I was watching figure skating last night with my floor - I was really into the event in 98 and 02 when Michelle Kwan was in her heyday (apparently she goes to school just down the road from me. When we looked it up on Wikipedia, someone yelled, "ROADTRIP!") but I missed Torino and just got into this one after seeing Kim Yu-na's short performance online last night.
This was one of the best figure skating events I've ever seen. Definitely glad I sat through Nordic combined in order to make sure I didn't miss any of the performances. (Funny moment #2. One of my friends was commenting on how boring Nordic Combined look when this other guy comes by, and with his Georgia accent, goes, "I mean, they'd probably think your brief-writing was pretty boring too." Touche.) Kim Yu-na's (I have it on good authority that it's prononunced Yuh-na, as the Canadians do it, and not Yoo-na, as the Americans do it) performance was just absolutely breathtaking, and even though she went third, by the time she was done, it was like - ah well, I guess there's still two medals left.
I found out today that despite the fact that the women's free skate is 30 seconds shorter and 1 jump fewer than the men's, Kim would have gotten 9th had she competed in the men's bracket. If I was Pluschenko, I'd be more careful saying that the men and women should compete together. Also, I love her music choices - Wiki has her last 4 choreographed routines to Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, a James Bond Medley, and Gershwin's Concerto in F. Sick, dude.
The second great story was Joannie Rochette winning bronze less than a week after her mother passed away in Vancouver. Wonderful, wonderful story here. (Usually this is more something you'd find on SI rather than Yahoo, but even a blind squirrel can find a nut if he tries long enough, even if it is a slightly shorter nut). I don't want to add too much to this, but I just want to point out what Joannie Rochette did last night ("Stole the hearts of her nation,") is what Brett Favre tries to do on a weekly basis every time he insists on playing with half a hand and a quarter of a leg, except you can tell that she was doing it for her mother, her family, and her country, and he's doing it for himself.
Also, she won a medal and he threw away an interception to end his team's hope for one.
Finally, and I don't think this gets reported enough, especially with the media's obsession over the alleged Vonn-Mancuso snitfest, but do you get the feeling that Kim Yu-na and Mao Asada don't really like each other? I can't find a picture, but during the medal ceremony last night, Mao looked grumpy as all hell when Kim went over for the perfunctory hug. I'd be interested to know what that rivalry's been like since they've been going head to head since they were juniors (Comment from the peanut gallery during the medal ceremony: "I'm sure Kim loves Mao, because if that's her closest competitor and she whupped her by 23 points, then that just makes Kim look all that much better!")
Crazy fact: Kim Yu-na's entered 13 major events in the last 3 seasons, and has gotten 11 golds, a silver, and a bronze. The two times she has lost, Mao Asada has won that event. You think Mao, who has been the first woman to land 2 triple axels (apparently the hardest type of triple) in a free skate and 3 triple axels at one competition, is going to work on a quad before this year's Worlds?
Just some food for thought.
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