Olympics Days 5&6

The stars came out for the USA on Wednesday night, and NBC primetime must have loved every minute of it. Apolo Ohno, Lindsey Vonn, Shani Davis, and Shaun White all competed, the latter three garnering gold medals with impressive performances. Apolo was only in a relay prelim, but he skated well in his ample airtime.

Evan Lysacek followed on Thursday with his own gold medal to cap off a great 48 hours for Canada's southern neighbor. Most countries won't win four gold medals in the entire games, and the strong performances from the US are casting much doubt on my medal count predictions. Germany still looks like the eventual winner, but the US is putting a gap on the hometown heros.

Name Game: I always like when athlete's names fit the sport (e.g golf's Chip Beck or Tiger Woods), so I was thrilled to see biathlete/cross country skiier A.K. Flatland competing. The Norwegian 27 year-old has already competed in three biathlon races finishing 8th, 10th, and 14th. She has her own website http://www.akflatland.no/.

I'm on the lookout for more good Olympic names, so leave a comment if you find one.

Google Search update: I did find one prior reference to "sno-bo cross" in a response to a Slate article in 2006. There are a couple of new references after my last post, but that post shows up number four if you Google the term.

Commercials: The Marriage Ref looks bad. It looks like a good outlet for a couple of comedians sitting around a studio, but I can't imagine watching the show.

Odds & Ends: Ouch...this is the first Olympics where it seems like several of the athlete's parents are younger than me.

I expected figure skating to be a major vote getter in both polls (favorite and least favorite), and that is what we are seeing. It is always a ratings grabber, but I think several people (including me) are burned out on the over-exposure.

Curling is also getting hammered in the "least favorite" poll. Is it because the US teams are doing so poorly? They are actually physically performing well, but are choking away every win opportunity. The men are especially bad, losing three of four in OT (extra ends?) when they have had several good opportunities to win.

Cool 11: Julie Mancuso is not a new name, but she is one of the frontrunners for my list (pictures top and bottom). Norway's curling pants (pic right)? I guess you love 'em or hate 'em. But I definitely like the uniforms of most of the halfpipe/snowboarding teams. Halfpiper (they are actually called riders) Louie Vito of the US is a good interview, and Shaun White (below) is magnetic.