Winter Olympics - Torino 2006

[Remi]

Don't you just love Shaun White?! What a great guy!

I felt bad for Bode, too. But, I think he's got more chances for a medal... right? The Men's downhill was really exciting to watch! It's one of those things that's exciting and terrifying at the same time (for me to watch). I don't know how they do it!

I just saw that Apolo didn't win anything either. I hope he's in another competition! I love to watch him!

Michelle Kwan is a truly a class act!

[texasgal]

Natalie, that's true about age and sports - especially Olympian sports. In gymnastics, women are "washed up" by the time they're 19. By then, women gain weight, get curvy and womanly, and lose upper body strength.

Sounds like figure skating isn't far behind that age limit. I just heard on the radio that Michelle isn't likely to compete in the next winter games because she'll be too old.

[Natalie]

I love the crazy stuff that the snowboarders do! Same with the skiers! I so wish I could do that stuff! I'm pretty sure that Shaun, Bode, and Apolo will do other events.

Go to www.nbcolympics.com There is A TON of info on there. TV Listings and if you click on a certain athlete, you get the results of their medals and when their events are.

[Remi]

Oooh, thanks for the link Natalie!

I thought this was a cool about Shaun White.

Normal-guy White goes golden
U.S. just misses halfpipe sweep

By J.A. ADANDE
Los Angeles Times
February 13. 2006 8:00AM

ARDONECCHIA, Italy - The man who just won the unofficial title of coolest dude in the Winter Olympics still lives with his parents.

The new king of the men's halfpipe, the rockin'est event at these games, digs music that you'd hear on a classic rock station, doesn't mind being filmed in the same shot as a cardboard cutout of Fabio and thinks the best part of his gold medal is it boosts his chances with a quintessential good girl.

"I'm hoping Sasha Cohen dates gold medalists,"Shaun White said, slipping into an imaginary conversation with the figure skater. "Hey, babe. Oh, this? Oh, yeah, I just got it. How you doin?"

Now that rest of the world can see what the X Games crowd already knew - White is the capital-T Truth - it's time to reveal what the first impressions don't give off. In a Mountain Dew sport, he's vitamin D milk.

Don't be fooled by White's profession or that huge outburst of red hair on his head, the one that earned him the nickname "The Flying Tomato." Even he admits, "I've gotta get a haircut."

Truth is, he's just as normal as any 19-year-old who owns three homes in California and two condos in Utah, needs two commas to tabulate his endorsement deals, travels around the world and wins just about every competition he enters can be.

"It's an amazing year for me," White said. "Honestly, I feel really grateful for everything."

He paused to ask teammate Danny Kass, the silver medalist, "Do you want to go to Disneyland?"

"I was on the chairlift today with Andy Finch, one of our teammates," White continued. "I was just like, 'Can you believe this is kind of our job, this is what we do?'"

It's just as unbelievable to think that snowboarding has taken over as the American event of the Winter Olympics. Yesterday's one-two punch combined with the Salt Lake City Sweep of 2002 gives the U.S. five of the past six medals awarded in the halfpipe event and six out of nine since the Olympics adopted the sport for the 1998 games. Many observers also thought American Mason Aguirre had the third-best run yesterday, but his score wasn't good enough to displace Markuu Koski of Finland from the bronze medal.

So say goodbye to the Phil and Steve Mahre days. The roles have switched now: The top snowboarder is a conformist and the top skier is an anti-establishment rebel. And unlike the outspoken Bode Miller, White wins Olympic gold medals.

Even someone taking in his first live halfpipe competition (such as me) can tell White's just that much better than everyone else. He has that key component of greatness, the ability to make it look easy.

I'll let Bud Keene, the U.S. halfpipe coach, explain it in better detail.

"Most riders drop into the pipe, they do their tricks, they land their tricks and just drift toward the next wall," Keene said.

"He skates that thing. He's in control every second, whether he's in the air, whether he's on the wall, whether he's in the flat bottom. Everything is happening exactly the way he wants it to happen. And that's a quality that really shines through in his riding."

To put it in snowboard-speak, "He's just got backside 9s on lock," Kass said. (Translation: He excels at spinning 2½ times from the back side of the board.)

White's the beta version of the new American sports hero. Snowboarding might have a counter-culture image, but White couldn't get enough of the red-white-and-blue. He performed his halfpipe runs with an American flag bandana across his face. After he surfed his way to victory on the second run with the gold medal assured, White waved a giant American flag like a toreador enticing a bull, then draped Old Glory across his shoulders. If that weren't enough, White grabbed a tiny flag and waved that, too.

Kass then let us in on a secret: "I saw, he cried."

"It was just tears," White clarified. "It wasn't crying. It wasn't my fault. It was the family coming up and their eyes were beet red and they were just like, 'uhwuhuh, uwuhuwuh.'"

You can tell family means everything to White. His parents, brother and sister came to Italy to cheer him on. He thought about them at the top of the hill, kept talking about them throughout his news conference. And how many teenagers do you know that refer to their fathers as "rad"?

White credited his dad for his taste in music, an old-school lean that led to two songs recorded before he was born - AC/DC's "Back in Black"and Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown"- boom through the speakers for his runs.

"My dad, he's the rocker," White said.

White and Kass (who looks like one of the tough kids in The Simpsons when he wears his knit hat) have a good connection, too. Kind of a Ben Stiller-Owen Wilson thing. And for the record, that life-sized Fabio that joined Kass and White for a pipe-side TV interview came from Kass's family.

"What a strange bunch," White said. "Where would one find a Fabio cutout?"

