good times

Monday, February 20, 2006

Ice Dancing. Seriously?

The Olympics. It's everywhere. You can't avoid it. Everyone's watching it. So are you. NBC has you in the palm of their hand. You may be watching downhill skiing or snowboarding or figure skating and just when you want to see what happens next...they cut to a different event...probably one you don't care much about. So, that's where I was this past Friday night. We were watching some Combined Slalom skiing when they cut to Ice Dancing. Dang. Ice Dancing has to be the lamest event in the Winter Olympics. Criticize curling all you want, at least it's funny. In individual figure skating, you have triple axels or even quadruples. In pairs figure skating, you have challenging aerial throws. Take away all the elements of risk and challenge and you have Ice Dancing. Seriously. We watched one couple just skate around the rink in their funny outfits and their ice skates never left the ground. Unbelievable. It was virtually impossible to make a mistake. When they did the play-by-play review, the commentators said, "See how their hands seem to be grasping tightly? They look less comfortable out there. That's what the judges are looking for." Case closed.

Apparently they do have some Ice Dancing events where the guy lifts the girl off the ice just a little. Well, this is what happened this weekend.

IceDancing
For more ice dancing action, go here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude!!! Torvill and Dean, 1984 Olympics. I just saw a video clip of their performance this weekend. It was the most amazing thing I've seen a couple do on ice!

http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/multimedia/gallery/results_uk.asp?entid=77&MediaType=VID&page=2

Ice dancing is a finesse sport. Even thought they don't take extreme risks, they are incredibly athletic. It deserves to be a sport in the winter Olympics.

Russell said...

Eddy, I'm not sure if we can be friends anymore.

Anonymous said...

Russell!! Have you seen the video clip yet? I thought for sure you would have posted an amendment to yesterday's entry by now. C'mon, just say you love ice dancing =)

Russell said...

That video clip just about confirmed my original assessment. Thanks, Eddy!

Running in place can be athletic.