Where do I begin? First - CONGRATULATIONS SHEN AND ZHAO!!!!! I have followed your story for 18 years. You are amazing, and I am so happy for you.
Now - on to the juicy stuff -
1) Music - ok - how many times did YOU hear Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade last night? TWO - One American pair and one Chinese pair skated to the exact same cut of the music. (And it was also someone's short program music) Did you know this was the music from one of Michele Kwan's signature routines. I mean - are they selling Costco packs of skating music? Is it that hard to pick out new music? And why don't the commentators point this out. And why didn't they point out that in Scheherazade the princess gets beheaded? That would make an exciting interpretation for a pairs routine? No?
2) Did you hear Scott Hamilton cry when Shen and Zhao won the gold?
3) More music - how WEIRD was it that a RUSSIAN pair tried to skate to the same music as CANADIANS David Sale and Jamie Peltier did in Salt Lake as a tribute? Dont' forget - that was the pairs judging debaucle where the Russians won, but it looked the Canadians should have won, and then the Canadians were ALSO given gold medals. And to make it worse than weird the Russian Pair massacred their routine last night. Did you SEE Jamie and David in the stands afterward? HILARIOUS
4) Just an fyi (because I'm assuming you find all this as compelling as I do): Sandra Bezic is a Canadian Pairs skater from the 70s and one of the world's most renowned and sought after coreographers. She has coreographed more Olympic routines than you can imgaine. (Which makes it interesting that even she scoffed at the Canadians Dave and Dubison's high scores after the short program - even Sandra knows the judging is at times ridiculous).
5) More about Davison and Dube. On night one we learned that they had a terrible accident in side by side camel spins where he sliced her face almost in 1/2 requiring 80 stitches. One night TWO they skated to "They Way We Were" because they used to be an "off ice pair" and now have broken up. So???????? We all want to know - did they break up BEFORE or AFTER he re-arranged her face? Morbid I know - but a girl wonders. Hey - maybe THEY should have skated to Scheherazade.
6) More about music - one of the other Chinese pairs got a points deduction because their music was over the time limit of the short program - WHY DIDN"T WE HEAR ABOUT THAT?
7) Injuries - Did you see the Russian pair who is not really not really Russian Yuki Kavaguchi? She was injured - her trick shoulder CAME OUT OF THE SOCKET. If you were watching it was gross. And THEN she popped it back in and KEPT SKATING!!!! That girl is super tough. WHY DIDN'T THE COMMENTATORS COMMENT ON THAT? INTERVIEW HER ABOUT?
8) Catch foot and the code of points. I mean seriously. The code of points awards bonuses when you include a "catch foot sequence or pose" in many of the tricks. This is where the skater holds the bottom of their blade. Unfortunately the code of points doesn't seem to discern how it's done - so you can look like a middle aged man trying to tie your shoe and still get the points. So many of the most athletic and graceful people in the world looked ridiculous last night - but they got their bonus points. And the code of points doesn't put a limit on how many times you can do it, so many of the pairs were frantically grabbing their skate blades at every chance possible. Even Dick Button - who HATES the new rule - couldn't fault them. They are there to win.
9) Pairs spins and the code of points - obviously the authors had something in mind when they wrote the part about skaters facing each other - one spinning forward and one backward with one plane of the body outside the circle. But what it actually looks like - it looks like both skaters are trying to take a leak over the same fire hydrant in a small space on a cold night.
10) Commentators - The reason I am writing this OH SO LONG blog post is that the commentators WEREN'T covering this stuff. I miss Dick Button. Poor old guy. But when Sandra said, "Oh how embarrassing" after a fall by one of the pairs....I thought - there is a glimmer of hope that skating commentating could return to what it once was.
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