Olympic Notes

ITEM! - Canadian-born American ice dancer Tanith Belbin is a stone-cold fox.

ITEM! - I don't fault U.S. speed skater Shani Davis for declining a spot on the pursuit team. But after he won the 1000m event, he seemed like the surliest Olympic gold medalist ever. I guess not everybody reads the script about what they expect you to say in those TV interviews. The article there says he was pissed at NBC for comments Bob Costas had made about him.

ITEM! - A man in Korea says he's mogul-skiing bronze medalist Toby Dawson's birth father, and that he lost him on a busy street back in 1981. Weird.

ITEM! - The United States doesn't have a monopoly on pro athletes underperforming at the Olympics. The Canadian hockey team lost consecutive 2-0 shutouts to Finland and, of all places, Switzerland.

ITEM! - American Matt Savoie gets my vote for the most underrated male figure skater. His jumps were powerful and his program was that rare combination of elegant, tasteful, and not fruity.

ITEM! - Canada's Jeffrey Buttle, though, has a distinct Danny Pintauro vibe.

ITEM! - How cool is Biathlon? You have people skiing with rifles on their backs. I must say, though, that the events in which the winner is actually the person who crosses the finish line first are more exciting than the "individual" events, where the start times are staggered and the penalties for missing shots are just automatically tacked on to your skiing time. The penalty is made much more physically manifest in the events where a missed shot means you have to ski a 150m penalty lap. It's like being in junior high P.E. class again.

ITEM! - If you think the luge looks like it would be loads of fun to try and you live in the Midwest, there's a public luge run at Muskegon State Park in Michigan. Prices are affordable and they have skating and cross-country skiing, too. Remind me to go next time I'm in western Michigan in the winter.