The Skating Drought has Ended

For the first time since 1988, an American has won gold in men's figure skating. Evan Lysacek beat out Evgeni Plushenko by 1.31 points. Lysacek wasn't even picked to win the medal, Plushenko, a Russian team member, was retired for three years, and came out of retirement to make history by winning a second straight gold medal. Lysacek was at the top of the skating order and Plushenko the last. Lysacek had skated the best routine of his life. I watched his performance and was amazed at the fact that he was able to do all of this, entertain the crowd with his outstanding control, and the ending jump was spectacular, he stared down the judges and kept looking at them throughout his spinning back circles. At the end of his routine he pumped his hands in the air, and screamed "Yes, Yes, Yes!!" and was ecstatic about the way he had performed. He was awarded a score of 257.67, which was his career best. His coach, who has coached many skating stars and had yet to coach one all the way to a Gold medal, which was soon to change. Plushenko was set to skate last and his performance was rusty, which was to be expected because he had just come out of retirement. He skated with flair and dramatic moves like he is prone too, and drew laughs from the crowd with his saucy tango impression. As I was watching him perform I noticed that he skated like he was absolutely, positively sure that he would be getting another gold medal to hang up on his wall. All of the experts say on the website where I was looking could see that Plushenko was off on his jumps, and his spins weren't as good as Lysacek. After his skating performance he held up his two index fingers, as if to say, "Was there ever any question?" Plushenko said he was proud of the way he skated, he brought up the fact that he had been retired for 3 ½ years and to get a silver medal is pretty awesome. I didn't see this part, but he took of the silver medal off right after he got off of the ice. . http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-features/news/newsid=429679.html A couple of days later, a news story came out that Plushenko was mad about the judging and the way it ended in Vancouver. The way I read the article was that he is a better skater than Lysacek and he will be back in 4 years to recapture his title. I can understand that it's probably really frustrating that you got a silver medal after you came out of retirement to specifically win another gold medal, but show some respect for the other athletes and keep your attitude to yourself. Lysacek responded by saying that Plushenko is a bad loser, and is upset that a skater that he looked up to while growing up, would actually cut him down in the biggest moment of his life. I think it's ridiculous when athletes act like 5-year olds, and think they should get their way. When I was searching for some research on this topic I typed in Evan Lysacek winning the gold medal and a ton of sites came up saying that you could watch the clip of his performance here, or read all about it here. This is a huge deal for the American athletes in the 2010 Winter Olympics and for all of America, and I'm proud to say that I am an American. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sport/winter-olympics/ice-man-plushenko-blasts-judges-20100221-on3c.html

Kurt Warner-future Hall of Famer?

Kurt Warner and the Cardinals advanced to the play-offs one year after falling to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl 44. They made it past the Green Bay Packers with a high scoring offensive shoot-out that was ironically ended with an amazing defensive play in over-time. Warner was quoted, "It was just one of those games where I felt great, I loved our playing." During the game, Rodgers was intercepted on the first play and it just went off from there. The Cardinals had a 24-10 lead going into half-time. But this game was one for the record books and the Packers really came back charging in the second half, but as I stated before it was a record breaking game as the last one was in 1995 with Philadelphia and Detroit. Kurt Warner played an amazing game improving his play-off record to 9-3, he finished 29 for 33 for 379 yards and no interceptions. The five touchdowns matched his career best, he ended the game with four incompletions and no interceptions. In his post-game interview, Warner said, "Whew, anybody else tired?" The next Sunday they were set to play the high-flying and hard-hitting Saints of New Orleans. http://espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=300110022
The next Sunday the game opened with a 70-yard run from the scrimmage by Tim Hightower and everyone who was watching the game thought if it starts that way, the Cardinals were well on their way to another Super Bowl trip, but soon after the Saints took over play after play. In the end, the Cardinals lost 45-14 and Drew Brees ended up throwing for over 300 yards, he threw to Shockey, Henderson, and Colston each for 1 touchdown. You could definately tell if you watched the game that Kurt Warner was slow getting up and he was playing hard and well as he went 17 of 26 for 206 yards. He said, "It didn't end the way we wanted it to." Another factor of the game was the Cardinals had a depleted secondary defense and the Saints exploited it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/16/saints-crush-cardinals-nf_n_426024.html
When Warner was asked if he was retiring he said he would wait for one week and tell fans of football everywhere his decisison. His decisison was to hang up his cleats, and I was a little suprised but once I thought about the two organzitions he played for and how he brought them to the highest stage in the world. I definately think Kurt Warner should be voted in the Hall of Fame as soon as he can be.