Soon people might start asking where they can find a Shaun White cutout. White still dreams of one day attending the Summer Olympics to compete in skateboarding, his first love. If the sport were adopted and he won a gold medal, White and American Eddie Eagan (bobsled/boxing) would be the only people to win gold in both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

And the best part of all?

"Sasha would dig that."

------ End of article

By J.A. ADANDE

Los Angeles Times

[Natalie]

I really like Shaun, he seems like such a sweet kid. They said on TV that he had open heart surgery when he was six months old and he wasn't expected to live.... Now look at him! Congrats to him! He's really good too and entertaining to watch.

Did you see when Ashton Punk'd him a while ago? It was a bit ago, I can't remember exactly when. I didn't see the whole thing, but that part that I did see was funny.

I can't wait to see more of Chad . . . he's cute! I think so, anyway. Well, and he's good at speed skating too.

[Gage51]

Awwww..........what a great article. I love that he's so close with his family.

Kass then let us in on a secret: "I saw, he cried."
"It was just tears," White clarified. "It wasn't crying. It wasn't my fault. It was the family coming up and their eyes were beet red and they were just like, 'uhwuhuh, uwuhuwuh.'"
You can tell family means everything to White. His parents, brother and sister came to Italy to cheer him on. He thought about them at the top of the hill, kept talking about them throughout his news conference. And how many teenagers do you know that refer to their fathers as "rad"?

I love it.

Beth

[texasgal]

I just heard on the radio that Joey Cheek is donating the money he won in the Olympics to charity!

Amazing.

Go, Joey!!!

[Remi]

Joey Cheek (love that name!) is donating his winnings to a charity (Right to Play) to help the kids in "disadvantaged parts of the world". We may not be leading the world in medals, but damn, we've got some awesome people!

Did anyone see the Women's snowboarding competition? WOW!!! A Gold and a Silver! They have such a good time with that sport! They don't even appear nervous. They just get up there, jamming to some tunes, wave at everyone, and just let it fly! I love it! They said something about a new competition with four snowboarders on the same track, racing or something... I can't wait to see that!! (Hopefully, it comes on before my bedtime.)

[Natalie]

Joey Cheek is sooo cool. Loved his race, loved that he got the gold, and that's great about him donating to charity!

Yes, I loved the snowboarding too!

[texasgal]

I heard Joey Cheek's press conference speech today on "Morning Edition," NPR. He specifically mentioned Darfur. He has challenged companies to match his donation. I think it was Nike who took up the challenge immediately. There may be others by now. Gotta love him.

Yes, Remi, I heard the snowboarding competition you mentioned described as something like roller derby on snowboards.

[Natalie]

Anyone keeping up with the Olympics?

I felt bad for Irina Slutskaya and Sasha Cohen, the way they lost in figure skating...but the Japanese girl was excellent! (I can't remember her name right now...)

The whole "soap opera" between Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis was pretty funny. They were acting pretty childish, but it was actually kind of amusing.

Congrats to Chad on winning the silver in the men's 10,000 m speed skating race.

I just can't believe the Olympics are almost over!

[texasgal]

Yes, Nat. I just finished watching Shizuka Arakawa (gold medalist) skate another exquisite performance. She is enchanting.

I felt so badly for Sasha and Irina too. I always hate to see anyone fall because we know how hard they've worked for so many years to get to the Olympics.

I really enjoyed watching the Turkish and Georgian women skate too - it's not every Olympics we get to see Turkish and Georgian skaters.

And, of course, there's Yevgeney and Evan. And the pairs. What can I say?

[Gage51]

We watched the women skiiers fall all over the place last night due to the blinding snowfall. We watched them skiing through dense fog a few days before. I don't know how they do it.
I was sorry to see Irina lose too. She's 27, so that was most likely her last Olympics. Never say never though. Plus, her mom is so terribly ill.
Emily Hughes was great-she's so young, she'll be back.
The Shani-Chad soap opera has been quite entertaining. That press conference the other night......can you say uncomfortable?
My favorite, favorite, favorite drama so far though, would have to be the Italian skating team. The guy dropped her and she stared daggers at him. They didn't talk to each other, look at each other, downright ignored each other right up until they skated the next night. Then they showed him breaking down in tears backstage. Oh the drama!

Beth, wondering if Shaun White and Sasha Cohen will hook up now........ ;D

[Natalie]

That's true about the women skiiers! The weather was crazy!

gage51 said:

My favorite, favorite, favorite drama so far though, would have to be the Italian skating team. The guy dropped her and she stared daggers at him. They didn't talk to each other, look at each other, downright ignored each other right up until they skated the next night. Then they showed him breaking down in tears backstage. Oh the drama!

YES! That was actually quite funny.

gage51 said:

Beth, wondering if Shaun White and Sasha Cohen will hook up now........ ;D

Did you see when Bob Costas was interviewing Sasha and showed her the tape of Shaun saying he wanted to meet her? That was cute too. She just said she was flattered, but that it was ackward.

[Gage51]

natalie said:

Did you see when Bob Costas was interviewing Sasha and showed her the tape of Shaun saying he wanted to meet her? That was cute too. She just said she was flattered, but that it was awkward.

I didn't see that! I would've loved to have seen that.
I did read a blurb in the newspaper where the interviewer asked her if she knew that Shaun White was interested in meeting her and she said "Maybe I'll see him at the Closing Ceremonies." Then the interviewer said something like "I think he likes you." and then she said "I like Gold medals." Sounds like she may be a bit interested. I think they'd make a cute couple.

Beth