Swifter Higher

Vancouver 2010 Content Index

2010-03-01T17:05:21Z

Essays Day 1: Where are the Olympics? Day 2: Who's Selling, Who's Buying Day 3: Take Me to the Riot Day 3: This is Live City Day 4: The Battle of Richmond Day 5: What Price Whistler Day 6: Backlash! Day 7: Security State Day 8: Nordic Fever Day 9: The Legend of Mukmuk Day 9: Nodar Day 10: What Whistler Gets Day 11: Mystery of Chessbowling (On Ice) Day 12: L'Olympiade Culturelle Day 13: Expo 2010 Day 14: Where the Americans Are Day 15: Logo Creep Day 16: See You in Sochi Day 17: Nothing Is More Seductive Than The Dying Starlet Day 17: Goodbye Vancouver Photo Galleries Days 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Results Days 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Goodbye Vancouver

2010-03-01T04:41:35Z

RICHMOND, B.C. -- There is no other way these Games could have ended. It was how they were supposed to end all along. And of course it was one of the greatest games in Olympic hockey history. Did circumstances require anything less? Early confidence for the home team, a small setback, a sure win erased in the final seconds, then a sudden-death goal by the country's young hero. Perhaps the film version will be shot right here, in Vancouver... to save money, of course. When it was over, Canadian television showed street celebrations from Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal and 1988 host city Calgary. They all looked exactly like the one on Robson Street -- red, white, and ridiculously happy. From downtown Vancouver, I walked south against a wave of humanity. Everybody was whooping and yelling and high-fiving, all ready to swarm the streets and steal the asphalt from the very last automobile. It didn't take the people long to plug the arteries; a mere 90 minutes after Sidney Crosby's goal, the police cut off car traffic on the Granville Street bridge, and BC Transit stopped running the No. 10 and No. 17 buses. The only way into the city, or out, was by foot. Me, I was leaving the way I'd come in, over the long concrete Granville Street bridge. By the time the street numbers rose into the teens, the honking and waving and the flags had all faded away, replaced by the quiet calm of the South Granville district on a Sunday afternoon. There were kids with angular haircuts drinking coffee in Starbucks, thin blonde girls shopping for clothes, women getting their nails done at salons. I pointed my rental Kia down Highway 99, towards the border. The sky was bright and clear after five days of looking like skim milk. Pink, popping cherry blossoms were in full bloom along Granville Street, and I hadn't remembered seeing those before. The Winter Games were over, and spring had arrived in Vancouver. This city, and this nation, was already moving into the future.

***

This concludes the XXI Winter Olympics, as well as my attempts to document my experiences there. Thanks to the media entities and blogs who linked in, especially Reuters and the New York Times! Thanks also for your interesting and insightful notes over the course of these Games; if you haven't, please drop a line and let me know what you thought. If you were stuck at home, I hope I've helped inspire you to come along next time. For Americans watching at home in NBC tunnel vision, I tried to challenge popular preconceptions of what the Olympics really are. They're as much about art, culture, transit maps, geopolitics, geography, sociology, history, standing in line, and playing mind games with ticket scalpers as they are about watching sports. There were hundreds of world-class winter athletes in Vancouver, thousands of members of the global media, and millions of Vancouver residents who each had their own perspective. That thousands (!) of you found time to read my version is a great honor. I hope that now that Vancouver 2010 is over, some of the 20,000 loyal bluejacket volunteers will record their own experiences. The Official Report will be along in a few months, and that will be full of stories, as always. This trip wouldn't have happened without my kind sponsor T.F. The writing part would have been impossible if not for Blenz Coffee locations staying open 24 hours a day during the Olympics, and would have bankrupted me if not for Boingo Wireless' cheap international wifi plan. To friends and relatives; I'll probably say "washroom" and "sorry" for a few weeks, and yammer on about "wine gums" and "Timbits." Please bear with me during this crucial deprogramming period. Please keep Swifter, Higher in your RSS reader; at some point, I'll finally figure out what to do with it in the down part of the Olympic cycle. Either way, I'll see you again when the youth of the world reconvenes in London 29 months from now; until then, farewell and safe travels home.

Vancouver Photos: Day 17

2010-03-01T01:21:01Z

Men's hockey gold medal game street celebrations

Results Dump, Day 17

2010-03-01T01:03:00Z

Results from the Day 17 competitions.]]> Hockey Men's Gold Medal Game Canada 3:2 United States (OT) Nordic Skiing Men's 50km Mass Start

G	 NOR	Petter Northug	2:05:35.5
S	 GER	Axel Teichmann	2:05:35.8
B	 SWE	Johan Olsson	2:05:36.5
4	 GER	Tobias Angerer	2:05:37.0
5	 CAN	Devon Kershaw	2:05:37.1
6	 EST	Andrus Veerpalu	2:05:41.6
7	 SWE	Daniel Rickardsson	2:05:45.2
8	 RUS	Maxim Vylegzhanin	2:05:46.4
9	 SWE	Anders Soedergren	2:05:47.1
10	 SUI	Dario Cologna	2:05:47.5
11	 ITA	Giorgio di Centa	2:05:49.0
12	 CZE	Lukas Bauer	2:05:49.4
13	 FRA	Vincent Vittoz	2:05:49.6
14	 RUS	Alexander Legkov	2:05:53.3
15	 NOR	Martin Johnsrud Sundby	2:05:57.7
16	 GER	Jens Filbrich	2:06:07.8
17	 NOR	Odd Bjorn Hjelmeset	2:06:08.3
18	 CAN	George Grey	2:06:18.1
19	 FRA	Jean Marc Gaillard	2:06:38.0
20	 FIN	Sami Jauhojarvi	2:06:43.2
21	 GER	Rene Sommerfeldt	2:06:52.5
22	 SWE	Marcus Hellner	2:07:03.2
23	 NOR	Jens Arne Svartedal	2:07:32.5
24	 RUS	Petr Sedov	2:07:35.4
25	 BLR	Sergei Dolidovich	2:07:47.6
26	 ITA	Pietro Piller Cottrer	2:08:21.6
27	 KAZ	Alexey Poltaranin	2:09:29.6
28	 USA	James Southam	2:10:08.3
29	 CZE	Jiri Magal	2:10:22.7
30	 EST	Jaak Mae	2:10:41.3
31	 ITA	Valerio Checchi	2:10:49.7
32	 CAN	Alex Harvey	2:10:49.9
33	 CAN	Ivan Babikov	2:10:50.2
34	 EST	Aivar Rehemaa	2:10:57.6
35	 JPN	Nobu Naruse	2:10:59.2
36	 ITA	Roland Clara	2:11:00.8
37	 FIN	Ville Nousiainen	2:11:38.0
38	 FRA	Cyril Miranda	2:11:56.9
39	 KAZ	Yevgeniy Velichko	2:13:01.5
40	 ESP	Vicente Vilarrubla	2:13:33.8
41	 EST	Algo Karp	2:13:49.6
42	 UKR	Roman Leybyuk	2:15:19.9
43	 FIN	Lari Lehtonen	2:16:26.2
44	 ESP	Diego Ruiz	2:17:49.8
45	 BLR	Aleksey Ivanov	2:17:59.2
46	 NZL	Ben Koons	2:21:53.9
47	 AND	Francesc Soulie	2:25:00.8
48	 DEN	Jonas Thor Olsen	2:25:00.9
	 RUS	Sergej Shiriaev	DNF
	 USA	Kris Freeman	DNF
	 SVK	Martin Bajcicak	DNF
	 KAZ	Sergey Cherepanov	DNS
	 ROU	Paul Pepene	DNS
	 SVK	Ivan Batory	DNF
	 ESP	Javier Gutierrez	DNF

Nothing Is More Seductive Than The Dying Starlet

2010-02-28T18:43:47Z

VANCOUVER -- At the end of the Olympics, it's up to the journalists to decide what really happened. Writers will impose a 500-word narrative structure onto the goings-on, form the historical document for future generations or just those who want to remember. The Americans won the most medals, but the hosts won the most gold. There were plenty of fashion statements -- curling pants and red mittens and gigantic medals. These Games will be remembered for the lives that ended here, a lugist from Georgia and the mother of a Canadian figure skater. But make no mistake: Vancouver 2010 was about hockey, the national sport of this great nation. The pulse of the metropolis quickened and fell with the fortunes of the Canadian men's team. The city was optimistic, then cautious, and outright angry after that loss to the Americans. During a three-game run to the gold medal game, young Vancouver forged into a single red and white entity, taking to the streets with unity and purpose. In a lot of ways, the legacy of the XXI Winter Olympic Games will hinge on one match, held in the early afternoon of Day 17. Should Canada win, what will the country do with all of this strange new energy? I have spent a lot of time on the periphery of these Winter Olympics -- and there is a lot of periphery in a city this big. In coffeeshops and restaurants over the past week, there's been a well-worn conversation. I was the most anti-Olympics person out there, but I can't help getting caught up in all the excitement... especially the hockey. The Games themselves didn't win over the local cynics, but the performances of Canadian athletes did.]]> clashes between protesters and police, things calmed down. Security was chaotic and confused during the first week, then it sorted itself out. Transit was confusing initially, but everyone figured it out. The chain reaction of horrible disasters never happened. But once all of us visitors are gone, all the folks who are reveling in owning the podium are going to remember Vancouver 2010 for a long, long time. "I don't want to think about what the final security costs are going to be," said a woman two tables over at the Starbucks the other day. "We're going to be paying taxes on this for the rest of our lives." "Just think of it as pay-per-view," her companion noted. "But this time, we view first, then we pay." The Olympics Triplecast, alive and well! This could very well be the last of its kind -- a Winter Games paid for with a virtual credit card. London 2012 might end up being the Financial Apocalympics these were supposed to be (I'd bet on that, myself), but the Western shell game of funny money likely ends with this cycle. Sochi 2014 organizers already have nearly all of the private financing they need, and Rio 2016 will be an interesting new case study. We'll get a peek at how a rapidly developing nation hosts a gigantic global sports event this summer, when South Africa hosts the FIFA World Cup. For the Whistler resort two hours north, the effects of these Games is readily apparent. Highway 99 has been upgraded, making access easier, and now the world knows its name. But what does Vancouver get, other than a new speedskating oval and the final bill?

