Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010
Winter Olympics, day 15 — live
The final race of the Olympic Alpine skiing programme is underway, with Austria’s Benjamin Raich among the favourites. There are seven medals in play on the penultimate day of competition in Vancouver, Whistler and Cypress and we’ll be here for all of them, so please join us for expert commentary from our reporters on the spot.
Winter Games, day 14 — live
The men’s ice hockey semi-finals pitting the United States against Finland and Canada against Slovakia are the highlights of the day … but with the mayhem of short track speed skating and the women’s curling final there’s plenty of other action to shout about… Join us here today and every day of the Games.
If you want to get ahead, get a canoe
If we needed any more proof that these Winter Olympics are more like the Spring Games, just look at what snowboarder Shaun White did the day before his amazing gold medal halfpipe run.
He went Kayaking. Not far from Cypress Mountain where he won gold with a near-perfect run on Wednesday night.
“We were at a friend’s place. I was like – what am I going to do today? I had to take a day off and obviously not walk around and use my legs. But I didn’t just want to sit there, because if I just sat around I’d go nuts just thinking about this competition.”
“They’re like we’ve got kayaks…let’s go for it. We ended up cruising around Horseshoe Bay. Pretty hilarious — I had to be the guy that stood up the kayak obviously and tried to pet the …giant seal that came by. He wanted to hang.”
Lay down the run! And update your Olympic lingo
In the skiing and snowboarding events at the Olympic Games these days, we have many a super athlete giving us mere mortals lessons in linguistics. It’s actually sick, in modern terms that is.
Sick (“crazy, cool, insane“) was snowboarder Shaun White’s killer second run through the half-pipe, a near perfect, thriller of a ride, even after he had already clinched the gold medal. Dude’s on fire.
Lindsey Vonn showed us how to “lay down a run” with her daring downhill burst that brought her a gold medal. It appears that “throw it down” and “put it down” can also be used when talking about runs and races.
And then there are the broadcast commentators of a certain age who can be heard talking on their nice mainstream media about ”ripping” snow conditions and ”stoked” snowboarders. Granted these words are not new to the modern lexicon, but they may be to these people.
Finally, there is a quaint little Canadian phrase that just might be catching on to a wider world, because it is just too ambiguously funny to keep confined to Canada. That is “hurry hard” — the words Canadian curlers use to get their teammates to sweep harder. They have even inspired a new brand of condoms.
Heard any more at these Games? Let us know in the comments.
PHOTO: Silver medallist Hannah Teter of the United States waits for her score after her second run in the finals of the women’s snowboarding halfpipe on Cypress Mountain at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, February 18, 2010. REUTERS/Todd Korol
Shaun’s White House ambition
Shaun White is free for dinner with Barack Obama, as you can see by clicking on the video above (or the headline first if you are on the home page). How will the president respond?
Winter Games, day six – live
Yevgeny Plushenko is the main attraction as the Russian attempts to seal gold with the men’s free skate but there’s plenty of irresistible medal action before then.
Join us on the live blog … we’ll be here all day with on-the-spot comments from our team if reporters, medal flashes, standback views and stats. Feel to dip in and out, and remember, comments are always welcome.
Winter Games: picture of the day
Reuters North America news pictures editor Gary Hershorn writes of this Mike Blake shot of snowboard halfpipe winner Shaun White:
Context and perspective are the key to this picture, which gives a beautiful illustration of the height the snowboarders achieve against the environment they’re in.
Original caption: Shaun White of the U.S. competes during the men’s halfpipe qualifying on Cypress Mountain at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, February 17, 2010. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Winter Games: Picture of the Day
Welcome to our Picture of the Day feature from the just opened Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Each day of the Games a senior photo editors will choose a frame they particularly like from our team of photographers at the Olympics here in Vancouver, and up at Whistler and Cypress.
This picture was chosen by Asia Pictures Editor Paul Barker, and it’s a shot of the snowboarder flying through the Olympic rings at the start of the opening ceremony. REUTERS/David Gray
Snow patrol: Tuesday update
We’re just three days away from the start of the Winter Olympics and snow is still conspicuous by its absence in balmy Vancouver.
Organisers are making terrific last-minute attempts to snow the place up a little, given the unseasonably warm weather here. Using helicopters and a 750-strong workforce, they’ve transported more than 5,000 cubic metres of snow to Cypress Mountain and the bare freestyle skiing and snowboard courses.
“The amount of work that has been done against the conditions is hard to believe,” said VANOC chief executive John Furlong, who added that thanks to the 100 million dollars in the emergency fund, he still expected to run the Games with a balanced budget.
The good news is that Whistler seems to have enough snow for the Alpine skiing events. While we wait for the temperatures to drop, see below for a brief look at that helicopter snow business from Monday.
PHOTO: A helicopter transporting snow flies over Cypress Bowl in West Vancouver, British Columbia February 6, 2010. Workers are preparing the Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding venues in preparation for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games which begin February 12. REUTERS/Andy Clark
