12 replies to this topic

[SeoulSoxFan]

You've cheered, you've jeered, you've laughed, cried, and enjoyed one of the most competitive winter games in recent memory.

So, who is your MVP and LVP of 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics? Nominate up to 3 names in each:

MVP:

1. Yuna Kim (lifted an entire nation - hey, who else did you think I'd put on top of this list?)
2. Sydney Crosby (lifted an entire nation in the most exciting game not involving the B's in Stanley Cup finals)
3. US Nordic team (best in the world? Rly?)

LVP:

1. NBC coverage (you deserve Jay Leno, you pea-c*ck)
2. Gerard Kemkers (have never, ever seen a coach cost an athlete a gold)
3. "Platinum" Pluschenko (then goes on to suggest Mao should have won gold for landing the triples - see you in Sochi... NOT!)


Edit: changed Kramer to Kemkers as Kramer actually kicked royal ass - his coach and pursuit teammates let him down

Edited by SeoulSoxFan, 05 March 2010 - 02:33 PM.

[Bellhorn]

MVP:
1. All of the top four or five in the ladies' figure skating - some great performances, and Joannie Rochette's perseverance in the face of a personal tragedy.
2. The Canadian curling teams
3. Shaun White

LVP:
1. Plushenko and everyone else who whined about judging
2. Short-track speed skating - something needs to change when so many medals are decided by DQs and/or skaters being wiped out by other skaters
3. Mary Carillo and all of the stupid puff pieces on NBC

[SumnerH]

I'm limiting mine to athletes, otherwise NBC would get an LVP vote and the designers of the luge track would win that in a walk.

MVP:
1. Jon Toews and the rest of the Canadian men's hockey team, with a nod to Ryan Miller for helping make the finals the most gripping event of the games
2. Shaun White, the most dominant single-event individual performer at the games
3. Marit Bjørgen, who won 5 medals (3 gold) to put up the best individual overall performance at the games

LVP:
1. Sven Kramer. Astonishingly bad.
2. John Shuster for choking time and time again
3. Plushenko

Edited by SumnerH, 05 March 2010 - 02:23 AM.

[Fred not Lynn]

LVP:
1. Sven Kramer. Astonishingly bad.

Yeah, his 5000m was atrocious.

My nominees (which may change as we go)

MVP
1. Simon Amman
2. Evan Lysacek
3. Martina Sablikova

Honorable mention: Mo Tae Bum, Jarome Iginla, Johnny Spillane/Bill DeMong, Shani Davis, Shawn White

LVP
1. Olympia brand ice resurfacing machines
2. Russia
3. "Own the Podium"

Edited by Fred not Lynn, 05 March 2010 - 04:35 AM.

[twoBshorty]

MVP
1. Canadian men's hockey
2. Evan Lysacek
3. US men's Nordic combined

Honorable mention: Alexandre Bilodeau, Joannie Rochette, Kim Yu-na, Simon Ammann, Shaun White

LVP
1. The people who designed and built the luge track
*huge gap*
2. Yevgeny Plushenko
3. Sven Kramer

[Greg29fan]

MVP

1. Joannie Rochette - I can't imagine having compete with that hanging over your head.
2. Kevin Martin & Canadian Men's Curling Team - First team to finish undefeated
3. Shaun White - Delivered as expected

LVP

1. John Shuster - Choke Artist Extraordinaire + Big Mouth
2. Lindsey Jacobellis - Choke Artist Extraordinaire #2
3. Plushenko - Crybaby

Edited by Greg29fan, 05 March 2010 - 07:24 PM.

[reggiecleveland]

3. "Own the Podium"

Really? Most golds ever not enough?

I would nominate the pussy press that wrote off the team after the first week.

MVP
Team Canada Hockey team had to win to make the games the success for Canada and they had to win three very tough games in a row. The last game in particular. They were not the dominant bullies everyone in Canada thinks they are, hockey is very even and they still won.

