Torino - Canadians Rock!

It has been another very good couple of days for Canada here in Torino. First the Women's Curling team won their bronze medal match, and the next day the Men's Curling team won the gold by defeating Finland (scoring 6 points in one end)!

Then today, in the Women's 5000m Speed Skating event, Cindy Klassen set an excellent pace and was leading going into the final pairing (guaranteeing her a record 5th medal in Torino). The final pairing had Clara Hughes of Canada (bronze medalist in this event from Salt Lake) and Claudia Pechstein (gold medalist in this event in 2002, 1998, and 1994, with a bronze in 1992 for good measure)!

They were 3.5 seconds behind with two laps remaining, but Cindy had struggled through her final two laps, and Clara powered past Claudio to win the gold, while Cindy was pushed down to the bronze.

Two storys: Clara Hughes is only the fourth Olympian to medal in both the Winter and Summer games (in cycling), and is the only one to have done so twice! Cindy Klassen is Canada's most decorated Olympian ever, and used to play hockey, only turning to Speed Skating when she was devastated by not making the Women's Hockey team for Nagano in 1998.

Canada is having it's best Winter Olympics ever with 24 medals so far, including two more silver medals in Short Track tonight.

It was a good day for me too! Jamie Salé and David Pelletier were in the studio with NBC host Jim Lampley, and I walked over with my camera when they were done. Out in the hall, Jim introduced them to his daughter, while I waited patiently in the background. He lamented that he'd love to get a photo of them with his daughter, but that he didn't have a camera. Smelling opportunity, I piped up that I had a camera, and could email him the picture, which also gave me the perfect chance to ask for my own photo...



Jamie and David are working here for NBC on the show Olympic Ice hosted by Mary Carillo, which has been very good, and fun to watch. They were married last year, and I heard them talking with NBC Producer Molly Solomon about "twins and triplets". I'm not sure if that means what I think it means, but if it does, you heard it here first!

Later, Jim had figure skating analyst Tracy Wilson in for an interview. Tracy Wilson and her partner Rob McCall won the bronze in Calgary in 1988. I've heard people talking here about how she is always in a perky good mood, and she was certainly very nice with me today...