Did a great deal of Olympics watching this weekend. Woke up early on Saturday to watch the men's Super G. The first half of the field went down the slope but the event was postponed due to poor visability. That was a real pisser for Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin, the Frenchman who was leading the field prior to postponing the event. Many a skier far superior to Dalcin were coming in with times more than a second slower, which, in the world of skiing, is like fifteen minutes.
It is a little odd that Dalcin has a fan page; I didn't think skiers who ranked 38th in the world commanded that much affection. But who am I the judge. I had a fan page once, but I had to ask my mother to take it down -- it was making my sister jealous.
Anyway, when the weather cleared, the competition began again and Norway's Kjetil Andre Aamodt ended up winning, edging out Hermann Meier. After Dalcin failed to finish (he missed a gate) he flicked off the cameras. Classy. The French are just pissed of because they missed out on the 2012 Summer Olympics. Who ended up getting them? Oh yeah, I remember.
I managed to get in the entire biathlon, that heady mixture of skiing and advanced weaponry. Loyal readers will recall my lack of enthusiasm for the biathlon. The thing is, I enjoyed watching it. It was exciting and the shooting really did add that je nes sai qua (did I spell that correctly?) I didn't know, for instance, that every time the skier misses a target, he needs to ski once around a 150m loop. Miss three and you need to ski nearly half a kilometer to make up for your shooting deficiency.
Heading into the last loop, Vincent Defrasne was leading Norway's Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, because Bjoerndalen had missed three targets out of the first fifteen and Defrasne had been perfect. Bjoerndalen was catching up though, and the race became truly exciting when Defrasne missed two targets and had to ski an extra 300m. Bjoerndalen passed Defrasne on the last loop and led for much of the way into the stadium. When Defrasne made a move to pass Bjoerndalen, Defrasne stumbled and it looked as thought the athlete who led for the majority of the race would not be the winner. But Defrasne managed to regain his composure and ski past Bjoerndalen in the final fifty meters.
I also watched my fair share of Olympic curling, something that just seems to get better the more I watch it. The US team managed to kick to British ass, beating them 9-8, but the US lead the entire match, with the British playing catch-up for the final seven frames. Watching curling is kind of like watching a tennis match between Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova: there's a whole lotta grunting and sounds of a generally animalistic nature. That is how the shooter (s/he who throws the hammer) communicates with the sweepers (they who sweep the ice, thus melting it and slowing the rate of deceleration of the hammer). Yeah, that is all I have to say on that. I like the grunting.
Was a little disappointed today because the women's Super G was postponed until tomorrow because of th weather. That means I won't be able to watch it and the BBC has been crap about replaying these kinds of things. I'm also going to miss the men's giant slalom.
Fate has dealt me yet another cruel blow.
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