Friday, February 17, 2006
Sports I didn't even know existed.....
The sport of skeleton. Ring a bell with anyone? Nah, me either. How about snowboard cross? New to me too.
Both are a great deal of fun to watch. Skeleton is similar to luge, except you go down on a tiny board FACE FIRST, on your stomach. You gotta have a helluva good helmet for that. Wheeee! I would LOVE to try something like that. Of course, I'd also like to jump out of airplanes, but that's not gonna happen either. Anyway, local athlete Katie Uhlaender took sixth.
Snowboard cross looks like moto cross except on snowboards. It's a downhill course punctuated by ramps, curves and small hills (bigger than moguls though). Four boarders go down at once, and in the qualifying runs, only the first two finishers go to the next round. It's extremely competitive, and there are collisions, boarders being squeezed off the course, and boarders jumping over the top of one another trying to get ahead. The medal run was extremely exciting, with American Seth Wescott winning the race by the length of half a snowboard.
Men's figure skating had a more predictable conclusion. Everyone knew that Yevgney Plushenko would win because he had an 11 point lead after the short program. His free skate had another flawless quad combo, but he doubled a jump he had intended as a triple, proving even he isn't perfect 100 percent of the time. His routine was slow and emotionless, but with the new scoring, that didn't matter as long as he did a lot of complicated jumps and landed them well, which he did. Less predictable were the other men in the competition. A few tried quads but couldn't land them, and some had great footwork and superior spins but did just careful doubles and triples. The most exciting performance was by American Evan Lysacek, who had had a disastrous short program and had been in the hospital the previous day with the flu with IVs trying to rehydrate him. This man was able to shut all of that out of his mind and perform an enthusiastic, speedy and technically perfect free skate. He ended up fourth overall, but I personally would have given him the silver because the men who took second and third had flawed efforts. The man who was second after the short program, American Johnny Weir, was sloppy and slow on the free skate and appropriately ended up sixth.
Well, the temerature here is in the single digits, and believe me, I'm feeling it in all my joints. Whatever effect the prednisone had is long gone. And I think the Lyrica has stopped working because my nerve pain is back with a vengeance. And the fibro flare lives on, especially since I don't sleep well with the Ativan like I did with the Klonopin. I have made an appointment with my primary care doc on Tuesday to see what can be done.
At least the Olympic coverage tonight was a nice distraction.
Both are a great deal of fun to watch. Skeleton is similar to luge, except you go down on a tiny board FACE FIRST, on your stomach. You gotta have a helluva good helmet for that. Wheeee! I would LOVE to try something like that. Of course, I'd also like to jump out of airplanes, but that's not gonna happen either. Anyway, local athlete Katie Uhlaender took sixth.
Snowboard cross looks like moto cross except on snowboards. It's a downhill course punctuated by ramps, curves and small hills (bigger than moguls though). Four boarders go down at once, and in the qualifying runs, only the first two finishers go to the next round. It's extremely competitive, and there are collisions, boarders being squeezed off the course, and boarders jumping over the top of one another trying to get ahead. The medal run was extremely exciting, with American Seth Wescott winning the race by the length of half a snowboard.
Men's figure skating had a more predictable conclusion. Everyone knew that Yevgney Plushenko would win because he had an 11 point lead after the short program. His free skate had another flawless quad combo, but he doubled a jump he had intended as a triple, proving even he isn't perfect 100 percent of the time. His routine was slow and emotionless, but with the new scoring, that didn't matter as long as he did a lot of complicated jumps and landed them well, which he did. Less predictable were the other men in the competition. A few tried quads but couldn't land them, and some had great footwork and superior spins but did just careful doubles and triples. The most exciting performance was by American Evan Lysacek, who had had a disastrous short program and had been in the hospital the previous day with the flu with IVs trying to rehydrate him. This man was able to shut all of that out of his mind and perform an enthusiastic, speedy and technically perfect free skate. He ended up fourth overall, but I personally would have given him the silver because the men who took second and third had flawed efforts. The man who was second after the short program, American Johnny Weir, was sloppy and slow on the free skate and appropriately ended up sixth.
Well, the temerature here is in the single digits, and believe me, I'm feeling it in all my joints. Whatever effect the prednisone had is long gone. And I think the Lyrica has stopped working because my nerve pain is back with a vengeance. And the fibro flare lives on, especially since I don't sleep well with the Ativan like I did with the Klonopin. I have made an appointment with my primary care doc on Tuesday to see what can be done.
At least the Olympic coverage tonight was a nice distraction.
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