Olympic events 2/23

Plenty of events to choose from today. What will I be watching?

Men’s Giant Slalom, even though I already know something that I didn’t want to know. Ugh. It’s really difficult to avoid spoilers. Anyway, men’s giant slalom provides another golden opportunity for Ted Ligety and Bode Miller.

Ladies figure skating short program. American women are kind of a long shot here, but they’ve defied that label before in the Olympics. Of course, this year there are only two women representing the United States in figure skating in Vancouver: Rachael Flatt and Mirai Nagasu. Dominant skaters World Champion Kim Yu-Na, of South Korea, and 2008 World title-holder Mao Asada, of Japan, should provide an exciting show.

I’m torn on women’s ski cross. I find it to be a theoretically exciting sport, but I have a hard time not having an American to cheer for. We’ll see whether it holds my attention.

I’m going to have to see if Nordic Combined Team Large Hill is on television, since it looks like the United States has a shot at a medal. Really. Two medals in Nordic Combined in one Olympics. Wow.

I will probably skip the women’s biathlon relay. Again, exciting in theory. Hard to see the Americans get trounced.

I may also skip men’s speedskating 10,000m. That’s a lot of skating in circles. Maybe if I were from the Netherlands and cheering for national hero Sven Kramer. The power company in the Netherlands is even offering a discount for every medal he wins. I’d definitely watch with more enthusiasm if it was going to save me about $70 per year. On the other hand, Americans Jonathan Kuck and Ryan Bedford are not expected to medal.

The ever present hockey and curling will probably also be skipped, even though I do generally enjoy curling. There are only so many hours in the day.

Women’s bobsled has two runs today, but I’ll probably wait until the medal rounds tomorrow to take a look at that.