Torino 2006 Olympic Games Blog
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ArchivesThe closing ceremony of Torino 2006 The closing ceremony will be a great end to these days of festivities - with celebration of the traditional Italian carnival which happens to be this weekend. "The show will combined the fantasy and colours of the Carnival with the sounds and shapes typical of the circus and Art Comedy. The protocol moments of the ceremony will alternate with the more informal and irreverent ones typical of the Carnival. Thus, the clowns will come on to the scene, together with snow explorers, the mermaid, interpreted by Valeria Marini, the Carnival Court, led by the King and the Queen, and the Masks of the Viareggio Carnival. And there will also be a tribute to Federico Fellini, seeing as six original costumes from the film ?The Clowns? by the master from Rimini, created by the Oscar Award winner Danilo Donati. The audience will also be involved. As for the Opening Ceremony, all spectators will be given a kit with angel and devil masks with a red nose that lights up. Everyone will be invited to wear them, including the heads of state and government and the other celebrities from the grand stands. ?We will see how they will react to this joke? Finzi Pasca smiles. It will take place on the occasion of the athletes? parade, who this time will be parading all together and not divided by nations, preceded by the flags of all the participating countries. The Italian flag bearer will be Armin Zoeggeler, gold medal in luge. Another official moment will be the extinguishing of the Olympic Cauldron: with Andrea Bocelli on the stage, 400 maids will walk into the stadium holding a lantern in their hands. Their blow will lead to the simultaneous extinguishing of the Cauldron. Then, the grand finale with the aurora borealis, the pyrotechnical fountains, the live performances of two stars such as Ricky Martin and Elisa and the fireworks." (from Torino 2006 .org) Posted 02/26/06
Sweden beats Finland in Icehockey final
Happy Swedes
 Rather surprisingly Sweden won the gold medal in the Hockey tournament after beating Finland 3-2 in an exciting final in the last day of the Torino 2006 Olympics (0-1, 2-1, 1-0). Goals by Zetterberg, Krowall and Lidstrom of the Swedish team made sure that the two goals scored by Timonen and Peltonen from Finland was one goal too short of a draw. Saturday the Czech Republic won the bronze medal after beating Russia 3-0. The icehockey match was also the last match for this Olympics - and now we'll have to wait four years for next time (and probably another 50 years for the Games to return to Italy) Posted 02/26/06
Streaker strikes Torino 2006
Streakers don't strike
 Streak  Mark Roberts struck again during the curling bronze final. First he did football, tennis, American Football and now during the curling match between UK and USA, wearing just a rubber chicken and a sponsor logo (!)... (USA won 8-6 by the way.) Posted 02/25/06
Journalist impression wrap-up
The Torino 2006 is nearing its end and many media websites have started to do their own summing up. As a part of the huge media corps, AP got their international journalist to summarize their impression in a blog and it makes some interesting reading.
