“The steepness of the climbs are really what made this course significantly harder than other Olympic courses in the past,” [said Robbie Ventura, a former professional cyclist who was part of Lance Armstrong’s United States Postal Service team for four years].The article also mentions the the trails in Kettle Moraine State Forest, the Military Ridge Trail and the Capital City trail (which Meade and I rode 3 times in the last 3 days).
“If you ride that course just to ride it, you can’t help to get excited every time you get to the top of one of those climbs,” Ventura said. “Even if you do just one loop, there’s a satisfaction of completing something that is not only incredibly beautiful, but also incredibly challenging.”
Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts
Created for the hoped-for Chicago Olympics: "a 167-mile road course that looped through Madison three times before taking racers west and into the hills near Blue Mound State Park."
A NYT article about our fabulous bike trails.
"Dmitry Medvedev called for the resignation of the nation's top Olympic officials..."
... after the country's worst performance in a Winter Olympics in nearly a hundred years."
Worst performance? You mean this?
Yeah, Plushenko's "personality is unbelievable" — don't you think? (I hope you watched the whole thing.)
Worst performance? You mean this?
Yeah, Plushenko's "personality is unbelievable" — don't you think? (I hope you watched the whole thing.)
Did the skater Johnny Weir deliberately allude to Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe"?
After skating in the Olympics last night, Johnny Weir got a wreath of roses, which he wore on his head as he waited for his scores:
And here is the famous painting:
And here is the famous painting:
The end of the quadruple jump.
It's been proved, perhaps conclusively, that skaters should not attempt the quad in competition:
An analysis of all quadruple jumps attempted in major international competitions in the last four seasons shows that only about a third of them would earn more points than if the skater had performed a triple lutz, an easier jump, but worth as many points when performed well.Evan Lysacek — the American gold medalist — excluded the quad from his program:
"For me, it’s just as difficult to have the intricate program that I have and execute everything as it would be for me to execute a quad... I guess if you asked a speedskater if there is one stroke they do that’s more important than any other, they would say no, that every stroke is equally important. I feel that way about my program, that each stroke I take, each step I take, each jump, each spin, is of equal importance. Sometimes it’s easy to forget about the simpler moves and to take them for granted."And so it is with life... I feel like saying. It sounds like a general personal philosophy, doesn't it?
Luger Nodar "Kumaritashvili struck the inside wall of the track on the final turn."
"His body 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."
Death shadows the opening of the Olympics.
ADDED: Here is the MSNBC video report, which includes repeated viewings of the accident and left me feeling that the track is not properly designed. The announcers keep speaking of sorrow and "heartbreak," but I think the word "outrage" is more appropriate.
Death shadows the opening of the Olympics.
ADDED: Here is the MSNBC video report, which includes repeated viewings of the accident and left me feeling that the track is not properly designed. The announcers keep speaking of sorrow and "heartbreak," but I think the word "outrage" is more appropriate.
"President Barack Obama's failed bid to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago cost more than a bruised ego."
"Taxpayers shelled out probably $1 million or more for the president, his wife and others to fly to Copenhagen and back to woo members of the International Olympic Committee. A 2006 congressional study pegged the cost of flying Air Force One at $56,518 an hour. The Pentagon recently said it cost $100,219 an hour to fly the huge, reconfigured Boeing 747 without Obama aboard.... [P]residential travel requires additional spending, especially for security personnel and equipment. Also, first lady Michelle Obama and some administration officials traveled to Copenhagen at public expense ahead of the president."
And please calculate the "carbon footprint" too while you're at it.
Maybe the President should never travel anywhere. We've got him set up to work at home. Let him stay there. Let people visit him. Maybe the occasional truly momentous summit, but basically, work from home, President.
And please calculate the "carbon footprint" too while you're at it.
***
Maybe the President should never travel anywhere. We've got him set up to work at home. Let him stay there. Let people visit him. Maybe the occasional truly momentous summit, but basically, work from home, President.
Perhaps Obama would have won the Olympics for Chicago, if he had "had time for a personal lubricant."
Hans Bonde, professor of sport history at the University of Copenhagen, speaks the strange English:
ADDED: Obama went 9 minutes. Come on!
AND: Actually, it's an automatic translation, and — at the link — Don Surber speculates that Bonde meant something like "buttering up." Is that an improvement? I've seen "Last Tango in Paris."
"Here come the more favor Obama just before the deadline and made showoff. He clearly won the battle in the media, but it turned out indeed to be indifferent. IOC members did not feel important, and they were indeed reduced to spectators and not players. So if he had come, he would have had time for a personal lubricant."Ouch!
ADDED: Obama went 9 minutes. Come on!