***

I've been carrying around City of Glass by Douglas Coupland, the city's most famous writer. If you don't know his name, you know the phrase he coined: "Generation X." I've always hated his novels, how non-linear they are, how there will be six pages of bizarre diagrams or 130-point Helvetica text inserted for no easily discernible reason. I'll go back and read them all this summer, now that I have a better idea of where they came from. City of Glass is a series of essays about Vancouver. I saved it for these last few days of the Games, because I wanted to form my own impressions before they were colored or adjusted. Coupland talks about what it feels like to live here. He details Vancouver's odd relationships with straitlaced provincial capital Victoria (a city it's long since surpassed in power) and the rest of Canada (it's too far away from national capital Ottawa to be affected much by its laws). He explains why the dominant style of architecture (the glass "see-through" residential skyscraper) was inspired by wealthy Hong Kong businessmen looking for crash pads in case the British handover to the Chinese in 1997 went badly (it didn't). He talks about the movie-of-the-week industry that can magically turn Vancouver into any American city, on the cheap. The idea took two weeks to crystallize in my mind, but reading this book made me realize that for a metropolis of 2.5 million, there are no freeways at all here. Highway 99, the mother road that links the U.S. border with Vancouver, and on up to Whistler, turns into a two-lane street at Granville and winds and twists and crawls through downtown. And it's a city of islands! As such, Vancouver is very dependent on a series of thin bridges.

Lions Gate Bridge is by no means a practical bridge -- it looks to be spun from liquid sugar, and, unfortunately, it now seems to be dissolving like sugar. By urban planning and engineering standards it borders on being a disaster, but then isn't it true of life in general that nothing is more seductive than the dying starlet?

There is no city in North America like Vancouver. It has no root system, mostly because the previous residents, who lived here for thousands of years, were bloodlessly displaced just over a century ago. Over half the people who live here now are not from here. The three most common surnames are Lee, Wong and Chan; a lot of its residents are from an ocean away. The skyline is transformed on a monthly basis -- it only takes a few weeks to put up a new see-through. And it can't spread out much more, as it's surrounded by mountains, the ocean and the U.S. border. All the same, Vancouver sits on the same geological undersea ridge as San Francisco does, and would disappear into the mud if the Big One hits. Hosting the Olympics is just another adventure for southwestern British Columbia, a very expensive one. When the tax bill for these Games is finally paid in full, Vancouver will probably be on to the next round of exciting uncertainty; most of the signs that 2010 even happened here will be hard to find. Just like any real visible reminders of Expo 86 -- gone. Because that's what Vancouver does: it continually reinvents itself.

In 1986, I arrived back in Vancouver after living abroad for a year. On that first evening back I looked down at the bridge and saw that it had been garlanded with brilliant pearls of light along its parabolic lines. I was shocked - it was so beautiful that it made me lose my breath. I asked my father about these lights, and he told me they were called "Gracie's Necklace," after a local politician. In the almost five decades since the bridge had been built, the city had been secretly dreaming of the day it could cloak its bridge in light, and now the dream had become real life. Now, whenever I fly back to Vancouver, it is Gracie's Necklace I look for from my seat, the sight I need to see in order to make myself feel at home again. We often forget, living in Vancouver, that we live in the youngest city on Earth, a city almost entirely of, and only of, the twentieth century -- and this is Vancouver's greatest blessing. It is the delicacy of Gracie's Necklace that reminds me we live, not so much in a city but in a dream of a city.

The Olympics, too, are a structurally unsound dream-bridge, made of faulty building materials like sweetness and light. The Games attempt to point the way over a wide chasm, towards a mythical place where the youth of the world can forever understand each other through sport, art and culture. But the bridge dissolves after 16 days, no more and no fewer, because it can't last any longer than that. It's certainly seductive, and we try our hardest to cross, but it's too late now. Time to scurry back to the other side.

Vancouver Photos: Day 16

2010-02-28T16:46:43Z

Vancouver: street scenes, ArtGallery; Live City Yaletown: Blue Rodeo concert, fireworks show; trashed Olympic Superstore

Results Dump, Day 16

2010-02-28T07:19:25Z

Results of the Day 16 competitions.]]> Alpine Skiing Men's Slalom

G	 ITA	Giuliano Razzoli	1:39.32
S	 CRO	Ivica Kostelic	1:39.48
B	 SWE	Andre Myhrer	1:39.76
4	 AUT	Benjamin Raich	1:39.81
5	 AUT	Marcel Hirscher	1:40.20
6	 SLO	Mitja Valencic	1:40.35
7	 ITA	Manfred Moelgg	1:40.45
8	 CAN	Julien Cousineau	1:40.66
9	 FRA	Julien Lizeroux	1:40.72
10	 AUT	Reinfried Herbst	1:40.78
11	 CZE	Ondrej Bank	1:40.81
12	 SUI	Silvan Zurbriggen	1:40.83
13	 CAN	Michael Janyk	1:41.09
14	 SWE	Mattias Hargin	1:41.25
15	 SUI	Marc Gini	1:41.35
16	 FRA	Maxime Tissot	1:41.54
17	 NOR	Kjetil Jansrud	1:41.57
18	 JPN	Akira Sasaki	1:41.76
19	 CRO	Natko Zrncic-Dim	1:41.99
20	 BUL	Kilian Albrecht	1:42.36
21	 FRA	Thomas Mermillod Blondin	1:42.48
22	 SWE	Jens Byggmark	1:42.53
23	 RUS	Alexandr Horoshilov	1:42.82
24	 USA	Nolan Kasper	1:43.17
25	 BUL	Stefan Georgiev	1:43.92
26	 ARG	Cristian Javier Simari Birkner	1:44.72
27	 GBR	David Ryding	1:45.13
28	 MDA	Christophe Roux	1:45.75
29	 GBR	Andrew Noble	1:46.13
30	 SVK	Jaroslav Babusiak	1:46.86
31	 CAN	Trevor White	1:47.17
32	 CRO	Danko Marinelli	1:47.33
33	 GRE	Vassilis Dimitriadis	1:48.16
34	 BEL	Jeroen Van den Bogaert	1:48.56
35	 ISR	Mikail Renzhin	1:48.91
36	 BIH	Marko Rudic	1:49.16
37	 LAT	Kristaps Zvejnieks	1:51.29
38	 KAZ	Igor Zakurdaev	1:52.81
39	 UKR	Rostyslav Feshchuk	1:53.79
40	 MNE	Bojan Kosic	1:55.32
41	 IRI	Hossein Saveh Shemshaki	1:56.39
42	 UZB	Oleg Shamaev	1:58.05
43	 CHN	Li Lei	2:00.86
44	 MAR	Samir Azzimani	2:02.43
45	 IRL	Shane O'Connor	2:05.14
46	 MEX	Hubertus Von Hohenlohe	2:07.78
47	 GHA	Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong	2:22.60
48	 ALB	Erjon Tola	2:43.88
	 AND	Roger Vidosa	DNF
	 ARG	Augustin Torres	DNF
	 ARM	Arsen Nersisyan	DSQ
	 AUT	Manfred Pranger	DNF
	 AZE	Cedric Notz	DNF
	 BEL	Bart Mollin	DNF
	 BRA	Johnatan Longhi	DNF
	 CAN	Brad Spence	DNF
	 CRO	Dalibor Samsal	DNF
	 CYP	Christophoros Papamichalopoulos	DNF
	 CZE	Martin Vrablik	DNF
	 CZE	Filip Trejbal	DNF
	 CZE	Krystof Kryzl	DSQ
	 DEN	Markus Kilsgaard	DNS
	 EST	Deyvid Oprja	DNF
	 FIN	Andreas Romar	DNF
	 FRA	Steve Missillier	DNF
	 GEO	Jaba Gelashvili	DNF
	 GEO	Iason Abramashvili	DSQ
	 GER	Felix Neureuther	DNF
	 GRE	Stephanos Tsimikalis	DNF
	 HUN	Marton Bene	DNF
	 IRI	Porya Saveh Shemshaki	DNF
	 ISL	Bjoergvin Bjoergvinsson	DNF
	 ISL	Stefan Jon Sigurgeirsson	DNF
	 ITA	Patrick Thaler	DNF
	 ITA	Cristian Deville	DNF
	 JPN	Kentaro Minagawa	DNF
	 KGZ	Dmitry Trelevski	DNF
	 KOR	Jung Dong-Hyun	DNF
	 KOR	Kim Woo-Sung	DNF
	 LIB	Ghassan Achi	DSQ
	 LTU	Vitalij Rumiancev	DNF
	 MDA	Urs Imboden	DNF
	 MKD	Antonio Ristevski	DNF
	 NOR	Leif Kristian Haugen	DNF
	 NOR	Truls Ove Karlsen	DNF
	 NOR	Lars Myhre	DNF
	 PER	Manfred Oettl Reyes	DSQ
	 ROU	Ion-Gabriel Nan	DNF
	 RUS	Sergei Maitakov	DNF
	 RUS	Stepan Zuev	DNF
	 SEN	Leyti Seck	DNF
	 SLO	Bernard Vajdic	DNF
	 SLO	Matic Skube	DNF
	 SLO	Mitja Dragsic	DNF
	 SUI	Marc Berthod	DNF
	 SUI	Sandro Viletta	DSQ
	 SWE	Axel Baeck	DSQ
	 TJK	Andrei Drygin	DNF
	 TUR	Erdinc Turksever	DNF
	 USA	Ted Ligety	DNF
	 USA	James Cochran	DNF
	 USA	Bode Miller	DNF

