Morning links, Day 15

One last Olympic weekend. The links:

The Canadian women, after playing a couple of in-camera exhibition games to keep sharp during these Olympics, won the gold in a tight one against the U.S. From Paul Hunter's report:

Twice after checking into the athletes’ village, they sneaked out under the guise of going to “the aquarium.”
Instead, the women played exhibition games against the Vancouver North West Giants, one of the country’s top major midget teams, winning one and losing one against the teenaged boys. They went once the night before opening ceremonies and again after the preliminary games, three outings they waltzed through by a cumulative score of 41-2.
Word never leaked out, so single-minded and united were the women in their purpose.
“We had to stay sharp,” said coach Melody Davidson. “We were winning 18-0, 13-1. We needed to stay sharp.”

But a couple of things are bugging the IOC. First, Jacques Rogge, who drops in on these gold medal women's finals once every four years or so, was hinting yesterday that the field has to get deeper. Or else. As Cam Cole notes in the Vancouver Sun, they're almost too good, these two teams – or more accurately, the rest of the world has remained too far behind:

After hearing IOC president Jacques Rogge's words of warning Thursday — coming, pointedly, on the morning of the championship game — you could not watch the sport's fiercest battle unfold without wondering how many more of these predictable climaxes to anti-climactic Olympic tournaments will be tolerated before the IOC throws up its hands and tosses women's hockey on the same discard pile that cost women's softball its place in the five-ring circus after the 2008 Beijing Games.

And oh, about that victory celebration – beer, champagne and cigars, at centre ice a half hour after the game – the IOC is none too pleased about that, as well:

Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said the COC had not provided the alcohol nor initiated the party.
"In terms of the actual celebration, it's not exactly something uncommon in Canada," he said, referring to raucous locker-room celebrations that are a tradition in some professional team sports.
"If these athletes were of legal age, then it's not something that's against the law," he said. "We can understand there's a lot of sensitivity around celebrations."

Joannie Rochette finished up the most trying week of her life last night with class, dignity and a bronze medal around her neck. From Rosie DiManno's report:

This was a different Rochette than the skater whose career has been documented by national and international media for the past half-dozen years. Where once she was emotionally fragile, her cluttered mind often overtaking muscle-memory so that stumbles occurred in front of judges, the body torqued by psychological stress, Rochette has suddenly evolved into a skater of internal resilience and external poise.
But, oh, what a horrible way to arrive at this competitive composure: The discovery that, residing in her soul all along was this tough cookie who could rise to the Olympic challenge in what has been the worst week of her life.

As for the overwhelming winner, Yu-Na Kim, the most telling quote of the night probably came from skating analyst Jamie McGrigor, in Phil Hersh's Chicago Tribune report: "If this was track and field, we just watched an eight-second 100 metres."

As for Brian Orser, the coach who trains Kim out of Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club, the cameras caught him doing aerobics along with her as he followed her along. Here's Orser's assessment, from Cam Cole's Vancouver Sun column:

 

"She didn't miss a step, from what I could see from my side. She was skating with her heart. I just wanted her to have an Olympic moment. I wanted it to be Olympic and not cautious, not hold back, just go out and embrace the space, and the Olympic Games."

Elvis Stojko explains Virtue, Moir and the wisdom of figure skating crowds

No morning links today - Instead, a little something out of last night's Ice Dance, where Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won Canada's fifth gold of these Games in a stirring performance capped by a rousing O Canada at the medals ceremony from the crowd of 11,667. Pick it up, though, well before that moment:

The French pair of Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder were rolling along to that rockin' old standard, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, when it abruptly went all fromage. Delobel, wearing a rather demure black dress, stopped and fluidly peeled down the top to reveal the latest in silver-sequin underclothes. Schoenfelder did a Swayze hip shake and I swore, during an ensuing move, he snuck a grab at her breast. This had wardrobe malfunction written all over it. This was good stuff. This was ice dance at its, um, finest.

Virtue and Moir meet the Canadian media in the mixed zone moments after receiving their gold medals.

 “Cheese,” I said to my seatmate.

“Sometimes the cheese works,” he answered back.

