2010 Winter Olympics

[willemvanoranje]

Who else knows the link between Vancouver and the Dutch town of Coevoorden?

 

[Adria]

The Toronto Sun is reporting that the Georgian luger did not survive the accident.

My thoughts go out to his family and fellow members of the luge community.

http://www.torontosun.com/sports/vancouver2010/news/2010/02/12/12857041-qmi.html


edit: CTV will only say that he suffered life threatening injuries. That's the official word at the moment. I don't see how the athlete survived though; his speed was measured to be over 140 km/hr and he went back first into the pole.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

I just felt like throwing up when I heard about it. So sad. Poor guy and his poor family.

Luge just seems way too fast.

 

[kronic]

What a great start for this Olympics.

 

[emzie]

I was watching this cute video of a tiger cub on CBS and the next video in queue was a luge track. I thought "odd, this isn't cute" and the guy dies and that confirmed, nope, not cute.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm watching the opening ceremonies on NBC right now. They seem to think this may not be the only serious injury or death which may result from this 90+ mph track. One woman luger was already knocked unconscious on the same corner. An expert is basically stating that anybody from #13 ranking on back is in serious danger from lack of practice and experience at these speeds.

The video was brutal to watch...

An American luger talks about the track.


Link to video.

 

[kaos429]

A very disapointing and tragic start to the games. God bless his family and friends in this troubling time.

If there is any question about the track, maybe they can move it to Calgary.

 

[Kraznaya]

So, should Georgia completely dissociate itself with the Olympics now? From the last two go-arounds they seem quite cursed.

 

[emzie]

*finishes watching opening*

/facepalm

 

[civ_king]

Watching it right now on NBC, pretty awesome for how low budget it is (compared to China), Canada got its money's worth!

 

[Maniacal]

Watching the opening Ceremony via CTV's website. Dunno if I'll be watching any of the sports though, I'd like too as it is in my province but I don't have TV.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/CTV/index.html (Starts at 2 hours)
At the beginning of the above link they show the luge accident, that guy was completely screwed, lousy start to the games (don't watch or skip ahead if you don't want to see it).

EDIT: Wow, amazing use of projectors and lighting for the cultural display! Although odd costumes for the fiddlers/tapdancers, its like a mix of Celtic (which is at least fiddle related), punk and goth.

 

[warpus]

I was watching the opening ceremonies mainly on NBC - they had way better coverage than the Canadian CTV. The Americans had something interesting to say for each country that came out. I made a point of watching Poland's entry on both networks (I have a pvr, can record, fast forward, rewind, etc.) and the Canadian CTV dudes were QUIET.. The Americans talked about Adam Malysz, our ski jump guy, they talked about what he's done for the sport, his nicknames, his village back home.. then they talked about our cross country or biathlon girl (i forget which one). They had interesting things like that to say about every country while the Canadian announcers seemed to be unprepared and boring.

The only thing you Americans missed (assuming you were watching on NBC) was this French crooner guy that sang a pretty good song.. and I say this even though I was personally getting annoyed at all the French that was going on! NBC totally cut out to commercials while the guy sang. If you're not into crooners, you didn't miss much You also missed a bit of the whole Wayne Gretzky thing, when he was taken to the outside cauldron to light it.. Eventually NBC picked it up and you saw some of his journey, but CTV covered the whole thing.. It was kinda crazy - with people running in the streets.. lots of cheering and assorted craziness.

I wasn't sure how the Americans were going to respond to the over-the-top Canadian patriotism that was happening. They seemed to think it was unusual (for Canadians), but in the end they concluded that "Canadians are some of the nicest people in the world.. They will welcome you into their homes, but then when you get here and the formalities are over.. They are totally planning to kick butt!" (Paraphrasing, could be a bit off due to beer consumption last night, but the gist of it is there)

I generally don't watch opening ceremonies, but last night I watched the whole thing. a part of that was because I get it in HD.. and I really wanted to see what the world was going to see when they tuned in to check out Canada. and I gotta say - I was impressed with most of the opening ceremony! Some of the speeches were a bit over the top, but that whole artistic bit was incredible! I'm impressed at what they were able to pull off - it came off as very unique, and I think it achieved its goal.. The one part I did not like was when they were doing the whole "dudes dancing around trees" bit. It seemed a bit off. Plus, they totally forgot Ontario On purpose? A part of the thing focused on Canada's north, then they did the east/maritimes, then Quebec, then the prairies, and then the rockies/west.. hold on a sec, what the hell happened to the most important part of the country? Ah well, I suppose this is vancouver after all, maybe they are peeved at being Canada's #3 city after Toronto and Montreal.. and there's no way they could have left out the Francophone aspect of Canada in the show - that would have caused too many complaints.. but Ontario? Nobody's gonna care if you leave that out

It also got a bit boring right after Sarah MacLachlan (sp?) came on.. She's a good singer and all, but something about her face just makes me want to change the channel (i didn't). I remember being a bit bored right after she made her appearance.. not sure if that's related or whatever, but she totally brought some bad karma to the whole thing imo.

