Our favorite part - The air surfers

We thought the best part of the Ceremony - at least watching it live, were the air surfers. In this photo it is a little hard to see, but it was dramatic during the ceremony. Many of the displays are better on TV, because as a spectator you are part of the display.

The ceremony made us really excited for Vancouver, as they passed the Olympic Flag from Torino to Vancouver. Four years seems like a long time, but it will be here before you know it. This will be our last post as we leave tomorrow to return home. It has been fun. We hope you have enjoyed the blog! We hope to see you all at the 2007 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane from January 21 to 28, 2007. For more info on the Championships visit www.spokane2007.com In the Olympic Spirit! Toby and Barb

Wearing all of our garb for the Closing Ceremony

We received a bag full of items for the Closing Ceremony. The white ponchos, flashlights, silver bags that became flash cards, a seat warmer and a mask. It was great to be there and experience it live.

Joey Cheek - Closing Ceremony Flag Bearer

Joey Cheek was excited when we met him. Last night he carried the U.S. Flag at the Closing Ceremony. He won Gold in the 500 meter speed skating, and Silver in the 1000 meters.

Day Eleven

Our traditional photo with the flame. This photo is from the day we went to Hockey - so the weather was not as nice. Today is beautiful. Sunny and clear. Hopefully it will remain warm this evening for the Closing Ceremony. As many times as we have been to the games, this will be our first Closing Ceremony, so we are excited to see all of the pagentry live at Stadio Olimpico. We ran into Joey Cheek here at the USA House. He is very nice, and we are excited to see him carry the U.S. flag at the Closing Ceremony. He said he'll try to do a good job. We're sure he will!

Derrick Parra says hi!

We met Derrick Parra at USA House at the Salt Lake Olympics. He had won a gold medal that day, and his whole family came with him to celebrate his win. There were probably 30 family members there. The most memorable part of the evening to us, was one of his brothers that was there. He was so excited. He introduced himself to everybody there, as "I'm Derrick Parra's brother!" It was fitting to see Derrick again at USA House. We told him we'll see him again in Vancouver in 2010.

Short Track - One word - Wow!

Short Track Speed Skating was unbelievable! It was over the top fun - edge of your seat excitement.

Apollo Anton Ohno pulled out a thriller - to make it to the finals in the 500 meter race. In the semi-finals he came from behind to pull out a squeaker at the finish, and then went on to easily win the Gold Medal leading the entire race.

They saved the best for last with the 5000 meter men's relay. As great as Apollo's win was, the Bronze medal in the relay felt more important. It's 45 laps and we couldn't breath until it was over. My heart was beating out of my chest. We were sitting with all of the families of the team, and we were all screaming the whole time. At first it was all fairly close between Korea, Canada and the U.S. but as the laps went by, Korea and Canada moved ahead, and were battling back and forth for Gold, and there was quite a distance between the U.S. and Italy. But Italy continued to gain ground, and moved into the lead. When Italy passed the U.S. the entire place went crazy. Every Italian was yelling and jumping up and down. With just two laps to go, Apollo literally sprinted the entire lap, and pulled the U.S. back into the lead. We barely won the bronze. Rusty Smith's mom and dad and all of the families were laughing and crying at the same time.

Hockey Venue - Palasport

This is what the hockey venue looked like. The Palasport is about the same size as the Spokane Arena, seating about 11,000 spectators. A perfect size venue.

Day 10 - Short Track Speed Skating

Tonight we have Short Track Speed Skating. We are excited to watch Apolo Anton Ohno, our own Washingtonian! It will be a thrill, especially since we are sitting with the skaters parent contingent. You may recall, we got our tickets from skater Rusty Smith's father, Peter.

Butch and Shawn Rojeski

We mentioned earlier in the blog about our U.S. Curling team, and the significance of the day for them.
It was really touching to meet Butch, and hear him talk about his wife Bonnie who had passed away exactly two years ago. It was raining like crazy, and he said it's Bonnie, crying tears of joy for Shawn and the team.

Look who we found - Our U.S. Curling Team

These guys were so nice, and so excited to have won the first Olympic Medal for the U.S. in Curling. We are standing in front of a giant photo of all of the athletes marching in during the Opening Ceremonies. The photo is of the back of Shawn Rojeski and Pete Fenton, pictured far right and center respectively.

The guy on the far left, is Scott Baird. At 54 years old, he is the oldest athlete on the entire US Olympic team here in Torino.

Day 9 - We missed a day!

We just realized we missed a day - well actually we did the figure skating recap on day eight, but after a while the days all start running together. Today we had tickets to the semifinals for mens hockey. We were concerned about Team USA making it from the get-go. They didn't start out very strong, so we figured if they weren't in it we would just cheer for Team Canada. Woops! Well, so we went to the game - Sweden against the Czech Republic in the men's hockey semifinal. Sweden won 7 to 3 over the Czechs! However we thought the Czechs were having more fun. There were three young guys not wearing their shirts from the Czech Republic just a few rows behind us. It seemed a little cold for that. The hockey venue rocks. There were cheerleaders in the isles, and great music. It was a lot of fun!