It's not often you get those kind of words to live by sitting in the press tribune, tweeting live to an audience of silicon crickets. But that was no ordinary seatmate I had at the Pacific Coliseum last night. It was Elvis Stojko, Richmond Hill's finest of bladesmen, who by pure chance happened by and settled in as the Ice Dance program got underway.

Stojko has a gig here with Yahoo! Sports. And he's doing it quite well. His dissection of the Plushenko-Lysacek men's either-or last week (and the blowback) landed him firmly in the Plushenko camp, minus the flouncing and hissy-fittin' with which the quad-jumping real man Russian greeted Lysacek's gold and his own diminishment by these new standards of figure skating.

Count Elvis old school, then - no surprise in that, because it's been said before. Sitting there watching a night's competition while he attended to his work, and a takeaway container of beef lo mein, we didn't actually exchange a lot of words. What he did say, though, wasn't about twizzles or straight lifts or the debate between jumps and spins – it was all about the audience. Sure, Delobel and Schoenfelder were a hoot. But Stojko knew before they finished: The cheese works. When the marks came in, they were on top and only the final six remained. They eventually finished a decent sixth.

Why does the cheese work? “The crowd gets into it, they want to be entertained and that's what that is. It's not a bad thing to throw out there,” he said.

Here's Stojko, again on Lysacek: “You knew in the building. When Lysacek finished, there was no reaction. Until he put up his fist and said yes! they didn't react at all. He had skated a pretty good program but it had no...”

“Flair?”

“Exactly.”

It was the same theme when the subject of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir came up. “They've got the crowd on their side. If they can make that connection, they can do it,” he said before they went out and slayed it. I'm taking him a little out of context there – he talked about them needing to be “magical” on both sides of that quote, but it was in relation to the crowd and not technique. And here I thought, as a complete newbie, that it was about technique. That's what they go on about on TV, anyway.

When Virtue and Moir took to the ice last night, they got a thunderous ovation. After they completed a nearly flawless programme to even bigger huzzahs, it was left to the Russian pair of Domnina and Shabalin to try and deny the Canadians a gold – and they skated well, but got no help from the crowd. It was nearly silent in the old barn. They never connected. They probably never had a chance to connect.

Say what you will about Ice Dance. It's corny and it's kitschy. Some people don't even think it belongs in the sports category. But the people out there on the ice in the giggle-inducing outfits – Virtue and Moir were among the exceptions there, looking like they were going to an upscale mall – are certainly elite athletes, alone, exposed and thrown into sharp relief by the brilliant white ice. For them, as it was for Stojko in his day, it's like what Sandra Bernhard once said to her dear devoted followers – without you, I'm nothing.

Related: Rosie DiManno on a historic gold for ice dancers.

Elvis Stojko on No scoring controversy: Canada deserved gold.

Morning links, Day 11

At 2 p.m. Eastern today, we'll be doing another one of those live hockey flagellations chat sessions here at the blog, Damien Cox and Paul Hunter joining me, at least in the digital sense. Do drop in, and bring your best. On to the links:

Still on the hockey for a bit, and with that chat in mind, the U.S. men are now 3-0. Repeat: 3-0. Best record in this Olympic men's hockey tournament (not good enough for NBC's main network, mind you). And - they're coached by Ron Wilson (that sound you hear is Leafs Nation doing a Danny Thomas with their morning coffee). More to the point, they're backstopped - and carried - by Ryan Miller. Now what to do with the Canadian goaltending? Roberto Luongo will surely get the assignment Tuesday against Germany (in a qualification game). Beyond that, Michael Farber at SI.com says that's the last we'll see here of Martin Brodeur, with yesterday's 5-3 U.S. win meaning Canada suddenly has a long road ahead - or perhaps it's not going to be long at all:

When -- if? -- Canada plays Russia, Brodeur likely will be the best goalie ever to open and close a bench gate. Coach Mike Babcock was circumspect about the identity of his goalie against Germany. Dipping into football-coach mode, Babcock, the straightest of straight shooters, said he would have to look at the videotape on Sunday night. This probably won't flatter Brodeur, who couldn't look worse in slo-mo than he did in real time against the swift and feral Americans, who beat Canada in the Olympics for the first time since 1960.

