<p>Really evenly matched teams.</p>
<p>WOW! Yes!!! Gold & Silver in nordic combined!!!</p>
<p>What an amazing night in figure skating! I’m so happy for Rochette…</p>
<p>Fantastic skating all around.</p>
<p>I agree! It was a wonderful night for figure skating. The Gold medal winner was so incredible. Her triples and all her jumps looked effortless. Congrats to Rochette and also to the American who skated last. A personal best for her! We could see her again in 4 years.</p>
<p>That was one of the best women’s free skates I’ve seen in a long time. A LOT of amazing flawless performances with barely any falls. A lot of depth.</p>
<p>I missed most of it, coming in when Rochette was skating. Ds14 said the winner was amazing.</p>
<p>I thought the three medal winners and the second American skater were all absolutely wonderful. I loved them. I thought that the first American skater, Rachel, was great too, and could easily have been 5th rather than 7th.</p>
<p>I didn’t see anybody fall. In fact, it seems to me that the overall quality of the women skaters has improved tremendously in the last 10 or 15 years, compared to some of the Olympics I remember where skaters were falling all over the place. Wasn’t there an Olympics when Debi Thomas fell repeatedly and was still the bronze medal winner? Whether the skaters are just stronger, or train better, or what, I don’t know.</p>
<p>I think this is the first time since 1964 that no American woman has won a medal, but it looks like the chances are pretty decent next time if the two women who skated tonight continue.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but curling is just Way Too Weird for me. It looks like a combination between shuffleboard and housekeeping. I’ll stay with my all time faves: figure skating, pairs, and ice dancing.</p>
<p>What I wanted to say yesterday is that Kim the South Korean is the greatest female skater I have ever seen, and I have seen them all since the early to mid 60s. Last night’s long program is just further confirmation of that fact.</p>
<p>The Italian Koestner (sp?) must have had the worst skate of her life. How she managed to keep smiling is beyond me.</p>
<p>I do not remember Debi Thomas falling all over the place, but I do remember Nancy Kerrigan falling all over and still captured a bronze (?) medal. That was the year she got clubbed. Sympathy marks?</p>
<p>My understanding of short track is that the passer must not physically interfere with the passee in any way until the pass is completed. The Korean’s skate apparently made contact with the Chinese’s skate, causing an alteration to her path of travel. Tough call. The Koreans are accusing the Australian referee of bias because in the last Olympics, he also disqualified a Korean for impeding Ohno.</p>
<p>The commentator couldn’t explain why one of the Hamelin brothers (Canada) was advanced. I saw this race.</p>
<p>[J.R</a>. Celski got disqualified because of a Canadian. Do you think the disqualification was fair? - Yahoo! Answers](<a href=“http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:MhXguWsDz-QJ:■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/question/index%3Fqid%3D20100220195039AA0yL1W+canadian+advanced+hamelin+in+speedskating+when+interfered+with&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]J.R”>http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:MhXguWsDz-QJ:■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/question/index%3Fqid%3D20100220195039AA0yL1W+canadian+advanced+hamelin+in+speedskating+when+interfered+with&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)</p>
<p>Donna
I recall both Debi Thomas and Katarina Witt skating to Carmen, and Debby not at her best. Witt won doing doubles.</p>
<p>Its so much more enjoyable to watch these girls, all so good, instead of holding breath, anticipating a fall.</p>
<p>The X-country skiers were wonderful. Best week of TV</p>
<p>Donna, I’m guessing you think that in everyday life, people’s gender identity is more dependent on what’s “inside” than what is or isn’t dangling on the outside, right? However, you are irate when the French-Canadian commentators seem to voice (albeit in a crude manner) this same view, by wondering if perhaps Weir needs some gender testing (i.e., while a quick peek in the locker room would indicate he’s a male, what’s “inside” him might be more female than male). All of this gender nonsense in sports would be irrelevant if we’d just compete human vs. human instead of man vs. man and woman vs. woman, like we do everywhere else in society… Women claimed the Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs match proved something about women being able to compete against men…and if so, why do men and women still compete separately in most sports?</p>
<p>schmaltz…did you even READ some of the posts from before? Geez…men and women are different. Men are stronger as a rule. More muscle mass. Women have babies. That affects their physiology.
