winter olympics - torino 2006

i've just found out last night olympics are going on right now!!! so nice, i can even watch some contests on my computer.. here are current medal standings after 4 days of competitions - Gold(Total).

1 United States       5 (8)
2 Russian Fed.        4 (9)  
3 Germany             4 (8)
4 Austria                2 (5)
5 Sweden               2 (3)
6 Norway               1 (11) - first by total medals

as we can see, usa is first by gold right now followed closely by russia and germany, although total success is norway, having 11 total medals. china goes on 14th place now, but i'm sure they will get higher later, since it is china.. to many athletes competing in china to go to olympic games... anyways, if someone wants to forecast what will be the final standings, let's do it here. i'll be cheering for russia, of course, but maybe other country wins, who knows. i think final standings will be usa - russia - china - germany - norway by golden medals. and by total will be russia - usa - norway - china - germany. i know it looks stupid to put china in there, but i'm sure they'll kick arsss later!

if you want to check out for yourself, click this link https://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/MDL/MDL_Big.html or if you have any comments, let's discuss them here!

and never forget about xUSSR.. such countries as ukraine, belarus, estonia, latvia, lithuania - they will all get a piece of the medal pie... estonia has already got a gold medal for "Cross-Country Skiing  Ladies' 15 km Pursuit (7.5+7.5)  SMIGUN Kristina  12 February 2006", although i remember 4 years ago when some estonian skier won the longest possible 50 km run, we all made jokes that he had to start this distance 24 hours before the race started, otherwise it'd be impossible for him to run so fast (no prejudice, just jokes)...

I was watching the news about the skating couple from China ( i think ) , the way she fell on the ice was nasty , a few minutes later they were back out skating and they won silver , she must have bones of steel.
fair play to them both :)

ice-skating is always some kind of intrigue, i mean in a 'scandal' type of way.. last time there was a big mess about pairs skating, when they took away russian gold medal and shared it with canada, i think. was very stupid... russian skating school is highly classly advanced, those american girls win sometimes cause they're all trained by russian skaters...

ice-hockey started today. this one is really interesting.. todays surprises : russia loses to slovakia (3-5) and tie of usa and latvia (3-3), chekz, canadians, finns and sweds have beaten their opponents some of 5+ differences. and the final, the very last and the very much expected game right before the 'play-offs' start in hockey, is russia vs usa. although i don't take russian team for a strong one, but i'll be happy if they win.

haha! i haven't seen women's hockey results.. what a shame... would be much better if i haven't... russian girls (or maybe strong women?) lost 3-1 to sweden, lost 12-0 to canada, beat italy (wow!) 5-1, and playing w switzerland tomorrow.. they have female referees there. i wonder, why i've never seen girls judging male plays.