And I loved this Reuters report of the game, obviously pitched at readers for whom hockey is a foreign country:

To the uninitiated, ice hockey looks more like ultimate fighting with skates and sticks than a healthy pastime to trim the tummy in winter.
The competitors may have the ability to glide across the frozen surface as gracefully as the cast members from Disney on Ice but they prefer to use their blades for less aesthetic purposes.
They zigzag across the ice sheet from one collision to another, crashing into each other with all the sinister intentions of a wild rhino.

Wild rhinos and ice sheets? That's our game!

If you didn't manage to stay up for it, Cheryl Bernard's Canada rink finally was taken down last night, by the reigning world champion China in the most anticipated meeting of the first round - Bingo for Bingyu, as the China Daily headline reads.

Still on curling, Kevin Martin's unbeaten men's team is into Thursday's semifinals. Martin's team faces the U.S. (noon Eastern) and the Americans have looked to an unlikely curling fan and motivator: Carl Lewis.

After an overnight, speed-skater Denny Morrison took the blame for his post-race comments on Saturday:

There should be no mistake: I put all the blame on my shoulders. What I was doing was looking for answers. The answer was I wasn’t skating well technically. I didn’t skate the race I should have at the end. I just finished my race. I was emotional. ... I guess it came across like I was pointing fingers. But the fact is I didn’t get it done.”

And finally, on a day billed (incessantly) as super Sunday there was genuine tragedy as Joannie Rochette's mother Therese died of a heart attack after arriving here on Saturday. In all this competition in the arena and the bonhommie on the streets, here was a reminder how precious and fleeting these moments are. Rochette will compete in the women's skating starting tomorrow. The Canadian figure skating team, a tight bunch, have rallied around her, starting with the Ice Dance pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Virtue-Moir nailed their flamenco routine last night, and go into tonight's free dance final with a commanding lead. Beyond winning and losing, though, and however it works out on the ice, the whole country sends along its sympathy to Ms Rochette. 

Morning links, Day 10

Not your usual Morning Links, but hey, it's Sunday and think of it as a break from the usual roundup of Korean TV commercials featuring Brian Orser.

About last night - at Richmond Olympic Oval, where some remarkable back and forth came out of the Canada camp following Denny Morrison's disappointing ninth-place finish in the 1500m (pictured), following on his demoralizing 13th-place finish in the 1000m, which made for a - can we think of a third synonym here? - let's just say a downer of a night for the Maple Leaf. Randy Starkman's report is excellent, and makes for the kind of reading that should make Own the Podium officials choke on their Bran Flakes. Again. The contrasting post-race talk out of the winner's camp and their Canadian counterparts points to if not some solid explanations, then at least a case study in how and how not to stick with the programme approaching the Olympic Games.

First, from Morrison, who made the remarkable admission that he gave up in a training session the day before, or as he said, "put on quite a show". Not good, that:

“I don’t know, in the last lap, you saw I just lost all my speed. I basically exploded is the term. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying hard, it wasn’t that I gave up. I wasn’t putting it technically in the ice the way I should have been.
“That’s something that for whatever reason I’ve lost the last 12 or 15 months. It’s kind frustrating to be getting closer and closer to the Olympics and knowing I’m skating poorer and poorer, especially when I get tired.”

Morrison went on to say he was affected by Own the Podium rules splitting up his training relationship with American star Shani Davis, but that began three years ago and these are issues that should have been put to bed long before this point. 

Here's coach Marcel Lacroix, absolving himself:

"The program was giving him what he needed for the last three years,” said Lacroix. “He got a world record with his technique in the program. He was the silver medalist in the world championship last year in the 1,000. Bronze medallist in the 1,500 metres. So, what? Before it was working? Now it’s not working? Now it’s the program?”

Lacroix went on to describe Morrison as being lost, in Randy's words - I wasn't there, having gone on Shani Davis duty - a vague term that suggests more questions than it answers.  

So what's this all about?

It's easy, and almost always wrong, to point the finger solely at an athlete when performance doesn't peak. Even a recreational athletes understand the value of a good, consistent and well-thought-out programme for the best chance of hitting the optimal result on the day. In the case of an elite athlete and support staff, where hundredths of a second figure in the outcome, even minor details can be significant. Lacroix doesn't think missed workouts or a poor taper, say, are the culprit. I'm no expert in this sport, but I can't see how training couldn't have played a part. 

But here's something to consider: On the clock, anyway, Morrison's 1500 time Saturday night (1:46.93) was actually better than the 1:47.05 he finished third with last year in Richmond's test event, the world single-distance championships (his 1000m last week, which he took responsibility for, was 1.3 seconds slower than that time). 

Last night's winner, 29-year-old Dutchman Mark Tuitert, was a surprise to finish on the podium, let alone defeat the heavy favourite Shani Davis (in winning, Tuitert was almost two seconds faster than in 2009 at Richmond, a huge leap). Tuitert has ability - he was the Euro champion in 2004, a long time ago, but bad luck (his pro team's sponsor, the Dutch bank DSB went bankrupt in October - yes, that's the same one that backed the U.S. team; an ad agency jumped in to back Tuitert's team, while Stephen Colbert rescued the Americans) sickness (a debilitating mono eight years ago) and close losses have bounced him around some. The Dutch I talked to after in the MPC and out in the streets were stunned by his showing. 

Here's Tuitert, on the programme that got him here (my italics added):

The last eight years I didn't win much in the 1500. I was really good - two times second in the world championships - but what can I say? I always had the confidence that I would be able to win the 1500 in a big competition, whether it's the world championships or the Olympic championships. Every training I did last year was with that in mind, with that confidence. This year didn't come out that way, but I kept training. We devised a plan together with our staff and Jac Orie, the coach, a plan from many years back and we have had a lot of lost races the last two years ... but the last couple of weeks it came together and I felt good. This was the first time I really felt like I was holding back in training. I haven't felt like this in years. This is what I've trained for. The programme we designed worked. It's so rewarding to see it come together on this day."

Quality training = result. No high-priced sports psychologists or CO2 tracking or state-of-the-art training ground can paper over that essential. Tuitert will be back as part of the Dutch pursuit team, reprising a role that landed him and his mates a bronze medal in Turin four years ago. The Canadians will be in that pursuit race, too. They talked bravely last night of turning it around like they have at World Cups - only, this ain't the World Cup.  

Whew. On to the links (Finally!):

Kevin Martin is a perfect 6-0 in men's curling, and was inspired Saturday in a tense encounter against Britain by a crowd that spontaneously burst into O Canada when the game came down to the last rocks.

French-language RDS commentators have been slapped for making stale Johnny Weir references. JABS (RIP) blogging buddy Neate Sager wants a moratorium on Weir sniggering - hear, hear. Perhaps they were just listening to these guys.

Morning links, Day 9

The Canadian Olympic commissioners will give their midway point address in Vancouver this weekend, but we got a peak at the script on Friday: Canada won't finish on top. Other nations, though, are rolling on ahead of projections, and forget about Marcel Aubut's confident chest-beating of a week ago, or the Own the Podium™ mantra.

Yes, the United States and Germany have exceeded expectations. And just a couple of days after they were up in arms - imagine a national media moaning about lack of medals - Norway is scaring with a lot more than those curling pants. 

That all seems pretty far away stuff, though, at ground zero. The streets of downtown Vancouver have filled up and look like Times Square on New Year's Eve with a coat of red paint dumped all over everyone. It's all laughing and red-mitten high fives. Inside Smiley's Public House on Pender on Friday night, everyone was a skeleton expert, even the guy crying out "Go Jeff, C'mon Jeff!" as Jon Montgomery bulleted around the track to the top of the podium. 

So where do we go from here? Five questions to ponder, as these Olympics reach middle age:

Can Denny Morrison stop Shani Davis? The two - one Canadian, one American - are training partners, but in Saturday's 1500m speed skate they will face one another in one of the top events of the weekend. Davis has been posting "Shani on Shani" video updates outlining his approach and his fears, like this one after winning the 1000m:

Are you ready for Yu-Na Kim? South Korea's biggest sports star was due to arrive on Friday from Toronto, her training home, with former Canadian Olympian Brian Orser the mentor leading her into Tuesday's opening of the women's figure skating. Yu-Na will be a major star here, but back in South Korea the hype machine is already working her, including for laughs:

What's this - a kinder, gentler Stephen Colbert? Departing Vancouver, Colbert had this to say on syrup-suckers lapping up his act: "The Canadian people, God bless 'em. They get the joke." 

