| The Canadians have put on a great show beginning right off with the opening ceremony. My favorite parts were the whales appearing to "swim" across the floor of BC Place and Shane Koyczan's Slam Poem "Define Canada" (or "We Are More" depending on what you read). I | |
| tried really hard to find a decent video of it but just about every link (other than NBC's which requires some upgrade to your browser - no thank you!) I find for the video either leads me to "this video is currently unavailable" or "this |  |
| video has been removed at the request of the IOC." Maybe in the next few days. For now, click here for the text of his awesome poem. I just really liked that they reached out into the Vancouver community, celebrated the entire country and the talents of its residents, and just did what they wanted without trying to top Beijing. | |
But the Olympics are all about athletics, right? Oh yes, they are. I love watching Olympic sports because they always include events that we wouldn't know anything about otherwise like parallel giant slalom, snowboard/ski cross, moguls, Nordic combined, speed skating, and many others.
We were always pulling for the Americans but "Go Team North America" was a phrase often heard as well. "If we couldn't have it, the Canadians should" is what we figured. It doesn't hurt that Will loves Canada.
So a few of my favorite moments:
| We'd heard a lot about the lack of Canadian gold on Canadian soil so watching Alexandre Bilodeau win their first gold on the moguls was pretty awesome. Moguls are also just really cool. I don't know how they can do that to their knees. |
| Both of Shaun White's half pipe runs were amazing. It was just so great that even though he had the gold medal wrapped up before he even took his second run, he put forth great effort, did his fancy new trick, and beat himself. |
|
| The 2 South Koreans took themselves out of the 1500m short track speed skating race giving Apolo Ohno and JR Celski medals. Of course, afterward the South Koreans tried to blame it on Apolo. JR Celski is just such a cutie. After that we didn't care who was skating as long as they beat those meanie South Koreans. |
| Joannie Rochette is just an inspiration. I don't know how many people can lose a parent and function well much less have the composure to skate and win a bronze medal. AMAZING! |
|
| I was kind of obsessed with ice dancing and it was great to see the Canadian team, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, win and a young (if pinchy-faced) American team, Meryl Davis and Charlie White, get the silver. I have to admit that I was cheering for the Canadians because they're prettier. |
| The men's curling final with the Canadians against the Norwegians in yet another pair of crazy argyle pants was actually really interesting even though I wasn't watching it as intently as Will was. |
|
| And last but certainly not least, the gold medal hockey game. Holy cow. That was a nail biter for sure. To get the goal with less than a minute left in regulation to put the game into overtime was just amazing. Unfortunately the Canucks got the better of us but perhaps they should win their game in their country? |
And a final favorite moment from the Closing Ceremony - the mime raising the last leg of the cauldron from the floor making light of and acknowledging the glitch from the Opening Ceremony. Gotta love a whole country that can have a laugh at its own expense.
Well, the games are very close to being finished (it's taken me a while to write this, most of the time spent trying to find the "We Are More" video). We'll now have to wait until London 2012 for more Olympics. Can't come soon enough!
(Picture credits: Shane from Vancouver Sun article linked above and all others from Vancouver 2010's Facebook page or ESPN)
No comments:
Post a Comment