Tight competition, broken records, history-making performances, a heartbreaking passing, and commentator drama have made for many news stories in the past week. But let's start from the beginning.
Pairs short program and free skate:
Image from zimbio.com
China's husband and wife duo Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo celebrated Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year by beating their own world best in the short program. The next day they nailed their free skate, giving China their first-ever Olympic figure skating title.
Mens short program and free skate:
After a rather disappointing showing of short programs, which included a shaky short program by the even-adorable Canadian skater Patrick Chan, three men skated solid programs, setting up a race for gold.
2006 Olympic champion, Russian Evgeny Plushenko, was first after the short program, but America's Evan Lysacek and Japan's Daisuke Takahashi finished less than one point back.
Image from blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com
But in the free skate, Lysacek proved that the quad does not conquer all. The American opted for a safe, quad-free performance, but was otherwise error-free and delivered a well-skated artistic performance with solid footwork to defeat Plushenko, who completed a quad-triple combination, by 1.31 points.
But another American skater has been rudely shoved into the centre of contraversy. A gay rights group has lodged a formal complaint against two French-language broadcasters in Quebec for comments made about American figure skater Johnny Weir.
Image from silverjacket.typepad.com
The broadcasters said that the ever-flamboyant, never-holds-back Weir hurt figure skating's image and should be made to take a gender test - a ridiculous and extremely homophobic accusation about a skater who has never clarified his sexual orientation, arguing that it was a private matter.
Weir has not commented on the comments, but U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said, "the comment is so inappropriate that we will not even justify it with a response".
Ice Dancing compulsory dance, original dance, and free dance:
Russian ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin 1.02 lead over Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir after the compulsory dance, but their controversial Aboriginal-themed original dance failed to impress, even though they toned down their costumes, which offended Australian Aboriginal elders earlier this season.
Image from thestandard.com.hk
Virtue and Moir led by 2.60 points over their training partners, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
After Davis and White delivered a flawless and captivating performance set to music from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera", Virtue and Moir needed a good skate.
But they came through, skating a beautiful and moving performance for the gold, making them Canada's first-ever gold medal winners in ice dance and the youngest Olympic ice dancing winners ever.
Womens short program:
A great night for the girls tonight. Mao Asada became only the second female to land a triple axel at the Olympics. Then the next skater, Korea's Kim Yu-Na, the heavy favourite for gold, set a world best score for her short program.
But the night belonged to Joannie Rochette whose heartbreaking story made her the emotional favourite. Her mother, 55-year-old Therese Rochette, passed away overnight on Saturday. A heart-broken Joannie, 24, was informed early Sunday morning, two days before she was to skate her short program.
No one would have blamed Rochette, Canada's hope for a medal in the womens competition, for pulling out. But Joannie skated tonight.
And skated cleanly. She nailed all of her elements and added some Spanish flair to her tango-themed piece. She sits in third heading into the free skate.
But some things are more important than medals. And I think everyone watching her performance understood, as Rochette burst into tears at the end of her performance. I doubt their was a dry eye in the rink - there certainly wasn't on my futon. Good luck to Joannie.
Image from cbc.ca
Despite all the stories figure skating has given us the past few weeks, Joannie's is the most gripping and inspirational.
I haven't been this excited about figure skating since I was about 8 and the big names were Elvis Stojko and Nancy Kerrigan.
ReplyDeleteThere have been so many great moments in Vancouver and Joannie's performance tonight was incredibly moving.