"Turin has been ripped by foreign journalists for being indifferent at best (and antagonistic at worst) toward the games, but you'd never believe it when you see a man holding his 4-year-old daughter and staring with wonder into the sky, or a quiet teenager speedily setting up his tripod and camera in the middle of the street to take long-exposure photographs of the games' symbol." More here Posted 02/25/06
Torino 2006 through the eyes of a waxer Here's a quite interesting take on the Olympics from on of the guys working behind the scenes Curtis Bacca, a ski technician for the US snowboard Team. About this year's team he says: "The team is really fun. It's just like being with the U.S. downhillers 15 years ago." (He was the waxer for U.S. alpine stars Tommy Moe and Kyle Rasmussen.) Read his take on the Olympics here. (via MTexpress) Posted 02/25/06
Greis wins 15 km biathlon The German Michael Greis managed to win the gold medal on 15 km men, before the Pole Tomasz Sikora and the Norwegian Ole Einar Bjørndalen. This was also the last of the biathlon events - and as history obvoiusly repeats itself - Greis also won the first medal of the Torino 2006 Olympics biathlon events, the 20 km. Posted 02/25/06
Expensive Olympic gesture
Finger trouble
 This finger gesture cost the angry owner, Pierre-Emmanuel Dalcin, 3200 Euros (3800USD), according to the International Skiing Federation FIS' fine. The Frenchman got disqualified during the Super G race on Saturday and in a spontaneous moment he showed what he truly meant of the situation and the audience. Dalcin was leading after 17 racers in the first half, when the race was cancelled due to the bad weather, and all times were deleted and the athletes had to give it a new go. HIn the restart he got disqualified and in pure frustration of the cheering crowd that greeted him when he arrived to the finish line made him perform his costly gesture. The Super G race was later won by the Norwegian, Kjetil André Aamodt. He, on the other hand, was very happy. Posted 02/20/06
Watch the Torino 2006 Olymics for free on your PC Yes it's true - and not just a wild claim - as it appears the Dutch broadcaster NOOS have the rights to stream live events on their website. (This is probably old news for you websavvy sports fans out there in cyber space) Under the dashing title Winterspelen Turijn they present a feed of six different channels to choose from. The feeds are broadcasted without comments, only with the natural stadium sound so it should also be possible to watch it for some time without getting tired of Dutch comments. (It's a fascinating language, but that's for another story) The broadcasts are 320 x 240 pixels and it requires a broadband connection of at least 300 kbit/s and Internet Explorer and Windows Medial Player. So enjoy and check out our Dutch favourite friends at the moment, NOOS. Posted 02/20/06
Happy Italians win the men's cross country relay Italy managed to beat all the great traditional cross country nations and won their third Gold medal so far in the Torino 2006 Olympics. After beating Mathias Fredriksson from Sweden in a sprint to the finish line, Germany's World Cup leader Thomas Angerer secured the second place. The men's cross country relay is for many considered the most prestigious competition of the cross country events and Giorgio Di Centa, Fulvio Valbusa, Pietro Piller Cottrer and Christian Zorzi managed to perform the best on the 4x10 km. A very disappointed Norwegian team had to conclude that Torino 2006 won't go down as the most memorable Olympics for the norse skiers and ended finished fifth, one minute 10secs behind. "We are the best. I wanted to end my career with an Olympic Gold Medal and I got it, it's just incredible", said Fulvio Valbusa after their victory. "We gave everything, all our heart, we were great!" Were the excited words from the Italians who haven't exactly been spoilt with gold medals in this season's World Cup. Giorgio Di Centa said it best to the Torino newspaper La Stampa: "I still don't believe it!" Congratulations! Posted 02/20/06
This is how a winner looks like This is the face of a champ in the Torino 2006 Olympics! The Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko won the gold medal in the men's free programme and at the same time scored a personal best of 167.67 points. The picture is taken from the blog of figure skater Michael Weiss who has some interesting comments on the Quad - at least if you're into figure skating statistics and point giving. His initial question is: "So the question is, to Quad or not to Quad? " and I guess Plushenko, who is one of the few that can perform a quad flawlessly in a competition, just answered that question... (Via AOL journals) Posted 02/16/06
Italian Olympic Police Patrol with Segways
