Despite many candidates vying for the role of Cinderella in the 2011 March Madness tournament, President Barack Obama’s Barackets remain super strong after the Sweet 16. The Barackets is still ahead of 96.8% of some 6 million ESPN Tournament Challenge entries because of the excellent upsets da Prez picked in the first and second rounds. However, the Barackets are now reliant only on Kansas, who the POTUS had picked to win it all.
UPDATE:
Canadian Olympic silver medallist and former world champion figure skater Elvis Stojko wrote an article trashing the Olympics’ men figure skating results called The Night They Killed Figure Skating. It pretty much sums up my sentiments. But who was I to say such a thing? Thanks for setting the record straight, Elvis! You tell them! They had the ultimate showman back on ice and they’re going to drive him away for more pansies to be competing. Some people just can’t get over how insignificant they are, you know? Pity the sport. Evgeni was very diplomatic in defeat at the podium ceremonies, though. A showman to the last moment.
After the men’s figure skating short program, Evgeni Plushenko was in the lead and said something to the extent that the future of men’s figure skating was in the quad, or quadruple jump. The story went through the press as a challenge to all male figure skaters’ manhood if they did not do quads in their programs, as he vowed to be a man among boys. (CTV News, Feb 17 2010)
“Without a quad it’s not men’s figure skating.“
— Evgeni Plushenko, three-time world champion and 2006 Winter Olympics Champion
Well, tonight, in the long program, Evgeni did a very difficult quad-triple combination, and was still beaten by the American Evan Lysacek, who did not do a quad jump.
The difference was Lysacek had a lot of elements piled up in the second half of his program where they had 10% more value. Evgeni and Evan actually had the same “component” score for elements in their program. Shockingly, Lysacek beat Plushenko in the technical component despite Evgeni having piled up points for his quad-triple axle combination. Evgeni had a full minute without jumps to finish up his program. Both skaters were nearly flawless otherwise.
Lysacek finished a point ahead of Plushenko, with Evan getting 257.67 and Evgeni getting 256.36 points.
Scoring systems and all, some of it is still human judgment, and I can’t help but think that if Evgeni had kept his mouth shut, he might have gotten gold. You can’t look at his comment on the future of skating just as an insult just to the skaters like the media did. Who do you think judges the event and truly determines the future of figure skating? Some people seriously need to get over themselves!
All and all, though, what a night of brilliant skating!
Daisuke Takahashi won bronze with a distant 247.23 points, but was the first Japanese man to end up on the men’s figure skating podium at the Olympics.
Patrick Chan of Canada, who I’m not a particular fan of, I must say, finished 5th. Maturity and charisma wise, he was literally a boy among men.
Juan Martín del Potro shocked the world today by upsetting Roger Federer in five sets, coming back two sets to one down, to beat world #1 Roger Federer in the US Open Finals. The 20-year old underdog was even more impressive considering he had beaten Rafael Nadal the day before in the semi-finals, proving that victory was no fluke. Del Potro was ranked sixth, so it wasn’t a huge historic upset victory like unseeded Kim Clijsters’ victory earlier in the day. However, considering the dominance of Federer and Nadal of late that it sometimes seemed the only one who could beat each was the other, del Potro’s victory was a huge upset. It was doubly so considering del Potro beat both of them on consecutive days!
Del Potro won 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-7 (4) and 6-2 for his first tennis major, and ended Roger Federer’s 5 year winning streak at the US Open. Match point is shown below.
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It was the first time the US Open Finals went to five sets since 1999, when Andre Agassi beat Todd Martin. It was the first time since 1977 that an Argentinian won the US Open (Guillermo Villas over American Jimmy Connors 2–6, 6–3, 7–6(4), 6–0 when the US Open was on clay).
At times, it seemed del Potro lost a little focus, like when he had the lead in the fourth set after breaking Federer, only to lose the set in a tie-breaker. Yet, he always seemed to get it back to end up winning the match, like how he broke Federer’s serve to win the match.
With a tournament like that, going through the two dominant players of the day when not even 21 years old, the young Argentine has an incredible future ahead of him. Perhaps the next lesson he has to learn will be one of focus, to make these victories easier…. but maybe not.
The entertainment value of the ups and downs, back and forth of such a match as the one he just won is what made it a classic!
Congratulations, Juan Martín! It’s nice to see a fresh new face on the men’s tennis scene! Congrats also has to go to Roger Federer on a great match, tournament and absolutely incredible run over the past 6 years at the US Open. Interestingly, Federer’s last lost at the US Open was to another Argentinean, David Nalbandian, in 2003. David was not in this year’s US Open, recovering from hip surgery.