Bobsled Men's Four-Man

G	 USA	Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz, Steven Holcomb, Justin Olsen	3:24.46
S	 GER	Martin Putze, Andre Lange, Kevin Kuske, Alexander Roediger	3:24.84
B	 CAN	David Bissett, Lascelles Brown, Lyndon Rush, Chris Le Bihan	3:24.85
4	 GER	Thomas Florschutz, Andreas Barucha, Richard Adjei, Ronny Listner	3:25.58
5	 CAN	Neville Wright, Pierre Lueders, Jesse Lumsden, Justin Kripps	3:25.60
6	 SUI	Thomas Lamparter, Beat Hefti, Cedric Grand, Ivo Rueegg	3:25.71
7	 GER	Alex Mann, Andreas Bredau, Karl Angerer, Gregor Bermbach	3:26.06
8	 RUS	Andrey Jurkov, Alexey Kireev, Evgeny Popov, Denis Moiseychenkov	3:26.13
9	 ITA	Mirko Turri, Danilo Santarsiero, Simone Bertazzo, Samuele Romanini	3:26.25
9	 RUS	Dmitry Stepushkin, Roman Oreshnikov, Sergey Prudnikov, Dmitry Abramovitch	3:26.25
11	 LAT	Raivis Broks, Mihails Arhipovs, Pavels Tulubjevs, Edgars Maskalans	3:26.65
12	 CZE	Jan Stoklaska, Jan Kobian, Ivo Danilevic, Dominik Suchy	3:26.98
13	 USA	Mike Kohn, Jamie Moriarty, Bill Schuffenhauer, Nick Cunningham	3:27.32
14	 POL	Pawel Mroz, Dawid Kupczyk, Michal Zblewski, Marcin Niewiara	3:28.53
15	 ROU	Florin Cezar Craciun, Ionut Andrei, Nicolae Istrate, Ioan Danut Dovalciuc	3:28.89
16	 CZE	Jan Vrba, Milos Vesely, Ondrej Kozlovsky, Martin Bohmann	3:29.13
17	 GBR	John Jackson, Henry Nwume, Allyn Condon, Dan Money	3:30.21
18	 SCG	Slobodan Matijevic, Milos Savic, Vuk Radenovic, Igor Sarcevic	3:30.35
19	 KOR	Kim Jung-su, Kang Kwang Bae, Lee Jinhee, Kim Dong-Hyun	3:31.13
20	 CRO	Slaven Krajacic, Ivan Sola, Igor Maric, Mate Mezulic	3:31.53
21	 JPN	Masaru Miyauchi, Hiroshi Suzuki, Ryuichi Kobayashi, Shinji Doigawa	2:38.78
	 AUT	Johannes Wipplinger, Wolfgang Stampfer, Christian Hackl, Jurgen Mayer	DNS
	 RUS	Dmitry Trunenkov, Filipp Egorov, Alexandre Zoubkov, Petr Moiseev	DNS
	 SVK	Petr Narovec, Milan Jagnesak, Martin Tesovic, Marcel Lopuchovsky	DNS
	 USA	Charles Berkeley, Steve Langton, Chris Fogt, John Napier	DNS

Curling Men's Canada 6:3 Norway [gold medal game] Switzerland 5:4 Sweden [bronze medal game] Hockey Men's bronze medal game Finland 4:3 Slovakia Nordic Skiing Women's 30km, Mass Start

G	 POL	Justyna Kowalczyk	1:30:33.7
S	 NOR	Marit Bjorgen	1:30:34.0
B	 FIN	Aino Kaisa Saarinen	1:31:38.7
4	 GER	Evi Sachenbacher Stehle	1:31:52.9
5	 JPN	Masako Ishida	1:31:56.5
6	 SWE	Charlotte Kalla	1:31:57.6
7	 NOR	Therese Johaug	1:32:01.3
8	 NOR	Kristin Stormer Steira	1:32:04.4
9	 SWE	Anna Dahlberg	1:33:00.3
10	 FRA	Karine Philippot	1:33:11.4
11	 POL	Kornelia Marek	1:33:15.4
12	 ITA	Marianna Longa	1:33:19.9
13	 FIN	Riikka Sarasoja	1:33:33.2
14	 FIN	Virpi Kuitunen	1:33:36.7
15	 FRA	Aurore Cuinet	1:33:58.3
16	 CAN	Sara Renner	1:34:04.2
17	 ITA	Antonella Confortola	1:34:07.7
18	 GER	Stefanie Boehler	1:34:08.7
19	 KAZ	Oxana Jatskaja	1:34:11.0
20	 GER	Katrin Zeller	1:34:18.1
21	 NOR	Marthe Kristoffersen	1:34:31.5
22	 UKR	Tatjana Zavalij	1:34:32.3
23	 RUS	Olga Savialova	1:34:46.3
24	 USA	Kikkan Randall	1:34:59.0
25	 POL	Sylwia Jaskowiec	1:34:59.1
26	 FIN	Krista Lahteenmaki	1:35:08.4
27	 UKR	Kateryna Grygorenko	1:35:11.4
28	 EST	Kristina Smigun	1:35:27.2
29	 POL	Paulina Maciuszek	1:36:31.7
30	 RUS	Olga Moskalenko-Rotcheva	1:37:15.5
31	 JPN	Madoka Natsumi	1:37:35.4
32	 CHN	Li Hongxue	1:37:50.4
33	 AUT	Katerina Smutna	1:37:51.3
34	 KAZ	Elena Kolomina	1:37:53.0
35	 KAZ	Marina Matrossova	1:38:00.6
36	 USA	Holly Brooks	1:38:14.5
37	 ESP	Laura Orgue	1:38:18.3
38	 RUS	Olga Schuchkina	1:38:30.3
39	 BLR	Alena Sannikova	1:38:31.3
40	 CZE	Eva Nyvltova	1:38:40.1
41	 CZE	Ivana Janeckova	1:40:13.6
42	 EST	Tatjana Mannima	1:40:51.3
43	 KAZ	Svetlana Malahova-Shishkina	1:41:01.6
44	 UKR	Lada Nesterenko	1:41:40.1
45	 BLR	Nastassia Dubarezava	1:42:28.1
46	 CAN	Madeleine Williams	1:42:33.7
47	 ROU	Monika Gyorgy	1:44:03.5
48	 CZE	Eva Skalnikova	1:44:47.8
	 UKR	Valentina Shevchenko	DNF
	 ITA	Sabina Valbusa	DNS
	 CZE	Kamila Rajdlova	DNS
	 FRA	Cecile Storti	DNF
	 USA	Morgan Arritola	DNF
	 SWE	Ida Ingemarsdotter	DNF
	 SUI	Laurence Rochat	DNF

Snowboarding Men's Parallel Giant Slalom

G	 CAN	Jasey Jay Anderson	
S	 AUT	Benjamin Karl	
B	 FRA	Mathieu Bozzetto	
4	 RUS	Stanislav Detkov	
5	 SUI	Simon Schoch	
6	 SLO	Zan Kosir	
7	 USA	Chris Klug	
8	 SLO	Rok Flander	
9	 AUT	Andreas Prommegger	
10	 FRA	Sylvain Dufour	
11	 CAN	Matthew Morison	
12	 CAN	Michael Lambert	
13	 USA	Tyler Jewell	
14	 SWE	Daniel Biveson	
15	 ITA	Aaron March	
16	 GER	Patrick Bussler	
17	 SUI	Nevin Galmarini	
18	 ITA	Roland Fischnaller	
19	 SUI	Marc Iselin	
20	 SUI	Roland Haldi	
21	 ITA	Meinhard Erlacher	
22	 UKR	Yosyf Penyak	
23	 SLO	Rok Marguc	
24	 GBR	Adam McLeish	
25	 SLO	Izidor Sustersic	
26	 BUL	Ivan Rantchev	
27	 JPN	Yuuki Nofuji	
28	 CZE	Petr Sindelar	
29	 AUT	Ingemar Walder	
	 AUT	Siegfried Grabner	DNF

