Dutch
As of today, the Netherlands has 22 medals. 21 of them are from speed skating events.
So the obvious question: why are they so freaking good at speed skating?
According to a few articles I’ve read on the subject, not only are they tall (average height is above 6 feet), which allows them to take very long strides, but speed skating is very much a part of their culture. A lot of the country’s top athletes go into speed skating rather than anything else (aside from soccer) and there are 17 training ovals for speed skaters throughout the country (the US has two).
There are 7 commercial speed skating teams in the Netherlands with around 60 professionals total, and when the Dutch Olympic trials are held, the speed skating portion is said to be the most competitive in the world because so many Dutch people are good skaters.
So it sounds like speed skating is just something the Dutch do, and clearly, they do it well.
More Figure Skating
Aw, this was so sad to watch.
I hope he didn’t cause any more permanent damage to his back during the team skates.
Edit (2/22): okay, wow, so it sounds like he needs back surgery again because one of the screws already in his spine snapped. Ouch.
COPERNICUS, NO!
THEY
PLAYED
TROLOLO
IN THE OPENING CEREMONY
RUSSIA I LOVE YOU
But seriously (and my mom can confirm this): a couple weeks ago, I suggested how awesome it would be if one of the figure skaters chose to stake to Trololo.
And then they PUT IT IN THE OPENING CEREMONY (at least for like 5 seconds)
I laughed so hard. Why isn’t the internet freaking out about this?
(I’m freaking out about this)
GAMES
There is no better way to start an Olympic games than with this man:
Evgeni Plushenko!!!
And that was a damn good program he gave us tonight, holy crap.
Have some more pics:
The fact that I was in the same city as him–for a few days, at least–makes me super happy.
(I love him sorry)
In other news (and the reason that this blog is password protected), my STAT 452 class is really starting to suck. I definitely need to rant about this—which will happen later when I have more time and am not absorbed in watching figure skating—but I just needed to mention it somewhere before my head explodes from anger.
Eigenblogger 