What a terrible way to start the Olympics. 21 year old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia (the country) died on Friday during a training run at the Whistler Sliding Center. His sled hit the wall of the track and he was knocked into an unpadded steel poll. This track, which will be used for the luge, bobsled and skeleton events is considered the fastest in the world and athletes have previously commented on safety concerns. This is the first accidental death during competition or official training at the Olympics since 1960. At "press time" it had not been determined whether the Georgian Olympic team would pull out or whether the luge competition would go on as scheduled.
I haven't had the chance to watch the Opening Ceremonies yet (don't worry, it's tivo-ed), but I'm sure they were spectacular. The truth is, I don't usually end up watching the Opening Ceremonies until after the Olympics, because between the actual events, preview shows, news shows, etc., I'm pretty much fighting to keep up before anything even happens.
Speaking of before anything even happens, how are there multiple figure skating scandals already? And honestly, it's all ridiculous.
The first one stems from an interview that Sasha Cohen gave to People Magazine, saying that the two American women, Rachael Flatt and Marai Nagasu are "good skaters, they're just not at the same level as the international girls" and do not have a chance to medal at the Olympics. I really don't know what this controversy is all about, because it's true. They are great skaters, but right now, there are better skaters out there. I'm predicting an all Asian podium for ladies figure skating.
The second controversy is a two-parter, with 2006 Olympic Champion Evgeni Plushenko stuck in the middle of each part. Part 1: The International Skating Union recently created educational videos and one of them featured a performance of Plushenko's in which commentators made some negative remarks about the presentation side. Team Plushenko got upset and demanded that the performance be removed from the video. Part 2: After winning the European Championships last month, Plushenko commented on the higher marks the judges gave to silver medalist, Frenchman Brian Joubert on some of the non-jumping aspects than Plushenko received. Plushenko seems to have suggested that judges don't base the presentation scores on reality since only the jumps matter. This lead American judge Joe Inman (who will not be judging in Vancouver) to send an email out to other judges reminding them to judge each aspect fairly. And for some reason, the French Skating Federation (same people who were involved in the pairs skating scandal in 2002) took that email to be part of a North American lobby. Yeah, I don't get it either.
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