Giving up a 2-0 lead with only 3 minutes and change left in the game is unbelievable.</p>
<p>What a nice tribute to Sarah Burke. </p>
<p>Now we can watch the ladies compete…</p>
<p>How heartbreaking for Asada. If not for that fall last night, she’d be on the podium for sure. Gorgeous costume too. </p>
<p>You gotta be kidding. NBC using a entire segment to run an extended promo for The Voice. Grrrrrrrrr.</p>
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<p>I’ve watched a lot of hockey, so I, alas, didn’t find it remotely unbelievable, or even surprising. I was standing there watching the game and thinking, They’d better not let the Canadians score now, because if they do the Canadians will pull their goalie and anything could happen. I’ve seen teams score two goals in the last ONE minute of play. There’s a reason teams routinely pull their goal with two minutes or so left and a two goal deficit-- and the reason is that teams can and do come back from two goal deficits in the last minutes of play. </p>
<p>It counts as choking, but it’s only a moderate level of chokage. I’ve seen the Sharks cough up two goal leads in playoff games in the late minutes often enough that it’s not even memorable. In fact, if you Google “cough up two goal lead in third” you find pages of teams coughing up leads late in the game. It happens. </p>
<p>If it was a four goal lead, that would be one thing, but a two goal lead? Eh. It happens. It breaks your heart if you are rooting for the team that coughs up the lead, but it happens.</p>
<p>Latvia holding Canada to 2-1 was surprising. Switzerland winning the women’s bronze was surprising. Canada scoring two goals late in the game to force OT was normal.</p>
<p>@CardinalFang
I’ve also watched a lot of hockey, both live and on TV. “Unbelievable” was a bad word choice and didn’t really express what I meant. Let me rephrase. It s*ucked for Team USA and their fans. 
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<p>From an article linked above:</p>
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<p>Spoken like a true ice dancer who’s been around too long. Under an old scoring system ice dancers didn’t move in ranks much until the ones in front of them retired. According to him, Sotnikove didn’t pay his dues yet, so she should have not won.</p>
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<p>Didn’t she receive season’s best for her long program? What is she complaining about? And why Gold is not mentioned here. She fell too. According to the logic above she didn’t deserve 4th place either.</p>
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<p>Wagner should talk about being accountable to Mirai Nagasu. And then she should enjoy a piece of humble pie.</p>
<p>I’m amazed by this reaction. Way to spoil someone’s Olympic moment. </p>
<p>Sotnikova won because she had stronger technical program. Ironically, if we still had old scoring system, she wouldn’t necessarily won, because artistic score was a legal way to penalize or reward skaters. </p>
<p>A little trip down the memory lane:
Surya Bonaly used to be penalized this way, even though she was great technically . I believe at some point she performed backflip during competition in protest of her treatment - to show how much better she had to be than her competition. </p>
<p>Backflips in general are prohibited in figure skating, but the way she could land it, it was not. Yet, she was still penalized for doing so.</p>
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<p>Don’t remind me. That game brought back awful memories of May 13, 2013. Darn you, Patrice Bergeron!</p>
<p>Swedes just beat the Finns in a not very pretty or exciting game, to advance to the gold.</p>
<p>Less than three hours til the big game of the day! Not much work or school will be accomplished across Canada this afternoon.</p>
<p>Kudos to Adelina Sotnikova for performing her best when it counted the most. I suppose mathematically she deserved to win; however, to my untrained eye, Yuna Kim was a more polished, effortless skater. I was certain that she would win just based on the commentators gushing over her.</p>
<p>Happy to see that Mao Asada was able to go out on such a high note and that Carolina Kostner’s perseverance paid off for her. </p>
<p>Can’t help but admire these Olympians and their mental toughness.</p>
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<p>I agree! I am happy for all the medalists. They all deserved their placements. Johnny & Tara said so.</p>
<p>I have three friends who are very knowledgable, and obsessed, with figure skating. They are beyond furious at what happened in the women’s final, and they’ve filled their twitter feeds with comments from other angry fans. I’d say their immediate reaction was shock, followed by a frustrated acceptance that the judging was unfair. Since I know nothing about the technical aspects of figure skating (I can’t tell a lutz from an axel from a flip), I have to defer to their knowledge, and they think the wrong person won.</p>
<p>One of the judges is married to the head of the Russian figure skating federation – that seems like a conflict of interest. And one of the other judges was involved in the earlier scandal, was suspended for a year – but obviously was allowed back.</p>
<p>I enjoyed seeing the joy expressed by the Russian skater who won. And the crowd would have exploded if she’d lost. I liked Carolina Kostner’s skate the best, but that may be influenced by the fact I liked her music selection the best.</p>
<p>People who actually understand the new scoring system should have no problem with Sotnikova winning over Yuna. Her base technical component was higher than Yuna’s because her program was technically stronger. Sotnikova was appropriately penalized for two-footing one jump.</p>
<p>We can argue who’s program we liked better until we turn blue, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is not how the scoring system works now. </p>
<p>While I agree that the controversial judges shouldn’t have been judging this event, the time to complain was before the event, not after. </p>
<p>Well, Lerkin, all I know is that my three friends definitely understand the new scoring system and they have a big problem with who won. </p>