Olympic Joy

Ok now I have experienced joy. I screamed so loud I scared all my pets.

Our Canadian ice dancers just won the gold.

They are the youngest to ever win ice dance - 20, 22
They are the first North Americans to win ice dance gold.
They are from my birth Province - Ontario - near London.

Apparently Russia has not lost the gold since around 1966

Ice Dancing and Pairs used to be so full of politics and sleezy back room deals. All the skating so far has shown great judging. What a refreshing change!

I'd like to add - the Americans were awesome too!!!! And it just so happens they train with the Canadian champions - their coaches must be so proud. Athletes - so young - so disciplined - we can learn from them.

Plushenko (Russia) lost the men's figure skating gold to the USA. He felt he should have won simply because of the quad. He awarded himself platinum. Good grief. The rest of his skate in my opinion was clumsy no sign of artistry just continuous planning for the next technical move - he did not have the finesse of the USA athlete.

The medal was well deserved by the USA. As the interviewer said to Plushenko - it is called 'figure skating' not 'jumping' :) Plushenko replied they always won under the old system - he does not like the new system - really? You mean a fair and honest one where biased judges can't affect or influence others. I often wonder how many athletes were screwed out of medals before the judging underwent reform. It is a pair of our athletes that championed the reform - it took guts for them to do it - you might remember the year the gold was shared.

I had to laugh this morning listening to the morning mash up. One of the announcers hates olympics and said it is supposed to be amateurs - what are those professionals doing in the Olympics - and in the same breath said he bets Canada is embarassed about last night's hockey game.

Excuse me oh young one - aren't the hockey players NHL? Well we aren't embarrased. Probably most of them are or were Canadian :)

By the way the IOC changed the charter in 1986 to allow all athletes to compete including 'professionals. '

I wonder if that made it more fair. In the 'old days' communist countries dominated the medals. I am not sure why but I often wondered if their countries gave them a lot more financial support to train - ours sure didn't back then. Nice to see that all can be sponsored equally so they can concentrate on being the best. Why should our athletes give up years of earnings to represent their countries for the glory of us all? Sure the ones who medal might get endorsments but it is not a given.

I can't wait for the curling and hockey - tic toc. I'll bet it will be exciting although this is the only time that curling excites me - sorry. Yawn. Pushing a broom usually just doesn't do it for me. Too much like housework.