2014!

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXII Olympic Winter Games, will be the next Winter Olympics held from February 7 to February 23, 2014 in Sochi, Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city was elected on July 4, 2007, during the 119th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Guatemala City,Guatemala.^[1] This will be the first time that the Russian Federation will host the Winter Olympics; the Soviet Union hosted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.

Link to Wiki about 2014 games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Winter_Olympics

Olympics Recap

There were many memorable moments for me from these games:

• Joanie Rochette’s return to the ice after experiencing such tragedy in her life
• Jon Montromery’s run down the sliding track in the men’s skeleton race and his pure Canadian post medal reaction in winning
• Clara Hughes ending her Olympian career in style with a bronze medal in the women’s 5000m speedskating race. She is one of Canada’s most foremost Olympians with medals in Summer and Winter Games over 14 years and includes a gold medal in her specialty race.
• Jasey Jay Anderson finally winning his medal, gold at that too, after so many Olympics of not being able to succeed in reaching podium
• The Korean wipeout in the men’s 1500m short track race. The Koreans were poised to sweep but a bad turn knocked two of them out of the medals.
• Cross-country skiing having such a great venue for some thrilling races.
• and finally the men’s hockey gold medal final.

CANADA WINS!

And the games end with a bang.

Or rather an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby.

The much hyped game of the United States and Canada for ice hockey goal was everything everyone expected to be though probably a bit too nerve racking for most Canadians as it went into overtime.

Overall, this was been a most satisfying Olympics for Canadians. No, Canada did not own the podium but it won more medals than ever before in a Winter Games and won more gold medals than any games to date. In the medal standings, 26 medals ranked the country third behind the United States and Germany. So the efforts of the past six years to nurture an elite class of athletes to bring home as medals as possible should be deemed a success.

Of course, it did not looked like that at the end of the second weekend of the games when the country had just won 10 medals and saw many potential medalists come up short. But in the final week, Canada turned it on and started to rack up medals with a gold medal nearly every night to the final day of the Games.

So ends too my intense obsession with all things Olympian and the performance of the Canadian athletes. Most of my time was following the results of every competition, seeing how the Canadians did, read articles and posts on all aspects of the Games. Now, things will have to go back to the ways things were which is such a less than exciting life.

Closing Ceremonies

I watched part of the closing ceremonies this past Sunday. As always, it was a pretty wonderful spectacle. In a very explicit way it was marketing tool for the entire country of Canada. All the dancing and song had something to do with how great Canada is. It was a showcase of the beautiful parts of the country. This may sound like a negative post but I truly enjoyed it. I don't want to know what the country is actually like, but I will absolutely watch the romanticized version of it. Thank you Canada for doing another great closing ceremony.

Here's a link to a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PMoeOC3HVM&feature=PlayList&p=3856BCCCA838BEA6&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=6

U.S. Hockey

The U.S. came into the quarterfinals as the #1 seed in the Hockey tournament after beating Canada 5-3 in a great game that rounded out the preliminaries. Not sure whether it was tightness or overconfidence but the U.S. looked tight during their quarterfinal match against Switzerland.But Zach Parise put all that frustration aside, deflecting a wrist shot from Brian Rafalski early in the third period. He then scored into an empty net to seal a 2-0 quarterfinal win that sends the U.S. to Friday's semifinals against Finland, which beat the Czech Republic 2-0.

"The goalie was great and we did a good job of sticking with it. We were pretty confident and said just keep putting pucks at him," said Parise, who failed to score on his first 13 shots of the tournament.

Ryan Miller made 19 saves to backstop the victory and move the Americans within two wins of their first men's hockey gold medal in 30 years.

Shaun White

All about Shaun White:

Shaun just took down GOLD for the Americans in the Men's Halfpipe yesterday in snowboarding. He is the most popular American at these winter olympics because of his flaming hair, absurd tricks and outgoing personality. He is something that few athletes are: a creator. He doesn't just perfect tricks that those who came before him created, he makes up new tricks that no one has ever done and then perfects those. He is so far ahead in his sport that in a recent 60 minutes interview it was revealed that he hardly hangs out with any other snowboarders on the professional and olympic circuit because they hold a grudge against him for being so good. I created a Jing to help you navigate his official site and showed the video that i found the coolest.

http://screencast.com/t/MTRhN2Q3M2I

and here's the link to his site: http://www.shaunwhite.com/

here's a couple more ways you can follow shaun:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Shaun_White

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShaunWhite