XXX Olympic Games 2012

The real XXX Olympic Games – sexy sports women

Olympic Skier Lindsey Vonn in sexy Swimsuit (gallery and video)

February 28th, 2012

Lindsey Caroline Vonn (née Kildow, born October 18, 1984) is an American alpine ski racer with the U.S. Ski Team.
She has won three consecutive overall World Cup and downhill championships (2008, 2009, 2010), the first American woman and third woman ever to accomplish this. Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first ever in the event for an American woman. Vonn also won three consecutive World Cup season titles in Super G (the first American woman to do so), and two consecutive titles in the combined.

Vonn is one of five women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of alpine skiing – Downhill, Super G, Giant slalom, Slalom, and Super combined – and, as of February, 2012, has won 50 World Cup races in her career. Only two women have more World Cup victories in their careers, Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll with 62 and Swiss Vreni Schneider with 55, both retired from active racing.
With her Olympic gold and bronze medals, two World Championship gold medals in 2009 (plus three silver medals in 2007 / 2011), and three overall World Cup titles, Vonn has become the most successful American skier in the history of alpine skiing.

Photographed by: Warwick Saint for http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com

US breaks medal record; hockey team in gold game

February 27th, 2010

So these won’t be remembered as the Vonn-couver Olympics after all. It’s looking like they will belong to the entire U.S. delegation instead.
The Americans reached 34 medals with a silver and a bronze in short track speedskating Friday night, and two more were clinched with the men’s hockey team and men’s team pursuit in speedskating advancing to a gold-medal match in which they can get no worse than silver.
That makes 36 medals, topping the U.S. record of 34 set at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and matching the record for the most by any country at any Winter Olympics, set by Germany in Salt Lake City.
“It’s a great time to be an American,” said Katherine Reutter, who got a silver in the 1,000 meters at the short track. “One of the many things I was yelling was ‘I love the USA!”’
Unless something wild happens over the final two days, the U.S. will win the overall medals race for only the second time, and the first since 1932 in Lake Placid.
And, look who’s leading the gold race: Canada, with 10. Maybe the hosts’ “Own the Podium” campaign will pay off after all.
Speaking of the U.S. and Canada, get ready for a raucous rematch on the ice. One week after the Americans ran roughshod over the Canadians in their game, on their ice, the nations will meet again for gold on Sunday.
The U.S. advanced easily, riding six first-period goals to a 6-1 victory over Finland. The Canadians beat Slovakia 3-2, but it was pretty tense at the end. Canada blew a 3-0 lead in the third period and had the entire nation on edge for the final 4:53 after Slovakia got within a goal.
The speedskaters locked up a top prize by knocking off Sven Kramer and the Dutch in a semifinal race.
At the short track, Apolo Anton Ohno—who became the most-decorated Winter Olympian in U.S. history earlier in these games—picked up his eighth career medal by getting bronze in the 5,000-meter relay. He had a chance for another but was disqualified from the 500 meters final.
Vonn was supposed to win all sorts of Alpine medals. Although she is going home with a gold and a bronze, she also had three DNFs for failing to finish her other events, including the slalom on Friday.
Injuries certainly took a toll, from a broken right pinkie to a collection of bruises from chin to shin. But she refused to give up, which may be the bottom line on her performance at these games.
“I’m totally satisfied with everything I have done here,” Vonn said. “I went out there fighting—it just wasn’t my day. I didn’t want to give up, that’s my personality.”
Vonn’s close friend Maria Riesch won the event for her second gold in Vancouver and the ninth for Germany.
Wang Meng of China won the women’s 1,000 meters in short track speedskating for her third gold medal of these games.
Also Friday, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway added to his tremendous Olympics resume by anchoring Norway’s victory in the men’s biathlon relay. This was his first gold medal since sweeping all four events in 2002, and the 11th medal of his career. That leaves him one behind Bjorn Daehlie’s Winter Games record of 12.

MEN’S HOCKEY
Ryan Malone, Zach Parise, Erik Johnson and Patrick Kane all scored in the first 10:08, sending Finland goalie Miikka Kiprusoff to the bench and pretty much sealing any doubt who’d win this.
Just to make sure, Kane and Paul Stastny greeted his replacement with goals 15 seconds apart just a few minutes later, and the only question left was who the Americans will play.
Patrick Marleau, Brenden Morrow and Ryan Getzlaf put Canada ahead 3-0 after 24 minutes, but Slovakia hung tough. Goals from Lubomir Visnovsky and Michal Handzus less than four minutes apart in the third period gave them hopes of pulling off the upset.
Now comes the intriguing rematch. And it’ll be played on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. beating Canada for the gold medal at the 1960 Olympics.
The U.S. hasn’t won Olympic gold since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.
Slovakia and Finland will meet for bronze on Saturday.

Yuna and Rochette shine on thin ice of emotion

February 26th, 2010

South Korea’s Kim Yuna shrugged off the weight of expectation from her homeland to win figure skating gold on Thursday but Canada’s Joannie Rochette won most hearts by overcoming heavy personal grief to claim a bronze medal.
An extraordinary day of raw human emotion and unrelenting drama at the Vancouver Winter Olympics also saw Norwegian cross country skier Marit Bjoergen become the first triple gold medallist of the Games and Canada win the women’s ice hockey to join Germany and the United States at the top of the medal standings.
The Canadians beat the U.S. 2-0 to trigger wild celebrations at Canada Hockey Place—and add to the suffocating pressure on the men’s team to emulate their feat in the final event of the Games on Sunday.
It was the evening figure skating, however, which provided Thursday’s icing on the cake after another day of enthralling action on all competition arenas.
Yuna, 19, showed poise and grace beyond her tender years to win the women’s figure skating gold with a record total of 228.56 points, well clear of Japan’s Mao Asada, who finished second, and Rochette, who maintained her composure to win the bronze just four days after her mother suddenly died.
“I do not see myself as a hero. When I stepped on to the ice I knew I had to be as cold as possible. My legs were shaking but my mother was there with me, giving me strength,” an emotional Rochette told reporters.
“It was almost like a relief going on the ice. I needed to be in a state of mind where I was Joannie the athlete and not Joannie the person. I was shaking but I knew that I would leave everything on that ice.”

Joannie Rochette

Joannie Rochette (Amy Sancetta)

ROYAL APPROVAL
Earlier, Bjoergen, 29, skied the last leg of the 4x5km relay in front of a packed grandstand where Norway’s King Harald V was watching. She grabbed a Norwegian flag and skied without using poles in the final few metres to her fourth podium finish in four events.
“This has been so great. I had a dream of winning one gold medal and now I have three so this has been a wonderful Games for me,” said Bjoergen.
With three in the top four after Wednesday’s first run, the Austrians had looked set to win their first Olympic gold in the Alpine events at Whistler mountain but again came up short.
German Viktoria Rebensburg unexpectedly won the women’s giant slalom, which was delayed 24 hours because of fog, after her parents had flown home following Wednesday’s opening leg when she was in sixth place.
Elisabeth Goergl was first after the opening leg but found a soft course on the second run and ended up with her second bronze of the Games.
The silver went to Slovenia’s Tina Maze, who finished just 0.04 seconds behind Rebensburg, a former junior world champion yet to win a World Cup race on the senior circuit.
Rebensburg weaved her way to the front with a dazzling second run to become Germany’s first women’s giant slalom champion in 54 years and second youngest Alpine gold medallist.
“It sounds so strange, it’s unbelievable,” she said. “I think it’s going to take a few days for me to realise it.”

TWO GOALS
After Finland beat Sweden 3-2 to claim the women’s ice hockey bronze medal, Canadian forward Marie-Philip Poulin scored both goals in the first period of the final against the U.S.
Canada’s men, watching from the stands, play Slovakia in Friday’s men’s semi-finals while the U.S. face off against Finland, setting up the possibility of a dream north American final on Sunday.
On the curling rink, Canada’s women continued to clean up, advancing to the final against Sweden by beating Switzerland in a tense semi.
The Canadian men also booked their place in the final with a 6-3 win over Sweden to extend their unbeaten run. They next play Norway, who have developed a cult following in Vancouver with their diamond-print pants.
Belarus collected their first Winter Olympic gold when Alexei Grishin won the men’s freestyle aerials at Cypress Mountain. Jeret Peterson of the U.S. took silver and China’s Liu Zhongqing the bronze.
American Bill Demong won gold in the Nordic combined as the U.S., Germany and Canada ended the 13th full day of competition with eight golds each and the U.S. ahead on overall medals.
Away from the ice and snow, the U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed that American bobsleigh crew member Bill Schuffenhauer had been arrested and then released to compete in Friday’s event.
Vancouver police had earlier said a U.S. Olympian had been arrested on Wednesday for assaulting his common law partner but did not name him.
A South Korean man was arrested too in Seoul for threatening to blow up the Australian Embassy after an Australian judge disqualified the South Korean women’s short track team on Wednesday.

