I = Olympoholic/Olympifan/whatever you think to call me

I forget how much I love the Olympics. I even thought I liked the Summer Olympics best, but now that the Winter ones are on again, maybe I like them better. There is just something about the national comradery that pulses the nation during the Olympics. It's an event that only happens once every 4 years (or 2, now that the Summer and Winter are staggered). The sports are not well followed by the American public. The athletes are pretty unknown until the Olympics actually roll around. But, then, when that torch is lit and the Olympic rings make their way out of the horizon, we all start to fell that spirit deep within us. It is time to root for your country, listen to the Athletes stories, and even cheer those other countries on a bit. It is truly an international phenomenon. I catch myself watching it when I get home at night, taking a break to do whatever I need to get done, and then coming back to the games on the late night session. I don't want to fall asleep because I may miss on ski run, triple axle, or medal ceremony.

Since the Olympics are coming to a close, I want to list some of my favorite moments with a brief (or not so brief) commentary:

1)Lindsey Vonn wins gold in ladies downhill skiing. After sustaining an injury that could have possibly taken her out of the running, she pushed through and won the gold. Plus, she is just pretty cool because she has a pet cow. She got it as a prize back in 2005. She was supposed to trade it in for the prize money, but she insisted on keeping the cow instead.

2)Back on Sunday, the USA men's hockey team beat Canada (IN CANADA) for the first prelim hockey match-up. Awesome and a bit unexpected in my mind! Hopefully, USA can pull through in the next few days and face Canada again in quest for the gold! Team USA!

3)Apolo Ohno wins 2 more medals, making him the most decorated American Winter Olympic athlete ever.

4)Snowboarding. Its just really fun and pretty hardcore. The downside, the most of the American Olympic snowboarders (male and female) could use some lessons in grooming.

5)Evan Lysacek gets gold in men's figure skating and beats the pissed-off Russian who won in 2006. Plushenko (the angry Russian), who was one of the only men to attempt at quad tells the world that mens skating without a quad is (ice) dancing. Lysacek did not attempt a quad. I have to agree with the angry Russian on this one. I thought so many previous Olympic skater attempted major jumps....it doesn't seem that way anymore. And, figure skating without the jumps is pretty boring. More on this in the next one.

6) Kim Yu-Na wins gold to bring home the first women's figure skating medal ever for Korea. It sounded like the country would kill her if she didn't win. That is way to much pressure for one person to bear so I am very relieved that she won. I can just imagine the headlines if she hadn't. The other favorite was from Japan and she landed 3 triple axles during this Olympics. One in the short program. Two in the long program. She brought her A-game, but it was not enough to beat Yu-Na. She does now have the credit of landing the most triple axles ever in female Olympic figure skating. In fact, she was the only athlete that even did a triple axle at all. I thought back in the day (like the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding days) that alot of the skaters attempted that jump, but I must be mistaken. However, I did not see a back flip with a one-skate landing. Surya Bonaly used to do that, and she was AWESOME. She's black, and you don't see that often in figure skating. She was also French and had a ton of personality on the ice. I long for that talent again......check out her long program at the Nagano Olympics in 1998 (backflip is around the 3 and a half minute mark).