The Official Olympics Thread

[WESTWOOD303]

The opening ceremonies were the BOMB!! I hope the next sixteen days are as good!!!

[NWOWolfpack]

The fireworks were definitely the BEST!!

[NWOWolfpack]

Anyone for some Beach Volleyball?











Even President Bush likes Beach Volleyball!!!!:D

[BreakingBacks]

The winter Olympics are almost here but there is no snow!

The people in charge of next month’s Vancouver Winter Olympics are more than a little nervous, they’re getting desperate. There isn’t enough snow on Cypress Mountain, one of their feature venues. The prospects for snow between now and then are dismal. In jeopardy are some downhill skiing events and some very popular snow boarding contests. Temperatures are hovering above 45-degrees and expected to remain there for the foreseeable future (accuweather.com) say forecasters which, along with some rain, bodes badly for natural snow or the man made variety. Blame it on El Nino they say.

Olympics So what’s an organizer to do? For openers, the Vancouver Organizing Committee has hired batteries of weather experts and set up dozens of mobile weather stations. But forecasters only forecast and, so far, all VANOC has to show for its investment is bad news. “There are some people who are concerned,” chief meteorologist Chris Doyle told the Seattle Times. That’s an understatement -- desperate times require desperate measures.

[keithlewis]

not off to a good start.

WHISTLER, British Columbia -- A men's Olympic luger from the former Soviet republic of Georgia died after a crash during training Friday, an Olympic official with direct knowledge of the crash said.

Nodar Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled near the finish, went over the track wall and struck an unpadded steel pole near the finish line at Whistler Sliding Center on a course that is the world's fastest and has raised safety concerns among competitors.

Rescue officials rushed to the scene and performed chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Kumaritashvili was lifted into an ambulance. An air-rescue helicopter was summoned and was over the track about eight minutes after the crash.

Kumaritashvili struck the inside wall of the track on the final turn. His body immediately went airborne and cleared the ice-coated concrete wall along the left side of the sliding surface. His sled remained in the track, and it appeared his helmet visor skidded down the ice.

"It's a very rare situation," three-time Olympic champion and German coach Georg Hackl said. "But there's some things that you can't do anything about."

It was unclear how fast Kumaritashvili was going, although many sliders have exceeded 90 mph on this course. The track is considered the world's fastest and several Olympians recently questioned its safety. More than a dozen athletes have crashed during Olympic training.

At the finish area, not far from the crash scene, athletes, coaches and officials solemnly awaited word on Kumaritashvili.

"I've never seen anything like that," said Shiva Keshavan, a four-time Olympian from India. "I'm afraid it's bad."

Training was suspended indefinitely, International Luge Federation members were called for a briefing and team captains from each nation were asked to attend a meeting.

Kumaritashvili competed in five World Cup races this season, finishing 44th in the world standings.

Earlier in the day, gold-medal favorite Armin Zoeggeler of Italy crashed, losing control of his sled on Curve 11. Zoeggeler came off his sled and held it with his left arm to keep it from smashing atop his body. He slid on his back down several curves before coming to a stop and walking away.

Training days in Whistler have been crash-filled. A Romanian woman was briefly knocked unconscious and at least four Americans -- Chris Mazdzer on Wednesday, Megan Sweeney on Thursday and both Tony Benshoof and Bengt Walden on Friday in the same training session where Zoeggeler wrecked -- have had serious trouble just getting down the track.

"I think they are pushing it a little too much," Australia's Hannah Campbell-Pegg said Thursday night after she nearly lost control in training. "To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives."

[keithlewis]

Streaming the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics

The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are here and die hard fans like us want to be able to watch coverage of the games from anywhere and at anytime. Since we all can't sit in front of our TVs at home and watch NBC's Olympic coverage all day, there are many Internet alternatives that allow you to watch live and recorded coverage.

NBC is the first place to start as they have broadcast rights to the 2010 Winter Olympics in the United States. Their interactive Web site is NBCOlympics.com and here is where they will have all of their coverage of the games as well as live & recorded streaming content. Their site utilizes streaming technology from both Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, so it's a good idea to make sure your computer has the most up-to-date versions of both plug-ins.

NBC will have an online streaming schedule that's independent of their TV schedule, so you'll have to check it for times that a certain sport or event will be airing on their online streams. NBC also provides a few other ways to keep connected to the games, first of which is are RSS feeds with all of that latest news and updates. You can subscribe to whole sections of news, or break it down by photos, Team USA, video, and specific sports. As mentioned before, NBCOlympics.com also houses NBC's local affiliate TV schedule, which is really useful in planning time to watch coverage at home. NBC will be airing Olympic coverage throughout the duration of the games on their entire network of channels, including NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, UHD, and Universal Sports. They also have a mobile site that is a light-version of their regular Web site for viewing on your mobile device, just go to NBCOlympics.com on your mobile device.

NBCOlympics.com will of course also have all the results for all sports, medal tallies, athlete biographies, and information about each sport and its accompanying venue.

One note about NBC's online streaming: you must live in the United States in order to view any video content as NBC only owns rights to it for U.S. viewers. Viewers in Canada can go to CTVOlympics.ca (English) and RDSOlympiques.ca (French). United Kingdom viewers can visit BBC Sports for coverage.

Streaming and recorded coverage will also by provided by NBC to AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. AT&T customers will be able to watch coverage through the CV application installed on most AT&T phones under the Sports category. Sprint cellular customers can view coverage through Sprint TV under the Entertainment > TV > SprintTV > NBC Sports channel. Verizon users can watch coverage via the V CAST application under Pictures & Video > V CAST Videos > Sports > NBC Sports.

Another alternative to traditional coverage is Twitter, which is a great way to stay connected to the games when you can't watch video coverage. NBC has a 'TweetSheet' on their site that aggregates Olympic tweets from NBC News, athletes, and fans. You can alternatively subscribe to @NBCOlympicZone from a Twitter client of your choice. @CTVOlympics is the aggregation of coverage from Canadian broadcasters and the International Olympic Committee itself tweets from @Olympics.

With all of the many different ways to keep connected to the 2010 Winter Olympic games, this will surely be the most connected and available Olympics games as of yet. If you want to watch coverage all day long from home, work, or on-the-go, there's definitely a way to do it.

[NWOWolfpack]

Hell Yea.........the best RW in NHL History returned tonight to the world stage............



Jagr had a Goal and Assist.......................

[keithlewis]

02/19/10 Medal Count Update:

United States 20
Germany 11
Norway 10
Canada 7
France 7
South Korea 5
Austria 5
Switzerland 4
China 4
Sweden 4
Russia 4
Italy 4
Netherlands 3
Poland 3
Japan 3
Australia 2
Slovakia 2
Czech Republic 2
Belarus 2

*several other countries have 1 medal so far!