source: sports.yahoo.com

Ice Hockey: Canada beat US, capture third straight gold

February 26th, 2010

Canada defeated United States 2-0 in Thursday’s Vancouver Winter Olympics women’s ice hockey gold medal final, giving the hosts their third consecutive crown. The Americans, reigning world champions, settled for a silver medal while Finland took the bronze with an earlier 3-2 over-time triumph over Sweden.
Marie-Philip Poulin scored twice in the first period and goaltender Shannon Szabados made 28 saves to give Canada a 2-0 victory over the United States in Thursday’s Winter Olympic gold medal final.
The Canadians captured their third consecutive Olympic crown by defeating the two-time reigning world champions in a border war arch-rivalry between the sport’s only two women’s powers.
The Americans settled for a silver medal while Finland took the bronze with an earlier 3-2 over-time triumph over Sweden.
Poulin opened the scoring 13:55 into the first period off a pass from Jennifer Botterill and found the net again just 2:55 later with an assist from Meghan Agosta to give Canada the final margin as defenses then dominated.
Canada won the 2002 and 2006 Olympic gold medals and dominated a pre-Olympic exhibition series against the Americans, who won the first Olympic women’s title in 1998.
Canada and America have met for every major global title except the 2006 Olympic final after Sweden upset the US women in the semi-finals.

source: www.vancouver2010.com

US women’s hockey rolls, ice dancers take silver

February 23rd, 2010

The United States won only one medal at the Vancouver Olympics on Monday, a silver in ice dancing. Yet there was some significance to it.
With 25 medals, Americans have won as many as they have at any Winter Games not held in the United States, matching their haul from Turin in 2006.
The record is all-but-broken, too, because the women’s hockey team has advanced to the gold-medal game, meaning they can get no worse than silver. They will face Canada on Thursday.
The next big number for the Americans: 34, their record for medals won at any Winter Olympics, set at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
There are six days and 35 events left to try piling them up.
Otherwise, the big news Monday was the fallout from the U.S. men’s hockey victory over Canada the day before, including Canada deciding to change goaltenders.
Robert Luongo will be in goal Tuesday against Germany, with Martin Brodeur watching from the bench.
“We’re in the winning business and to win in any game, at any level, you need big saves,” Canada coach Mike Babcock said. “We’re looking for Lu to do that.”
The ongoing reverberations started with the head of Canada’s Olympic committee conceding that his country wasn’t going to win the medals race, a huge proclamation considering they spent $117 million over five years to “Own the Podium.” The white flag wasn’t raised directly because of the hockey game, but the timing makes you wonder.
“We’d be living in a fool’s paradise if we said we were going to catch the Americans and win,” COC head Chris Rudge said.
In the afternoon, TV ratings were released, and the game was the most-watched sporting event in Canadian television history and it tied the 2008 elections for the most-watched event on MSNBC.
Other events fed off the U.S.-Canada hockey game. For instance, Canada’s men’s curling team beat the Americans 5-3, eliminating them from the tournament, then one of the Canadian curlers called it “some redemption for the hockey team.”
Oh, don’t forget the other connection Monday: Happy 30th anniversary to Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig and the “Miracle on Ice” club.
“It was more than a hockey game to a lot of people,” Craig said. “As you get older … it becomes more and more important to us.”
Also Monday, Germany made a big move to try catching the United States in the medals race, tying the Americans for the most gold (seven) and getting to 21 overall.
The Germans won the women’s cross country team sprint and got silver in the men’s team sprint and in ski jumping.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

What a day to remember for U.S. coach Mark Johnson: He celebrated the anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” in which he scored two goals, and saw his team avenge their 2006 Olympic shootout loss to Sweden with a 9-1 victory.
The Americans jumped ahead 4-0, then put the game away with four goals early in the third period, all against Kim Martin, the same goalie who stunned them in Turin. Monique Lamoureux scored three goals. Angela Ruggiero, a four-time Olympian playing in her record 250th game, also scored.
Canada advanced with a 4-0 win over Finland. Meghan Agosta set an Olympics record with her ninth goal, and Canada upped its margin of victory for the tournament to 46-2.

