The ‘Hurricane’ a la Peterson (Source: AP Photo)

American Jeret “Speedy” Peterson’s signature move, the Hurricane, didn’t win him first place but inspired awe and admiration in all those present. The Hurricane is a difficult aerial acrobatic that has the skier do 3 (THREE) head-over-heels flip while twisting in the air.

That maneuver could have won Peterson the Gold easily but his landing betrayed him (see following picture).

Peterson couldn’t land his ‘Hurricane’ stunt (Source: NBC)

Yesterday, I blogged about how Tyler Jewell had it tough training for the Parallel Giant Slalom (PGS) event; today, in a stroke of eerie coincidence, Peterson has a no-less-haunting story of his own to tell. Well, I guess I shouldn’t describe it as eerie or even call it a coincidence, all athletes have to overcome great odds to get to the Olympics, though some might have a harder time than most.

Having survived sexual abuse; withnessed a friend’s suicide; and his sister taken away in a car accident, a lesser person would have just withered away. But not Peterson.

Instead, he channelled the negatives in his life into fuel for his daring acrobatics on the slopes.

Though winning no medals, Peterson was satisfied:

“I obviously didn’t come here to end up seventh but I came here to do the hurricane and I did the hurricane…I had another jump that I could have done tonight…But it’s not as risky and the rewards wouldn’t have been as high…I wouldn’t change anything.”

Spoken like a true Olympian.

I urge you all to vote for such incredible personalities at the DHL US Olympic Spirit Award Web Site.

Post from: EveryJoe

Hurricane Hands Han (CHN) His Gold!

SHORT Version

* In the Men’s freestyle “Aerial” skiing qualifications earlier today, 28 skiiers took two jumps and the best 12 skiiers with the highest score will compete in the final on Wednesday.
* Out of these 28 skiiers, only 2 of the 4 Canadians qualified to be in the final
* Here is the final results of the qualification round found HERE

Rank / NOC / Skiier / Combined Score
1 – CHN – Xiaopeng Han (250.45)
2 – BLR – Dmitri Dashinski (249.34)
3 – CAN – Warren Shouldice (243.45)

Other Canadian Athletes

7 – CAN – Kyle Nissen (231.64 – qualified)
19 – CAN – Jeff Bean (198.49 – didn’t qualify)
20 – CAN – Steve Omischl (198.23 – didn’t qualify)

* The rest of the 12 qualifying men skiiers are here which will be on February 23, 2006.
* The Ladies qualifications are tomorrow and from all of the athletes competing, the final 12 will compete on February 22, 2006 in the finals
* Go Canada Go!

Long Version

* Aerials is a subset of Freestyle Skiing competition (moguls being another)

* Skiiers ski off an edge of a ramp then execute an aerial manoeuvre of his/her choice
* Each skiier gets two jumps, the best 12 finalists from qualification round perform two more jumps, with a clean scoring slate

Here’s today’s top 3 scores (right click open in a new window)

* There are 7 judges – 5 mark the takeoff (20% of the mark) and execution (50% of the mark). There are 2 other judges who mark the landing (30% of the mark).
* Of the 5 takeoff/execution judges, the hi and the low is eliminated and remaining 3 scores are combined
* Of the 2 landing judges, the scores are averaged and then multiplied by 3
* The skiiers have option to select an aerial jumb, and a difficulty factor is attributed. This factor is multiplied by the score for a jump score (I don’t know where they determine these factor numbers from)
* The two jump scores are combined for a Final Score.

>> Get it?

E.G> Looking at 3rd Spot – Canada

Jump 1 – 5 scores – 6.4,6.6,6.7,6.6,6.5 / drop highest 6.7 and lowest 6.4 >> 6.6+6.6+6.5=19.70
Jump 2 – 2 scores 2.7+2.7 >> =5.4 /2 =2.7 times 3 = 8.1
Combine = 19.70 + 8.1 = 27.8
Jump selected “bFdFF” (Back/full-double full-full)? which is worth “DD” difficulty points of 4.425 x 27.8 =123.015 (truncated 123.01)

* Got it? Repeat for second jump – and you get 120.44 …
* 123.01 + 120.44 = 243.45 = 3rd place.

* There are two groups of jumps … Forward jumps, and Backward jumps with perilious spins and twists (see here for more) and uh … umm ..
* You know.. just forget it and watch the durn event!

