Torino - Olympic Update

Canada picked up a couple more medals the last few days, and just missed the podium today on excellent runs in the Ladies' Super-G (Kelly Vanderbeek, only 3 one-hundredths of a second from Bronze) and the Men's Giant Slalom (Francois Bourque, who was first after the first run, but fell to fourth after the second). In the Men's Giant Slalom the course was very difficult today as 34 of the 82 starters did not complete the first run! Eric Guay of Canada also finished fourth in the Men's Super-G earlier this week.

Yesterday, Cindy Klassen won her third medal of the games, a silver, in the Women's 1000m Speed Skating. She missed gold by only 4 one-hundredths of a second, but set a record for most medals by a Canadian woman at the Winter Olympics.

Also yesterday, Pierre Luedders took silver in the Two-Man Bobsleigh. There may be a controversy building here, as there have been allegations the gold medal winning German team may have been using an illegal friction reducing implant on their runners. It was surprising that the German's maintained their lead after nearly falling at the start of their second run.

Last night's Original Ice Dance competition was disasterous for most of the top contenders, including the Canadian pair, Patrice Lauzon and Marie-France Dubreuil, who skated beautifully until a painful looking fall late in the program. Since many others also fell, they are still in sixth place going into the Free Skate, although I've just learned that they have withdrawn from competition due to her injury.

Tonight, the Women's Hockey team plays Sweden for the gold (note: don't click the link if you don't want to know who won yet). Sweden was an upset winner over the US, and every one here is still reeling from the Men's Hockey losses to Switzerland(?) and Finland.

It's also interesting to note, that as of tonight, Canada and the US are tied with 14 medals each, although the US has more gold than we do.

I managed to find my way to Canada House yesterday, which is located in a gorgeous palace in downtown Torino. Canada House is open to any Canadian with a passport, and many atheletes, coaches, and their families stop by for free food, (non-alcoholic) drinks, and a rest in front of several wide-screen TVs. They loaded me up with a pin, a very nice flag, some smaller paper flags, some literature and a luggage tag for Vancouver 2010.