ICE DANCING

No North American couple had ever won the event. This time, they were 1-2, with Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir outskating their Michigan training partners, David and White.
“There is so much to be proud of right now,” Davis said.
World champions Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin of Russia won the bronze.
Turin Olympics silver medalists Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto of the United States were fourth.

CURLING

Skip John Shuster’s team got an early lead over Canada, but wound up losing 7-2 in a shortened match. Then the Americans fell 11-5 to China, ending their Olympics with a 2-7 record.
Shuster won bronze four years ago, helping bring more attention to this sport. It was the first U.S. curling medal at the Olympics and the first in a major men’s competition since 1978. They couldn’t build on it, though, losing three straight matches in extra ends (which are like innings in baseball).
“We’ve played good and just haven’t quite gotten there,” Shuster said.

AERIALS

Ryan St. Onge and Jeret “Speedy” Peterson are headed to the finals in the men’s freestyle aerials—and defending Olympic champion Han Xiaopeng of China and this year’s top jumper, Anton Kushnir of Belarus, aren’t.
St. Onge was second in qualifying, Peterson fifth. Han and Kushnir fell on their second jumps.
“I have had a lot of trouble landing this year,” St. Onge said. “To come out today and land two jumps the way I wanted to is unbelievable.”

CROSS-COUNTRY

Both team sprints—a freestyle event with two skiers taking turns going three laps—were decided in dashes to the finish.
Norway’s Petter Northug did it in the men’s event, pulling away from Germany’s Axel Teichmann. Norway’s Ola Vigen Hattestad—the reigning world champion in the individual and team sprints, and winner of the last two World Cup sprint titles—pulled out because of a sore throat.
Americans Torin Koos and Andy Newell were ninth.
Germany won the women’s team sprint when Claudia Nystad beat Sweden’s Anna Haag across the line by 0.6 seconds. Americans Caitlin Compton and Kikkan Randall were sixth.
Russia took bronze in both events.

SKI JUMPING

On his final jump in the team event, 20-year-old Gregor Schlierenzauer soared farther than anyone else in these Winter Games to wrap up the gold for Austria. This was his third medal; he won bronze in both individual events.
Switzerland’s Simon Ammann, who won both individual events, didn’t compete in the team event because his country didn’t have the four jumpers needed for a team.

BOBSLED

More changes are coming to the Whistler Sliding Center, this time to shave the ice in several tricky curves in hopes of making the track easier for bobsledders to navigate.
“It’s still going to be the toughest track in the world. No doubt,” U.S. coach Brian Shimer told The Associated Press.
Changes came after a two sleds crashed during supplemental training, which many nations chose to skip, opting for rest instead.
The women’s event is Tuesday and Wednesday, with the men’s four-man event Friday and Saturday.

BIATHLON

Magdalena Neuner of Germany won’t go for a third gold medal, pulling out of the relay on Tuesday because of exhaustion.
Neuner said she is “happy and satisfied” with having won gold in the pursuit and mass start races, and silver in the sprint, but that her Olympics have been “incredibly stressful.”

BUS DRIVER DIES

Police say a 71-year-old bus driver working at the Olympics died on duty while driving other drivers to their depot. He’s believed to have had a heart attack.
Another driver grabbed the wheel and safely stopped the bus, said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

source: sports.yahoo.com/olympics

It’s a Japan, Korea skate-off

February 21st, 2010

The worst thing for future U.S. prospects in ladies figure skating was not that Japan’s Shizuka Arakawa won the gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics and spawned a generation of spinning, spiraling, jumping Japanese skaters.
The worst thing is the rise of Kim Yu-na, the reigning world champion who enters Vancouver as the heavy favorite for gold.

Kim is from South Korea.

