Olympics Notes Day 2

"Duuude, we won medals, man!"

With a couple of exceptions, this was a pretty terrible day for the good ol' USA. Disappointment was an overwhelming theme for the the Americans today.

• Michelle Kwan obviously reads my blog and quickly heeded my advice to step aside. Right? In all seriousness, it's a shame that she was able to win throughout her career the way she did and have her last chance to win a medal snuffed out by a nagging injury. Here's hoping the media got all of the dwelling out of their system today so they can move on to focusing on the athletes still in the competition.

• This was a day of all-around unmet expectations: Apolo Anton Ohno stumbled within spitting distance of the finish line to miss out on the finals in the 1500m, Tony Benshoof missed a luge medal by 0.153 seconds and only missed the gold by a shade over a half a second, and Bode Miller couldn't back up his trash talkin' ways. What a bummer.

• When all hope seemed lost, Il Pomodoro di Volo came in to save the day! Shaun White did whatever it is that halfpipe snowboarders do and blew out the competition. It was really cool to see him break down and get emotional over the heavyness of winning gold for his country. Even I found myself getting a little choked up during his teary trip to the medal stand. All of this over a sport that was probably invented by some drunk college kid who thought it would be cool to take the wheels off of his skateboard and ride it down a snow covered hill.

• The coolest camera trick thus far: during the normal hill ski jump finals today, they had a camera that moved with the skier as he went down the hill and then continued following through the jump. It's really hard to explain, but it was almost like you were jumping alongside and slightly behind the jumper. Very cool.

• There's only 2 hours to go until the beginning of live curling coverage. The Tivo is set and I have to get to sleep so I can get up in the morning and watch. I can't wait.