AND: Actually, it's an automatic translation, and — at the link — Don Surber speculates that Bonde meant something like "buttering up." Is that an improvement? I've seen "Last Tango in Paris."
Cheering over Obama's failure to snag the Olympics and censorious head-shaking over the cheering.
I'm see a lot of that this morning. It's all about failure, excusing failure, relishing failure, and pretending that it's too mean to relish failure. (Like Dems wouldn't have hooted with glee if Bush had gone all out trying to get the Olympics to come to Texas and gotten his comeuppance in the first round of voting.)
Here's what I would like to talk about in all this: The First Lady and her husband made terrible presentations to the IOC! In retrospect, it makes complete sense that they got the boot in Round 1.
Here's Michelle Obama, patronizingly slow-talking, using the phony "crying voice," whining about the very special poverty and discrimination that is Chicago, trying to guilt-trip the IOC into being charitable to the downtrodden Americans who have suffered so much:
What's with these Americans and their endless fretting about their own self-esteem? If we're going to boost egos, why the hell would we boost American egos? They are scarily hungry for inspiration, for their inspiration. Why should the athletes of the world be enlisted in that effort? And, good lord, the woman's husband is the President of the United States — isn't that enough? She still needs us to make her feel good at long last? This insatiable lust for encouragement — enough!
Now, here's the husband that she introduced as if it was roundly well-understood that everyone adores him:
I got impatient with the emphatic, pause-laden slow speech and had to switch to text. Toward the end:
Nobody yelled out "You lie," but what a lie!
Here's what I would like to talk about in all this: The First Lady and her husband made terrible presentations to the IOC! In retrospect, it makes complete sense that they got the boot in Round 1.
Here's Michelle Obama, patronizingly slow-talking, using the phony "crying voice," whining about the very special poverty and discrimination that is Chicago, trying to guilt-trip the IOC into being charitable to the downtrodden Americans who have suffered so much:
What's with these Americans and their endless fretting about their own self-esteem? If we're going to boost egos, why the hell would we boost American egos? They are scarily hungry for inspiration, for their inspiration. Why should the athletes of the world be enlisted in that effort? And, good lord, the woman's husband is the President of the United States — isn't that enough? She still needs us to make her feel good at long last? This insatiable lust for encouragement — enough!
Now, here's the husband that she introduced as if it was roundly well-understood that everyone adores him:
I got impatient with the emphatic, pause-laden slow speech and had to switch to text. Toward the end:
Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. Presidential election. Their interest wasn't about me as an individual.Can't you just see the eyes rolling? Somehow he's President of the whole world. And he's bigger than himself as an individual.
Rather, it was rooted in the belief that America's experiment in democracy still speaks to a set of universal aspirations and ideals....Actually, it's kind of cool to hear him reciting the ideology of "American exceptionalism" he's usually accused of not believing in. But isn't this exactly the wrong place to do it? Is he about Chicago or America or the whole world or does he somehow think it all becomes one... in him?
At the beginning of this new century, the nation that has been shaped by people from around the world wants a chance to inspire it once more...That is, not only was the world inspired when he won the Presidency, the world can be inspired by — what? — the sheer greatness of Chicago?
And so I urge you to choose Chicago. I urge you to choose America. And if you do; if we walk this path together; then I promise you this: the city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud.I'm picturing them thinking: What is this pride? Why would we be proud of you? Why should we give you the Olympics so that you can — what? — boost our self-esteem? Because — why? — we, the world, contain Chicago? Get your nutty American inspirationalism off me. We're talking about where to site the Olympic games, not who's the dreamiest city in the world. Why do the games belong in Chicago? What was the argument? It's Obama's adopted hometown and it has ethnic neighborhoods, where all the colorful peoples live in peace and harmony?
Nobody yelled out "You lie," but what a lie!
Chicago eliminated in the first round!
BBC reports! "A very very loud gasp here."
Live stream at the link.
AND: Tokyo out too.
The Obama magic has truly fizzled. All that glamorous traveling.... and the backlash against it.
Live stream at the link.
AND: Tokyo out too.
The Obama magic has truly fizzled. All that glamorous traveling.... and the backlash against it.
It's good to know that fighting to win is something Obama passionately believes in.
Michelle Obama:
First lady Michelle Obama vowed Monday to "take no prisoners" as she and her husband launch an unprecedented bid for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid....On another front, asked to "define victory in Afghanistan," Barack Obama famously said:
"It's a battle -- we're going to win -- take no prisoners," the first lady said with a smile at a roundtable discussion with reporters in the White House State Dining Room....
I'm always worried about using the word "victory" because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.(Emperor Hirohito came down?)
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