The chicks- easily the hottest collection of winter athletes. Would it have hurt to have a camera behind the female curlers as they released the rocks?

White- The most dominant athlete of the games. I don't usually count subjective sports, but comparing him to the others would be like sending Dwight Howard to a Junior High dunk contest.

LVP

Luge Track

Russia -Great idea that "back to the Soviet era" plan about 15 months before the Olympics, a little late to start x-raying and taking biopsies from kids to see what sport they should play. I love that they are now (in hockey) the team of prima donna millionaires while the North Americans play more as a team.

Women's hockey just play a seven game series of the USA and Canada and run it on the Pride network.

[Buckner's Boots]

MVPs
1.) Petter Northug. The man is a machine.
2.) Petra Majdic. She skis into a ravine and almost dies*, then races four more sprint races that day and wins a bronze. Later we find out she skied four sprint races with three broken ribs and a punctured lung.
3.) Steve Holcomb. Gold for the U.S. 4-man bobsled. And he made guys like me everywhere more confident about our body types.

LVPs
1.) Pebbles and Bam-Bam, the Russian ice dancers who dressed up like Australian aborigines and fell from first to third.
2.) Plushy. He sucks at being a human being.
3.) Martin Brodeur. His most valuable moment was being bad enough to replace him with Luongo. That might have been the turning point for Team Canada.


(*-Bolded for hyperbole)

[Carmine Hose]

MVP - Ryan Miller/Zach Parise

LVP - Phil Kessel

[Fred not Lynn]

Russia -Great idea that "back to the Soviet era" plan about 15 months before the Olympics, a little late to start x-raying and taking biopsies from kids to see what sport they should play.

Russian soon-to-be-former sports minister Vitaly Mutko "blamed several factors for the Vancouver flop" in an AP article. Of note, "Doping bans deprived Russia of several leading medal contenders".

In other words, Russia did worse than expected at the Olympics because they weren't allowed to cheat anymore. Nice excuse.

On that note, I'll add two MVPs...

1.) WADA. There were certainly fewer doping issues in Vancouver - partially due to a more comprehensive anti-doping strategy implemented by WADA...which identified offenders in many cases BEFORE they had a chance to step on the starting line.

2.) Dr. Joel Shobe (and others like him in the anti-doping community). Dr. Shobe is a member of the International Skating Union medical committee - and was the force behind the development and implementation of testing and analysis protocols which ultimately resulted in the ban of German Claudia Pechstien from interational competition - BEFORE she had a chance to compete in the 2010 Games. Ms. Pechstien was one of the final vestiges of the East German system, and her hemoglobin levels over a period of time showed quite conclusively that she had a long history of manipulating her blood with EPO, and possibly other methods. Don't ask me for the science behind it, but Ms. Pechstien appealed the matter to any and every possible level and body, and was soundly defeated at every turn - so I'll take that as pretty good evidence that the science is solid.

In other words, we should probably talk a little about the fact that no one's really talking about doping in Vancouver - and have a little look at the why they aren't.

[Fred not Lynn]

Really? Most golds ever not enough?

LVP - Luge Track

The media is playing nice, but the ties between OTP and the design and management of the sliding centre are real. OTP is nothing but a pile of consultants and civil servants spending your money and mine to create a "brand" and do what the NGBs and the COC are supposed to be doing anyway. MORE bureaucracy is exactly what sport in Canada needs less of.

Plus - I'm pretty sure OTP didn't do a thing to help that men's hockey team win...funny how the sports that are popular and commecially succsessful in your country are the ones you win at.

[Sprowl]

MVP - Kevin Martin, curler extraordinaire. Most curlers scream their lungs out -- hard! Hard!! HARD!!! All you ever hear from Martin is: "Line's good. Really good. Realllly good. Thanks guys."

LVP - El Niño. Moving snow around Cypress bowl by helicopter to cover up the tulip patches was kinda funny (in a despairing Canadian way).

[Sille Skrub]

MVP - Joannie Rochette, story of the Vancouver games

LVP - National Broadcasting Company