Post from: EveryJoe

Aerial Freestyle Skiing – It’s a Sport too, you know

Remember .. this is MUCH different than, for instance, USA’s “BACK/DOUBLE FULL-FULL-FULL” ..

Geesh .. I have to research this sport .. I don’t even know what I’m talking about!

… But .. it sure is cool to watch!

Post from: EveryJoe

Men’s Aerial Freestyle Skiing is definately a sport!

“It’s disapointing because I know I could have won a medal, maybe even the Gold”, said he, drying up his tears.

After making it to 11th place in qualifications, Bilodeau tried to amend these mistakes by attempting a triple off-axis twister (translation?) but failing to do so by posing his right hand on the ground upon landing.

“I made a huge mistake, as I did in the qualifications. Unfortunatly, these kind of mistakes are not forgiving.”, explained Bilodeau.

“I was inside my comfort zone. I simply didn’t use the advantage I had over my opponents because of the level of difficulty of my jumps. These jumps which I regularly do successfully during training.

His coach, Dominick Gauthier nevertheless praised the calm Bilodeau has shown in the Olympics context.

“The kid is cool, it’s impressive. It’s rare because I can tell you that 80% of athletes who tell you that they are not nervous are lying to your face.

Like Jennifer Heil and Jean-Luc Brassard, Bilodeau will have to be patient and wait 4 years before attempting again to climb the podium.

Likewise, fellow Canadian Marc-André Moreau finished 4th in the event, narrowly missing the podium. A scenario reminescent of Jennifer Heil’s 4th place in Salt Lake City.

Good luck to you both in the next Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver, BC!

Congratulations to Dale Begg-Smith, Canadian born but Australian trained who won the event.

From french article of Summum Sports.

Errata: So sorry… I insinuated that Bilodeau split with coach this year and that it might have caused his demised. It was my mistake. Dominick Gauthier stopped coaching Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau, not Alexandre Bilodeau. 1000 sorries.

Post from: EveryJoe

Bilodeau can’t recover from fatal mistake in Men’s moguls

Rank / NOC / Skiier / Score (out of 30)

1 – AUS – Dale Begg-Smith (26.77)
2 – FIN – Mikko Ronkainen (26.62)
3 – USA – Toby Dawson .. (26.30)

Canada’s Marc-Andre Moreau just missed a medal and came in 4th place

Results of Canadian Athletes

4 – CAN – Marc-Andre Moreau (25.62)
11 – CAN – Alexandre Bilodeau (23.42)
14 – CAN – Chris Wong (22.88)

Post from: EveryJoe

Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Mogul – Australia Wins Gold!

… We are opening the site up as a true community endeavor.
… We have invited a variety of other networks to participate as well.

So if you want to write about the games, please feel free to register at the site and we’ll get you all setup. Don’t forget to put in your country (”Extended Profile” under “Users”) and a link to your site (as it will go in every post you write).

So .. Pick a sporting event .. SIGN UP … and start blogging!!

All times are local Torino time (subtract 6 hrs for ET)

Curling
* 09:00 – Men – Canada vs Great Britain
* 09:00 – Men – Finland vs New Zealand
* 09:00 – Men – Sweden vs Norway
* 14:00 – Women – Sweden vs Great Britain
* 14:00 – Women – Italy vs Russian Federation
* 14:00 – Women – Japan vs Norway
* 14:00 – Women – Denmark vs United Sates
* 19:00 – Men – United States vs Italy
* 19:00 – Men – Great Britain vs Norway
* 19:00 – Men – Canada vs Switzerland
* 19:00 – Men – Germany vs Finland

Nordic Combined
* 10:30 List – First Round – LH Team
* 11:35 List – Final Round – LH Team
* 15:00 Team 4×5 km

Ice Hockey (Men’s Preliminary Rounds)
* 11:35 Kazakhstan vs Sweden
* 13:05 Italy vs Canada
* 15:35 Switzerland vs Finland
* 17:05 Germany vs Czech Republic
* 20:05 Russian Federation vs Slovakia
* 21:05 Latvia vs United States

Alpine Skiing
* 12:00 List – Ladies Downhill

Freestyle Skiing
*14:00 List Men’s Moguls Qualification
* 17:30 Men’s Moguls Finals

Luge
* 16:00 List – Doubles’ Run 1
* 17:20 Doubles’ Run 2

Speed Skating
* 17:00 List – Ladies Team Pursuit Preliminaries
* 17:31 List Men’s Team Pursuit Preliminaries
* 18:21 Ladies Team Pursuit QuarterFinals
* 18:52 Men’s Team Pursuit QuarterFinals

