Olympic Opines

Alpine Skiing - Women's Super Combined:

• A definition since I didn't know what this was at first. Super Combined is one run downhill and one run slalom with the times added together to determine the winner.
• The 2 American medalists from the downhill, Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso, were back to try for a second medal.
• Lindsey rocked the downhill again and Julia was also in medal contention again. Go USA!
• Unfortunately, Lindsey caught her ski tip on a slalom pole and wiped out.
• Julia was able to ski a clean slalom and won her second medal AND became the most decorated U.S. female alpine skier ever!

Snowboarding - Women's Half Pipe:

• After watching the men, I felt like this event would not be as exciting since the women do not perform skills as difficult as the men but I was pleasantly surprised.
• Even though they did not medal, the Chinese were unexpectedly good. Perhaps this is due to the face the Chinese generally do well at acrobatics.
• Thought it was cool that an Australian got the gold and she deserved it!
• There were a LOT of falls, more than I would expect at the Olympics. But, pressure did work for one American, Hannah Teter. In an interview, she said she fell on all her practice runs. However, she stayed upright for both her competition runs and won the silver!
• The U.S. got silver and bronze. Silver went to the 2006 Olympic champion and bronze to the 2002 Olympic champion!

Figure Skating - Men's Long Program:

• Glad to see the U.S. National Champ redeem himself a bit. Had a shaky start but got better as his program went along and was able to move himself from 15th after the short program to 9th.
• Florent Amodio (Brazilian born French skater) is just really unique and fun and entertaining to watch, I'm looking forward to seeing him skate in the future and hope he continues to improve.
• USA and Japan are definitely the best in the world right now. All 3 skaters from both countries finished in the top 10 and 1 from each medaled! And all of this included a meltdown, a few falls, and a skate lace coming undone in the middle of a program!
• The Russian jumping bean did his thing and jumped but had several shaky landings that I think cost him the gold. I hate to say I'm glad he didn't win but really his overall program just did not have the same artistic, quality, and "it" factor that I think a winner should possess. I have read some interesting interviews from him and his coach about the progress of figure skating and I just don't agree with them. Figure skating is about more than just jumping.
• I'd heard that Johnny Weir said he knew he couldn't win because he didn't have enough points in his program but I almost wish he could have medaled because he did so awesomely well.
• Evan Lysacek! If the Olympics ended now, I'd be happy! I've had my Olympic moment where everything happened like I'd hoped it would. It was so awesome to see hard work pay off and everything come together when it counted. Yay Evan and go USA!