The singing of the olympic hymn was a bit weird.. that's one f'd up hymn. The ending was spectacular, and the girl doing it was hitting all sorts of crazy notes.. so at least it was spectacular.. but just a bit odd.

All the speeches by the old geezers kinda sucked, but those are kinda mandatory and a part of every olympics, so I didn't expect that NOT to be coming..

I also wonder what Americans thought of the whole: "We'll make you listen to French as much as we can" thing The NBC dudes were good about most of it - and translated some of it (probably all the stuff they had a hard copy of that they could get translated beforehand). I'm not surprised they cut to commercials when the french crooner came on... I can see Americans sitting in their living rooms going: "what the hell is this crap?". When that guy was giving the speech in french, that went on a bit for too long too. NBC should have gotten the translation somehow, cuase I can see how Americans watching might have gotten really annoyed at that. (it's not that i think they hate french, but if you don't understand what teh guy's saying, you're gonna get annoyed)

SO yeah, I'm kinda pumped about these games. Canada has ambitious plans to get a TON of medals. plus we get to show off Vancouver and Whistler to the world! Poland should do well @ these olympics too. I am up early this morning to watch the ski jump event, which starts SOON.. i think.. I'm too tired and haven't figured out if the times on the site i'm looking at are pacific time or EST.. I'll figure it out soon enough

edit: I def. really liked all the crazy tapdancing. That was one of the highlights of the whole thing for me

 

[warpus]

The funniest moment for me came when one of the NBC announcers said: "And it looks like a predominantly Canadian crowd here tonight"

you think!?!? considering it's in Canada!?? and it's the winter olympics!?? Naaaah, nobody was expecting Canadians to come out

 

[DroopyTofu]

Did I hear them right when they said that the guy that wrote that tap dancing part was visiting pubs in Nova Scotia when he wrote it? They said he was trying some type of strong local alchahol, so am I the only one to get the impression That he was slightly drunk at the time?
Other than that, great ceremonies, just a little melodramatic for my taste.

 

[warpus]

Did I hear them right when they said that the guy that wrote that tap dancing part was visiting pubs in Nova Scotia when he wrote it? They said he was trying some type of strong local alchahol, so am I the only one to get the impression That he was slightly drunk at the time?
Other than that, great ceremonies, just a little melodramatic for my taste.

Yeah, I think that's what they said. Anyone know what type of alcohol they were talking about there?

Also, I thought it was great that the 4 leaders of the 4 first nations were given "head of state" status. That was a nice touch.

 

[CivCube]

Looks like only a couple minor adjustments to the luge track, but no major changes otherwise. Hope the VOC officials know what they're doing. Then again, considering the track's been open for two years, what happened to the Georgian athlete really might have been just a freak accident.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The funniest moment for me came when one of the NBC announcers said: "And it looks like a predominantly Canadian crowd here tonight"

you think!?!? considering it's in Canada!?? and it's the winter olympics!?? Naaaah, nobody was expecting Canadians to come out

I'm sure there were a lot of Americans there since Seattle is less than 2.5 hours away.

Did I hear them right when they said that the guy that wrote that tap dancing part was visiting pubs in Nova Scotia when he wrote it? They said he was trying some type of strong local alchahol, so am I the only one to get the impression That he was slightly drunk at the time?
Other than that, great ceremonies, just a little melodramatic for my taste.

You don't tap dance by stomping your feet. That was clogging.


Link to video.

And I really liked how they essentially presented their aboriginal population as their goodwill ambassadors. Did Canada ever have "Indian troubles" where they felt the need to massacre many of them?

 

[CivCube]

The first thing that I thought when I saw that was "riverdancing hipsters". Other than that, that projector was crazy awesome. That's probably going to be a mainstay for smaller countries' opening ceremonies from now on.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Looks like only a couple minor adjustments to the luge track, but no major changes otherwise. Hope the VOC officials know what they're doing. Then again, considering the track's been open for two years, what happened to the Georgian athlete really might have been just a freak accident.

That was no freak accident. See the comments from the experts during the opening ceremonies that I posted above.

 

[CivCube]

Yeesh. I'm not sure if I want to watch the luge today.