Oh, by the way, the Olympics have started ......

May the sport prevail over the politics. I'm not hopeful.

Putin scares me. A nasty manipulative dictator.

Bruce

Norway, Canada, and Netherlands out to early lead in medal counts. Good for them!

I read that many athletes have taken exception to all the disparaging press regarding Russia's so-called lack of preparedness for the Games. Apparently, the athletes are quite content. Nice to hear. Hopefully all the news out of Sochi will be positive.

Really enjoyed the slopestyle events and WE HAVE A MEDAL!!!!!!!

I don't normally like events where a panel of judges have to decide who wins but I was enthralled by the Women's Slopestyle, not least because of the BBC commentary team who were refreshingly and unashamedly partisan.

Well done Jenny Jones.

Glued to the TV yesterday. Caroline Kostner took my breath away ;

The Dufour-Lapointe sisters, from Montréal. 1st, 2nd and 12th in  moguls !

Winky may have a view on this

Yep, congrats to Jenny Jones for making a little bit of Olympic history...

These sisters are quite the story! Enjoyed watching the event on CBUT with Jenn Heil 's enthusiastic commentary. The interview with the family in the studio was very nivce. Congrats to them.

Yop Yop, fnaaarrr fnaaarrr.

Das ist not fany!

Jamie Anderson won the first-ever gold in Women's Slopestyle Snowboard. Awesome event.

Think she might have a commercial endorsement or two in her future?

Indeed. A bit bit dissaponting to us though since Enni Rukajärvi came only second.

(sadly only the winners will be remembered) 

@osprey,

Embrace all your medalists and competitors, regardless of place. Challenge Janne Ahonen's statement that "Finns don't support their sporting heroes in quite the same way as foreigners".

Randy, sadly the statement is true (but it is not restricted to only sporting, around here you are loser if you are in any other place but the top). Although coming from Janne it is a bit too much since he has got his fare share of support and praise (being the five times winner of the four hills tournament).

Canada's Alex Bilodeau wins moguls gold, teammate Mikael Kingsbury takes silver

My Olympic highlight for Monday. I thought Bilodeau's winning run was outstanding and clearly deserving of the gold. Congrats to Alex and Mikael!

The Flying Tomato Squashed

My Olympic highlight for Tuesday was the dethroning of Sean White in the Halfpipe competition. Congrats to the passionate Russian-born Iouri Podladtchikov, who took gold for Switzerland.

Hopefully the snow won't melt before the outdoor events end.

Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin share women’s Olympic downhill gold medal

Finally one of my favorites wins (or at least share the gold)

This was good, especially since Bode Miller (the other favorite) did not deliver earlier.

Spoiler alert (for me), Osprey. Good thing I did not see your post until now. Due to the time difference my broadcast just showed the results a few hours ago. But yeah, your favorite was my favorite, as well.

Tina Maze (right) of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland were declared co-gold medalists, the first time in Olympic Alpine history a race was won in a tie. Amazing, exciting! Nice to see both got gold.

My Slovenian roots were proud for Tina Maze. And, as I understand, she is also a rock/pop star, at least in Slovenia.

It has been quite fun so far hasn't it.

The slopestyle events are exciting but the commentary has at times been inane and juvenile. There is a difference between enthusiasm and giddiness. Some of the slo-mo stuff on the jumps is amazing (sorry 'absolutely slamming radical wicked like man').

I am struck as ever by the joy when athletes win medals with the exception of the USA (generalisation alert) who win with a sense of entitlement and lose with a whiff of bad grace.

Clare Balding is becoming a national treasure.

Bruce

@osprey,

I appreciate your concern, but please do not worry about regulating your posts at all. Like I said, I did not check this post until after all the competition on my broadcasts were complete. A nice thing about living in Seattle is that I can get both the American (NBC) and Canadian (CBC) broadcasts. Interesting perspectives from both networks, although I've preferred the CBC over the last 20 years that I've lived here. More genuine .

@ Bruce,

As far as the athletes, I can't think any win or loose with more or less grace based on nationality. To me they are all just kids that have worked very hard to be where they are at. Some have had more "help" along the way, but in the end it just comes down to individual performance under the spotlight.

I know it was a sniffy comment, perhaps unfairly. Felt it at London 2012 too though-with the very noticeable exception of Michael Phelps.

If you really want to see bad losers check out the England cricket team......

Bruce

I just wish they would eliminate many, instead of adding more, subjectively judged sports, both winter and summer.  That said, it is the women's figure skating winner who is the biggest "superstar" to emerge from both summer and winter games (followed by the world's fastest man) and that is a subjective sport that I would leave as it and its cousins (pairs, dance) have been in the games a long time.

I wonder sometimes about the powers behind adding these sports.  It seems (and I have not done any real analysis to bear this out) that the sports added are generally sports the USA excels at, at least initially until the world catches up.  (More so in these subjective skiing/boarding snow sports.)  I think of them as "trash sports"; not that they don't take amazing skill and world class athletic abilities, but they almost seem contrived to me.  Same with "rhythm gymnastics." "Oh, you aren't a good enough gymnast to make the team?  Well here's a hoop and a ribbon, now you can make it as a rhythm gymnast."  And synchronized swimming?  Seriously?  Can Olympic farting be far away?

Makes me suspicious that the US is using the Olympics in a  political manner similar to the Soviet approach 20-40 years ago.  ("Mr. Politician, we have real problems in our country"  Yes, but look, we win the most medals, we must be OK!  Now get over there and start screaming 'USA!  USA!'")

Not to mention more means more to sell for the corporate component of the games.