Winter Olympics 2014.

[VeryPC]

The curling is starting to get interesting. Looks like the GB men's team is fairly comfortable, but the GB women's team needs to get a few more wins on the board to be safe - nervous times for them (and us).

 

Looking forward to the weekend so I can actually watch the sport live and in full rather than trying to cram 9 hours of viewing into one evening by skipping over all the inbetweeny bits like run replays, athlete preparation, race set up, commentary fill and shot selection. I'm glad that I can do this so that I do get to see all the crucial action (with the curling, I watch a shot slide into place, skip 30 seconds and the next one is just sliding in, skip, watch, skip...) ; overall the sports I like I save about 2 minutes out of every 3, but it's still not enough time, so some sports (like Ice Hockey and Ice Dance) necessarily have to fall by the wayside and get cut altogether I'm afraid.

 

Saturday, Sunday: curl up on the sofa with a mug of tea and let the whole thing unfold in real time in front of me. The analysis, interviews, tactical discussions in the curling, anticipating a great upcoming event - so much more satisfying. I can't wait for tomorrow morning!

 

Al

[nyiss]

The half pipe events seem to be a bit of a disaster - lots of complaints about poor snow conditions, world champions falling left right and centre!

 

Definatley the pipe was far below acceptable.

 

I really felt for Iouri Podladtchikov and Ayumu Hirano though, I keep hearing talks about how the conditions are the reason behind the 'shock results' in the mens halfpipe where Shaun White failed to place, admitedly mostly from american sources. Conditions were obviously poor but it was a level playing field and both these two are in my opinion just as good as White and have regularly shared the podium or beaten him in other competitions. In my opinion iPod has a superior bank of tricks so It frustrates me that all these people work for years at this and then there deserving victory is pegged down to luck that White was affected by conditions which all of them had to overcome.

 

Rant over

[Oaktech]

I'm waiting to get to watch the Bob sled, there's been a lot of posturing from Steve Holcomb and the USA team on twitter over the last 24 hours. Going to need to see them put their money where their twitter messages are!

[VeryPC]

Definatley the pipe was far below acceptable.

 

I really felt for Iouri Podladtchikov and Ayumu Hirano though, I keep hearing talks about how the conditions are the reason behind the 'shock results' in the mens halfpipe where Shaun White failed to place, admitedly mostly from american sources. Conditions were obviously poor but it was a level playing field and both these two are in my opinion just as good as White and have regularly shared the podium or beaten him in other competitions. In my opinion iPod has a superior bank of tricks so It frustrates me that all these people work for years at this and then there deserving victory is pegged down to luck that White was affected by conditions which all of them had to overcome.

 

Rant over

Iouri's gold medal run was flipping excellent and well deserving of the win. Shaun White can't be the best in the world forever, and who wants a single athlete to dominate a sport so fully that the winning result is always a foregone conclusion anyway. Well done to all the medallists.

 

Al

[VeryPC]

I'm treating myself to an afternoon off today so I can go home and watch the final of the men's curling live, uninterrupted and with no fast forwarding!

 

It'll be a tough one for Team GB who are up against the excellent Canada, but here's hoping we can bag our 2nd gold medal of the games.

 

It starts at 13h30 for those of you able to take the time to catch it.

 

Go Team GB!

 

Al

Edited February 21, 2014 by VeryPC

[featured_spectre]

Would be nice, I thought the women were going to go through at one point and it ended horribly lol still bronze is good!

[witch]

I've been watching all of it - given that I am still stuck on the sofa - and I have to say that the snowboard and ski cross have definitely been the most exciting!

The ice dancing was good but the figure skating was dull. I am amazed that there don't seem to be any new moves - very tired of triple lutz, triple salco, triple toe loop etc etc

[Oaktech]

I've been watching all of it - given that I am still stuck on the sofa - and I have to say that the snowboard and ski cross have definitely been the most exciting!

