Olympic Volunteer Day 5/6

**NOTE: I was too tired to write anything yesterday and I was watching the Men Figure Skating as well

February 16, 2010

Yesterday started off bright and early at 7am.  It was bound to be a busy day as all of the male figure skaters were coming in for their last practice before their short program that night. 

The place was so crowded with media.  Tons and TV crews were there, most of them were from Japan there to get footage of their Japanese skaters.  I was super excited as PLUSHENKO was finally there, although he didn’t really practice very much.  He did a few jumps and left pretty quickly.  Today I heard that he only ate a banana yesterday and that was it.  I couldn’t believe it.  How can he have the energy to do that short program on a banana?  I have to say, that I don’t find him really all that attractive (sorry Lisa).  He seemed very confident almost arrogant, which I guess, he can be as he scored a 90.85 on his short program.  Brian Joubert was also there and well, as we saw last night, he has problems delivering the goods.  To be fair, he is a very good looking man, although doesn’t seem like a very nice one.  Evan Lysacek was very good during the practice.  When I first saw his costume, I thought to myself, “The dude is very brave.”  It was like black with feathers on it.  During his interview after his practice, I was in the MZ watching, he said he liked his costume and that it was made by Vera Wang.  And no, apparently he is not gay.  Who is gay? It would be Johnny Weir and he is such a fun guy to listen to.  He is very articulate and loves talking to the press.  I overheard him saying how his favourite part of this costume was the pink ruffles.  He’s a lot of fun and skated very well on the ice too.  The Japanese skaters were all very impressive.  Of course, Takahashi was amazing.  I couldn’t believe that I was standing rink side watching all of these world class athletes skate right before me and walking past me.  It was very surreal.

February 17, 2010

Today started at 10am.  It was another busy day, after last night’s short program.  All of the male skaters who got to move to the free program were in attendance today.  I think there were over 80 media people there today.  It was crazy.  This was the first time I got to see the men perform their long programs so that was a treat.  Poor Joubert and Jeremony Abbott (USA) looked so sad during their interviews afterwards.  They both messed up royally in their short programs.  Getting to see Patrick Chan perform his Phantom of the Opera long program was so amazing.  He had some trouble with his jumps, but I hope he’ll just have fun and skate his best on Thursday.  He’ll have a guarantee shot at a medal in 2014 in Russia and he’s still so young, 19, to have so much pressure be placed on him.  I honestly don’t know how he deals with it.  Of course all of the press was waiting for the last practice group which consisted of Plushenko, Weir, Takahashi, Lambiel, Oda and Lysacek.  I was assigned to the mix zone again today and it was wild.  For the most part, many of the journalists have been good and not try to sneak photos and do what they weren’t supposed to do, but when the athletes walked into the room it was like a swarm of bees questing for honey and zeroing in on them.  Most of them were pretty good and talked to the press for a bit.  Plushenko didn’t speak but gave a very polite “I don’t want to talk to you today” blurb before leaving the room. 

After the craziness of the morning, the female skaters took to the ice.  Most of the media had vanished by then, although a few stayed behind to watch Miki Ando from Japan and Joannie Rochette.  This was the first time I got to watch Ando and she’s pretty amazing.  She isn’t one of the favourites among the Japanese ladies and if the other 2 are better than her, it’s going to be pretty awesome to watch.  At first I wasn’t all that amazed by the female skaters.  A lot of them weren’t very good and kept falling and their dancing seemed slower and less powerful than the men’s skating.  I may prefer the men’s skating overall, but I reserve judgment until after I see the famous female skaters.     

As always, apologies for any spelling/grammar mistakes.  I’m tired and still have hw to do.