They Always
Get Their Man
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Three Americans who have already won gold medals
in Vancouver try for three more, and Mary Carillo does her best
Dudley Do-Right impression. It's Day 9 of the Vancouver Olympics!
• We begin the night with the 2-man bobsled.
Is it bobsled or bobsleigh? I've heard it called both. For instance,
the official site of the Vancouver Olympics calls it bobsleigh,
while the NBC Olympic page calls it bobsled.
I would normally side with the Olympic site over the network, but
it gets even more confusing. On this Olympic page, it's
called both!
Who knows? I guess it doesn't matter. But if you want some more
information, you can read about bobsled/sleigh
history here, and
on this
page you can watch a cool POV shot of being on the run
at St. Moritz, the very first bobsleigh/sled run. That's probably
more than you really wanted to know.
• Anyway, back to these Games. The first two
teams down the bobsled run are both from Germany. Both teams featured
one
teammate
slapping
the other. I'm assuming
that was for luck and not because they hate each other, but they
are Germans, so you never know. The Russians do high fives. The
Dutch slap each other on the feet. The first Americans down the
track just do a little fist bump. Maybe the reason that the
United States historically hasn't done well in bobsled is their
lack of
slapping. After the first run, the U.S. team of Steve Holcomb
and Curt Tomasevicz is in sixth place.
•
Now it's time for speed skating. Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick are
expected to compete for gold tonight in the Men's 1500m. Unlike
the bobsled, this event is actually live, so there's a short commercial
break between each set of skaters.
Remember all of the ice problems they've had
at speed skating this week? Play-by-play commentator Dan Hicks
tells us that because of that, the athletes have nicknamed this
arena "The
Slow-val." That's funny.
•
We watch several races before we get to Hedrick, and he seems pumped
and ready to go. He starts out fast, but clearly gets
winded early and finishes over
a second
behind
the
leader.
Fifth
place.
No
medal
for him.
Davis races next in the last heat against
Canadian Lucas Makowsky. Think there's going to be any crowd noise
in THIS race? Shani is
doing
all right
after
the
first of three laps, but he's behind NBC's superimposed "leader
line." On lap two, you can see by his facial expressions that
he's giving it all he's got. Good closeups, NBC! On the final lap,
the leader line is still out of his reach and you can tell he doesn't
have another gear. The leader line finishes first. Shani Davis
finishes second.
There's nothing wrong with second, but this
whole thing seemed kind of anti-climactic. Maybe NBC spent too
much time hyping Shani Davis here. After all, he only won silver
in this event in Turin, too. Oh well.
•
To the mountain and the Women's Super-G in using NBC's Tape-Delay-O-Vision.
I'm sure those of you on the internet earlier today know how all
of this turns out, but I don't, so shhhhh!
Julia Mancuso goes first
and thus is in first place! That probably won't hold up since
her line wasn't that good at the top. The most
impressive thing about her run was the multi-Julia-strobe-cam.
I don't know what else to call it. If you were watching, you
know what I'm talking about.
The next skier we see had a problem in
the same place as Julia, but unlike Mancuso she couldn't keep
it together and went down.
Skier number 12 is Maria Riesch, and she beats Mancuso's time.
NBC uses Simulcam to show us the turn which Julia took wide and
Maria took correctly. Nice!
•
Steve Porino does a nice little segment on Lindsey Vonn's skis.
For both the downhill and today, she's been using men's skis.
I know what you're thinking: they're just slabs of wood, right?
Oh no! First of all, they're all composite now. Secondly, men's
skis are longer, stiffer, and thicker than women's skis. What?
They are! Get your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, because of
all of that, you need more strength to use them. Pretty informative.
Thanks Steve!
•
Next up, Lindsey Vonn and her guy skis. She finishes first again!
If this holds up and she wins gold, here's an interesting question:
if Lindsey hadn't caught a ski tip in the Super Combined, would
she be this Olympics' first three-gold winner?