The ice dancing was good but the figure skating was dull. I am amazed that there don't seem to be any new moves - very tired of triple lutz, triple salco, triple toe loop etc etc

 

I agree that the figure skating was not very interesting, however, the twizzles are a relatively new move, as are the quad variants of the toe loop and salco and under the new gradings the athletes get credit for attempting the more adventurous moves, however there has been very little evidence of it outside the pairs, people still seem unwilling to commit to quads incase they don't come off!

[Sdrawkcab]

Halfway through the mens curling final and we are not doing very well at all

[sparkeh]

Halfway through the mens curling final and we are not doing very well at all

Its painful...

[laserblazer]

Still on track for a silver, that's pretty good.

[Trapper]

Poor Eve Muirhead. "Come here love and say something". It's terrible how they back the athlete's who appear very uncomfortable in front of the camera into doing that.

 

Notice how its on BBC1 now?

[Sdrawkcab]

We're going to concede after this end, calling it now. 8-3 in the 8th end is too much to come back from.

[witch]

@Oaktech

Twizzles are in ice dancing, not figure skating. I know the figure skaters get marks for attempting things = that seems to lead to many more falls than I remember

[hawc]

I am going to be glad when Sunday is here - the awfulness will be over!

[Jobos]

I am going to be glad when Sunday is here - the awfulness will be over!

 

I disagree I've enjoyed every moment of the Olympics and hats off to all the athletes who have participated. I just wished that I had the guts to do something like that when I was that age.

[elsiegee40]

I disagree I've enjoyed every moment of the Olympics and hats off to all the athletes who have participated. I just wished that I had the guts to do something like that when I was that age.

 

Me too. I have thoroughly enjoyed the competitions

[witch]

And me. Just watching the 4 man bobsleigh. Epic crash by Canada 3, thankfully they were all OK

[Jobos]

While watching the curling the wife said have you noticed that all of the British team are Scottish so after looking it up I can see why. In Scotland there are 22 rinks for curling but in England there are only 2 now that really is a disgrace.

[witch]

While watching the curling the wife said have you noticed that all of the British team are Scottish so after looking it up I can see why. In Scotland there are 22 rinks for curling but in England there are only 2 now that really is a disgrace.

I'm not quite sure why it is a disgrace - curling isn't a traditional sport in England - the English do bowling instead and there are many many bowling greens and indoor play areas.

[localzuk]

While watching the curling the wife said have you noticed that all of the British team are Scottish so after looking it up I can see why. In Scotland there are 22 rinks for curling but in England there are only 2 now that really is a disgrace.

 

The sport is originally from Scotland, so I'd fully expect it to have more venues there.

 

More sarcastically, I've always put down success in Curling to who can shout the best - and you've gotta admit that the Scots are good at shouting.

Edited February 23, 2014 by localzuk

[elsiegee40]

The sport is originally from Scotland, so I'd fully expect it to have more venues there.

 

More sarcastically, I've always put down success in Curling to who can shout the best - and you've gotta admit that the Scotts are good at shouting.

 

It was traditionally an outdoor sport too from the days when outdoor ice was readily and consistently available to those living furthest North.

[Jobos]

I'm not quite sure why it is a disgrace - curling isn't a traditional sport in England - the English do bowling instead and there are many many bowling greens and indoor play areas.

 

Perhaps disgrace was the wrong choice of word but you get my meaning. It's been 12 years since I went ice skating but then there wasn't any local rinks and I recall traveling a good way to find one. Nottingham seems the closest rink to Leicester so I'm looking at a 60 mile round trip. Want to take my 5 year old and show her what not to do!. My apologies if I appear to be moaning but I've had the week off and it's Sunday evening now and school is looming

[witch]

I was surprised when I googled ice rinks and saw that there are quite a few left around the country, unfortunately none down this way. We just get the "pop-up" rinks at Christmas

[localzuk]

Growing up on the IOM, I've always seen ice skating as a foreign thing. No rinks there! So I'm surprised that there are any ice rinks in the UK.