Vancouver 2010 Olympics – DAY 4 – China Gold & Silver @ Pairs FS!

Hey everyone!

I don’t have much time to post tonight, but here’s brief little thing.

What an exciting night it has been.

First – the medal ceremony for Alex Bilodeau for his Canadian Gold in moguls. What a well deserved gold – not only is he talented, but he is such an amazing person too.

Second – China wins Gold and Silver in the Pairs Figure Skating event!
Xue Shen & Hong Bo Zhao finally win Gold at their 3rd Olympics at ages 31 and 36!! Although their free skate was not perfect, their short program score was high enough to overtake the 2nd place Chinese team of Qing Pang & Jian Tong by a little over 3 points. Shen & Zhao’s overall winning score was 216.57. Pang & Tong’s free skate was the best of the night, and allowed them to procure the Silver medal very deservedly with a score of 213.31.
Germany’s Savchenko & Szolkowy were unable to deliver as they had hoped, but still earned a prestigious Bronze with a score of 210.60.
Canada’s Jessica Dube & Bryce Davison were also among the teams who were unable to deliver tonight, and they finished 6th overall with the final score of 187.11. They are only 22 and 24, and it is already their 2nd Olympics – lots of time to improve and already so much experience under their belt – can’t wait to see them in 2014!
Anabelle Langlois & Cody Hay finished 9th with a score of 179.97! Although their free skate had a few mistakes, they still carried out the rest of the routine with drive and passion, and they should be very happy with their standing.
With both Canadian pairs teams in top 10, we have everything to be proud of! After all, some would say that the experience is what matters, and the medals are just a bonus.
On another note, congratulations to Team China for winning their FIRST Olympic Gold medal in Pairs Figure Skating!

Stay tuned….for PATRICK CHAN TOMORROW!

(All scores reported from ctvolympics.ca)
(Picture from Reuters Pictures)

Vancouver 2010 Olympics – DAY 3 – Pairs Short Program

新年快樂, 身體建康, 學業進步…利是逗來!
Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!
I spent some time with my grandparents and family at lunch today, and in the afternoon I went shopping with my cousin at Richmond Centre! My buys were a Muk Muk plushie for $9.70 (usual price is $16.00!!!!!!!), The Time Traveller’s Wife on sale (!!!), and a nice hummingbird graphic tee from Jacob Connexion.

After shopping, my family and I return home to catch the figure skating pairs short program on TV! Guess what we saw in our backyard as we step out of the garage?
Yup. A pair of raccoons were humping in our backyard. I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Holy crap!” but that didn’t scare them away at all. They just kept on working, obviously too preoccupied to mind us humans. They didn’t even do anything (except for continue what they were doing) when I crept a bit closer to take this picture. They were there for at least a good 20 minutes after we left them (we kept peeking at them through the window). I hope we don’t have raccoon babies running around our house soon…

So back to skating. After immediately turning on the TV upon arrival back home, we found out that we had missed the short program of Xue Shen & Hong Bo Zhao! It turns out they had randomly picked to perform first, so unfortunately they were already done by the time we got home. =( Fortunately, ctvolympics.ca has the whole 3.5 hours online, so I have just watched their program. They are simply amazing – perfect unison, huge triple twist, amazing lift, and such passion that could touch even viewers separated by a screen and kilometers away. Their world best score of 76.66 was well deserved, and they currently rank 1st after the short program.
(Picture from Associated Press.)

Germany’s Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy finished at a close 2nd of 75.96 with their breathtaking program, “Send in the Clowns.” This program of theirs is always so entertaining and beautiful, but tonight’s was not as perfect as usual – a bit of unison problem in the side-by-side element. Still, very highly scored and they are easily within reach of Gold. (Or are they?)

Currently in 3rd place is the Russian team of Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov with 74.16.
4th and 5th place are currently held by the other two Chinese pairs teams: Qing Pang & Jian Tong at 71.50 and Dan Zhang & Hao Zhang following closely at 71.28.

