Dream of the Perfect Double Axel

Don't you just HATE knowing the results before seeing the event?! Unless the Olympics (or any other competition) is held on the west coast, or in Hawaii, this will always be the case for me, I suppose, until it's possible to watch live streaming video for a small fee on your own computer screen; possibly by the next Olympics(?) . From early incoming reports on the ladies free skate, it sounds exactly like the last Olympics, when Sarah Hughes was the only one to skate clean; and when you've only got one clean long program and the rest of the top skaters are falling, who do you think is going to get the gold? Cheers to Arakawa for being the ONLY athlete to win a medal for Japan in these Olympics so far, and for making it a gold one, and for being a woman on top of that. The Japanese public will get off on the fact that this brilliant comback was accomplished in the premier event of the Olympics, and the Japanese press will make sure to make sure they do. Arakawa's instant and everlasting fame across Japan has been secured by such a monumental face-saving feat, and I'm sure the perks she receives as a by-product will be well worth her years of grueling training and dues-paying. Sad to know already that there's only one clean skate to watch tonight, but at least there IS one. And apparently the "typically reserved Arakawa" (as we're reminded all the time by the press) actually smiles at the end!

Categories: Torino, Olympics, skating