Segway Italian Style
 There are a lot of police and security forces all over Torino these days - and they're using everything from missile batteries and AWACS surveillance planes to riot police, snipers and now : Segways! Not that there is an armada of these patrols in Torino, but it's the first time I've seen the Italian Polizia use them here. But funny enough I spotted them in the main railway station Porta Nuova. Armed with guns and Segway the human transporter TM. (sorry for the blurry picture, but I had a train to catch!) From the Segway commercial: "Got a lot of area to patrol and fewer officers for coverage? The Segway HT can move an officer, smoothly and quietly, at 2-3 times walking speed. It can easily double the amount of area a walking officer can cover, and can transition immediately from walking speed (3 mph) to sprinting speed (12.5 mph) when an officer needs to get somewhere fast without causing alarm." Posted 02/16/06
The Curling Renaissance Somewhat surprising curling has emerged as one of the most popular Olympic events in Italy and managed to draw almost more spectators than the traditionally more popular figure skating events. Yesterday's curling event managed to surpass figure skating in number of television viewers compared to the crowd that followed the figure skating - quite impressive when you consider that there are only 550 registered curling players in Italy. So it's rather safe to say that the Torino 2006 Olympics has managed to spread the word about this game (the consequence of the fact that tickets for the curling games are considerably cheaper than tickets for figure skating shouldn't be underestimated either!) The game is even so little known here that some people even have compared the game to the traditional Italian game of bocce (boulle) only as a icey winter version. Historically the sport first arrived in Italy in 1923 in Cortina, when an enterprising hotel owner introduced the game to entertain Scottish tourists, at least according to the Italian curling legend. And in connection with the Cortina Winter Games in 1956 the first curling club was founded, named Cristallo after the hotel where it all had started. Click here for an easy introduction to the game of curling. Posted 02/15/06
Google Games One of my 9 (sic!) subscribers on Bloglines has put together a useful collection of interactive Google Map Mashups for the Torino 2006 Winter Games. Some of the most useful maps include handy data-pins that show where the events are taking place after date and with updated results. (Cheers to Mike!) Posted 02/15/06
Thumbs Down for the Torino 2006 Video Game It seems like the video game named after the Olympic Winter Games hasn't exactly managed to convince critics. In a rather amusing review CNET writes about the aptly named "Torino 2006" (for pc, ps2 and xbox): "It is easily one of the most half-hearted and uninspired examples of developers quickly trying to cash in on the event in a timely fashion. If you're not big into the winter games, then there's no single reason on Earth to pay $20 for what's essentially a lousy collection of short, Olympic-themed minigames. And if you are one of those people who glue themselves to the TV every couple of years to watch some downhill skiing, you'll still be disappointed by how little justice this game does its license." Phew - I guess that about says it! And the rating? 3.9/10 IGN isn't much more merciful in their description: "Torino 2006 is an essential failure in almost every way. At best it's a collection of rather boring events. At worst, putting the Olympic symbol on the box is a mockery of the games' excellent now bi-yearly presentation. Unless you really, really love competition games, pass on Torino 2006." 4.4/10 Posted 02/14/06
Concerts during the Games
A lot of concerts are held at the Medal Plaza in the center of Torino and here is a small list just to show some of the nice artists that are also attending the games.
13/02 Ennio Morricone 14/02 Gianni Morandi 15/02 Duran Duran 16/02 Jamiroquai 17/02 Anastacia 18/02 Paolo Conte 19/02 Whitney Houston 20/02 Nek 21/02 Avril Lavigne 22/02 Ricky Martin 23/02 Lou Reed 24/02 Max Pezzali 25/02 Riccardo Cocciante (Via Torino Blogspot) Posted 02/14/06
The First Italian Gold Medal Italian luge maestro Armin Zoeggeler did it again and repeated his 2002 Olympic victory in Salt Lake City, beating his Russian opponent Albert Demtschenko. With luge's minimal margins, in the fourth and final run, Demtschenko was actually 0.124 seconds adrift but ended up with the silver. Another happy Italian was cross country skier Pietro Piller Cottrer, who took a bronze medal in the men's 30 km pursuit. In alpine the Italian skiers had a poor day, with Kristian Ghedina and his teammates a long way behind the medallists, all beaten by the French surprise winner Antione Deneriaz. Posted 02/13/06
