Goodbye Scott & Sandra: Ladies Free Skate

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What a night.

We start out with Sandra pointing out the obvious with near-show-tune of the night: “It’s figure skating so of course we’re going to hear some Carmen tonight.”

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Rachael Flatt laid out a strong performance to Scott Hamilton’s delight: “She’s a rock, she’s so consistent… skates her best performance of the year!” Sandra went with declaring that “She’s really doing it… she has saved her best one for the Olympics games!” Unfortunately our eyes are once again scarred by her insistence of wearing dark taupey tights despite a pretty jazzy red costume. Even more unfortunately, our friendly commentators believe that Flatt may have been underscored; Scott again falls into great turns of phrase saying, “she didn’t get any slack from the collar tonight.” Flatt ended up in seventh position.

Mirai Nagasu on the other hand made it within sight of the podium with her interpretation of Carmen, landing herself in fourth place with another personal best. Before heading out onto the ice Nagasu was looking pretty grim before her coach told her, “Smile!” Scott was obviously super excited about all of her jumps shouting out the combinations: “double lutz, double lutz, double TOE!” He also noted that as compared to her performance at Nationals “every jump looked a little higher and a little bit tighter here… Everything about her is just quality.”

As for Sandra? ” Everything about her is just beautiful, pristine… She went out tonight and just nailed it, she did sparkle!”

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The best thing about Mirai is how stoked she was at the end with a big open grin, how thrilled she was with her final score and how excited she was later on to take a picture with Joannie Rochette. She’s just spunky; she says, “I don’t care about results, I just want people to know that I’m the future!” Spunktastic. Even Dick Button thinks that she is “a really spiffy young lady,” who deserves a medal. Plus her red and black sequined costume was the perfect accompaniment to Carmen, I mean, if you want to get sartorial about things.

Sartorially speaking about the inspirational Joannie Rochette, her costume features that awkward faux bare midriff situation with which I take issue. Miki Ando of Japan also had that going on with her Cleopatra program. Sigh.

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But back to business: Rochette managed the skate of her life just days after her mother unexpectedly passed away, “a kiss for her father, a performance for her mom.” Her story definitely became the emotional center of the women’s figure skating competition/ the whole Olympic games. Scott was especially emotional, choking up as he wondered how she could have persevered: “I’ve never seen such a super human determination… She went after everything, she was athletic, she was determined… it was just a wonderful thing to see… I’m so inspired by her performance.”  I personally teared up a few times and when her program was over I actually almost clapped in my living room. My hands actually twitched to life, something unique to her performance.

So how did she do it? Rochette spoke to Andrea Joyce afterwards and explained, “Ever since I’m young, my mom she was really a tough woman and she taught me that… it was really important to be… so she is happy where she is.”

Take a break, grab a tissue.

Next up Mao Asada who created history by landing not one but two triple axels in her free skate, in addition to one landed in her short program. Epic. Scott… back to you–

“What courage to come out after that [Kim Yu-Na] and to throw those jumps that she did!”
“I was so proud of the effort, of the courage.”

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It was very impressive. Mao is Kim’s closest rival and she totally threw down last night. And to top it off, she had a delightful costume that Molly described as “burlesque” in a way. Very old broadway or vaudeville or something, black and red, sequins, gloves, a choker– the works.

And finally… Kim Yu-Na, who “owns and operates the rule book.” Scott was so f’ing excited about this lady, saying “My heart just started beating a little faster,” as she came onto the ice. Really. She is amazing, fluid gliding and spinning over the ice which she covers so completely and with such graceful speed that Scott compared her to Apolo Ohno, oddly. From here on out, I just need to list some of the things that the commentators said, because it’s all just too much.

“Oh my goodness this is glorious! It’s one of the greatest Olympics performances I have ever seen!” ~Sandra

“Jumping to their feet, the coronation is complete, long live the queen!” ~Tom

“No one can walk a mile in those shoes!” ~Scott

“What was magical about the performance were the moments she took to focus into the audience and play with choreography and to feel relaxed.” ~Sandra

“To me, the crowd was just spellbound.” ~Tom

The quotation paradise of figure skating never ends. Never.

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Kim lost some of her legendary composure at the end of her skate, obviously well aware that she just broke the world record through the roof taking a 159.06 for the free skate and a composite of 228.56. The tears she spilled at the medal ceremony were apparently a complete surprise to her, being the first she has ever shed after a performance: “I was really happy that I did what I wanted to do.” “I think it was both [relief & joy].” This was the first figure skating medal for South Korea… lots of pressure.

And that’s the end of Olympian figure skating until Sochi 2014. I leave you with this tweet by short tracker J.R. Celski:

@celskeet i wonder if it would be harder to transition from speed skating to figure skating, or the other way around? i know for sure i can’t spin…

Things to ponder.

Giant Slalom Aftermath & Olympic Helmet Fashion

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In the aftermath of Wednesday’s awful Giant Slalom weather and the Vonn-Mancuso situation there were a lot of sound bites flying around regarding their relationship over the years and at present. Bottom line: the two are “polar opposite personalities,” and as the GS commentators pointed out: “that’s just one of the realities of  being on a national team” and of being lifelong competitors.

