Hopp Suisse!!!!
Real life is still not going well and the news is getting progressively worse, so I'm distracting myself by watching the Olympics and I'd like to say thank you to my Swiss boys for doing such an excellent job of distracting me.
It all started with the very first medal event on Saturday, when Simon Ammann (formerly known as the Harry Potter of the sport when he won double gold in Salt Lake back in 2002.) performed brilliantly to win gold in the Normal Hill event. Simi's win was a great start and it also made me squee when the cameras noticed that the alpine boys (Didier Cuche, Didier Defago, Carlo Janka and Ambrosi Hoffman (they were the ones I recognised best anyway)) were on the sidelines cheering him on and getting all hyper when he won (they were able to be there due to the downhill having been postponed.)
It was quiet on the Swiss front on Sunday, but there were still lots of things to enjoy with some excellent performances all over the place.
But then came today, when we had the delayed men's downhill, where Simon Ammann was there cheering on the skiers and returning the support they showed him the other day (Simi is a lovely guy and seriously bright, but he has terrible taste in sunglasses I've decided) - Cuche and Janka were the main two Swiss skiers that people talked about, but it was the other Didier who ended up winning the gold! It was an excellent race with the top 3 (Defago, Svindal and Miller) separated by just 0.09 seconds!! Some will see Defago's win as a shock, but the guy is a damn fine skier and anyone who can do THE classic double which he did last season (winning the Wengen and Kitzbuhel downhills on successive weekends) is no mug. All 3 of the podium guys are fine skiers. As for Cuche, the pre-race favourite, he was right up there till about the last 20 seconds when he just seemed to lose steam and ended up .36 down in 6th place. Janka came in .71 down in 11th. I'm hoping both of them will be up the top of the time sheets in other races.
And as if that wasn't excitement enough, whilst the downhill was winding down, over in another bit of Whistler park the first of the men's cross-country events was taking place (the 15km freestyle event). And this brought the lovely surprise of Dario Cologna kicking ass and taking gold. Dario has had injury problems this season, following his overall World Cup win last season, so it was hard to tell what kind of form he would be in, though there had been signs in recent WC events that he was getting back to good form.
So right this second the Swiss are top of the medals table with the 3 medals, and all of them are gold (the added bonus for Swiss fans at the moment being that the Austrians are not doing so well, with just the one bronze and they only managed 4th in the downhill. Yes that will all change as the Olympics go on, but we'll enjoy it for the time being thank you very much *g*
And one more thing, Switzerland's 3 champions are a total reflection of the country in terms of language - Ammann is a Swiss-German speaker, Defago is French speaking & Cologna Italian speaking.
It all started with the very first medal event on Saturday, when Simon Ammann (formerly known as the Harry Potter of the sport when he won double gold in Salt Lake back in 2002.) performed brilliantly to win gold in the Normal Hill event. Simi's win was a great start and it also made me squee when the cameras noticed that the alpine boys (Didier Cuche, Didier Defago, Carlo Janka and Ambrosi Hoffman (they were the ones I recognised best anyway)) were on the sidelines cheering him on and getting all hyper when he won (they were able to be there due to the downhill having been postponed.)
It was quiet on the Swiss front on Sunday, but there were still lots of things to enjoy with some excellent performances all over the place.
But then came today, when we had the delayed men's downhill, where Simon Ammann was there cheering on the skiers and returning the support they showed him the other day (Simi is a lovely guy and seriously bright, but he has terrible taste in sunglasses I've decided) - Cuche and Janka were the main two Swiss skiers that people talked about, but it was the other Didier who ended up winning the gold! It was an excellent race with the top 3 (Defago, Svindal and Miller) separated by just 0.09 seconds!! Some will see Defago's win as a shock, but the guy is a damn fine skier and anyone who can do THE classic double which he did last season (winning the Wengen and Kitzbuhel downhills on successive weekends) is no mug. All 3 of the podium guys are fine skiers. As for Cuche, the pre-race favourite, he was right up there till about the last 20 seconds when he just seemed to lose steam and ended up .36 down in 6th place. Janka came in .71 down in 11th. I'm hoping both of them will be up the top of the time sheets in other races.
And as if that wasn't excitement enough, whilst the downhill was winding down, over in another bit of Whistler park the first of the men's cross-country events was taking place (the 15km freestyle event). And this brought the lovely surprise of Dario Cologna kicking ass and taking gold. Dario has had injury problems this season, following his overall World Cup win last season, so it was hard to tell what kind of form he would be in, though there had been signs in recent WC events that he was getting back to good form.
So right this second the Swiss are top of the medals table with the 3 medals, and all of them are gold (the added bonus for Swiss fans at the moment being that the Austrians are not doing so well, with just the one bronze and they only managed 4th in the downhill. Yes that will all change as the Olympics go on, but we'll enjoy it for the time being thank you very much *g*
And one more thing, Switzerland's 3 champions are a total reflection of the country in terms of language - Ammann is a Swiss-German speaker, Defago is French speaking & Cologna Italian speaking.