Ice Dancing in the 2010 Olympics

This year I've gotten a chance to watch a lot of sports I typically don't watch. I guess this is true for all winter Olympics as these sports are not televised much on a regular basis, at least not in the US. Ice dancing is easily one of the most fun sports to watch. The gracefulness of the moves, the stories that can be told through the dances, and the wonderful music are amazing. It even has a romantic feel. My girlfriend and I have not been able to be together to watch the Olympics but we have still been watching "together" from across the country and sharing the joy of watching the elegant skaters.

In the pairs ice dancing competition in Vancouver, Tessa Virtue and Scotty Moir of Canada took the gold, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White, dancing to a Bollywood style song, won the silver. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUMOBMIGHC0 The Russian pair Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, thought by many to be the big favorites to win, were third. Virtue and Moirs final score of 221.57 was quite amazing, one of the highest ever recorded and nearly 6 points ahead of second. Personally I like the French pair Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat who danced to Requiem for a Dream, but I'm kind of partial to the French.

Curling is another sport that I particularly like in the winter Olympics because it's largely a thinking/strategy game. The competitors are noticeably older than in all other sports. At first glance it appears to be kind of a silly game but there really is a lot of strategy - how to set up your blocks, when to go for putting your stone in the bulls-eye, knocking the opponent's stones out of position, using the brooms to make your stones curve around other stones. Canada is leading the round robin in both the men's and women's curling events, as they should be since they are the ones that invented this game. Now that the figure skating is done, I'm looking forward to the curling finals more than anything else this week in the Olympics.