The Waaahhh!-nter Olympics (WAS Sarah Hughes - from my home town!)

[cindysphynx]

My goodness!  So much whining, crying, complaining and protesting!

The Russians are threatening to boycott the hockey game tonight.  
They are mad that one of their athletes got caught with a high 
homoglobin, that they drew some hockey penalty, and that their pairs 
voting block disintegrated because the French Judge forgot to take 
her meds. Waaahhhh!

The Koreans are protesting the short track gold medal they fought, 
hiring a lawyer to file suit in federal district court in the U.S.  I 
wish I could be on the jury for that one.  Waaaahhh!  

Jenny wrote:

> Did anyone else watch the figure skating last night?  While I was 
> really rooting for Sasha Cohen (I think she has more talent than 
any 
> of them), I was pleased that Sarah Hughes won the Gold.  

Yes, I saw the figure skating, and I was delighted at how it all 
turned out.  I love Michelle, but she was nowhere *close* to Gold 
Medal quality.  Slutskaya was, um, just . . . well, don't make me say 
it.  (I was really amused that Slutskaya plopped down in the Kiss & 
Cry area and put on her Red Russia team jacket -- was she cold or 
something?)  I like Cohen, but she needs to keep quiet about how 
great she is and how confident she is until she has . . . actually 
won something.  I hope she doesn't put too much effort into her quad 
jump training, because she definitely doesn't need it to win.

There definitely is something weird about the scoring system, 
though.  Let's say Slutskaya had been a disaster and landed no 
triples at all (or suffered an injury halfway through her program).  
Assume everyone else skates exactly the same way.  Why on earth 
should that mean that Kwan gets the gold and Hughes gets silver?  Why 
don't they just add the points in the short and the points in the 
long, weight them in some reasonable way, and declare a winner, 
regardless of who beats whom in the long program?  I don't get it.

Anyway, it was the correct result, without a doubt, thank goodness.  
Sarah Hughes is so humble and seems so nice.  Besides, she just 
*might* have hung up on the president.  I've *always* wanted to have 
the chance to hang up on the president.  :-)

Now, I have to hope that Sarah doesn't retire.  What is with everyone 
retiring the instant they win an Olympic gold medal?  She's only 16, 
so I hope she skates at Worlds and continues on for several more 
years.  Slutskaya, Kwan and Butryskaya will all retire, so the path 
to at least one World Championship is wide open for Hughes.

Oh, and Jennifer Robinson had the best skating dress by a country 
mile.  All white, no sequins.  Beautiful!  Maybe Kwan and Slutskaya 
would have hit their jumps had they not been weighed down by 5 pounds 
of sequins and other hardware.  Sarah gets second place in the lovely 
dress competition, Cohen and Kwan tie for third, and Slutskaya . . . 
ahem.

Cindy (who has decided that flesh-colored netting must be a *lot* 
cheaper than actual fabric, so skaters cover themselves in netting as 
a cost-cutting measure)