Will Evgeni Plushenko please shut up?

Which of Cindy Klassen, Christine Nesbitt and Kristina Groves will shine brightest on Sunday? The women's 1500m might well be the best single event of these Olympics in terms of quality CanCon. Nesbitt has a gold already, Groves a bronze, and remember 2006? Sure you do.

Weekend links: Olympic narcolepsy, Elvis and Steve Nash

Olympic narcoleptic. Randy Risling/Toronto Star

The Urban Dictionary defines Olympic narcolepsy as "the sensation you get that you will abruptly fall asleep at any moment during the day due to trying to watch as much of the Olympics as you can the night prior, causing you to stay up way too late." But the good people at UD don't go far enough. The moguls, the medals, Twitter updates, that Galen Weston commercial - it's a river of gush that matches the meltwaters flowing into the Burrard Inlet here in Canada's sunny subtropics. And we're only halfway though.

Here's some links to send you into the weekend, and please, as we mentioned on the live chat today, try not to keep any sharp objects lying around on Sunday when the Canadian Yzermen meet the American Burkies with hockey angst on the line, if not a medal (that comes later but the angst, it never leaves - is there a definition for hockey narcolepsy? Someone has to make one):

Here's Elvis Stojko, about as rock-solid as the Canadian Shield, delivering thumbs-down on Thursday's men's figure skating champion:

Sorry, Evan Lysacek.
You’re a great skater and all.
But that wasn’t Olympic champion material.
How can you be Olympic champion when you don’t even try the quad? If you’re going to take the quad out, why not take out another triple axel and just have more of the other stuff so the International Skating Union can make it more into an “art” recital. In Thursday night’s men’s free skate, Lysacek skated slow and his jumps weren’t close to the technical ability of defending Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko.

In Moscow, meanwhile, they're saying "Heads will Roll" if the country doesn't pick it up, from Vladimir Putin to the Moscow Times.

In the U.S. (and on tape delay on NBC), in the halls of VANOC and CTV, they're singing: The Olympics beat American Idol.

At thestar.com's fine photoblog, Randy Risling has a post on the unsung hero of Team Star here: all-rounder Jim Byers.

And finally, here's Steve Nash, making a pitch to join Team Canada (via Fourth-Place Medal):

Morning links, Day 8: We've been Plushenko'd!

So, apart from that, what did you think of the competition, Mr. Plushenko?

If nothing else, this Evgeni Plushenko never leaves you wanting for more. Perhaps his coaches do, as they whine about the judging, or the pair of Russian media types who fled the media centre immediately after the men's free skate ended, looking like they were escaping a burning building. It was that kind of an epic night at the House that Orland Kurtenbach Built, Team America's Evan Lysacek coming out a shade ahead on the judges' scorecards for superior style ahead of Plushenko's staggering hubris, or some such thing. Somebody threw a figure skating jamboree, and it wasn't quite a Cold War that broke out - more like a lukewarm hissy fit. Perfect!

"I was positive that I had won," said Plushenko. "But I suppose Evan needs a medal more than I. Maybe it's because I already have one. Two silver, one Olympic gold. That's not too bad."

Plushenko said it and more through an interpreter, while Lysacek stared straight ahead, after arriving 10 minutes or so late for the press conference, and well before he exited by turning to the press officer in charge and asking "Can I leave?" in English, and when she nodded yes, it was "thank you very much" and he was outta there. In Vancouver2010speak, he disowned the podium. 

It was wonderful stuff, and these tired eyes haven't seen its essential equal in diva-ness since Bulgarian soccer  Hristo Stoichkov sat outside his team's press conference in Princeton, N.J., during the World Cup, declining an audience with the media rabble to balance two blondes while he yakked into a ca.1994 cellphone that looked like a murder weapon. 

I don't pretend to know anything about figure skating, except that I would never risk so much as a mind bet on its outcome. Meantime, here's your all figure-skating morning links, in honour of Messrs. Plushenko and Lysacek. Let's do it all over again in Sochi in four years, shall we, fellas?

