Today was my first day off since I started working the media venue at Whistler Olympic Park, and as a result of the fact that I slept maybe 14 hours in some four days, I deserved a bit of a break. So today was a bit of a maintenance day for me to simply unwind a little. I cleaned up my suitcase (and promptly made a mess of it again by going through two outfits today), skated for two hours at Meadows Park Sports Centre and of course, watched plenty of Olympic coverage.
Here's the news as it happened for me today in Winter Olympic world:
Biathalon - Men's 10k Sprint
I didn't follow the entire event. In fact, I only stayed long enough to see Canadian Jean-Philippe Le Guellec nail all of his targets in the first shooting portion, and Vincent Jay finish in first. The weather went crazy up there. There was snow, sleet and rain all within a span of 30 minutes after blue skies only hours ago. But that's Whistler Olympic Park for you.
Jean-Philippe Le Guellec helps Canada finish in 6th in the event as the event featured several surprises, including a win by Vincent Jay of France, who is actually ranked 20th in the world. As a result, I could not help but feel that weather severely impacted the outcome, as many of those athletes that were first out of the gate had better results than those that came later.
Speed-skating - Ladies 3000m
I was skating at Whistler's Meadows Park Sports Centre when this race took place. There was a large flat-screen in the lounge area where you put on your skates and warm up, so I actually pulled myself off the ice surface in order to watch Cindy Klassen, Kristina Groves and Clara Hughes all make a run for the podium with a number of other interested spectators.
The biggest reaction was when Hughes was pushed off the podium and Groves secured the bronze medal. A lot of people really seemed to respect Hughes and found more dissapointment in the fact she barely missed out on a medal.
Luge - Men's
I watched the top men take the hill while video conferencing with the boyfriend, talking about the track suits among other things. Canada finishes with its highest result in Luge in years with a 7th place finish by Sam Edey at the Whistler Sliding Centre. Two Germans topped the podium with gold and silver in this event - the champion being the youngest ever to win this event.
Pairs Figure-skating Short Program
Watched it over dinner. I'm with David Pellitier on one of his comments. Hays and Langois had what can be considered to be a flawless performance, while Dube and Davidson had a fall on a jump (I think it was a Lutz) and a number of other technical flaws, and yet the judges felt that Dube and Davidson had a better performance, enough that they were above Langois and Hays? I'd like to see their justification there.
And I also agree on another point - the Ukrainian's "Avatar" style jumpsuits, while appropriate for the style of music was just too utterly gaudy for this sport. Yes, there is a limit to how badly you can dress in figure-skating.
It was also really great to see Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo back at it on the ice. Absolutely one of my favourite pairs group.
Men's Moguls
I was so busy watching figure-skating that by the time I switched to CTV, they already had a "Canada has its first gold medal on home soil" commercial on repeat. Yes, I'm one of the roughly 20 million people that did not watch that race live.
Although to be honest, since then, I've seen that race more times than I care to remember. CTV's been milking that story and have been running it non-stop since it happened.
I didn't really buy into the whole "Canada must win gold" hype, though I did want it to happen. More because it is a bit of an embarrassing legacy, but really, it's so that the press would shut up about it. And this medal is a lot less enjoyable when you have to explain it to those who don't necessarily follow sports why it's "so important" in the media. Their facial expression says it all after I explain it, in that it still reads "why is it such a big deal?"
I still cried happy tears when it happened though. More because they showed his brother who was celebrating his younger brother's achievement. And really, my joy was more for him and his family than whatever it means to Canada.
But whatever I think, there's no denying the fact that Alexandre Bilodeau will go down in Canadian Olympic history and justified or not, will be one of Canada's most famous and storied athletes now.
Certainly was a good day to be Canadian yesterday.
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