Anti-Doping Agents dress up to fool athletesAh, what don't they have to do those brave men and women of the World Anti Doping Agency to get that sample of urin... To fight the doping problem the continously have to develop new and innovative methods. But alas, not all of the athletes are happy with the development during the first days of the Olympics.  For example Hermann Maier is in uproar after he was approached by apparently two admirers, a young blonde and her boyfriend. They claimed to be big fans of the Austrian skier, and wanted to talk, and managed to fool poor Hermann. They weren't fans at all but just wanted an excuse to be alone with him, only to reveal their true identity as anti doping hunters and their true quest for a sample. Hermann later told that he found the experience "unpleasant" and the Austrian team's doctor even said it was in conflict with the athlete's "human rights" (!). Also another Austrian, the Nordic Combined athlete Mario Stecher, was contacted by a journalist for an interview appointment, something that turned out to be an appointment with the anti doping agency WADA. According to WADA the methods they've started using are more similar to police methods, in order to try to avoid the problems of athletes fleeing to avoid giving the necessary samples. Remember the Greek athletes during Athens 2004? Other techniques will involve money rewards for tips and information on illegal doping activities. (read:snitching) My guess is that this is just the beginning - soon we'll see stake outs and donut eating agents hanging around in the olympic Village as well. Posted 02/12/06
And we're off: Opening Ceremony Link to a nice video recap of the Opening Ceremony, posted by the Torino newspaper La Stampa. (Windows Media) Posted 02/11/06
The day before the BIG day - Opening Ceremony
A lot of tests are going on in Torino now and the volunteers and Torino 2006 organisers are working overtime to make sure that the opening ceremony tomorrow at 8 pm (Central European Time) will go smoothly. I'm especially looking forward to see some of the weird guys with the flamethrowers attached to their backs skating, which the Toroc "carelessly" has released to the public.
 Just listen to this: "The Ceremonies involves choreographers, directors, costume designers and international professionals; they will also involve a choreographed exhibition on skates called Sparks of Passion, in which eight ice hockey athletes will race at 50 km an hour inside the Stadio Olimpico. The uniqueness of this exhibition is also guaranteed due to the Sparks of Passion, generating red flames 2 metres long." Olympic opening ceremonies tend to be spectacular and I doubt that the Italians will take a different path when it comes to this year's ceremonies. The Torino newspaper La Stampa has released this funky video of some of the preparations for the opening ceremony. (Windows Media) Posted 02/09/06
Norwegians running contamination control
There are many reasons these days that the Norwegians and Danish keep the doors closed, afraid what might be behind. This reason is not funny either, but maybe more funny than certain cartoons for some. (The Italians have dedicated more security resources to protect especially the Norwegian and Danish athletes due to the last days violent protests.)
 If you go to visit Italian athletes in the Olympic Village they'll greet you with open arms and offer you a coffee. (at least according to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten) But the reason for the sceptical attitude towards visitors in the Norwegian Camp is the fear of unwanted microbes and viruses that might stop them from winning the 15 (!) Gold Medals Sports Illustrated thinks they'll win. And this is definately no laughing matter... Posted 02/08/06
Torino 2006 Olympic Venues Map Mashup
As mentioned in the previous post, Google has done a significant upgrade of the mapping system for Torino. And it seems that one of the readers of this blog has created a very helpful system to get an easy overview over where the action is taking place. In a googlemaps mashup, you can see flaglinks to official website venues and sports, and from a satellite view examine where the action is happening for the next couple of weeks.
(Thanks Remo!) Posted 02/07/06
Torino gets a Google upgrade
While most of Europe is more like a blurry spot on the infamous Google Local Map service (the exception being UK), the US can enjoy high resolution satellite imagery and map functions etc etc. Now, probably as a sign of Torino's Olympic importance, the region has got a much needed upgrade. So if you can't go there yourself, you can at least try to get a piece ot the Olympic atmosphere from the ehh atmosphere. Try it yourself.