Canada’s own Jessica Dube & Bryce Davison are currently in 6th place, following a good performance that was flawed only with Jessica’s fall on the triple Salchow and slight unison problems. Their score was 65.36. They will need to perform their best to fight for a spot on the podium!
(Picture from Paul Chiasson, The Canadian Press)

Anabelle Langlois & Cody Hay are behind their teammates and in 7th place, following a very strong performance of their program, “Fascination,” that was awarded with a standing ovation. Even I was touched while watching it from my telly. Their score was 64.20. This was pretty amazing, following their difficult warm-up practice earlier today. I have high hopes for them for their free skate tomorrow!
(Picture from Getty Images)

And there you have it, the Pairs Figure Skating short program results.
(All scores reported from ctvolympics.ca/figure-skating/results-and-schedules).

Now for the questions:
Will Shen & Zhao win their coveted Gold medal?
Will Canada have a spot on the podium?
Will China have a clean sweep of the podium?
We’ll just have to wait and see – Pairs Free Skate is coming up tomorrow, February 15th @ 5pm.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL THE SKATERS!!!!

Vancouver 2010 Olympics – Prelude to Pairs Short Programs

First of all…祝大家新年快樂, 恭喜發射!
Tomorrow, February 14th, is the start of the figure skating events at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and coincidentally, it is also Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year!

Figure Skating Pairs Short Program is scheduled to begin at 4:30pm, and for those who didn’t get tickets to see it (like myself), it will be broadcasted live from various channels:
CTV (9) – figure skating will be covered live as a part of their Olympic Prime Time.
TSN (30) – there will also be live coverage of figure skating during their Olympic Prime Time.
SportsNet – from 4:30 – 8:00pm, there will be complete dedication to the pairs short.

To be safe, always check with CTV Olympics for the most updated listings.

So…who’s being featured tomorrow?

From Team Canada: Jessica Dube & Bryce Davison, and Anabelle Langlois & Cody Hay!

Above photo from ctvolympics.ca

GO TEAM GO! I think we’ve got a pretty strong team this year…we have a chance at a medal!

Also featured are crowd favourites and two-time Olympic Bronze medallists Xue Zhen & Hongbo Zhao from China, who are back for their 3rd Olympics in contention for a Gold medal. I can’t wait to see them skate!

Obviously, many other skaters will be competing, but since I can’t list them all, we’ll just have to wait and see tomorrow!

Vancouver 2010 Olympics Figure Skating Schedule

So Olympic break from school hasn’t started yet, but I’m going to kick off my 2010 figure skating blogging spree with…the posting of the Figure skating schedule!
This was found at the official Vancouver 2010 website: http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-figure-skating-schedule-results/

Feb 12, 2010 | Lighting of the Olympic Cauldron – 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
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Feb 14, 2010 | 4:30pm | Pairs Short Program
Feb 15, 2010 | 5:00pm | Pairs Free Skate
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Feb 16, 2010 | 4:15pm | Men Short Program
Feb 18, 2010 | 5:00pm | Men Free Skate
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Feb 19, 2010 | 4:45pm | Ice Dance – Compulsory Dance
Feb 21, 2010 | 4:15pm | Ice Dance – Original Dance
Feb 22, 2010 | 4:45pm | Ice Dance – Free Dance
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Feb 23, 2010 | 4:30pm | Ladies Short Program
Feb 25, 2010 | 5:00pm | Ladies Free Skate
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Feb 27, 2010 | 4:30pm | Exhibition Gala
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Now…here’s a listing of 2010 Figure Skating Team Canada!

Pairs: DUBE Jessica (Age 22), DAVISON Bryce (Age 24)
……..LANGLOIS Anabelle (Age 28), HAY Cody (Age 26)

Men: CHAN Patrick (Age 19)
…….CHIPEUR Vaughn (Age 25)

Dance: VIRTUE Tessa (Age 20), MOIR Scott (Age 22)
………CRONE Vanessa (Age 19), POIRIER Paul (Age 18)

Ladies: ROCHETTE Joannie (Age 24)
………PHANEUF Cynthia (Age 22)

GO TEAM GO! That’s it for now. More to come!