When it comes to competitions that require speed and strength, men have a distinct advantage. Now, something like chess, or trivia - anything requiring brainpower…sure, let’s bring it on. Or how about we have a human to human competition to see who can give birth to the most babies over a 5 year period? Now THAT would be fair…right? LOL…just trying to how silly the argument is…
And wasn’t Bobby Riggs an AARP member when he played Billy Jean?</p>
<p>Awesome ladies figure skating. I don’t remember as many clean programs as I saw this time around. Such composure. (Note that the women seemed to hold it together much better than the men did. And no whining from the Japanese silver medalist, unlike Plushenko!)</p>
<p>Kim Yu Na-flawless, although I don’t adore her for some reason- Brian Orser gets his gold medal!!!
Mao Asada - good for her for landing those jumps
Joannie- amazing. That’s what excellent traning and mental toughness can do.</p>
<p>The one who knocked my socks off was Mirai Nagasu. First Olympics, 17 years old, skated last after one amazing performance after another and absolutely held it together! I’m such a fan.</p>
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<p>Agree with missypie. This is the first year in my memory when the top 8 were so closely matched. However, for some reason I wasn’t as personally attached/invested in them individually as I have been in some less-clean years. I also thought that the Italian looked awkward by comparison.</p>
<p>I was happy for Brian last night as well - been a BIG fan of his ever since the '84 games when he was second to Scott, as adorable as ever!</p>
<p>Great job by all the ladies…</p>
<p>Counting the hours to the hockey semis…</p>
<p>Everyone is talking about Mirai Nagasu as the future. I agree but hope that Frank Carroll can hold out. He’s 71-hope he stays physically and mentally strong.</p>
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<p>Actually, you have not remembered this accurately. In 1994 (seven weeks after she was “clubbed” in the knee), Nancy Kerrigan skated a flawless short program at the Olympics and was leading going into the final long program. On that night, she skated a near perfect program with no falls. She did, however, double her first planned triple jump. She won the SILVER medal, finishing second to Oksana Baul. The result was controversial, with many believing Nancy to be the better skater that night and just as many asserting that Oksana was the rightful winner.</p>
<p>At any rate, many believed those two performances were Kerrigan’s best ever in international competition, so no, no sympathy vote.</p>
<p>article with video of long performance
[The</a> Best Figure Skating Performances of Olympic Medalist Nancy Kerrigan - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com](<a href=“http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2648609/the_best_figure_skating_performances.html]The”>http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2648609/the_best_figure_skating_performances.html)</p>
<p>Other source:</p>
<p>[Nancy</a> Kerrigan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Kerrigan]Nancy”>Nancy Kerrigan - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I thought the ladies skating program last night was wonderful, and so happy NBC ran it without commercial interruptions. It would have nice to see it earlier.</p>
<p>Going in, I totally expected Kim Yu Na would win. She had “a look of confidence” about her that predicted the outcome. I enjoyed her program, but amazed by her score and how much it differed. I also thought Mirai Nagasu was terrific, but because Joannie had just captured our hearts (and the bronze), I was hoping Mirai Nagasu could wait four more years. That she is only 17 years old and could master that amount of pressure shows tremendous maturity. Now she just needs Kim Yu Na’s confidence. Guess that’s what happens when you have millions and millions of dollars in sponsorships.</p>
<p>I sure wish Plushenko would learn a thing or two about sportsmanship after seeing the ladies’ performances and results. The #2 ladies skater was the “first woman” to skate a triple-something in her performance. Accomplishing this feat didn’t result in her first place either, but she was gracious to the end.</p>