PenguinSix

The world is a strange place.
Stephen Holcomb is the driver for the US 4-man bobsled team that starts racing today and also a bit of a nerd, more or less. Check out his “Where in the World Is Matt-like” video that he created over the last World Cup season.

Much is being made about the Polo Reindeer Cap from the opening ceremony being the hottest fashion item of the Winter Games, but now it seems it has been supplanted by something a bit more garish being the sought after ‘must have’ for Olympic fans (which good for me too as I’ve sold my Polo [...]

Must be nice to have a deep pocketed corporate sponsor to build you your own personal snowboarding halfpipe.  You can read more about it here on his personal website.

 
Follow a disasterous resurfacing yesterday, the Vancouver Olympic Committee has launched an emergency airlift of a Zamboni machine to the Winter Olympics.
While often thought of as synonymous with ice resurfacing, Zamboni is actually a trademark of a specific machine.  The Olympic committee, in an effort to ‘go green’ decided not to use the tried and [...]

The NBC Olympics site is really trying some pretty cool things this Olympics.  They have Facebook pages and Twitter feeds (both of which allow you to submit questions to the on-air announcers), but one of the newer items is a real time Twitter visualization so you can see what the Tweeting masses are talking about [...]

One thing that always amuses me during the Olympics is the nationalistic jingoism that is often displayed, mainly in an anti-USA manner by fans from other parts of the world.  It can be silly, like saying ‘Chanting USA-USA is Nazi-like’ but Greek fans in Athens chanting ‘Hellas-Hellas’ is part of the Olympic spirit.”  One other [...]

Following the death of Olympic competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili, Olympic luge competitors will now be starting at a lower ramp in an effort to reduce speeds on the Whistler Luge track, this despite an ‘investigation’ earlier which ruled out track design as an issue in the death.
Men are now starting from what was the women’s start [...]

“NBC sucks” is a constant drone you hear each and every Olympics.  ”They didn’t show enough of the Tajikistan entrance, ergo they are biased against Tajikstan” and other silliness often is heard on the messageboards and other sites (and no, I’m not kidding about the Tajik reference–it happens).
So now that we’re done with that, let’s [...]

The Vancouver Olympic committee has issued a statement on the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.
The track was closed for an investigation by the coroners office in Canada.  Once they had the evidence they needed for their investigation, they turned it over to the FIL (International Luge Federation).  The luge federation and the Vancouver Olympics [...]

This is really hard to watch.
For those who have not heard, the luge athlete from Georgia was killed today in a freak accident on the very dangerous luge track in Vancouver.  Nodar Kumaritashvilvi accident propelled him off the track and into a steel girder at nearly 90 mph, which caused injuries that eventually cost him [...]

The only thing bigger than the USA logo on the US Olympic Team’s Opening Ceremony outfits is the Polo Ralph Lauren horse that appears on the front of each jacket. I remember when some folks were upset to see the Nike swoosh. They’re going to have a field day with this. At [...]

Unlike Beijing, in which the nations entered in Chinese alphabetical order, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver will have the nations arriving in French alphabetical order, English order according to some published reports.  Of course there are two exception–Greece will be first, and Canada will be last (as the host nation).  The USA will be the [...]

The New York Times is reporting on a ruling that is ending the debate on the ages of China’s gymnasts in the 2008 Beijing games, but opening the debate about the 2000 Sydney team.

”We are satisfied with the information provided by FIG, and we now consider the (2008) matter closed,” said Emmanuelle Moreau, spokeswoman [...]

Are these real fireworks you now have to ask?

It only took 8 years to fess up, but after the controversy in Bejing about the lip syncing of two little girls in the opening ceremony the Syndey Olympic Commitee has confessed that the Sydney Symphony did not actually play during the opening ceremony, but instead mimed [...]

She’s been part of the Unified Team of the former Soviet States.
She’s been part of the Georgian Olympic team
And now she’s an American, and better still, she’s carrying the flag for the US team in the closing ceremony.
It’s a great honor, voted on by the athletes themselves. She’s been living a bit of the [...]