•
Two skiers later, Austria's Andrea Fischbacher renders
that question moot. Even though she almost lost it near the top
of
the mountain,
ran into
the padded
barrier at the finish line, and hit herself in the face with her
skis while celebrating, she still posted a time faster than Lindsey's,
putting Vonn in silver for now.
•
More Simulcam! This time it's Vonn versus Fischbacher. Given that
the skiers can't run at the same time, this effect is a really
good way to show where one racer outperformed another.
•
Slovenian Tina Maze beats Vonn out of the silver and yells "Da!
Da! Da!" at the camera. Commentator Tim Ryan says he doesn't
know what that means, but she seems happy. I don't know Slovenian,
but I know "Da" in Russian is "yes." I don't
think it's too big of a stretch to guess she just said "Yes!
Yes! Yes!"
•
Gratuitous crash-cam. American Chelsea Marshall catches an edge
near the top and wipes out. I don't really have a problem with
this. In America, you want to see how the American's do, even
if that means watching them crash. Too bad for Chelsea.
•
So Fischbacher ends up the winner. But in her post-race interview,
all I can think of is how much she sounds like
another famous
Austrian...
Ahnold.
Afterwards Bob tells us she's the second-cousin of fellow Austrian
ski champion Hermann Maier, also known as "The
Herminator." Coincidence?
•
Oh no! It's back to live events, this time with Apolo Ohno and
the Men's Short Track 1000m quarterfinals. Canadian Charles Hamelin
wins and Ohno finishes second to qualify for the semis. How must
other racers feel racing against Ohno? He just hangs back in third
or fourth place until the last three laps, then he effortlessly
passes the leaders. That's got to be demoralizing.
•
American J.R. Celski races two heats later. We almost had some
fluff there when they showed his leg injury AND his brother, who
has never seen J.R. race and is only briefly in Vancouver until
his Army unit redeploys to
Iraq. If either
of these
had
been
slow-motion
or dramatically
lit, they'd be fluff. But as they were presented matter-of-factly,
I'll let it slide. Celski makes it through to the next round.
•
Over to Whistler medal plaza, where Jon Montgomery of Canada prepares
to get the gold medal he won in skeleton last night. Will he
sing, "Oh,
Canada"?
Yes! Him and everybody else in the partisan crowd.
I hadn't noticed
this
before,
but the Mounties are in charge of the flag raisings, and in
this case, all of them are saluting. Cool.
•
Coincidentally, Mary Carillo is here tonight to present her long
form fluff about the Mounties. She travels to Regina, Saskatchwean
to report for Mountie training. Imagine the drill instructor
scene in Full Metal Jacket played for laughs. It's kind
of like that, only not actually as funny. She also gets some
training in high-speed driving, handcuff application, and some
time on the gun range. The best part is the music. During the
training sequences, Mary does calisthenics to the music from Stripes.
When she finally gets to put on the scarlet tunic and Stetson
hat of the Mounties, they play the music from the bridge scene
of The
Untouchables, which coincidentally, features the Mounties.
Well played!
So,
I like Mary's fluff better than Jimmy Roberts' fluff, but still,
is there nothing close to Vancouver to do a story on? Regina is
over 1,000
miles from Vancouver. As much money as the Vancouver
tourism department has been spending on ads for the Olympics, you'd
think
NBC would
be showing them some love instead of promoting something two provinces
away.
•
Over to the short track for the semifinals. Michael Phelps is in
the crowd. Hopefully he brought his Olympic luck and not his post-Olympic
luck.
Semifinal 1 has Celski, Francois Hamelin of
Canada, and two Koreans. I don't distinguish between Korean racers
because they always race as a team. With two laps to go, Celski
passes Hamelin and the Canadian falls down, and despite the fact
that neither
of
those
two was anywhere
close to the Koreans, Hamelin was advanced while Celski was disqualified.
How does THAT work? J.R.'s Iraq-bound brother disagrees with the
call.
In Semifinal 2, Apolo lets everyone go by him
to start off in fourth place. A misstep by China's Han Jialiang
advances Ohno to third. So again Ohno is in third
with 2 laps to go... One lap to go... HALF A LAP TO GO! WOW!
Somehow he makes a move to go from third to first in less time
than it
takes me to write this. Amazing! Unless of course you're the
guy who finished third. Then it's demoralizing.
• Back to the bobsled for
some crash footage. The British crash was the most spectacular,
with the brakeman actually ejecting himself
from the back of the sled. Both are fine and were interviewed afterwards,
saying that they got a little burn on their back but will return,
presumably for the 4-man bobsled, or bobsleigh, next week.
•
Another crash, this time from Canada. Because both riders stayed
in the sled and because it crossed the line, they weren't disqualified.
So here's how the Olympic rules break down:
1. If your bobsled crosses
without you in it, you're disqualified.
2. If your bobsled crosses upside-down but you ARE in it, you're
still in the competition.
3. If you cross a finish line on your stomach without skis, you're
disqualified.
4. If you cross a finish line on your stomach with skis... well,
that hasn't happened yet, but I can't imagine it would be good,
can you?
•
Fluff for Simon Ammann, ski jumper for Switzerland. In 2002,
he won two gold medals and was a star. In 2006, he finished 38th.
Now in 2010, he's won two more golds. Bob said he found
his mojo again.
Okay, but did we just
do this story because we were waiting for short track to be ready?
That's kind of what it looks like.
•
Back to the short track for the Men's 1000m "B" final.
But while we wait, why don't we look at this low-angle shot of
Apolo Ohno's crotch? Eww... why don't we NOT, NBC.
The B final only
has two racers in it because J.R. Celski was disqualified and Canada's
Francois Hamelin was advanced to the "A" final.
I know these two can race just for pride's sake, but really, how
much pride are you going to feel for saying "I'm number six!
I'm number six!" Well, I guess you'd feel more than for saying "I'm
number seven."
•
The "A" final features two Canadian brothers, two Koreans who will
probably be racing as a team, and Apolo Ohno.
This
place is
going to EXPLODE.
Even better, in a short Ohno pre-taped interview
he insinuates that the Koreans might race as a team, even though
that's illegal, but because it's hard to judge that, you just have
to prepare for it. I knew I wasn't the only one who thought that!
The race starts. It's an Ohno sandwich with
Canadians in front and Koreans in back. Four laps to go, Ohno moves
to second. Three to go. Apolo's slip puts him in fifth! Two to
go. Same! LAST LAP! Apolo passes BOTH Canadians
on the BACK HALF OF THE LAST LAP to get the bronze, his seventh
Olympic
medal!
I know I keep typing in all-caps, but it's exciting!
How could you not?
Korean Lee Jung-Su wins gold. And in addition
to
the silver medal, Korean Lee Ho-Suk's gonna
get
a
big dish
of
beef chow
mein. I know, it's a terrible joke, but I couldn't help
myself.
•
An intimate moment with Apolo Ohno. As he takes his skates off,
he talks to the camera, smiling while saying that it was a great
race and that if he just hadn't made that
one
mistake... He looks very satisfied. This is a man on top of
his game.
Moments later, he
talks
formally to Andrea Joyce, and says pretty much the same things,
just more eloquently. If this really is his last Olympics, he'll
be missed.
•
And to close out tonight's show, Britain's Amy Williams gets her
gold medal for skeleton. Will she sing along to "God
Save The Queen"? Yes! Good for her!
I would have bet you a loonie each
that at least one of the trio of Vonn, Davis, or Ohno would have
brought home a gold medal today. That's why they play the game!
Better luck tomorrow as I try to decide whether to watch regular
Olympic coverage or the MSNBC broadcast of U.S. vs. Canada hockey.
See you then!
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