the TOWN HALL weblog

I won’t be around for a few days because as I am sure you all already know today is the start of the Southwest Pacific Regional Figure Skating Championships.  There are a lot of young skaters eagerly awaiting to hear me cheer myself hoarse for them.  I feel so sad for these kids.  They have [...]

As part of this evening’s Olympic broadcast, NBC recounted the story of the marathon runner in Athens who, with a 90 second lead, was pulled off the course by a whacko who wanted publicity.  Clearly shaken, although he lost the gold he managed to finish with the bronze.  He also got a special award for [...]

Waaaa HOO!!!  USA women go 1 and 2 in the All Around Gymnastics competition.  I am so happy for Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, under incredible pressure they went out, kept their focus and were fantastic!!  What a great picture http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//080815/ids_photos_sp/r3188309882.jpg/
And shame on President Bush for not going to the gymnastics competition while he was in China.  [...]

I have been a gymnastics fan since Olga Korbut way back in 1972.  So when I first started watching gymnastics the US team had no chance of getting a medal let alone a gold one.  So on a day like this I am especially happy to see that the US lady’s, Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, finished [...]

John Derbyshire has an interesting article today about the history of Chinese Olympians http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTc1OWYzYWU5YjE3NzRkZjdhNTA5M2QyZmU2OGMyYTg=
 
It reminded me of my favorite Chinese Olympians and one of the greatest skating performances in history.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kql3sf_crA

This was in today’s NY Post:   http://www.nypost.com/seven/06292008/gossip/pagesix/icebreaker_117620.htm
OKSANA Baiulisn’t shy. The adorable Olympic gold medalist ice skater stripped down to her skivvies at Wednesday’s YRB Magazine “How You Rock It” party.” “She crashed the fashion shoot going on, so YRB let her get in on the action,” our spy reports. “She made sure everyone in the [...]

Over at http://www.gaypatriot.net/  they connected to a story of the usual Howard Dean nonsense about Republican bigotry http://badgerherald.com/news/2008/03/26/dean_future_bleak_fo.php  
They can’t become more diverse,” Dean said. “Who in their right mind, if they were African American or Hispanic or Asian American, if they were gay or lesbian, would join the Republican Party?”
His mentioning Asian Americans reminded me [...]

Lordy figure skating is corrupt.  You have to hand it to Cinquantta in his desire to remain firmly in power, as head of the International Skating Union, he came up with the most labyrinthine judging system imaginable.  Code Of Points is so complicated and overflowing with minutiae that the judges can cheat as much as [...]

Ah so one of my predictions did come true, Mao Asada of Japan won the lady’s competition at the World Figure Skating Championships.  Bravo Mao!  I knew she would be World Champion one day the first time I saw her skate as a Junior back in 2004. 
The pigs flying moment was a great one this [...]

For the first time in the history of the World Figure Skating Championships a lady from Israel has qualified for the free skate in the Lady’s competition.  Tamar Katz landed  a couple of very big jumps today to finish 24th in the short program and move onto the Free Skate.    http://www.isufs.org/bios/isufs00006326.htm  Bravo Tamar have a [...]

Well another of my predictions has failed.  Dommina and Shabalin are not going to win the World Championship in Ice Dance; they have withdrawn due to injury.  Even the Russians haven’t figured out a way to cheat a victory in a contest they don’t enter.  This makes the US team the favorites to win.  The [...]

I should have posted this after Nationals and here we are only 11 days till Worlds.  But unlike all the other bloggers who post their predictions and run away I will rate my own predictions and fess up where my prognostications have been failures.  Here is what I said way back in 2007.
Emily Hughes will [...]

After a dazzling performance that included the triple lutz Victoria Rackohn is in 4th place in the Jr. Lady’s competition at US Figure Skating Nationals.   Earlier this season I would have said no way Victoria would even be at Nationals and now here she is close to the podium.  She had such a rough start [...]

Some truly lovely performances by our Jr. Lady’s today at Nationals.  Three of the young lady’s had triple/triple combinations and two landed the triple lutz.  If only they weren’t all risking permanent damge by doing Bielmans.  Cinquantta says we must have age limits for the health of our young skaters.  He could do far more [...]