winter olympics

[Mccoy]

I don't know if you guys are watching the snow olympics held in Torino, Italy.
Yesterday, I've been surprised to see the Italian ice-skating team winning the gold medal, by a large margin, against the Canadian team!
Sorry, BigH, but that was a big feat, considering that in Italy ice-skating is being practiced by a tiny number of people (I didn't even know about the existence of such a contest).
Probably Canada won many medals (I've to figure it out), but I ensure you yesterday's (second) Italian gold received wide coverage.
I pretty much hate commercial sport and its razzmatazz
but appreciate real athletes competing for a few bucks.
P.S. artistic ice-skating also looks awesome!

 

[jdonville]

Mccoy,

BigH isn't the only Canadian in this forum...

I haven't been following the Olympics the past few days, but I'm pretty sure that the skating sport you refer to is not ice hockey

BTW, I hope that the Italian women's ice hockey program improves for the Vancouver games. One-sided hockey games are not much fun to watch. Even for Canadians.

On the other hand, the ability to play ice hockey well is not the usual criterion this engineer typically thinks of when thinking about young Italian women!

Ciao,

Jeff

 

[Mccoy]

Jeff,
nice to know kanucks abound on the forum ground!
Women's ice hockey in Italy is an unknown beast. Sorry the match was a drag, but it couldn't have had a more granted epilogue.
On the other side, other contexts ended up in a unforeseenable way:
I was referring to team speed-skating, two 3-people skaters running in an ellyptical ice track, separated by half the distance so if they are even they cut the ellypse'e minor axis at the same time. Pretty spectacular. Italy winning Canada was like Corea winning Italy in a famous soccer match about 40 years ago.
Today another incredible feat occurred, again, regretfully, to the expenses of a Canadian team: Italian curling team beat the Canadians. You should consider that I had not the faintest idea such a sport could exist, and in Italy, as I learnt from TV, there are just 500 practitioners, against the 3.5 million in Canada (is that true?).
On the other side, you are ahed of Italy in the medal count. Golds are even, 2 each, but total is 11 Canada versus 6 Italy.
Whoever wins, anyway, it's being nice games.
I'm just glad to know Italians athletes are good not just at kicking soccer balls making an obscene amount of money in the process. If you wanna know the truth, when Italy soccer team looses, I rejoice! (silently, though, people could kill me if they knew)

 

[BigH]

Jeff - didn't know you were a Canuck transplanted to Buckeyeland!! I went the opposite way although there is a bit of Hoosier in me.

Mccoy - I love watching the winter Olympics - sadly, here in Indonesia, there is not a single station (either local or satellite) that is showing the games - only the 5 mintues ESPN devotes to the games in between their Sports Show Football (Soccer) coverage. On the other hand, Malyasia has the coverage on something like 4 channels!

I did notice that the Canadian women came through, though, at least in their calendar!! Go Canadians (and I don't mean Montreal!).

The Italians with that Canuck 'Pound' appear to have scared off the Austrian cross-country team to their benefit. Wonder if the IOC has ever thought of testing their own officials? - what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The winter sports I really like to watch are (1) the luge, (2) the bobsleds and (3) the ski jumps. Sad I am missing them.

 

[Mccoy]

Sorry Jeff and Howard
but yesterday Italy gained its 4th gold and went ahead of Canada in the gold count (to me that's the real count, silver and bronze make no history).
Howard, the ski jumps are real impressive, expecially the acrobatic jumps.
I just wonder how they do not get all killed.
I enjoyed also women's artistic ice skating, some real fit ladies out there!

 

[eric1037]

Did you hear about the Englishman, Bromley, who designs his own Skeleton sleds? He is a materials engineer. Here is a link:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/5058702/detail.html?ib_oll=Headline

My favorite event is the moguls. I guess it's just the skier in me!!

 

[BigH]

Mccoy - see it takes the IOC less than a day to call a Russian a doper, take away her medal and kick her out but takes 6 days to determine that there was no doping of the Austrian cross-country team. I say there is something rotten in the house of Pound!
- yeah Canucks on the men's curling title!!!

 

[Mccoy]

BigH, I just missed that. Unfortunately it's a known fact commitees are never perfectly unbiased.
eric 10367, I saw that link, impressing how much scientific reasoning you can do out of what I believed being a simple wooden sledge. Sure they slide awesome fast.

 

[Mccoy]

You'll be happy to know that Canada ended up with 7 gold medals, 4th in the gold list, third in total medal count. I would have been worried otherwise. Italy performed pretty well, with 5 golds, the latest one particularly important(long-distance cross-country skiing). South Korea was impressing with 6 golds.
Good show all in all and great organization. Once in a while, it's good to see things running OK here in Italy.
I particularly enjoyed the lack of something like "ice-soccer"!

 

[BigH]

Mccoy - hats off to the Italians - from what little I could see from Indonesia, they did themselves proud. It was a well rounded games with many countries able to show off their 'metal'. I hope that the Canuck Olympics of 2010 in Vancouver, my home of some 8 years, will be as well run and received! Don't mention ice-soccer - someone may actually try to go with it - and I am sick of soccer. ESPN here should change their show "SportsCentre" to something like "Football and, if we have time, some other sports".

 

[BigH]

McCoy - hats off again to the Italians. They had a great 2nd half against Wales in the 6-Nation Rugby match - should have won it if Pez had hit one of the three chip shot penalites he missed. They were competive against all teams through at least 60 minutes and throughout vs Wales. Looking for some good things from Italy in the 2007 6-Nations and World Cup.
Ciao.

 

[Mccoy]

BigH,
I alredy realized in Indonesia and Singapore they are apparently crazy with soccer, possibly more than Italians themselves.
I remember being at airport custom in Singapore years ago; when the officer saw my residence on the passport he said: "Pescara, first division"
I remained motionless, trying to understand what he was talking about. It took some time to realize he was talking about my city's soccer team, which, in that year, passed from second to first division!!!

Didn't know about the rugby tournament. In Italy some cities mantain a good tradition in rugby and are keen about their teams, whereas, as a whole it's not a popular sport.
Again, if you watch TV here on sundays, you'll see soccer, some Ferraris, soccer again, and motorbikes (That's because of the Italian outsider, Valentino Rossi- the bike is really an appendix of his body!)