<p>Oh my goodness, I can’t help but not take this pair in the clown suits seriously! (I can’t stand this song!) They are skating well, but their expressions in those clown costumes at the beginning just seemed so wrong!</p>
<p>I really like the theatrical look and I love that song. It is a sad song though. I think they were so much more artistic and graceful than most of the other couples.</p>
<p>Finally a score I agree with.</p>
<p>I liked the German pair that just skated. i’ve enjoyed watching figure skating since Dorothy Hamill. And I don’t have to be embarrassed anymore about admitting it publicly!</p>
<p>I actually really enjoyed their performance (once I got over the clown outfits which I did not care for).</p>
<p>Re: the medals ceremonies…didn’t the medals used to be handed out immediately following the event? Why the presentation to yesterday’s winners today? Seems to lose a bit of the emotion.</p>
<p>And, while I’m at it…I used to LOVE being able to hear other nation’s anthems during the olympics. It seems like now we only hear The Star Spangled Banner.</p>
<p>p.s. Clown outfits…eeewww</p>
<p>Somemom thanks for your post I am a Canadian and agree that in general we have better coverage of all athletes from all countries not just our own. Earlier someone posted that they found the audio to be bad at the opening ceremonies and I believe part of that is because CTV is the host broadcaster and apparently the US and Canada broadcasters have slightly different digital standards and that may be a reason. My D is in college in upper New York State and gets a Canadian CTV network on TV but is really upset that they blocked foreign IP’s from getting it on the computer. She would like to watch it on her laptop and not disturb her room mate. I actually let her log onto my computer using crossloop so that she could get CTV.ca on my computer at home in Canada but watch it on hers in the States. Some of the things we do for our kids EH! (My Canadianism)</p>
<p>I really liked the clown skaters. :)</p>
<p>I don’t get why the medals ceremonies are being delayed a day, but I was moved by how moved the Americans were even a day later. I like when an athlete sings the national anthem, like the bronze medalist did.</p>
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<p>Not really. I have attended the (summer) Olympics in person, and even then the medals tend to be delayed for at least a couple of hours. And the ones won near the end of a day or session are delayed until the next day to make sure there is a large crowd on hand to cheer them instead of a bunch people rushing to the exits to beat the traffic. It only appears that they are being awarded right away thanks to the miracle of television.</p>
<p>The winter games have even greater reason to delay because many of the events are at tiny venues tucked up in the mountains many miles away. So they often have a main awards plaza set up in the central city where many of the medals are handed out. That way they can have a good crowd on hand, and they don’t meed to have duplicate recordings of all those national anthems available at all those far-flung locations.</p>
<p>The only medals that tend to get passed out “on the spot” are those earned in the last session of the last day of the entire games. There is no tomorrow to come back for in that case.</p>
<p>Percussion, one of my DDs lives in AB and found out just a bit too late to make it happen that she could have gone to hang out in North Van with college buddies- no events, just street lurking, but she is sorry to be missing it. They are there, but she hadn’t time to arrange to miss work :(</p>
<p>We used to watch the Canadian coverage on our big huge satellite dish in the early 90s, DD liked curling as a little kid and now she lives there!</p>
<p>I think I want to go to PetroCan and get a set of glasses ;)</p>
<p>Glasses? Those you wear, or drinking glasses? I’d grab a hockey one if they are drinking glasses of different sports. D came back with an Olympic hoodie after her games in Ontario this weekend - the design is pretty cool.</p>
<p>Looks like both the American and Canadian women were not challenged this weekend - they may be on a collision course but there are other teams to look out for as well…</p>
<p>I really liked the German figure skaters, even though I was prepared to hate them because of their costumes.</p>
<p>They are drinking glasses and they really are quite nice. One of our friends D is a little bit upset with what has happend to her in Vancouver. She is in first year at University of Vancouver and when she applied and was accepted they did not tell them that they would have to move out of Residence for the full weeks of the Olympics. Not just move your clothes but everything as the rooms were being turned over to some of the athletes. She is not impressed with having to empty her room and fly back to Ontario for the 2 weeks. She was hoping to take in the the street parties and such but with no place to stay she had to come home.</p>
<p>I didn’t get some of the judging either, but I have no experience at all. My sister is a gymnastics judge, and I know that for that sport, they are looking for very specific things that I wouldn’t have a clue about. The judging did seem odd, though. Folks who seemed to have near perfect routines rated lower than several with falls. I guess the judging has changed, since I think I remember seeing individual scores from the judges in the past. I didn’t see the 2006 Olympics - we were in Germany, and coverage via Internet was blocked outside the US. (The Germans didn’t have Internet coverage at all. I don’t know what they showed on TV, since we didn’t have one.)</p>
<p>I didn’t mind the clown costumes, and actually gave them points for their theatrical approach, rather than just doing a string of tricks. I like the song. I also liked that their costumes went together. Some of the pairs (such as both US pairs), the costumes didn’t even seem to go together. It seems that when you’re being judged on how much alike you are, the simplest thing to do is have costumes that match in color at least.</p>
<p>^^This is why in the Olympics I much prefer sports such as track and field or cross country skiing where the winners are determined objectively. No need to worry about “what the judges are looking for.” Just be the first across the line and you win. Figure skating, gymnastics, diving, etc. - all are riddled with judging errors and scandals every olympiad.</p>
<p>It seemed that the judging for figure skating factored in how good they were supposed to be rather than just the performance in that one short program. The pairs that were forecast to be at the top who fell and had several other problems were still at the top. Others who did better than expected were not rewarded for it. It was almost as though they went in seeded and the seeding was part of the score.</p>
<p>I think that the Olympic figure skating judges have figured out how to go back to their old corrupt ways, in spite of the new scoring system. The scoring system may seem new and complicated to us, but the judges have lived with it for a few years now. They have obviously figured out how to manipulate the numbers to give the win to whomever they choose.</p>
<p>^^When Pluschenko tried to bring it up, he got blasted and labeled a whiner.</p>
<p>Among the three Chinese couples, the current leaders clearly stood out. The other two looked too robotic to me. The “Russians” (Russo-Japanese?) and the “Germans” (???-Ukrainian?) were top-notch. The Ukrainian couple skated OK, although I think the girl will be much better off if she ditches her current partner and finds someone else with more grace and plasticity. Her current partner is just a support beam.</p>
<p>Notice that they did not show individual judging scores, just the total of each area…hmmm…they don’t like us paying too much attention. Every four years all teh inequities are pointed out by we laymen who just don’t understand!</p>
<p>Why does ski jumping have judging for form? After some one mentioned they are annoyed by the judged sports, I began paying attention. I think ski jumping out to be who goes the farthest, no matter what, land on any body part, just go the farthest and take judging out of it</p>
<p>Tonight is the Pairs free skate - which I think is more enjoyable than the short program. The short program is meant to be technical. They are required to perform certain elements and the scores is weighed heavily on how well they do that. There are mandatory deductions for failures on required elements. If you are not familiar with the precise way the jumps and lifts are to be performed then it’s difficult to understand the score.</p>
<p>And now there was a minor accident with Biden’s motorcade, slightly injuring Peggy Fleming and Vonetta Flowers. This has been an olympics with its share of challenges [Fleming</a> slightly hurt in Biden motorcade accident - 2010 Olympics - Yahoo! Sports](<a href=“Sports News, Scores, Fantasy Games - Yahoo Sports”>Sports News, Scores, Fantasy Games - Yahoo Sports) Hopefully things will go smoothly from here on out.</p>