Torino - Men's Figure Skating

Had a great time at the Men's Free Skate last night! There were 24 skaters in 4 groups, but we only arrived to see the last 18 (they save the best till last anyway). Tony and Nick were stuck up in the Mountains, so I ended up going with Jackie and Tammy from BOC (from the hat photo earlier).

Figure Skating takes places at the Palavela, which is only about a 10-15 minute walk from the IBC. There is an interesting "chia-pet" sculpture out front of the venue...



Russian Evgeni Plushenko started the night in first, American Jeff Weir in second, and Swiss skater Stephane Lambiel in third. There were 3 Canadians in the final 12 skaters. Emanuel Sandhu had an awful short program and was fortunate to even be in 7th place starting tonight. Jeff Buttle also had a so-so short program and started in 6th. The other Canadian was Shawn Sawyer, who I know little about.

American Evan Lysacek started the evening in 14th after a horrible short program, but he skated beautifully last night, and jump from 14th to 4th (he actually had the third best free skate of the evening).

Emanuel is known to be a volatile skater, and can be brilliant or a train wreck. Unforunately, last night we witnessed the train wreck in full, and he finished in 13th place...



Jeff Buttle, on the other hand, skated very well, bettering his own personal best by nearly 13 points! He fell on his attempt at the quad, but this still earned him points because he completed the full rotations (this was a calculated risk on his part). He also touched down with his hand on the triple axle, but was otherwise beautiful to watch. His program was scored 2nd only to Plushenko on the evening...



In the end, nobody could come close to Plushenko, Jeff Weir skated poorly and dropped to 5th, while Stephane Lambiel skated just well enough to hang on to the silver medal, and Jeff Buttle moved from 6th to take the Bronze...



On the way home, I ran into an "old friend" on the bus back to the Riberi Media Village. I met Elizabeth Manley in Salt Lake City back in 2002, where she was working for NBC radio network Westwood One. Back then, we had breakfast and chatted about skating. You'll remember Elizabeth as Canada's figure skating darling from Calgary 1988, who won the Silver Medal behind Katerina Witt who maybe shouldn't have won the Gold...



She is working for Westwood Radio again this time, and as it turns out, is only 3 doors down from me in the Media Village. She had some interesting insights into last night's competition. She thinks Plushenko is very good, but didn't deserve the huge marks he got last night, claiming that between jumps he does a lot of arm waving to distract judges from the fact that his footwork isn't very spectacular. She was also amazed that it was possible for any skater to win the Silver Medal at the Olympics without ever even attempting a triple axle (in the long or short programs) as Stephane Lambiel did.

All in all, it was a great night watching Jeff battle back to win the Bronze for Canada!