Ladie's figure skating short program

What a privledge and a unique experience we all had last night. I don' t know how much has been playing in the US, but the Canadian skater's mother died suddenly on Sunday night and it was never certain she would choose to skate last night.

So, you can only imagine, or maybe it was shown on TV, the reception that she received when she entered the rink for the warmup, then for her skate, again once her skate was over, and after the score was announced. What was stunning is that she skated a beautiful clean routine, only breaking down in tears after the last note of music was completed.

We were all Canadian's last night and I was proud to be one of the many who stood up and cheered for a great athlete and competitor.

Curling is a blast (pic)

Once again, I was able to move forward to see the curling 'sheets' up close. Four matches are in progress at a time. and this was a women's round robin event.  I saw, Russia/China, Denmark/Great Britain, Canada/Sweden, Japan/?? ( I wasn't paying too much attention to that game because it was on the other side of the rink)

Great to be in the arena when Canada played so I could whoop and cheer for great shots and a winning match.
In the row behind me was a family of curling fans, decked out in Canada colors and clown wigs. They gave me lots of pointers, but the basics of the game are simple enough to enjoy from the start. Each 'end' is hard fought because with every stone fortunes can change. You see, it is only the team that has the stone closest to the 'button' (see the side bar for a pic of the court) that gets any points, so it is possible even in the last throw to change the course of the game.

There was an exciting moment, when both the Canadian and Swedish stones looked to be equal distance from the center 'button'. What to do?  The refs have this elaborate metal contraption that looks like a giant protractor (remember those from geometry?). They use it to measure the distance from the center of the stone to the edge of the 'button'.  This time it was in Canada's favor -cue: cheering crowd.

The other exciting game was between GB and Denmark as the lead changed several times. As I mentioned, it can come down to the last stone-GBs stone was closest, but was knocked out by the Danes at the last throw. THe final score was Denmark 9, GB 8.

What I really loved was seeing the variety of body types in this sport. THe Danish captain is broad and heavy set, the Canadian, tall and lean. The Chinese team is taut and small, the Brits tall. The women wear polo shirts and pants, but some even wore big earrings and nobody, but nobody cared about what their hair looked like.

Go, ladies of curling.

There were several burly Russian men sitting in front of me, wildly supporting their team. Oh my gosh, how could I have forgotten who was playing against the Japanese. It was the Swiss, who had brought a contingent of at least 25 people with large Swish flags and a 10 foot banner with a picture of the whole team on it.

And that is how enthusiastic curling  fans are.Who knew??

The venues-getting around Vancouver

The venues are spread out all over town and though the transportation is good and well organized, it does take time to get from one place to another. I've been fortunate because the Pacific Coliseum where the figure skating takes place is a one stop/shuttle ride away. To get to the UBC Center, One of the two hockey venues (and that shows you how popular hockey is) I took two trains and a long bus ride. Getting to Cypress, I needed to take a train to the bus and a 45 minute bus ride to the mountain.
Curling is in a smaller venue in a residential neighborhood accessible by train and a shuttle (or 1.1 km walk, that's 1/2 mile)

Oh, and that doesn't include the walking once you get to the venue. For example, for hockey and the curling we walked another 15 minutes. And to skiing-10 minutes to the base of the spectator area and then-gulp-205 steps up to the bleachers. Mind you, the viewing area was great, but in order to get any food or use the port o pottys, we had to walk back down those steps, and of course back up again.

In some ways this has prevented me from going to any of the 'cultural' events, but frankly, the whole Olympics is one huge cultural party. Walking through town, chatting on the Skytrain, meeting people from all over the world is a treat.

The speed skating venue is far south near the airport, a new venture today. After that, I'm moving locales and taking a train to a nearby suburb for the evening. What has been enjoyable is getting to know the city through public transportation.

Ladie's ski cross description of event

This was the only event I got to see from the qualifications to the medal round.  Each of 35 skiers winds her way down a long  course with bumps and turns to qualify for the heats. Only 32 make it to the first heat which consists of 8 groups of 4 racing down a hill on skis, jockeying for position. 2 from each of these pairs moves on the the next round and so on until there are only 4 left to ski. It gets more dangerous with each round, and there are always crashes. One skier crashed so badly that they had to take her out on a stretcher. Another crashed about 10 feet before the finish line and as she  slid to a stop, she raised her arms and legs in a bowed position and smiled broadly in good humor. After the initial , 'oh no', from the crowd, a unison laugh erupted when  realized she was all right and smiling, That one will probably make the papers.

Since there were no USA skiers (no one around me could explain that ) it was easy to cheer on the leading Canadian skier Ashleigh McIvor. She made it through all the rounds to the medal run. What a thrill to see a skiier go through the whole day without a mistake and come out a gold medal winner, bringing us all to our feet in jubilant applause.

It is fun to win!!!

All events are about women!

I don't know how this happened, but all the events that I chose, or that chose me, were women's sporting events. Women's hockey, women's curling, women's skating, women's speed skating, women's ski cross.
And all of them were packed with cheering fans.  I noticed this as I sat behind 3 very exhuberant Russian male fans cheering on their curling team. There is something significant to me that the womens' teams were as highly regarded, followed,  and is as cheered as the men's teams.

Go, ladies, go.

I also realized for the first time, that I like to watch live sports. I wrote in a previous post about being delighted to see 'highly trained bodies in motion". Add screaming and yelling, cheering, stomping, waving hands, singing dumb songs with 1000s of others for the best trained bodies in the world. What could be bad.

Sated, wet and almost ready to come home

The last two days I've seen 3 separate events in three very different venues. The first, yesterday, was curling. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I made it to a curling match which I found to be totally fun, engaging to the very last stone throw. The second was today as I rose early to go to Cypress mountain for the ladies ski cross. The third was the ladies figure skating short program which just ended.

Up until today, the weather was gorgeous. Then it shifted back to normal Vancouver winter rainy weather which produced SNOW in the mountain. I guess I did bring the Philly snow with me after all.

So that is the wet part!  I sat in the snow all day, and didn't have time to dry off before going to the skating event.
Sated. I've seen three skating events, and realized after this one that it was enough figure skating (if I get a chance and the energy, I'll write about where I saw the finals of the ice dancing)
But I did have one more event that I wanted to see-speed skating. Unbelievably, they still had some available at the box office, so I've decided to stay another day and see that tomorrow.

Ready to come home? Almost.