Posted 02/06/06
An Olympic Torch in TroubleThe Italian police is on high alert these days in the Olympic City of Torino. And it's not just muslim extremists that are causing this. A number of domestic protesters like the so called No Global movement and other leftside organization have said they'll use the Torino 2006 arrangement as a stage for their cause and to get media attention from the thousands of journalists that are currently flocking to the city from all parts of the world. Italians like to protest is my somewhat easy conclusion after living here for some time now. An Italian might answer that there are lot of things to complain about so they're in their right to do so. Anyway, as mentioned before the torch relay hasn't just been a triumphant voyage around the country, but it has been blemished by a series of incidents with rpotesters blocking the relay route. Yesterday it was time for the anti-fast-train protesters NO TAV to use the (lime)light of the Olympic Torch to spread their message. The public broadcaster Rai has made this news clip about the security preparations for the Olympics. The last part of the clip has some spectacular images of protesters trying to stop the Torch Relay with their banners almost catching the Olympic fire. Posted 02/06/06
Flipsyde - the Olympic VersionI'm in the commercial mood today, so when a guy from a marketing agency sent me this link to Flipsyde's “Someday” video, which happens to be the featured song for NBC’s Olympics ads, I thought why not? The song is nice and NBC will hopefully send a lot of quality hours from the Olympics so please go ahead and check it out. Flipsyde: "Someday" Video. In an attempt to make it more related to the Olympics they've replaced a lot of the original video with clips of athletes and skiing - (so anyone familiar with montage theory can have great fun.) [ Read More! ] Posted 02/04/06
Fiat and Google launch game for Torino 2006The whole competition is basically a treasure hunt where you use Google Earth to search for five prizes hidden under the snow, in and around the Torino Olympic competition area. (Google Earth is a downloadable software, that lets you explore, zoom in and out etc with high resolution satellite images of every part of the globe.) The contest is called Sedici which refers to the grand prize, because under the snow are hidden four of Fiat latest 4x4 Sedici SUVs- a car that is a licensed official car of the Torino Olympics (and also retails for around $20.000). Another prize is a "Ferrari 360 Experience" pass for two people, that will give you a trip to the Monza Grand Prix with the Ferrari team. The game is simple, just pick a dot on the map and the four lucky ones that are closest to the location of the car will be contacted on March 31, when the locations will be revealed. Try it yourself (also notice the slick Flash interface which forced me to download the lates Flash plugin) sedicicontest.it Posted 02/04/06
Norway to take 14 Gold Medals - UK is hoping for oneNorway has always been a hot performer in the Winter Olympics (and equally poor in the Summer Olympics) Anyway the NRK, the main broadcaster in Norway has predicted that the Red white and Blues this time will beat all expectations and win a record high 14 Gold Medals(!) Although being Norwegian myself, I think that this might be slightly over the top, however in Salt Lake City the Norwegian athletes managed to bring home 13 (and 11 silver and 12 bronze), so why not. Norway will this time have the smallest delegations of athletes since 1988, but they still think the Norwegians will strike gold, especially in the Nordic skiing sports. The British Olympic chief Simon Clegg on the other hand says to BBC that one medal at the Torino 2006 Olympics would represent a success for Team GB. Below are the Norwegian Gold Medal predicitons (and hopes) for each sport: [ Read More! ] Posted 02/02/06
Intro to Torino 2006
BBC has posted a useful intro to Torino and the upcoming Olympics in this useful short video(Requires Real Player).
Posted 02/02/06
Olympic sports explained The official web site of Torino 2006 has published quite a nifty set of animations to explain the rules and workings of those mysterious winter sports. Herre you get an easy and short explanation of the different rules of each competition , some insights into the strategy of the games, insight into the different technique, and also what kind of high tech equipment the competitors are using. For instance what's the difference of skeleton and luge (I easily admit it has never been one of my favourite sports.) Or what the heck is the hog line in curling? (Another white spot on my sports mind map) Also another useful animation is a quick overview of the different venues Curling Freestyle Ski jumping Cross country Speed Skating Alpine skiing Skeleton & luge Snowboard Posted 02/01/06
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