Speedskating Men's Team Pursuit

G	 CAN	Francois Olivier Roberge, Denny Morrison, Luca Makowsky, Mathieu Giroux	
S	 USA	Brian Hansen, Chad Hedrick, Jonathan Kuck, Trevor Marsicano	
B	 NED	Mark Tuitert, Sven Kramer, Simon Kuipers, Jan Blokhuijsen	
4	 NOR	Fredrik van der Horst, Havard Bokko, Mikael Flygind-Larsen, Henrik Christiansen	
5	 KOR	Ha Hong-Seon, Lee Jong Woo, Lee Seung-Hoon, Mo Tae-Bum	
6	 ITA	Ermanno Ioriatti, Enrico Fabris, Matteo Anesi, Luca Stefani	
7	 SWE	Johan Rojler, Daniel Friberg, Joel Eriksson	
8	 JPN	Hiroki Hirako, Shingo Doi, Teruhiro Sugimori, Shigeyuki Dejima

Women's Team Pursuit

G	 GER	Daniela Anschuetz Thoms, Anni Friesinger, Katrin Mattscherodt, Stephanie Beckert	
S	 JPN 	Masak Hozumi, Maki Tabata, Nao Kodaira, Miho Takagi	
B	 POL	Katarzyn Wozniak, Katarzyna Wojcicka, Luiza Zlotkowska, Natalia Czerwonka	
4	 USA	Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr., Jilleanne Rookard, Catherine Raney, Jennifer Rodriguez	
5	 CAN	Kristina Groves, Cindy Klassen, Christine Nesbitt, Brittany Schussler	
6	 NED	Jorien Voorhuis, Ireen Wust, Renate Groenewold, Diane Valkenburg	
7	 RUS	Yekaterina Lobysheva, Galina Likhachova, Alla Shabanova, Yekaterina Shikhova	
8	 KOR	Noh Seon Yeong, Lee Ju-Youn, Park Do-Yeong

See You in Sochi

2010-02-27T19:15:06Z

VANCOUVER -- When the Olympic day numbers move into the teens, that's when the real psychology happens. There's sadness that it's all about to come to an abrupt end on Sunday night, but the mental and physical exhaustion from 20-hour days certainly won't be missed at all on Monday. And whether it's Winter or Summer, the athletic competitions are coming into crystal-clear focus now; there are gold medal games and finals and classifications. The Games don't leave any loose ends. If one is so inclined, though, there's the opportunity to peek forward to the next cycle. Because the Games are awarded seven years in advance, we always know where the next ones will be. At the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, there will be a short artistic presentation from the next host, like always. The current host mayor will turn over the Olympic flag to the next one, and the IOC president will call upon the youth of the world to the next big meetup, four years from now. At the 119th IOC Session in 2007, Sochi, Russia won the next Winter Games in a close final vote over endlessly plucky PyeongChang. (The Korean county lost 2010 and 2014 by a combined seven ballots!) I, like most North Americans, only learned about five or six Russian cities in college geography class, and Sochi wasn't one of them. So on Day 13, I headed over to Vancouver's Science World -- temporarily rewrapped as the "Rusky Dom" -- to find out more.]]> tragically starred at the Olympics lately. It's also not too far from South Ossetia, which was the site of Russian and Ossetian aggression against Georgia before and during Beijing 2008. Back then, there was even talk that Sochi might be stripped of its Winter Games. Nobody at the Sochi 2014 pavilion is talking about that now. Instead, construction is well under way in this small Imeretin Valley resort city of 600,000 -- and up in the North Caucasus mountains as well. Sochi's winning bid idea is being brought to life. It's already visible in massive miniature in Vancouver, where pretty Russian girls answer questions about venue planning and construction, in five different languages. The centerpiece of the 2014 Winter Games will be Olympic Park in Sochi. All events except for the skiing will be in one place -- the 40,000-seat ceremony stadium, the two hockey arenas (Major and Minor), the speed skating oval, curling arena, and the Bolshoi Ice Palace for figure skating. In the middle of this circle, the medals plaza. The International Broadcasting Center and Olympic Village will be there too, also within easy walking distance. It will be the tightest cluster of venues since, well, the magical Winter Games of Lillehammer 1994. I asked if having everything in one place might make things dull after a week or so. I mean, the central venues of Vancouver 2010 are spread out over a metropolis of 2.5 million people, but it's an exciting new experience every day. "This will be exciting," said the young woman in the impeccably pressed suitjacket, gracefully passing her palm over the model. "We will transform it each day with culture." Or if the city gets to be too much, you can always escape to the mountains. The alpine and nordic events, as well as all the sliding, will take place at the Rosa Khutor resort. In stark contrast to faraway Whistler, the "mountain cluster" will be 30 miles (48 km) from the Olympic Park. And Russian Railways will take you there and back on modern supertrains, too! Sochi's path to 2014 hasn't been an easy one. Environmentalists are concerned with the Games' impact on the region, and last year a report in Der Spiegel detailed homeowner protests and construction projects running out of money because of the global economic downturn. But Russia has been much more resilient than most countries, and has seen a rise in GDP for two straight quarters. After spending 2009 in recession, it appears to be out of it. Hidden in the history of the Olympic Games is the history of global power shifts. There's no other way to frame Beijing 2008 but a massive display of new Chinese power. Likewise, Sochi 2014 will be an introduction to major corporations that we in the West may not be familiar with yet. Some of them are getting to know us with lavish layouts in Vancouver 2010's Rusky Dom. The organizers have inked limited national sponsorship and "general partner" deals (worth $100 million or more each) with Russian corporations Sberbank (finance), Bosco Sport (apparel), Aeroflot (airline), Rosneft (oil), as well as Rostelecom and Megafon (telecom). (Hey, IOC! With this kind of income diversity, who needs to sign over control of venues to TOP sponsors?) As this will be Russia's first-ever Winter Games -- and the first Olympics of any kind since the boycott-scarred Moscow 1980 Summer edition. Either way, the rest of the world still doesn't know this post-Cold War power very well, and we're still getting used to that new flag, so public relations is a big part of the Sochi 2014 pavilion. On a stage, traditional singers in full costume brought a Canadian gentleman into the performance, dressing him up in the snazzy threads of Krasnodar. Not for me. Instead, I walked up the long spiral walkway into the high dome, a centerpiece of Vancouver's Expo 86 that's now showing its age. There's an Omnimax theatre inside that uses the inside of the globe for an immersive motion picture experience. These days, the Russians are using it to introduce visitors to its cinematic history. One short movie really got my attention, an animated cartoon about ice hockey. The plot: a ragtag squad made up of young lads, all wearing blue shirts and rosy pink circles on their cheeks, practiced at a run-down rink. The action was set in motion when they received a phone call. It was a team of red-clad lugs, wanting to set up a challenge game. The blue team was thrilled -- they'd obviously heard of this side, and the opportunity to play against them represented a dream come true. The red team hung up the phone, and all guffawed together, thinking about the easy win they were about to enjoy. Game day arrived, and the red team jumped out in front early. But there was a shift in momentum -- by sheer grit and pluck, the underdogs staged a comeback against the clearly superior side. Here, the blue team finally tied the score, before going on to an improbable win. The drawing style of the cartoon was crude and rudimentary, and it was certainly not made recently. But its influences were clear: the zany, physics-defying Warner Brothers shorts from the 1950's. Players skated so fast their uniforms came off, and there was a gag in which the red team snuck into the opposing goal and painted a puck on the ice -- fooling the blue team and the refs as well. The rock-and-roll and jazz soundtrack showed, as well, that the Curtain was not as Iron as all that. And I recognized the story arc immediately. Didn't you? Could this really have come from the Soviet Union? After the show, I rushed down to the crowded information desk in the lobby. "The hockey cartoon they're showing up there," I asked. "When was it made? Please, I need to know." The blonde lady at the desk checked with a worker who spoke no English. "1972," came the reply. I was floored. Not only was this one of the most subversive cartoons I'd ever seen, it was also one of the more prescient. Eight years later, the story came true in Lake Placid, at local expense. What was this film called? Who made it? "It has no name," offered a gentleman with a heavy accent. "Just cartoon for kids." Easy to forget that in the age of Communism, things weren't signed or titled, and artists weren't afforded proper credit. Also that the heat of the Cold War was predicated on misunderstandings and misinformation about what was happening on the other side. In the 1970's and 1980's, it was hard enough to believe that the Russians loved their children too, but how different would history be if we'd known that those kids were being entertained with Tex Avery-style cartoons, ice hockey, hep-cat jazz and underdogs? In 2014, we Olympics-goers will be introduced to a new Russia. We'll live there for 17 wonderful days, 20 hours each, and we'll get to properly know its people. As it turns out, we've have always had a lot in common with them, so friendship will be pretty easy. There were just all those politics in the way before, so it'll be an exercise in making up for a ton of lost time.