Coach: Plushenko was "robbed" (Yahoo! Sports)

Plushenko will continue competing (ESPN.com)

Searching for Plushenko (Twitter)

Figure Skating for Dummies

Morning links, Day 7

Happy (belated) b-day, Marianne St-Gelais, her silver in last night's women's 500m short-track event coming on her 20th birthday. St-Gelais is the youngest member of Canada's short-track team, and the country's youngest medalist at these Games so far. A surprise to some, perhaps, but not so much to her teammates, as this April 2009 Montreal Gazette report shows:

Only 16 at the time, St-Gelais was about to embark in the A final of the 500 metres in a Canadian elite series event when national team veteran Anne Maltais - 10 years her elder - skated over and said: "Don't take off too quickly, we'd like to try and keep up."

Shaun White, last night's emphatic halfpipe gold medalist, has been doing this snowboard thing for a long time. Here's the erstwhile Flying Tomato, ca. 1994 (HT to Yahoo!'s excellent Fourth-Place Medal blog):

On a big day for the U.S. yesterday, who looked most impressive - White, Lindsey Vonn or speed skater Shani Davis? I'd go with Vonn on her strong downhill over a course that everyone was having trouble with: "The pressure, for me, is gone. I got exactly what I came here to get. That was a gold medal and everyone expected me to get it, but it’s not as easy as just saying, ‘You can do it.’"

Teemu Selanne, who will meet up with fellow puck silverback Peter Forsberg in Sunday night's finale to the group games here, tied the Olympic scoring record with an assist in the Finns' 5-1 win over Belarus yesterday: "Nobody expects us to challenge the big teams, but you never know. We all come from the same league and drink the same beer."

Johnny Weir says he's planning a tell-all book, but really, what's left to tell? Here's Weir, telling People how he handled nerves before Tuesday's men's short programme: "I Pledged [as in Lemon Pledge] everything in my room. Some people eat, some people drink – but I Pledge everything." 

And colleague Randy Starkman, who's been carrying around Flat Stanley for so many of these Olympic things it's no wonder he's so skinny, landed no ordinary Olympian in the frame yesterday - Eric Heiden, and just so you know, Tuesday it the 30th anniversary of Heiden's gold-medal sweep at Lake Placid:

 

Morning links, Day 6

All hail Maelle Ricker, and as emphatic a gold-medal performance as has been seen at these Games. Ms Ricker is a local success story - born in North Van, raised next door in Seymour and now living in Squamish. Four years ago in Turin she was airlifted off the course and missed the podium in a race best recalled for Lindsay Jacobellis' moment of tomfoolery. Yesterday Ricker was the most comfortable of winners and Jacobellis failed to reach the final. 

Today the women's downhill is up at Whistler, and Lindsey Vonn, helped along by the most overhyped medicine since the swine flu shot, finally gets her chance to perform - on tape delay at home, maybe, where in the age of Twitter NBC is standing firm while taking a bollocking for its packaged, hours-later coverage.

Evgeni Plushenko stomped it in the men's short programme, then finished with a sword foil stab move that was aimed straight into the hearts of the rest of the field. It's close, but I'm betting he gets the gold in Thursday's skate-off, and prepare for a memorable flourish and perhaps some vintage kiss-off line from one of sport's prima divas.

On the subject of kiss-off lines, the Times Online's Matthew Syed takes a well-aimed shot at the contemporary Olympic movement itself, as the body of Nodar Kumaritashvili arrived home in Georgia at dawn this morning:

But it is the collateral damage to the Olympic movement itself that will be of most concern to its regal custodians at the International Olympic Committee. After all, even if the Own the Podium is not found to be responsible for Kumaritashvili’s death, it nevertheless hints at just how far the notion of Olympianism has morphed from the original vision of Baron De Coubertin. The very fact that an organising committee was prepared systematically to undermine the medal prospects of overseas competitors — even to the point of taking risks with their safety — reveals the sham at the heart of the Olympic ideal and the hypocrisy of the Olympic Charter, with its talk of dignity, solidarity and the “harmonious development of man”.

And finally, the sun came out in Vancouver yesterday and, Olympics or no Olympics, a reminder of what a beautiful part of the world this is. Here's another reminder: