Is it too late to talk about the Winter Olympics? Oh well, I've got to do it now, if not I'll forget everything I planned to write- I've forgotten about half, already!
But yeah, what can I say about Vancouver 2010? It was simply AMAZING! I didn't actually plan on watching the Olympics, but ended up watching almost all of it! I usually have my laptop on next to me (bad, I know) and I'm always logged on to Twitter. So on the day of the opening ceremony, as per usual, I woke up at about 3am and was on my laptop when a few people tweeted about the Opening Ceremony. They're usually fun (remember Beijing?) so I thought I might as well watch it, since I'm awake.
Ofcourse I didn't go all the way downstairs at 3am just to watch the Opening Ceremony on TV- I've got Skyplayer on my laptop, so I could watch it in my room, as it was on Eurosport. I'd already missed about 30mins of it, but I think I caught the last hour or so (yes, it was pretty long!) and it was enthralling. I might be exaggerating, but I thought everything was done to perfection. I don't know a lot about Canada, but I just felt that the ceremony was the essence of Canada. That's just the way it felt.
Then there was the lighting of the torch. If nothing else gets you into the Olympic spirit, this does! So the ceremony was brilliant and got me excited about the games. I'm not even a fan of most winter sports, and the only one I'd watched previously was Figure Skating! But I was curious as anything. My first ever Winter Olympics!
I think the men's Downhill was the first I watched. Surprisingly enough, I had heard of USA's Bode Miller before (don't know how, really), so I was looking forward to his run. It was simply brilliant and it seemed that he'd go on to win gold, but he's time was beaten by 0.02 seconds by Svindall, whose time then got beaten by Didier Defago by 0.07 seconds! Close, or what? It felt like F1 on ice! Awesome!Then there was the women's downhill as well, with Lindsey Vonn blowing everyone away!
I thought that was all the skiing done, but hell to the no! It's amazing how many different sports you can do on skiis! There was the Downhill, Ski-jumping, Slalom, Giant Slalom, the Super G, the Super-Combined, ski-cross... Not only that, but there was the male, female and team competitions. I wasn't complaining- I was LOVING it. You can't help but love all that excitement. What made it even better, was the fact that it was practically the same people competing in all of them, with some better at one discipline or the other, so it was kind of easy to get into it and know who was supposed to be the favourites. Then ofcourse, there's always the drama of crashes to keep you on the edge of your seat! Thankfully, no one suffered any life-threatening crashes.
It was the usual suspects in the medals, with Bode Miller eventually winning all colours, gold last. He even managed to crash out in one of the others, but I guess that won't matter a lot to him, really. Norway's Svindall also won all 3 medals. The only other memorable names were Didier Cuche (he didn't actually win any!), Croatia's Ivica Kostelic with 2 silvers. The only women I can really remember are Vonn, Maria Reisch (Germany) and Julia Mancuso.
Ski-jumping was the only ski event with different competitors. It's amazing how far their jumps were! Even made me wish I was a ski-jumper! Good luck with that. One person who dominated the ski-jumping was Switzerland's Simon Ammann. He was untouchable! He won gold in the two events he competed in. Easily. At least there's another Swiss apart from Roger Federer totally dominating his sport! ;)Then there was the fabulously named German, Andreas Wank! Even Graeme Swann had to tweet about his name! Only one medal for him. Gregor Schlierenzauer and Adam Malysz(mouthfuls!) both had 2 silvers and 2 bronzes respectively. Ski-jumping lacked the excitement of the Alpine programme, but it was still fab!
Free-style skiing was amazing, too!
If the skiing wasn't your cup of tea, the skateboarding HAD to be! Like the skiing, there were different different events. There was the snowboard cross, the half-pipe and the parallel giant slalom. Male and female ones, as well.
The half-pipe was wow! It's amazing how many twists one can do in the air whilst still in control! USA' Shaun White won gold with one of the best combinations ever, including the fabulously named 'Tomahawk', officially the 'Double McTwist 1260'. I couldn't find a video of his Vancouver run without some rights restriction, but check this out. It's only a Double McTwist 12, but still very very cool!
If you're in the UK, the real thing is on the BBC here. Stunning. It's less dramatic watching it now, but on the day, given the pressure of the big stage, it was simply stunning!
The skateboard cross was awesome, as well! This was like proper racing, but on skateboards, with 4 of them racing against each other in the tightest of spaces. It's almost like watching the 1st lap of an F1 race- it's manic! You've got knock-out rounds, before finally getting to the final 4. Good fun. Spectacular crashes too- it wouldn't be the same, without them, right?
Ice-hockey as well! The female competition was definitely better entertainment-wise, as there were lots of goals. Canada totally owned both tournaments, winning Gold in both, and it was fitting really, that the Men's Ice Hockey final between Canada v USA brought the curtain down on the games. And to ensure that the drama went on right through the end, Canada were actually leading 2-0, before USA got in back to 2-2 with only a few seconds left on the clock! I was rooting for Canada to win and thank God they eventually did, thanks to Sidney Crosby in overtime (Overtime? What happened to good old-fashioned extra-time, right?!)
I know I keep using superlatives such as 'brilliant' and 'amazing' a lot, but well, they were! Canada eventually finished top of the medals table, golds-wise. Not sure loads of people would have predicted this at the start, because they didn't win their first gold until about Day 3 or 4!
It's amazing (there I go, again!) how I can go on and on about sports I didn't have a clue or care about until a few weeks ago, but I guess that's what the Olympics is all about. I didn't even watch much figure-skating in the end, even though I'm a fan! I haven't even talked about Curling! Fair enough really, seeing as I moaned about it throughout. I wasn't forced to watch, was I? I finally understood how the scoring works towards the end, which didn't help my cause! Oh yeah, England won their one and only medal, thanks to Amy Williams' Gold in the Skeleton. A storming performance, too! Well done, Amy!
But yeah, despite my structure-less ramble, the whole point is that I had a blast watching the Olympics, even though I fell asleep at night when watching it sometimes (I blame Curling! ;) )! But I guess I have to say thanks to Skyplayer and BBC sports website for letting me watch the Games on my laptop. I doubt I'd have been that bothered to watch it on TV, especially as it went on well through the night. I'm glad, or I hope, I won't miss it much because guess what? FORMULA ONE STARTS ON FRIDAY THE 12TH! (Just ignore the caps, okay? I really am excited about it!).
Anyways, I'm tired and already yawning, so I better stop with this drivel! But not without wishing the boys good luck for tomorrow, first! It's 'only' Burnley, right? We shouldn't underestimate them, though- don't want to be caught out cold! I'm hoping for a win with a 4-goal margin, as that'll put us right on top of the League, if only for a few hours, anyways.
So- Come on you Reds!!!
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