Vancouver Photos: Day 15

2010-02-27T16:40:25Z

Vancouver downtown; Surrey: celebration zone, CAN-SVK hockey semifinal viewing party, Two Hours Traffic concert, RCMP Musical Ride; hockey celebrations in Vancouver

Results Dump, Day 15

2010-02-27T07:59:27Z

Results from the Day 15 competitions.]]> Alpine Skiing Women's Slalom

G	 GER	Maria Riesch	1:42.89
S	 AUT	Marlies Schild	1:43.32
B	 CZE	Sarka Zahrobska	1:43.90
4	 SWE	Maria Pietilae-Holmner	1:44.22
5	 FRA	Sandrine Aubert	1:44.46
6	 FIN	Tanja Poutiainen	1:44.93
7	 AUT	Elisabeth Goergl	1:44.97
8	 ITA	Nicole Gius	1:45.01
9	 SLO	Tina Maze	1:45.09
10	 SVK	Veronika Zuzulova	1:45.14
11	 ITA	Manuela Moelgg	1:45.31
12	 CRO	Ana Jelusic	1:45.43
13	 AUT	Kathrin Zettel	1:45.59
14	 GER	Christina Geiger	1:45.62
15	 SWE	Frida Hansdotter	1:45.67
16	 USA	Sarah Schleper	1:45.88
17	 CAN	Brigitte Acton	1:45.93
18	 ITA	Denise Karbon	1:45.94
19	 CAN	Anna Goodman	1:46.04
20	 CAN	Erin Mielzynski	1:46.09
21	 SWE	Therese Borssen	1:46.71
22	 LIE	Marina Nigg	1:46.83
23	 SLO	Marusa Ferk	1:47.03
24	 SVK	Jana Gantnerova	1:47.46
25	 CRO	Nika Fleiss	1:47.59
26	 FRA	Anne-Sophie Barthet	1:47.83
27	 BEL	Karen Persyn	1:47.96
28	 RUS	Elena Prosteva	1:48.34
29	 FRA	Nastasia Noens	1:48.57
30	 USA	Hailey Duke	1:48.69
31	 CAN	Marie Michelle Gagnon	1:49.51
32	 SCG	Nevena Ignjatovic	1:50.48
33	 RUS	Lyaysan Rayanova	1:50.82
34	 CRO	Matea Ferk	1:50.93
35	 POL	Agnieszka Gasienica Daniel	1:52.19
36	 ARG	Macarena Simari Birkner	1:52.35
37	 UKR	Bogdana Matsotska	1:53.00
38	 BLR	Marija Schkanova	1:54.50
39	 CRO	Sofija Novoselic	1:54.91
40	 BIH	Zana Novakovic	1:55.95
41	 CHI	Noelle Barahona	1:57.82
42	 EST	Tiiu Nurmberg	1:57.99
43	 LIB	Chirine Njeim	1:58.20
44	 HUN	Zsofia Doeme	1:58.32
45	 HUN	Anna Berecz	1:59.63
46	 KOR	Kim Sun Joo	2:00.03
47	 GRE	Sophia Ralli	2:00.41
48	 BRA	Maya Harrisson	2:01.67
49	 LAT	Liene Fimbauere	2:02.11
50	 GEO	Nino Tsiklauri	2:02.32
51	 COL	Cynthia Denzler	2:02.39
52	 DEN	Yina Moe-Lange	2:04.70
53	 CYP	Sophia Papamichalopoulou	2:05.18
54	 LIB	Jacky Chamoun	2:18.03
55	 IRI	Marjan Kalhor	2:18.60
	 AND	Mireia Gutierrez	DNF
	 AND	Sofie Juarez	DNF
	 ARG	Maria Belen Simari Birkner	DNF
	 ARG	Nicol Gastaldi	DNF
	 ARM	Ani Matilda Serebrakian	DSQ
	 AUT	Michaela Kirchgasser	DNF
	 AZE	Gaia Bassani	DNF
	 BIH	Maja Klepic	DNF
	 BLR	Lizaveta Kuzmenka	DNF
	 BUL	Maria Kirkova	DNF
	 CHN	Xia Lina	DNF
	 CZE	Petra Zakourilova	DNF
	 ESP	Andrea Jardi	DNF
	 FIN	Sanni Leinonen	DNF
	 FRA	Claire Dautherives	DNF
	 GBR	Chemmy Alcott	DNF
	 GER	Fanny Chmelar	DNF
	 GER	Susanne Riesch	DNF
	 IRL	Kirsten McGarry	DSQ
	 ISL	Iris Gudmundsdottir	DNF
	 ITA	Chiara Costazza	DNF
	 NOR	Mona Loseth	DNF
	 PER	Ornella Oettl Reyes	DNF
	 SCG	Marija Trmcic	DNF
	 SCG	Jelena Lolovic	DNS
	 SLO	Ana Drev	DNF
	 SWE	Anja Paerson	DNF
	 TUR	Tugba Dasdemir	DNF
	 UKR	Anastasiya Skryabina	DNF
	 USA	Megan McJames	DNF
	 USA	Lindsey C Vonn	DNF
	 UZB	Kseniya Grigoreva	DNF

Curling Women's Sweden 7:6 Canada (gold medal game, 11 ends) China 12:6 Switzerland (bronze medal game) Hockey Men's Semifinals Canada 3:2 Slovakia United States 6:1 Finland Short-Track Speedskating Men's 500m

G	 CAN	Charles Hamelin	40.981
S	 KOR	Sung Si-Bak	41.340
B	 CAN	Francois-Louis Tremblay	46.366
4	 KOR	Kwak Yoon-Gy	
5	 GER	Tyson Heung	
6	 GBR	Jon Eley	
7	 KOR	Lee Ho-Suk	
8	 USA	Apolo Anton Ohno	DSQ
9	 CAN	Olivier Jean	
10	 CHN	Han Jialiang	
11	 USA	Simon Cho	
12	 LAT	Haralds Silovs	
13	 FRA	Thibaut Fauconnet	
14	 JPN	Jumpei Yoshizawa	
15	 BEL	Pieter Gysel	
16	 NED	Niels Kerstholt	
17	 CHN	Ma Yunfeng	
18	 GER	Robert Seifert	
19	 ITA	Nicola Rodigari	
20	 ITA	Nicolas Bean	
21	 NZL	Blake Skjellerup	
22	 HUN	Peter Darazs	
23	 GBR	Paul Worth	
24	 RUS	Semion Elistratov	
25	 HUN	Viktor Knoch	
26	 JPN	Takahiro Fujimoto	
27	 RUS	Ruslan Zacharov	
28	 NED	Sjinkie Knegt	
29	 USA	Jordan Malone	
30	 ITA	Yuri Confortola	
31	 CHN	Liang Wenhao	DSQ
31	 KAZ	Aidar Bekzhanov	DSQ

Men's 5000m Relay

G	 CAN	Francois Hamelin, Francois-Louis Tremblay, Charles Hamelin, Guillaume Bastille, Olivier Jean	6:44.224
S	 KOR	Lee Ho-Suk, Sung Si-Bak, Kwak Yoon-Gy, Lee Jung-Su, Kim Seoung Il	6:44.446
B	 USA	Travis Jayner, Simon Cho, Apolo Anton Ohno, Jordan Malone, John Celski	6:44.498
4	 CHN	Ma Yunfeng, Song Weilong, Han Jialiang, Liu Xianwei	6:44.630
5	 FRA	Thibaut Fauconnet, Jean Charles Mattei, Maxime Chataignier, Benjamin Mace, Jeremy Masson	6:51.566
6	 GBR	Tom Iveson, Anthony Douglas, Jon Eley, Paul Worth, Jack Whelbourne	
7	 GER	Robert Seifert, Tyson Heung, Sebastian Praus, Paul Herrmann	
8	 ITA	Nicola Rodigari, Yuri Confortola, Nicolas Bean, Claudio Rinaldi	DSQ

Women's 1,000m

G	 CHN	Wang Meng	1:29.213
S	 USA	Katherine Reutter	1:29.324
B	 KOR	Park Seung-Hi	1:29.379
4	 KOR	Cho Ha-Ri	
5	 CAN	Kalyna Roberge	
6	 CAN	Jessica Gregg	
7	 AUS	Tatiana Borodulina	
8	 CHN	Zhou Yang	DSQ
9	 HUN	Bernadett Heidum	
10	 CHN	Sun Linlin	
11	 NED	Annita van Doorn	
12	 ITA	Arianna Fontana	
13	 FRA	Stephanie Bouvier	
14	 POL	Paula Bzura	
15	 JPN	Mika Ozawa	
16	 GER	Aika Klein	
17	 CAN	Tania Vicent	
18	 JPN	Ayuko Ito	
19	 GBR	Elise Christie	
20	 USA	Kimberly Derrick	
21	 ITA	Cecilia Maffei	
22	 AUT	Veronika Windisch	
23	 JPN	Biba Sakurai	
24	 RUS	Nina Evteeva	
25	 BUL	Evgenia Radanova	
26	 RUS	Valeria Potemkina	
27	 HKG	Yueshuang Han	
28	 CZE	Katerina Novotna	
29	 HUN	Erika Huszar	DSQ
29	 NED	Jorien ter Mors	DSQ
29	 NED	Liesbeth Mau Asam	DSQ
29	 USA	Allison Baver	DSQ

Snowboarding Women's Parallel Giant Slalom

G	 NED	Nicolien Sauerbreij	
S	 RUS	Ekaterina Ilyukhina	
B	 AUT	Marion Kreiner	
4	 GER	Selina Jorg	
5	 GER	Anke Karstens	
6	 AUT	Ina Meschik	
7	 AUT	Claudia Riegler	
8	 GER	Amelie Kober