So not only do you have two Asian nations with a legion of pony-tailed pipsqueaks rushing to the nearest rink, but you also have two Asian nations that don’t exactly care for one another and consider no greater ignominy than to lose to the other in anything. You have plenty of little girls dreaming of becoming an ice queen, and plenty of money and motivation to cultivate them.
Entering the 2006 Games, Asian women had won two figure skating medals — a silver by Japan’s Midori Ito in 1992 and a bronze by China’s Chen Lu in 1994. Now Asian women are forecast to sweep the podium this week and claim gold for the second straight Games while a U.S. team led by Del Mar’s Rachael Flatt is not expected to win a ladies single medal for the first time since 1964.
“The conclusion is that I was right,” said Ottavio Cinquanta, the Italian president of the International Skating Union who a decade ago pushed to promote Asian skating by sending more high-level events there. “Countries have understood skating is a sport for Asian athletes, better than basketball or soccer.”
It makes sense for all disciplines of figure skating — the bronze here by Japan’s Daisuke Takahashi was the first Asian to medal in men’s singles, and China went 1-2-5 in pairs — but especially with the women, the sport’s marquee event.
You have a massive female population with small physiques, low-fat diets, an increased emphasis on jumps since the elimination of school figures in 1990, and little dilution of the talent pool by other women’s sports. And perhaps something else.
“I think the Asian population — including Japanese, Chinese, Koreans — has respect for the aged, respect for the elderly,” Japanese national coach Nobuhiko Yoshioka said yesterday. “They will practice and do whatever their teacher or coach tells them to do. Perhaps that’s what has enabled these young athletes to diligently and seriously embody what they are told to do.”
“This is the type of sport that in the past the Anglo-Saxons, the Caucasians, were very adept at. Now the Asian population is very adept at it.”
Russia’s Nikolai Morozov concurs. He coaches Japan’s Miki Ando, the 2007 world champion who was the first woman to land a quadruple jump in competition.
“Japanese skaters have a very good body structure for skating,” Morozov told Japanese media last month. “They have a little bit lower center of gravity. So it’s much easier for them to jump.

Miki Ando

Miki Ando

“And Japanese have great discipline, so when you tell them what to do, they just listen and do it. Americans (who are) 15, 16 years old won’t do this. They want to go out. They want to go to the movies.”
Of the last nine women’s medals at the annual World Championship, Asian women won seven. Kim’s toughest (and maybe only) competition here is thought to be Ando or Mao Asada, the 2008 world champion who plans to do the elusive triple axel in both her short (Tuesday) and free (Thursday) programs. Akiko Suzuki, the third member of Japan’s team, finished third at the Grand Prix final and is considered a medal contender as well.
The real impact, however, might not be felt for another decade, when all those girls idolizing Kim and Asada and Ando fill all the rinks being built.
Kim is considered South Korea’s most famous athlete, with an annual $8 million endorsement empire that includes Nike, Hyundai, a bank, electronics firms, a jewelry line, even a bakery. Samsung launched a special “Yu-na” touch-screen mobile phone last spring and sold a reported 500,000 in the first 80 days. A major department store chain orders branches to play her short and free program music at least 20 times a day to put shoppers in a good mood.
Asada was considered the queen of figure skating four years ago but missed the Olympic age cutoff by three months. Now that she’s here, a South Korean is favored to win the gold.
Kim, Asada recently said, “has been a good source of inspiration for me.”

source: www.signonsandiego.com

Alpine Skiing: Vonn wins women’s downhill gold

February 18th, 2010

American Lindsey Vonn won the women’s downhill gold at the Winter Olympics on Wednesday. Team-mate Julia Mancuso took the silver with Austrian Elisabeth Goergl winning the bronze.
Alpine speed queen Lindsey Vonn lived up to expectations by winning the United States’ first ever Olympic gold in the women’s downhill on Wednesday.
Vonn, the winner of five consecutive downhills in the World Cup this season, produced a flawless performance on the technically challenging Franz’s Run to finish in a winning time of 1min 44.19sec.
Teammate Julia Mancuso finished second at 0.56sec to take a surprise silver with Austrian Elisabeth Goergl winning the bronze.
An ecstatic Vonn said her victory was made even better by Mancuso finishing second.
“It’s one of the most incredible moments of my life,” said the 25-year-old American. “When I crossed the finish line and saw my name in first and Julia’s second, it was just the coollest thing.”
Vonn’s maiden Olympic medal comes four years after her bid was hampered by injuries sustained in training for the downhill during the Turin Games in 2006.
As well as making alpine history for the US, Vonn is also the first American woman to win Olympic gold in an alpine speed event since childhood hero Picabo Street won super-G gold at the Nagano Games of 1998.
Against expectations, Mancuso fired out the start hut to produce an inspired run that was enough to knock Austria’s Elisabeth Goergl of Austria off the top spot of the provisional podium.
Goergl had started with bib number five and went on to scorch the course, however the Austrian just avoided a spectacular crash when she landed after the last big jump with her ski tips pointing dangerously downwards.
Mancuso, the giant slalom champion from Turin, has been searching for good downhill form all season but she was eventually guaranteed a medal after Anja Paerson crashed and then Maria Riesch failed to shine.
Paerson was in silver medal position going into the final jump just before the finish line but the Swedish ace, like many of the field, found big air and landed awkwardly on one ski, eventually crashing out.
The Swede, who won three medals including slalom gold and downhill bronze in Turin, was immediately taken to hospital by a doctor for checks, according to organisers.
The only other racer left to challenge Vonn, German rival and friend Riesch, failed to produce the kind of challenge most were expecting, finishing way off the pace.

source: www.vancouver2010.com

Germany leads medal table in Vancouver after a brace of golds

February 16th, 2010

Gold medals for German women in the 10 kilometer biathlon and the luge have catapulted their country to the top of the medals’ table. Magdalena Neuner won on her skis, while Tatjana Huefner was quickest on her sled.

Germany currently leads the medals table at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, with three golds, four silvers, and two bronzes, after a string of successes in Tuesday’s competition.
First, Magdalena Neuner added a second gold to Germany’s medal count, winning the women’s biathlon 10-kilometer pursuit at Whistler Olympic Park in British Columbia.
The 23-year-old Neuner completed the course in 30 minutes 16 seconds, 12.3 seconds ahead of Slovakia’s Anastazia Kuzmina, to claim her first Olympic gold medal. Marie Laure Brunet of France took the bronze.
Neuner won silver in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint on Saturday, then coming in behind Kuzmina. That silver was Germany’s first medal of the Games.
Neuner, a six-time world champion, is a native of Wallgau near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria, the site of the 1936 Winter Olympics.

Magdalena Neuner

More gold, and a silver lining on the ice
In the luge, German favorite Tatjana Huefner claimed gold in the women’s singles. Another German hopeful Natalie Geisenberger grabbed bronze, and Austrian Natalie Reithmayer came in second, almost half a second adrift of Huefner.
Reithmayer becomes the first non-German woman of this century to win an Olympic medal in the luge singles event, after German racers locked out the podiums at both Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin four years ago.
On Sunday, 20-year-old German Felix Loch won the men’s singles, so Germany – usually dominant in this discipline – will shoot for a luge “grand slam” in the doubles later this week.
But heavily fancied German speedskater Jenny Wolf just missed out on gold in the women’s 500 meter event. South Korea’s Lee Sang-Hwa won the first race starting on the outside lane and managed to maintain her aggregate advantage when the skaters switched sides, despite world record holder Wolf setting the fastest single time of the competition: 37.84 seconds.
Lee’s combined time over the two races was 76.09 seconds, just five hundredths of a second quicker than Jenny Wolf.
The second quickest pair racing head-to-head in the final, China’s Wang Beixing and Margot Boer of the Netherlands, secured third and fourth places, respectively.

source: www.dw-world.de

Vancouver 2010 Olympics: Figure Skating and China’s Gold

February 16th, 2010

China’s new heroes are Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo who have gained the gold medal at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in the figure skating. Previous to their victory Russia had held on to the pairs gold title for 46 years.

The Chinese pair had emerged from retirement in one more bid to win the gold Olympic medal and in doing so received a standing ovation from the crowd.

The ecstatic couple celebrated victory by holding the Chinese flag proudly during a lap of honour at the rink which was filled to capacity. At a news conference afterwards Shen expressed that maybe now it was time to stop skating and have a baby.

Zhao, who had won the world title 3 times with Shen said “This is a dream come true”. China had never before won an Olympic figure skating gold and in true Olympic style, another pair from China, Pang Qing and Tong Jian, won the silver medal.

Do you think this story represents genuine Olympic spirit? To come out of retirement and achieve the impossible dream surely gives us all hope?

source: www.onlykent.com

Ando leaves for the United States before Vancouver Olympics

January 5th, 2010

Miki Ando

Miki Ando

Figure skater Miki Ando smiles while holding a ”Stitch” stuffed animal, a gift from a fan, at Narita International Airport, east of Tokyo, before leaving for the United States on Jan. 5, 2010. The 22-year-old Olympic athlete will be at the training base in Hackensack, New Jersey, before heading straight to Vancouver in February for the Winter Olympics.

from: home.kyodo.co.jp

XXX Olympic Games 2012

The real XXX Olympic Games – sexy sports women