NBC announced that they (NBC affiliates included) will be airing an unprecedented 835 hours of Olympic coverage over the course of the 2010 Winter Olympics in February.
With 10 days to go, instead of giving you stats with the number 10, here are my personal top 10 Winter Olympic athletes/moments. (Keep in mind, that I didn't start watching until 1994. Also keep in mind, while I love all - well, most - Olympic sports, figure skating is by far my favorite.)
10-At Skate America the season prior to the 2006 Olympics, Russian pairs skaters Totmianina and Marinin took a horrific fall during a lift and Totmianina landed on her head and was knocked unconscious. To come back from a fall that could have been devastating and win the Olympics a year later made for a nice feel-good story.
9-Remember when Bode Miller could ski and won Olympic medals?
8-In 1994, professional figure skaters were allowed to compete in the Olympics for the first time. A few attempted comebacks (Viktor Petrenko, Kurt Browning, Brian Boitano failed to medal, while legendary ice dancers Torvil and Dean won the bronze), but the only skaters to win were Gordeeva and Grinkov, who will probably go down in history as the best pairs team ever. Grinkov's death at the young age of 28 was a terrible loss to the skating world.
7-Let's face it. If it weren't for Apolo Ohno, nobody would care about short track speed skating except for the Koreans.
6-Who doesn't remember Dan Jansen taking a victory lap with his baby daughter in his arms after winning gold in speed skating after years and years of failed attempts.
5-I've mentioned this before, but for Austrian skier Hermann Maier to take such a spectacular fall and then come back to win a gold medal so soon afterwards is unbelievable.
4-The 2002 Canadian/Russian pairs skating scandal. While I'm not happy about what it did to the judging system (it pains me that future generations will not know what I mean when I award someone a 6.0 for presentation), it is worth noting that Canadians Sale and Pelletier are the only non-Russian or former Soviet team to win a gold medal in pairs figure skating since 1960.
3-American Tommy Moe winning gold and silver in skiing in 1994. I had a poster of him in my room for years. The first of many Olympic crushes.
2-With all the hullabaloo going on in skating in 1994 with the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding saga, it was Olympic champion Oksana Baiul's spunky show-tunes long program that really stole the show and piqued my interest in the sport. It's too bad it was all downhill from there for her.
1-Michelle Kwan. There's not much more to say. While I wish she would have won gold back in 1998 (she instead had to "settle" for silver to Tara Lipinski), as a Kwan fanatic, I am thankful for all the years of amazing skating we got to see from her that we might not have seen had she won and retired. Even without a gold medal, to me, she is the best skater in the history of the sport.
What are your favorite Olympic moments?
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The USA Vs Russia Hockey Game by far is the all time NO.1 Winter Olympics Memory.Grandpa
ReplyDeleteI like #2 best because honestly it is the only one I remember.
ReplyDeleteWe're talking Winter Olympics only, I assume. So, just some random memories:
ReplyDelete1980 Miracle on Ice, obviously #1. Grandpa is 100% correct.
Eric Heiden's 5 Gold Medals. (At the time, the same type of performance as Spitz and Phelps.)
Franz Klammer's 1976 winning run in the downhill. http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/franz-klammers-gold-medal-run-innsbruck-1976/3518644395
This run changed the whole psychology of the way the downhill was raced. Until then, skiers tried to ski as fast as possible while maintaining control. From Klammer's win and forward, skiers tried to ski as fast as they could while out of control, but while somehow managing not to fall.
In Figure Skating, Torville and Dean's Bolero. This performance changed ice-dancing away from being a sissy-sport and broght it into the mainstream.
And, of course, the immortal Protopopovs!
Finally: Michelle Kwan? Number 1, no less? Sorry, but that's like saying that Patrick Ewing is the greatest Knick of all time.
I like watching all the female figure skaters hysterically crying after they finish their long programs, not matter how they did. Total highlight for me.
ReplyDeleteNo offense to Michelle Kwan, the 1980 Miracle on ice was even Sports Illustrated's #1 sports moment of all time. Even if you only started watching the Olympics in 1994, have you not seen the movie with all the pretty boys? sigh
ReplyDeleteAlso, about Dan Jansen, what was even more heartwarming was that his sister had died like a few weeks before the Olympics the year of one of his earlier attempts when he fell and like slid across the ice. His baby daughter he did a victory lap with the year he finally won was named for his sister.