Logo Creep

2010-02-26T19:21:24Z

VANCOUVER -- Ten years ago, Naomi Klein (a Canadian) wrote No Logo, a book that became the million-selling manual for the anti-globalization, anti-corporation movement -- it arrived in an era of WTO protests, and helped inspire several of the protest fronts against the Olympic Games over the past decade. It sure got Nike's attention; the corporation published a rebuttal upon its ascent to the bestseller charts. While the labor issues raised therein are slightly tangential to the scope of an Olympic website, No Logo does recount a strange chapter in Winter Games history. In 1996, Nike sponsored two mid-level Kenyan distance runners, Philip Boit and Henry Bitok, but not in track events -- in cross-country skiing. The company sent them to Finland, where they trained for two years. At Nagano 1998, Nike organized a press event where it showed a film of Boit and Bitok falling all over themselves in the wintry woods -- to uproarious laughter from assembled journalists. Nike was using a loophole in Olympic qualifying to create its very own Eagle. Boit, who won Kenya's Olympic spot over Bitok, finished 92nd and a distant last in the middle-distance 10km event -- as fully expected. What No Logo leaves out is the true end of the story, which served to destroy Nike's bastardization of Pierre de Coubertin's "It is less important to win than to take part" credo. Norway's Bjørn Dæhlie, winner of that Olympic race as well as seven others, waited at the finish line for Boit and hugged him. The Kenyan was so touched by this gesture that he named one of his sons Dæhlie -- Dæhlie Boit.]]> hardly conducive to athletic pursuits. The IOC guarantees its top sponsors "clean venues," meaning that no competing or non-affiliated logos will be found anywhere within them. Press rows are full of silver computers with the glowing Apple blacked out, to placate worldwide partner Acer. Or on the venues themselves. The downtown building where the Vancouver Canucks play, General Motors Place, is called Canada Hockey Place for these 17 days. GM was not interested in paying the tens of millions of U.S. dollars to secure that kind of cozy relationship with the IOC, and as the company's been asking for American government bailouts lately, it's not really in a position to. Nike doesn't pay enough to get through those gates. The company is not a part of IOC's worldwide sponsorship program, and so its only way into the venues is on the uniforms of athletes from the individual National Olympic Committees it sponsors. In the concourses of BC Place, home of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and the nightly medal celebrations, giant murals featuring BC Lions football players are scrubbed. A long, lengthwise logo on the side of a shoe -- it could not be anything other than a swoosh -- is covered in black tape. If you desire a beverage, however, you have a choice -- Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, Coca-Cola... or Coke subsidiaries Dasani or Vitamin Water. Or Coca-Cola. Security checks at the gates shake out any non-Coke products, and they also filter out all the Starbucks cups from the one-per-block locations all over Vancouver. Coke's new coffee arm, Far Coast, is the only way for spectators to get coffee or hot chocolate -- but its messy orange and black logo is completely indistinguishable from farther than two feet away. It probably hasn't registered at home, over the television. During the Nineties, even when Coca-Cola virtually hosted the Summer Games in its hometown of Atlanta, it had to be a lot more subtle about its presence inside the venues. Water bottles and tanks featured Dasani's dynamic wave device with the Olympic rings -- stealth target marketing at its best, especially since the brand and its logo received thousands of repeated impressions on American TV. Nowadays, it's hardly uncommon to see athletes chugging from logo-covered bottles -- a symbol of Coke's new power over an IOC that has been struggling to maintain, much less grow, its sponsor base. So I believe that this logo creep in the venues -- and outside too -- doesn't come from greed or over-commercialization. It's a far more interesting dynamic than that. Ironically, it's a function of desperation in a general global recession. Olympic sponsorship is neither a buyer's nor a seller's market, but one that's shrinking. Johnson & Johnson and Maulife did not renew after Beijing 2008, and the IOC fell short of its $1 billion TOP sponsorship goal for this cycle. All of this means that the IOC has to give over more power to those who stay. The evidence of slippage is clear. Twenty years ago, or even 10, the IOC had better choices of electronics sponsors than Acer, Chinese mass-manufacturer of flimsy and quickly-obsolete computer equipment. Former industry giant IBM ended its affiliation in 2000. Much as the Olympic bosses have to wean themselves off American television money and America itself, they probably should adjust away from being reliant on "TOP" sponsors, and make the Movement more resilient against fluctuating economic conditions. Perhaps it will do so by managing smaller limited deals with an increased number of national and regional entities, instead of a few big deals with a handful of top global corporations. The IOC loses power over its precious brand, the purity of those five beautiful rings, when it's chasing the big money to cover massive budgets. That's something every individual worker in the developed world (not only athletes) can understand -- it's why we commute, doing things for money that we don't necessarily want to do. But for now, we're still stuck in an overlap between the globo-corporate Olympic age and a potential period of fiscal reason and sanity. And we can only take our fun where we can find it.

***

At the start of these Games, standing in a long line to enter the worldwide sponsor playground of Live City, I hatched a challenge for myself. Some way, somehow, I was going to sneak a bottle of Pepsi into a venue. There's nothing particularly subversive, or punk, or No Logo about trying to get a product from one massive corporation past a slightly more massive corporation. It's a simple test. And unlike trying to bring an actual weapon to the Olympics, the worst thing that could happen is that the bottle would be confiscated, like all the others. Vancouver, as has been noted in this space before, is a major metropolis of 2.5 million people, and the Games have been somewhat swallowed up here. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this area who have gone about their lives during the Olympics as if nothing has changed. As such, the IOC and VANOC logo police would have an impossible task if they tried to ensure their top sponsors a truly clean city -- there are many 7-11 stores sprinkled throughout downtown, and competing products are readily available there. That's where I bought my Pepsi. I made my first attempt on the evening of Day 2, when I returned to Live City. I put the bottle in the front pocket of my oversized coat. I made it through the metal detector (because I didn't buy a can), but the volunteer patdown uncovered the secret. It was confiscated, but not for the reason I thought it would be. "You can't being opened bottles inside," the bluejacket said. "They have to be sealed." I'd taken a sip while standing in line. On Day 3, I tried to bring a Pepsi bottle (unopened) into BC Place for a nightly Vancouver medal ceremony that featured a Nelly Furtado concert. This time, I put it in my over-the-shoulder trail bag. I'd noticed that bag checks were random, and I figured I had at least a 66 percent chance. But my bag was singled out. A young volunteer pulled the bottle out. It was obvious that he was new on the job. "Is this one of those that isn't allowed?" he asked his nearby supervisor. "Ohhhhh yeah it isn't," came the reply. I feigned ignorance myself, made a few indistinct grunts, and passed into the dome without my illegal beverage. I attended the two-man bobsled heats at the Whistler Sliding Centre on Day 9. That's when I finally cracked the code. I bought a Pepsi bottle from a down the back of my pants, under my coat, where I knew they weren't patting people down. Once I learned how to walk without waddling, I got in line. Bag check, metal detector, patdown... I was in. But I made a key mistake. As I took the bottle out of my pants and set it up in front of an Olympic sign for a proof-positive snapshot, I didn't see the security man in back of me. "Excuse me, sir," he said as he approached me from the side. "I'll take that, please."

Vancouver Photos: Day 14

2010-02-26T15:33:23Z

Deutches Haus/Fanfest; Gastown; controlled protest area; CircusWest at BC Pavilion; "Meet the Mascots on Ice"; Dan Mangan and Shane Koyczan performance/meet-and-greet

Results Dump, Day 14

2010-02-26T07:06:23Z

Results from the Day 14 competitions.]]> Alpine Skiing Women's Giant Slalom

G	 GER	Viktoria Rebensburg	2:27.11
S	 SLO	Tina Maze	2:27.15
B	 AUT	Elisabeth Goergl	2:27.25
4	 SUI	Fabienne Suter	2:27.52
5	 AUT	Kathrin Zettel	2:27.53
6	 GER	Kathrin Holzl	2:27.58
7	 AUT	Eva-Maria Brem	2:27.62
8	 USA	Julia Mancuso	2:27.66
9	 FRA	Taina Barioz	2:27.79
10	 GER	Maria Riesch	2:27.97
11	 FRA	Anemone Marmottan	2:28.00
12	 FRA	Olivia Bertrand	2:28.13
13	 FIN	Tanja Poutiainen	2:28.25
14	 USA	Sarah Schleper	2:28.36
15	 AUT	Michaela Kirchgasser	2:28.40
16	 FRA	Tessa Worley	2:28.54
17	 ITA	Manuela Moelgg	2:28.66
18	 ITA	Federica Brignone	2:28.68
19	 SLO	Ana Drev	2:28.83
20	 ITA	Nicole Gius	2:28.87
21	 CAN	Marie Michelle Gagnon	2:28.89
22	 SWE	Anja Paerson	2:28.90
23	 ITA	Denise Karbon	2:29.37
24	 SWE	Maria Pietilae-Holmner	2:29.63
25	 CAN	Britt Janyk	2:29.79
26	 SWE	Kajsa Kling	2:29.93
27	 GBR	Chemmy Alcott	2:29.94
28	 CAN	Shona Rubens	2:30.25
29	 CAN	Marie-Pier Prefontaine	2:30.51
30	 FIN	Sanni Leinonen	2:32.44
31	 SWE	Jessica Lindell-Vikarby	2:32.71
32	 USA	Megan McJames	2:32.98
33	 SCG	Jelena Lolovic	2:34.54
34	 ESP	Carolina Ruiz Castillo	2:35.07
35	 SVK	Jana Gantnerova	2:35.73
36	 CRO	Tea Palic	2:36.12
37	 RUS	Lyaysan Rayanova	2:36.95
38	 ESP	Maria Jose Rienda	2:37.45
39	 SCG	Nevena Ignjatovic	2:37.51
40	 BLR	Marija Schkanova	2:40.38
41	 BIH	Zana Novakovic	2:40.79
42	 HUN	Anna Berecz	2:40.87
43	 LIB	Chirine Njeim	2:41.61
44	 UKR	Bogdana Matsotska	2:41.98
45	 ARG	Macarena Simari Birkner	2:42.02
46	 ARG	Maria Belen Simari Birkner	2:42.38
47	 DEN	Yina Moe-Lange	2:43.67
48	 ARG	Nicol Gastaldi	2:43.78
49	 KOR	Kim Sun Joo	2:44.58
50	 IRL	Kirsten McGarry	2:45.20
51	 LAT	Liene Fimbauere	2:46.93
52	 BIH	Maja Klepic	2:50.34
53	 GRE	Sophia Ralli	2:50.61
54	 BLR	Lizaveta Kuzmenka	2:50.89
55	 CYP	Sophia Papamichalopoulou	2:51.86
56	 TUR	Tugba Dasdemir	2:53.47
57	 AZE	Gaia Bassani	2:56.87
58	 UZB	Kseniya Grigoreva	2:57.22
59	 CHN	Xia Lina	2:58.89
60	 IRI	Marjan Kalhor	3:05.39
	 AND	Sofie Juarez	DNF
	 AND	Mireia Gutierrez	DNF
	 ARM	Ani Matilda Serebrakian	DNF
	 BRA	Maya Harrisson	DNF
	 BUL	Maria Kirkova	DNF
	 CHI	Noelle Barahona	DNF
	 COL	Cynthia Denzler	DNF
	 CRO	Matea Ferk	DNF
	 CRO	Nika Fleiss	DNS
	 CRO	Ana Jelusic	DNS
	 CZE	Petra Zakourilova	DNF
	 CZE	Sarka Zahrobska	DNS
	 ESP	Andrea Jardi	DNF
	 EST	Tiiu Nurmberg	DNF
	 GEO	Nino Tsiklauri	DNF
	 HUN	Zsofia Doeme	DNF
	 KAZ	Lyudmila Fedotova	DNF
	 MON	Alexandra Coletti	DNF
	 NOR	Mona Loseth	DNF
	 PER	Ornella Oettl Reyes	DNF
	 POL	Agnieszka Gasienica Daniel	DNF
	 RUS	Elena Prosteva	DNF
	 SUI	Andrea Dettling	DNF
	 SVK	Veronika Zuzulova	DNS
	 UKR	Anastasiya Skryabina	DNF
	 USA	Lindsey C Vonn	DNF

Curling Men's Semifinals Norway 7:5 Switzerland Canada 6:3 Sweden Women's Semifinals Canada 6:5 Switzerland Sweden 9:4 China Figure Skating Women's

G	 KOR	Kim Yu-Na	228.56
S	 JPN	Mao Asada	205.50
B	 CAN	Joannie Rochette	202.64
4	 USA	Mirai Nagasu	190.15
5	 JPN	Miki Ando	188.86
6	 FIN	Laura Lepisto	187.97
7	 USA	Rachael Flatt	182.49
8	 JPN	Akiko Suzuki	181.44
9	 RUS	Alena Leonova	172.46
10	 RUS	Ksenia Makarova	171.91
11	 FIN	Kiira Korpi	161.57
12	 CAN	Cynthia Phaneuf	156.62
13	 KOR	Kwak Min-Jung	155.53
14	 GEO	Elene Gedevanishvili	155.24
15	 SUI	Sarah Meier	152.81
16	 ITA	Carolina Kostner	151.90
17	 HUN	Julia Sebestyen	151.26
18	 GER	Sarah Hecken	143.94
19	 CHN	Liu Yan	143.47
20	 AUS	Cheltzie Lee	138.16
21	 EST	Elena Glebova	134.19
22	 ESP	Sonia Lafuente	133.51
23	 UZB	Anastasia Gimazetdinova	131.65
24	 TUR	Tugba Karademir	129.54
	 AUT	Miriam Ziegler	43.84
	 BEL	Isabelle Pieman	46.10
	 GBR	Jenna McCorkell	40.64
	 POL	Anna Jurkiewicz	36.10
	 SLO	Teodora Postic	43.80
	 SVK	Ivana Reitmayerova	41.94

Freestyle Skiing Men's Aerials

G	 BLR	Alexei Grishin	248.41
S	 USA	Jeret Peterson	247.21
B	 CHN	Liu Zhongqing	242.53
4	 USA	Ryan St Onge	239.93
5	 CAN	Kyle Nissen	239.31
6	 CHN	Jia Zongyang	237.57
7	 CHN	Qi Guangpu	234.85
8	 CAN	Steve Omischl	233.66
9	 BLR	Timofei Slivets	225.58
10	 CAN	Warren Shouldice	223.30
11	 BLR	Dmitri Dashinski	215.68
12	 SUI	Thomas Lambert	210.90
13	 AUS	David Morris	
14	 SUI	Andreas Isoz	
15	 BLR	Anton Kushnir	
16	 SUI	Christian Hachler	
17	 USA	Matthew Depeters	
18	 SUI	Renato Ulrich	
19	 UKR	Stanislav Kravchuk	
20	 RUS	Dmitry Marushchak	
21	 CHN	Han Xiaopeng	
22	 UKR	Enver Ablaev	
23	 USA	Scott Bahrke	
24	 UKR	Oleksandr Abramenko	
25	 RUS	Yury Shapkin	DNS

Hockey Women's Canada 2:0 United States [gold medal game] Finland 3:2 Sweden [bronze medal game] Nordic Skiing Women's 4x5km Relay

G	 NOR	Therese Johaug, Kristin Stormer Steira, Marit Bjorgen, Vibeke Skofterud	55:19.5
S	 GER	Katrin Zeller, Miriam Gossner, Evi Sachenbacher Stehle, Claudia Kuenzel	55:44.1
B	 FIN	Pirjo Muranen, Virpi Kuitunen, Aino Kaisa Saarinen, Riitta Liisa Lassila	55:49.9
4	 ITA	Sabina Valbusa, Arianna Follis, Marianna Longa, Silvia Rupil	56:04.9
5	 SWE	Anna Dahlberg, Ida Ingemarsdotter, Charlotte Kalla, Magdalena Pajala	56:18.9
6	 POL	Kornelia Marek, Paulina Maciuszek, Sylwia Jaskowiec, Justyna Kowalczyk	56:29.4
7	 FRA	Cecile Storti, Karine Philippot, Aurore Cuinet, Celia Bourgeois	56:30.6
8	 RUS	Natalia Korosteleva, Irina Khazova, Olga Savialova, Evgenia Medvedeva-Abruzova	57:00.9
9	 JPN	Masako Ishida, Madoka Natsumi, Nobuko Fukuda, Michiko Kashiwabara	57:40.4
10	 KAZ	Svetlana Malahova-Shishkina, Elena Kolomina, Oxana Jatskaja, Tatjana Roshina	58:23.3
11	 BLR	Ekaterina Rudakova Bulauka, Nastassia Dubarezava, Alena Sannikova, Olga Vasiljonok	58:28.4
12	 USA	Morgan Arritola, Holly Brooks, Kikkan Randall, Caitlin Compton	58:57.5
13	 CZE	Eva Skalnikova, Kamila Rajdlova, Ivana Janeckova, Eva Nyvltova	59:11.2
14	 UKR	Maryna Antsybor, Kateryna Grygorenko, Valentina Shevchenko, Tatjana Zavalij	59:25.7
15	 SLO	Vesna Fabjan, Katja Visnar, Anja Erzen, Barbara Jezersek	59:47.5
16	 CAN	Perianne Jones, Chandra Crawford, Daria Gaiazova, Madeleine Williams	1:00:05.0

