New Zamboni

To prevent further ice machine problems a real Zamboni has been flown in from Calgary, but as you all can see - there is no Olympic decoration on this one ...

Curling

Tuesday was curling day for us. We saw one curling session in Torino 4 years ago. Then only a few hundred spectators attended the session. In Canada curling is almost as hot as ice-hockey, so the curling venue was packed with Canadian fans cheering for Kevin Marin and his team, one of the big favorites to bring home a gold medal for the host country. And they were making a lot of noise!

Germany gave Canada a hard time for a while, but in the end Canada proved to be the strongest team, and Germany congratulated Canada with the victory after the 9th end. After this the Canadian crowd started cheering for the Norwegian team, playing against USA. "Let's go Norway, let's go" from the Canadians (and the few Norwegians in the stands) seemed to help, because Norway won the 10th end, making it a tie, and in the 11th end they gave the Americans a hard time and stole a point to win the match.

Norwegian skip Thomas Ulsrud shouting "HARD!"



The Norwegian team, in their clown suits, discussing the tactics for the last stones.

Broken Zambonis

On the 500 m the ice refurbishing machines caused a two hour delay because they both had problems. Even the backup machine had problems. And these were brand new!

The ice-refurbishing machines are refered to as zambonis, after the main manufacturer of these machines. And after the event people said "the Zambonis were broken ...". Only these were not really Zambonis. Because General Motors is a proud sponsor of the Olympic Games, they got to make the equipment used for the Olympics. Everywhere else they use real Zambonis ...


The Japanese coach checking the ice quality after the final ice-preparation before the 500 m could go on after a two hour break.

Surprise Olympic champion on the 500 meter

Olympic champion Mo Tae-Bum

Silver medalist Keiichiro Nagashima.

Bronze medalist Joji Kato

The Koreans seems to be in great shape for these Olympics, so I guessed one of the Lee's of Korea would win the 500 m. Lee Kyou-Hyuk did not seem to be in shape at all, and when former world record holder Lee Kang-Seok also failed to be on the podium, it was quite a surprise to see Mo Tae-Bum make two consistently good races and win the gold with a clear margin to the japanese skaters in second and third place. For the first time in Olympic history we had an all Asian podium in speed skating.

Chinese New Year

When you are walking around Richmond it seems like at least every second person you meet is chinese, or at least asian - except for the occasional orange-dressed Dutch speed skating fan of course. No wonder, Richmond has a chinese population of 44% and an asian population of about 60%. This weekend they celebrated Chinese New Year. To take part in the Chinese New Year celebration we had dinner in Chinatown in Vancouver. On our way back home we stopped by the O-Zone i Richmond, an Olympic recreational area in a park in the centre of Richmond, where there was a big Chinese New Year celebration - one of the biggest outside of China. We got to watch traditional lion dance and martial arts performance before spectacular fireworks were set off to celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Tiger.

Czech favorite gold

No surprise in the womens 3000 m yesterdy. Jeroens prediction was: Sablikova, Beckert and one of the canadians. The canadian proved to be Norwegian descendant Kristina Groves, so at least half a Norwegian medal :-)

Sablikova cheering for her gold medal:


Silver medalist, Stephanie Beckert of Germany:


Bronze medalist, Kristina Groves of Canada:

King Sven

Since the last Olympics, Sven Kramer has been the unrivaled speed skating king. He is 3 times world Allround Champion, 4 times European Champion, holds the world record on the 2 longest distance, and yesterday he won his first Olympic gold medal.

He sat the pace himself, by being the first skater out among the favorites. It was clearly a good race, and he finished in a new Olympic Record, but he was also clearly not happy after he finished. He finished 4-5 seconds slower than we had expected, but it still seemed like quite a good race. Could someone actually beat him? The outsideres were never even close, and the big surprise was silver medalist, the Korean Seung-Hoon Lee, who switched from short-track before this season.


Sven Kramer - energetically starting his race.


After he has won - climbing into the stands to celebrate with his father.


.. then climbing back onto the ice (some of us secretely hoped he would strech some muscles while climbing ...) ...


... and then thanking the audience.