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Without skating a single moment Thursday night at the Iceberg Skating Palace, Yevgeny Plushenko was once again the talk of Sochi. Actually, the talk of the Olympic sporting world. The 31-year-old Russian made a dramatic exit from the sport in the men’s short program – skating to the boards and taking his name out of contention with referee Mona Jonsson – effectively ending a 16-year career that some call the greatest of all time.

The Olympic Team Ice Skating event features 8 skating performances by each team and a totally messed up scoring system. It started with 4 short program skates with 10 teams and you scored 1 point for showing up and 1 extra point for every competitor your were better than. After the 4 short programs (mens', ladies', pairs', heterosexual dancing') came the 4 long programs with only the top 5 teams advancing. Now here is where the stupid part comes. The 4 long program skates with 5 teams and you scored 6 points for showing up and 1 extra point for...

Yeah, I didn't know I had one either... Finland's Kiira Kirpi right up until yesterday: More at Reaganite Republican... _____________________________________________________ FunLobby   Celebs101   Esquire    Listal.com   suomenkuvalehti.fi

The generic name for this mayhem is ice cross downhill, a label that reflects its blending of elements from skating, skiing and boardercross (snowboard racing). Crashed Ice, the title of this series of races, offers an additional nod to what happens to many of the racers. Falls are such a part of the race that competitors are required to wear full hockey or motocross protective gear.

Instant Churches Sprout in Public Schools, Skating RinksMore public places transformed into Sunday house of worship By R. Leigh Coleman | Christian Post Reporter Thu, Jul. 21 2011 06:58 PM EDT Churches are holding worship services in public places with greater regularity than some might think. It is not uncommon today to see portable church signs outside public buildings and schools on Sundays. Thousands of believers today are gathering more often in public schools, skating rinks, parks and empty buildings to avoid the financial burden. As additional housing opens and property rental fees go up, churches often rent non-traditional spaces...

By day, Pete Carlson is head honcho at the biggest indoor ice-skating complex in the country. In the evening, he's captain of one of the smallest. For the past six years, Carlson, operations and programs director at the eight-rink Schwan's Super Rink, has flooded his Circle Pines backyard to make a 24-by-48-foot rink for his son and daughter, Tait, 13, and Claire, 12.

extreme roller skating buggy rollin

I all ready to watch one of the premier events in the Olympics Ladies Figure Skating. They show a skater represnting Turkey. I thought, cool they are going to show everybody but no the smug Costas says we will be showing some taped crap and don't worry you won't miss the "major" ladies competitors. I want to see all the performances live! When ABC had the Olympics they would show all the skating. FU NBC!

Question: Will American audiences tune in to a ladies figure skating competition in which an American is not in the hunt for the gold medal? Maybe not even make an appearance on the podium? It hasn't happened since 1964, but we may find out in the next few days, for this Olympic gold will be decided between a couple of longtime Asian rivals: South Korea and Japan.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – She still hasn’t buried her mother, but here was Joannie Rochette, among the last skaters to leave the practice ice Monday. She took her time leaning up against the boards, slipping a guard around her skate blade. These were the final moments of normalcy, preparing for Tuesday’s ladies short program. Off the ice a crushing reality remains: Sunday’s unexpected death of her mother, Therese, who suffered a massive heart attack upon arriving in Vancouver to watch her daughter skate in these Games If you wanted to see Olympic courage, if you wanted to witness a testament...

I truly enjoy watching the Olympics. Having played and watched sports my whole life, it only makes sense, I suppose.I’m the kind of guy who can flip through the television stations on a Saturday afternoon and land on a football game between two no-name colleges, or a ping pong match or a skateboard race– it doesn’t much matter — and before I know it, I’m way more involved than I should be.Even at an early age, however, I knew there was something more to the Olympics than just mere competition; the games always seemed to communicate something far bigger.As a...

VANCOUVER - Regardless of how things go at the rink, ice dancer Tanith Belbin will have some interesting 2010 Winter Olympic stories to tell her grandchildren. She can tell them how she and partner Ben Agosto trudged through waist-high Delaware County snow to get in their final practices. Or how they had to reschedule their Thursday flight out of Philadelphia a dozen times. Or how their new costumes got stranded in Brooklyn and traveled to 30th Street Station on Amtrak. Or, maybe most interestingly, she can tell them how she shared an Olympic Village room with Johnny Weir. "I was...

One of sport’s towering winning streaks ended Monday night, when gold medals were awarded in Olympic pairs skating and not placed around the necks of a couple from the former Soviet Union or Russia. The last time this happened — 1960 — was a year before the Berlin Wall was built and two years before the Cuban missile crisis. Since 1964, Soviet or Russian skaters had won the pairs competition in 12 consecutive Winter Games, bringing the sport some of its most iconic names: the Protopopovs; Rodnina and Zaitsev; Gordeeva and Grinkov.

Remember the town in Vietnam that, they said, had to be destroyed in order to be saved? Something like that applies very well to figure skating, a sport with a judging system was so corrupt that changes had to be made. Unfortunately, instead of trusting that they could change the judges, they changed the whole system, and thereby destroyed the sport's popularity.

The laws of improbability were definitely on the side of this guy!

Updated 5:43 PM EST, Tue, Jan 26, 2010 Olympic villain Tonya Harding offered her "deepest sympathy" to Nancy Kerrigan, the woman whose career she forever altered, after the figure skater's father died on Sunday. Harding's rep told "The Insider" that "Tonya feels very sad for Nancy and her family and extends her deepest sympathy and condolences to them." The spokesperson said "Tonya's beloved dad, Al Harding, passed away this past April, so she understands the grief Nancy and her family are feeling at this difficult time." Nancy Kerrigan, who has not spoken publicly since her brother was arrested and charged...

The origins of ice-skating have been traced by scientists to the frozen lakes of Finland about 5,000 years ago, when people used skates made from animal bone. Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University have calculated that skating on the primitive blades would have reduced the energy cost of travelling by 10 per cent, suggesting that it emerged as a practical method of transport and not as recreation. Southern Finland has been identified as the most likely home of skating through an analysis of the shape and distribution of lakes in central and northern Europe, which shows that the early Finns would...

Dr. Alexander Dlugi had sued student Lauren Ellis for loss of income and pain and suffering that was the result of a bike/skate collision between the two in 2003 when Ellis was only 11 years old. After closing arguments were heard, the Morris County civil jury deliberated for only 15 minutes today and ruled in favor of the teenager. The jury agreed that Ellis was not responsible or at fault for the accident that happened on Sugar Maple Row that October day. The physician -- who earned $800,000 in 2004 and got $750,000 for half the sale of his former...

TURIN, Italy Epochs pass, governments fall, but Russians still win figure skating medals. And Evgeni Plushenko is a thorough Russian. Russians skate like they own the ice, and others skate like they're afraid of falling on it. The difference between the Olympic gold medalist and everybody else in the world was this simple: He was Russian, and they weren't. The martial, cymbal-clashing Russian anthem boomed through the Palavela, just as it does at every Winter Games. Skaters from the former Soviet Union have now won five straight men's gold medals, and no one will challenge them in this sport any...