Vancouver 2010 - Winter Olympic Games

At the 2004 NAUCC, which was in and around Salt Lake City, we got to ride on Olympic soil. Oddly enough, then many of us went to Tokyo for Unicon XII, where we rode on Olympic soil again!

the penalty for a bad turn shouldn’t be death

I’m with you.

And while the League denies wrongdoing in words, they admit it in their actions (changing the starting line to slow speed, and making a number of alterations in the course especially where the incident occurred.

Of course, many say Canada is responsible, for not giving athletes a chance to get familiar with the course (see below). Their unsportsmanlike conduct will allow them to win medals for the first time.

Count the American speedskater Catherine Raney among the athletes, coaches and officials of several sports surprised by Canada’s approach to hosting the Winter Games in February.

Raney, who spent more than seven years living in Canada and training with the Canadian national team, was told after the 2006 Olympics that the Canadians did not want foreign athletes training with them leading to the 2010 Games in Vancouver.

She and many other foreign athletes had expected to spend quite a bit of time practicing at the Olympic sites, but have been granted only minimal access.

“They’re playing nasty,” said Raney, now living and training in Utah.

You ought to bag it up and sell it!

Canada is seventh all time in total medals at the Winter Olympics.
(I know you were being sarcastic…)

Don’t let the government’s strange policies take away from the achievement of Canadian athletes.

Canadians have always done well at the winter Olympics.

I have worked and participated in sport all my life. Politics exist in everything - people can either whinge about it or decide to push forward.

As a Canadian we are proud of our athletes and tonight I will raise a glass for all the Athletes at the winter Olympics. The world is not perfect, nether are the games. The question is what do you focus on. Winning or sport? Winning is part, but the athletes participate because they love it. As unicyclist we should understand and relate to these passionate people. It is time to cheer and take part in the passion of sport.

Bode Miller got silver today and his uni-capability is confirmed.

Vancouver’s downhill ski course and toboggan/luge/skeleton tracks remind me of the courses at Unicon Wellington: The hardest ones ever for that event!

I agree that all athletes should have access to the venues so the home court advantage is not based on exclusion. But at the same time, I know time is very limited on some of the weather-dependent venues, and I can also understand wanting to give the athletes of the country that put up the funding for all of it, to have a healthy amount of practice time. It’s probably a tough balance when all the available time has to be divvied up.

At Soldier Hollow there was plenty to go around. The Olympic stadium in the other picture is in Tokyo, which if you’ve been there you know doesn’t have any dirt on it. :slight_smile:

The US FINALLY won a curling match. Bout freakin time! Notice how they took Shuster out.

Me and my roommates watched that earlier, it was fun to finally watch us win one a curling match.

The American girls beat the Brits in curling today too in a super close match!

wooo australia took the gold in the womens halfpipe

What bits I’ve seen of the Winter Olympics have been great. Strange they don’t get the same wall to wall coverage over here that the “summer” Olympics get.

Is there an Englishman who wouldn’t like to congratulate Amy Williams personally for her gold medal? :wink:

And the GB pair’s crash in the 2 man bobsleigh - ouch.

The great things about sport are that it only matters as much as you want it to, and the outcome is simple: win or lose. It makes it so easy to share in the emotion, cry when they win (or when they crash out), admire the achievement, then go back to real life where nothing is simple, and there is no clear “result”, and even the line between “good guys” and “bad guys” is often blurred.

Ya but the Brits’ hot skip missed a couple “easy” shots for the win. Really they should have beat us.

I am surprised to see so many hot women in curling. I would never have guessed.

Not only do the Americans come to Canada and prove how much better we are than them, even at they’re own sports, but we do it in style too:

Do you ever think about how these athletic skills could segway into a career?

Like the ice dancers could get a job in the Ice Capades show, or Muppets on Ice.

And the curlers could get a job sweeping:D

It used to be sweeping, with real brooms. You remember that too? I used to see Curling on the local Canadian TV station (from Windsor) when I was growing up. Now what they do is more like scrubbing. Maybe they could be scrubbing bubbles?

The cool thing about the Olympics is that you don’t even necessarily have to work in the same field post-medal. Being a former Olympian is enough to make quite a good living on if you did really well in a popular sport. Like I’ve always said, no matter how good you get at unicycling, there’s still no Wheaties box for us. Maybe someday…

For those males among us who watch women’s curling for specific reasons, I suggest you google “Women of Curling calendar”.

A word of warning - it is NOT work-safe! :smiley:

John is right, it is more like scrubbing (like you are trying to get a grease stain out with a mop)

Maybe that is why I seem to be the only one here who can clean a floor.

Generally I enjoy not having a TV, but during the Olympics it would be nice to watch some of it myself instead of just hearing about it from other people.

I must be getting old. When the skiers and snowboarders fall over, I wince, and feel sorry for their broken Olympic dreams. A few years* ago, I would have been less sympathetic, and seen the funny side on their behalf.

  • a multiple of four, obviously.

not age

I’m only 16 and i feel sorry for them. It is sad to see someone’s one change at Olympic gold shatter by a little mess up.:frowning: