Thursday, February 23, 2006

Ice Ballet

I'm sure I watched some during the Salt Lake Olympics, but I'd forgotten just how amazing short track speed skating relay is to watch. Here you have a fast race on a small oval with four teams of three skaters. One group is skating the race, a second group is moving around the inside of the track while waiting to zip onto the track for the "push-off", and a third group is cooling down from their racing laps while staying out of the way of the other two groups.

The result is a multi-colored swirl of activity that somehow manages to go on for 27 laps without much more than an occasional jostling. I'd recommend you not watch it if you're already experiencing stomach distress. The constant churning is hypnotic nigh unto dizzying.

In other news...hey, wouldn't you know it, Bode Miller didn't do anything newsworthy today. Or maybe he did. I'm avoiding the online results so that when I watch the women's figureskating finals tonight it will actually be a surprise.

Freestyle Aerials is a scary sport. You ski down a hill and up a ramp that throws you five stories in the air while you spin like an astronaut on a NASA 3D centrifuge, hoping to land on both feet on a steep and slippery slope below. That's not a sport where you want to make a bad landing. I didn't see any red stains on the hillside, though, so I assume it doesn't happen very often--or they hide the evidence quickly when it does.

Why do I get the idea that this sport's origination included alcohol and a double-dog dare?

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