Men's Nordic Combined

G	 USA	Bill Demong	25:32.9
S	 USA	Johnny Spillane	25:36.9
B	 AUT	Bernhard Gruber	25:43.7
4	 FIN	Hannu Manninen	26:06.0
5	 CZE	Pavel Churavy	26:06.9
6	 NOR	Petter L Tande	26:11.2
7	 ITA	Alessandro Pittin	26:13.6
8	 AUT	Mario Stecher	26:21.1
9	 JPN	Akito Watabe	26:21.7
10	 AUT	Christoph Bieler	26:21.7
11	 ITA	Lukas Runggaldier	26:31.6
12	 FIN	Janne Ryynaenen	26:40.9
13	 USA	Todd Lodwick	26:43.2 
14	 FRA	Francois Braud	26:59.6
15	 NOR	Magnus-H Moan	27:09.9
16	 SUI	Tommy Schmid	27:25.7
17	 AUT	Felix Gottwald	27:42.4
18	 FRA	Jason Lamy Chappuis	27:44.6
19	 FRA	Sebastien Lacroix	27:45.2
20	 GER	Bjoern Kircheisen	27:46.5
21	 ITA	Armin Bauer	27:49.1
22	 SUI	Ronny Heer	27:49.5
23	 ITA	Giuseppe Michielli	27:50.3
24	 GER	Georg Hettich	27:55.5
25	 CZE	Tomas Slavik	27:58.8
26	 JPN	Yusuke Minato	28:10.0
27	 JPN	Norihito Kobayashi	28:26.1
28	 CZE	Miroslav Dvorak	28:29.7
29	 GER	Tino Edelmann	28:35.0
30	 JPN	Taihei Kato	28:38.0
31	 SUI	Seppi Hurschler	28:43.9
32	 FIN	Jaakko Tallus	28:56.1
33	 SUI	Tim Hug	29:00.3
34	 CZE	Ales Vodsedalek	29:06.8
35	 NOR	Espen Rian	29:12.8
36	 RUS	Sergej Maslennikov	29:25.7
37	 SLO	Gasper Berlot	29:28.9
38	 FRA	Maxime Laheurte	29:32.2
39	 NOR	Mikko Kokslien	29:34.9
40	 GER	Eric Frenzel	29:43.6
41	 SLO	Mitja Oranic	30:16.1
42	 UKR	Volodymyr Trachuk	30:18.2
43	 RUS	Niyaz Nabeev	30:42.6
44	 CAN	Jason Myslicki	30:53.4
45	 USA	Taylor Fletcher	32:13.5
	 FIN	Anssi Koivuranta	DNS

Where the Americans Are

2010-02-25T19:41:56Z

VANCOUVER -- I live in the United States. I was born there, I hold an American passport, and that's where all my belongings are located (other than the few I currently have with me). There are hundreds of thousands of Americans like me, in America, and quite a few of them are phenomenal athletes. Enough that the medal standings at Vancouver 2010, as of this writing and virtually guaranteed to continue through until Sunday, is led by the USA. But we are not the majority here, not by any stretch. Even though these Games are being held just a half-hour's drive from the Washington state border, I've found it difficult to find any fellow Americans at all. In Robson Square during the Opening Ceremony two weeks ago, I didn't see a single U.S. flag. There were only a few among the tens of thousands at the nightly victory ceremonies I attended. In four days at the Whistler resort up north, there were very few Americans along the walkways and in the shops; in fact, I saw more Norwegians and Swedes. After the USA hockey team beat the Canadian hosts last Sunday, there were only a few celebratory American fans in the streets of downtown Vancouver, glum Canucks had them outnumbered by at least a 3,000-to-one ratio. And in my survey of the Cultural Olympiad and the Games' exposition aspects this week, I encountered not a single countryperson. Of course, I did find them eventually. They're at the venues, and they're in large groups in hotel lobbies and bars. This shouldn't have surprised me at all, because I've seen this play out in Barcelona and Sydney and Athens too. The tendency of American Olympic-goers abroad is to go from competition to competition to hotel, and miss everything between. It's another symbol of my country's bizarre relationship to these festivals -- for all the money the United States pumps into and pulls out of the Olympic Movement, I can't think of another nation on earth that gets less out of it.]]> NBC paid $2.2 billion to exclusively broadcast Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 to U.S. audiences. (Comparatively, ABC paid $317.5 million to show both Sarajevo and Los Angeles 1984!) That's 52 percent of the IOC's total income from rights fees for this Olympic quadrennium. The effect on the IOC has been very tangible -- in recent years, it has opened a lavish Olympic Museum at its Lausanne, Switzerland headquarters and entered the business of loss-leading brand extensions like the Youth Olympic Games. More subtle and applicable to actual Olympic atmosphere is the effect of American Olympic television on its consumer audience. With the exception of quick travelogues and regional cooking segments, the Games are presented as nothing more than a series of sporting competitions. So it's no wonder that most Americans who come to the Olympics shuttle between beds and bleachers, flicking through the competitions with a real-life remote control. Television can define the experience, even for those who make the trip. On the evening of Day 6, I stood at the end of the skeleton run at Whistler Sliding Centre with a group of Canadians for an hour before the first heat, staking out a good place to take in the action. As a sled approached the exit area, a man in a grey coat charged into the midst of our SRO section, holding a cell phone in one hand and waving with the other. "Can you see me?" he yelled into the phone. "I'm at the finish. Can you see me? I'm in a grey coat, and I'm waving. There I am, just now! Did you see me? Am I on? Oh, I'm not? The camera went by me fast... it was focused on the sled." "Excuse me, sir, excuse me," a lady in a red jacket peeped quietly, her plea falling on a covered ear. "You're squishing me against the fence." The Canadians have generally been very polite and yielding, as is their famous custom. I've overheard a number of these cross-border conversations, and they tend to lead like this: "We're so glad you could make it. What have you seen so far?" One by one, the stories of Olympic glory come out. There are tales of judgment, of perceived quality, of expectations met and unmet. These reports are about the service in restaurants, scratchy sheets at the hotel, not understanding curling, but all of you are so nice and we've had such a blast. Instead of accepting oneself as a small part in a greater whole, the Olympics somehow becomes a gift shop. This is, of course, a sweeping cultural generalization, not too structurally unlike the negative ones that many Americans manage to come away with after every Olympics -- despite every opportunity to transcend them. Stereotypes about the French, or the Russians, or the Koreans or Chinese will continue. And I've been lucky enough to sit or stand with some great families and entourages of athletes, like when I found myself at the two-man bobsled heats next to Team Holcomb, the friends and family of the "Night Train," all waving their American flags and yelling their lungs out for the USA. People like these live the Olympics every day and every night, and will do so long after the television audience moves on to other things. Indeed, for most Americans, these Winter Olympics serve as a sports consumer experience to fill the space between the Super Bowl and the televised college basketball playoffs... and it's definitely not as good or relevant as it used to be, you know, back then. While I cheer for my country and cut a check every year to the U.S. Olympic Committee (against my better judgment) to help fund athletes like Steve Holcomb, I'm not too proud of America's recent contributions to the Olympics. In 1980, we pioneered the mass boycott, which helped stall the Movement for an entire decade. At Los Angeles 1984, we sold the Games to Coke and McDonald's, and Atlanta 1996 featured a french-fry box cauldron. Government reaction to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks made Salt Lake 2002 a security state, and the trend has continued to this day. More recently, the USOC has clashed with the IOC on big revenue issues -- American podium domination is made easier when the home team gets 20 percent of global sponsorship money and one-eighth of American TV cash, thanks to deals brokered back in the boycott days. And it's at the point where the two sides are here in Vancouver, trying hard to make nice in hotel rooms. But the IOC and other NOC's are getting tired of America's act, and they're in a much better position to show their dissatisfaction nowadays. The New York and Chicago bids for 2012 and 2016 were barely acknowledged, and U.S.-centric sports of baseball and softball were recently removed from the Olympic program. The IOC is radically changing its focus to be more compact and efficient, hold more economically sensible and sustainable Games, and to be far less reliant on the United States. The biggest challenge facing the Movement in the next decade is how it deals with a massive decrease in American television dollars, now that that is a guaranteed eventuality, and the biggest question is: how irrelevant will America be in the Olympics' future? After the failed 2016 bid, NBC sports chief Dick Ebersol said, "This was the IOC membership saying to the USOC there will be no more domestic Olympics until you join the Olympic movement." I've come to realize that in my lifetime, there might not be another Olympics held in my home country. My opinions, or my urgency, aren't shared by a lot of my countrypeople. I'm one of the very relative few who jumped the border to attend these Winter Games; most have elected to stay home and watch on NBC, and it's the same severely limited experience many Americans are having up here. (After having to stay home and become an Olympic zombie two years ago, I know how that goes.) For most Americans, the Olympics have lost their power of transcendence, and could they ever again bring the nation together for a feel-good moment in a troubled age? Certainly not like they did 30 years ago, when the U.S. hockey team beat the Soviets in a "Miracle on Ice" that sparked a coast-to-coast wave of patriotism and pride. On the evening of Day 13, I strolled around noisy downtown Vancouver. It was a sea of red flags and sweaters, honking horns everywhere, strangers high-fiving and hugging. Canada won a national record-tying four medals that day, but more importantly, the home team had blown out the Russians 7-3 at Canada Hockey Place in the men's quarterfinals, headed for a Friday semifinal against the Slovakians. Five hours after the game was over, block after block was full of maple leaf flags and Roots toques and Team Canada jerseys with the names of numbers of their heroes: Iginla, Pronger, Luongo, Crosby, Getzlaf. The spectacle was exhausting. At 11 p.m., I ducked into a little by-the-slice pizza shop on Granville Street. "All this for a quarterfinal?" said the middle-aged man behind the counter. "I'm boarding up my windows if they make it to the gold medal game. I've never seen so much Canadian stuff in one place at one time in my entire life." The Games won't lift Canada out of its recession; instead, the true picture of the debt load of Vancouver 2010 on the province and country will not be fully known until we're all back home. But national unity through sport... what's the going rate for that?

Vancouver Photos, Day 13

2010-02-25T16:17:43Z

Sochi 2014 House; Granville Island