Short Track Skating
* 19:30 List Ladies 500m Quarterfinal 1
* 19:33 List Ladies 500m Quarterfinal 2
* 19:36 List Ladies 500m Quarterfinals 3
* 19:39 List Ladies 500m Quarterfinals 4
* 19:57 List Men’s 1000m Heat 1
* 20:01 List Men’s 1000m Heat 2
* 20:05 List Men’s 1000m Heat 3
* 20:09 List Men’s 1000m Heat 4
* 20:13 List Men’s 1000m Heat 5
* 20:17 List Men’s 1000m Heat 6
* 20:21 List Men’s 1000m Heat 7
* 20:44 Ladies 500m Semifinal 1
* 20:47 Ladies 500m Semifinal 2
* 21:05 List Men’s 5000m Relay Semifinal 1
* 21:14 List Men’s 5000m Relay Semifinal 2
* 21:38 Ladies 500m Final B
* 21:41 Ladies 500m Final A

Post from: EveryJoe

Busy Day Today – February 15, 2006

25 Medals for Canada? Where are we going to get 25 medals?

I should say that in my general community of friends and online contacts, sure – we are proud of ALL our Canadian Athletes (maybe a little more with the 5 Winnipeggers in Torino) and we are quite happy if they just perform to the best of their abilities to what they can! But, yah ~ there’s a side of us that also want’s them to Kick Butt! ;-) …

I was looking around at the CBC olympic site to see what events Canada is predicted to bring in medals .. The medal predictions kind of stopped in the events starting with “S” .. so, I had to combine the mostly CBC predictions with a little Sports Illustrated predictions for Canada ..

Before trying to compare these predictions to how our athletes have been competing in the events, here follows a “rough” estimate of the medals predicted to be had by Canada .. Maybe at the end of the Olympics I will come back and compare these to “reality”!

Alpine Skiing – Women’s Giant Slalom – Bronze
Alpine Skiing – Men’s Super-G – Bronze

Biathlon – None

Bobsleigh – Men’s Two-Man – Gold
Bobsleigh – Women’s Two-Man – Bronze

Cross Country Skiing – Women’s 10km – Bronze
Cross Country Skiing – Women’s Pursuit – Silver
Cross Country Skiing – Women’s Team Spirit – Solver
Cross Country Skiing – Women’s Sprint – Gold

Curling – Men’s – Gold
Curling – Women’s – Gold

Figure Skating – Men’s – Bronze

Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Aerials – Gold
Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Aerials – Silver
Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Moguls – Bronze
Freeystyle Skiing – Women’s Moguls – Silver

Ice Hockey – Men’s – Gold
Ice Hockey – Women’s – Gold

Luge – nothing

Nordic Combined – nothing

Short Track – Women’s 3000m Relay – Gold
Short Track – Men’s 5000m Relay – Silver
Short Track – Men’s 500m – Silver

Skeleton – Men’s – Gold
Skeleton – Men’s – Bronze
Skeleton – Women’s – Silver

Ski Jumping – nothing

Snowboard – Men’s Parallel Giant Slalom – Silver
Snowboard – Men’s Snowboardcross – Silver
Snowboard – Women’s Snowboardcross – Bronze

Speedskating – Men’s 500m – Gold
Speedskating – Women’s 1500m – Silver
Speedskating – Women’s 3000m – Bronze
Speedskating – Women’s Team Pursuit – Silver

Okay then! According to the above, that looks like 30 medals to me … did I count correctly?
Gold – 10
Silver – 11
Bronze – 9

What do you think of these predictions?

Go Canada Go!

What are the predictions for your country?

Feel free to link them in the comments below!

Post from: EveryJoe

Canada’s Olympic Medal Quest

I also looked away in horror as Hannah Kearney went into nuclear meltdown on the slopes. Even I, an unexperienced skiier, saw the horrible run she made. Too bad. She’s better than that.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ski Action

A native of Spruce Grove, Alberta, Heil barely beat out Norwegian and French skiiers Traa and Laoura. Here are the final points and times:

Heil: 26.50, 26:69
Traa: 25.65, 27:33
Laoura: 25.37, 26:67

Go Canada!

Post from: EveryJoe

Canada’s First Gold!

source: Kearney left behind after qualifying

Post from: EveryJoe

Gold Medal Favorite Kearney Misses Qualifying for Finals