Vonn has her ‘I’m-1000x-more-intense-than-you’ attitude, embodied best by her pre-race visage, while Mancuso prefers a “don’t sweat the small stuff attitude.” The only thing scarier than Vonn’s game face huffs and glares is the legit roar that fellow teammate Sarah Schleper lets out just before heading out the gate.

After yesterday morning’s second run at 1:34.13 Mancuso was relaxed saying, “I’m not nervous cause it’s like a miracle, you know? It’s all I can do.” Unfortunately she ended up unable to reclaim her gold with an eight place finish but the run was a great comeback from the previous days trauma-drama. Plus, she had tickets to see the women’s figure skating free skate… so that’s pretty much a win, and her tweets throughout the evening were pretty positive.

Late night coverage aired a Bob Costas interview with Mancuso where she talked about the rarity of seeing a yellow flag in GS and how confusing that foggy day of first runs was. She also responded to her previous comments about Vonn getting all the attention and making it difficult for the achievements of other women on the team to be seen and appreciated: “I wold love to see our team just cheer for each other… and there are a bunch of other girls out there skiing really fast… not just me and Lindsey.” Of course such PR repairs are expected, but truly, Vonn’s crash did inadvertently ruin Mancuso’s chance for a fair first run and that’s just the truth and some bitterness was to be expected. Furthermore, Mancuso has a point… who are those other speedy skiing ladies, and why don’t we know any of them? Point.

To sum it up: “I was proud of my effort out there… these things happen. It was outside of my control to get a fair chance, but it really has been a great games, so I can be excited to go home like that.”

As for Sochi, 25-year-old Mancuso says we’ll see her there for a fourth games: “I love to ski.” And in the meantime, “I just remember how much fun it is to travel the world and ski and live my dream job.”

And I like that about her.

What else?

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Check out this link to NBC New York. They’ve put together a slide show of the most awesome helmets of the Vancouver 2010 games. Look for the beaver helmet, lots of skeleton designs, a few heinous americana hockey helmets and a creepy ‘I’m watching you’ specimen.

US Speed Skating & the Colbert Nation: “Kicking Ass & Mispronouncing Names”

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… said Stephen Colbert on his Tuesday night show. On Wednesday night he came to us from the Colbert Report ‘sports zeppelin.’

He has also presented an ace profile on himself as the Assistant Sport Psychologist to the US speed skating team by showing footage of his hilarious self diagnosing and then ‘helping’ out a few members of the team. I can’t help myself, I have to recap a few key moments of “Freud Rage: The Iceman Counselth.”

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1) Colbert gave Mitch Whitmore a “thigh five,” after talking Whitmore through dealing with his addiction to skating.

2) Lauren Cholewinski was told to imagine that Colbert had stuffed her suit full of meat and then let a pack of wild dogs out on the ice. “You are skating for your…?” “Country?” Wrong. The correct answer? “Life.”

3) Fredricks Tucker has a hard time with Colbert’s trust games since they involve getting poked in the eye, declaring “I don’t trust you!” to an incredulous Colbert.

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4) Tucker really wins with the funniest segment, agreeing to let Colbert brand him with a little Nation love by autographing his chest– his heart if you will– since at the Olympics athletes cannot wear any sponsorship labels.

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5) And to close the first of a two episode series profiling the antics of this wayward assistant sports psychologist, Colbert had a serious conversation about racing strategy with Tucker’s glutes. And remember, “You’re gonna feel like giving up, but don’t– you’re not just any ass, you’re an Olympic ass, remember that.”

Part two of the exposé featured a team pep talk involving such motivators as: “Your self worth is riding on what you do here.”

Shani Davis also made a an appearance via fireplace satellite where he admitted that “If [Stephen] were there in my 1500 m race I probably would have won the gold [instead of the silver].”  Is there a true reconciliation in the works?!

Earlier in the week Bob Costas had jokingly confirmed with Colbert that “animosity really fueled [Shani].” On last night’s show Colbert admitted that “Shani prefers that I do most of my coaching from the stands.”

But don’t worry kids, the boys have made up. Shani presented his medals to the Colbert Nation: “This one is also for Stephen Colbert and the Colbert Nation, thank you so much.” I’m glad your PR person is doing their job Shani.

And for old times sake? “Stephen, you’re a jerk,” with a south side smile on his face. What is a south side smile? It’s something that I made up, which I am allowed to do since I too am from the south side of Chicago. And it’s my blog. So there.

That’s Not Very Canadian of You!

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That famed Canadian politesse suffered a breakdown last night. I for one was shocked, having been taught that Canadians are such nice folk. Perhaps that whole Stephen Colbert ice-hole situation should have tipped me off for such a breach.

The hometown crowd at the men’s ski aerials went berserk after Kyle Nissen failed to score high enough to reach the podium. There was booing and howling, the aura of the crowd went black with anger and disappointment.

Colbert said it best: “Canada is in le dumps.”

Poor Canada, that whole “Own the Podium” is just not working out for you.