Yea! How about that U.S. Curling Team!

Check back to the Blog entitled: Here we are at Curling. The new title reads: Now we feel really guilty! We watched Curling today from the USA House, and Team USA beat Great Britain for the Bronze medal.

This is the first time in history that the U.S. has medaled in Curling. Boy am I glad I talked Toby into going to Curling. We had so much more of an appreciation and understanding of what was going on as a result of having been to see it.

It was another of those great Olympic stories. The vice skip for the U.S. Team Shawn Rojeski, lost his mom two years ago today to ovarian cancer. His dad "Butch" Rojeski was here to cheer on Shawn. They talked about how sure they were that Bonnie, Shawn's mom was looking over them today as he attempted to make history. Gives me goosebumps!

Fun with Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov - their memories from Spokane.

Melissa Gregory and I were acting like Medalists with our flowers. Notice how small my bouquet is. That would be larger than my figure skating talent. Melissa, on the other hand, is very talented. Although they finished 14th over-all, they are on their way up, and they have been working really hard. They promised they are going to put out a great performance next January for the State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Melissa and Denis were in Spokane for Skate America, and they had a great time. The Davenport Hotel was the Presenting Sponsor and Headquarter Hotel, so all of the delegation stayed at the Davenport. They were telling us before we took this picture that they loved their bed so much they bought one. Another great testimonial for the Northwest Bedding Davenport Bed!

Official Time clocks

Omega is the World Wide Time Clock Sponsor for the Olympic Games. So at every event, and throughout the Olympic Village and Media Center you will see these Official time clocks.

The window displays around Torino

Virtually every window of every store-front has an Olympic theme. These were just a couple of examples of very small shops getting into the spirit. The second photo was a very small sewing shop.

The streets of Torino are beautiful

Every major street in Torino is decorated with lights hanging above. This is planets, but each street has it's own theme. Some are colors, but most white lights. They are all beautiful.

Figure Skating Wrap Up

With the end of the Ladies competition, all of the medals for Figure Skating have been awarded. The ladies, as has been a custom, was an extremely exciting competition.

The highlight was definitely the first gold medal for Japan. Shizuka Arakawa of Japan skated a flawless program, and earned Japan it's first Gold Medal in women's figure skating. We were standing next to a couple of fans from Japan during the awards ceremony, and they were so excited. It was a perfect Olympic moment.

The Australian fans at Aerials

Ignore the hat that says USA, this is the Australia Fan Club.

Great Sponsor support.

Here is a billboard with the Olympic Sponsors. They have had excellent support from their sponsors at these games.

Toby's reaction to the fog - A little better

It was a foggy foggy night at Aerials up at Sauze d' Oulx Jouvenceaux.

Ladies Figure Skating Final Preview

Here we are - at the Figure Skating office a block away from the Palavela, site of Figure Skating here in Torino. We are looking forward to tonight, the Ladies Figure Skating Final. Tickets for tonight have been sold out, and the hottest ticket of the Games. The price for each ticket for tonight were $375.00. Which makes the price of the All-Event Ticket Package for the 2007 State Farm U.S. Figure Skating Championships at $495.00 (a minimum of 15 tickets - one to every ticketed event, plus a practice pass) seem like a real bargain. Great seats are still available at www.spokane2007.com, or by calling 866-USA-2007. (You know we have to give our plug.)

The U.S. Team all performed great Wednesday night. We are hoping for a medal tonight, perfect world, maybe two. Keep your fingers crossed!

It's a small small world

The most amazing thing happened today. You never think when you travel half the way around the world you will run into somebody from your back yard - but we did. Today we made it all the way up to the mountain, and right before we were going to go into the gates to Aerials there was a little bar. Since we were early we decided to go into the bar, rather than sit in the cold. The bar was really crowded, but Toby found a place to sit next to three guys that were obviously Americans. I walked in and asked them where they were from. One of them said Spokane, Washington. I thought Toby had already been talking to them, and that they were pulling my leg. I said "Get outta here!" And the guy looked really surprized. He said "What do you mean?" Turns out, sure enough he and one of the other guys were from Spokane. So tomorrow you'll see photos on the blog of Tim Durkin, Paul Kirkpatrick, and Jeff Baeth. Tim and Paul are both from Spokane, and Tim is almost our neighbor. Tim is married to a former figure skater, and a great golfer - Lissette Carter. Jeff is from the Bay area, and when he found out we work with Figure Skating he asked if we knew Ron Hershberger. (See photo of Ron a few entries below.) Jeff's ex-wife used to work with Ron at a law firm in the Bay area. We just laughed and laughed. It's may be no big deal when you're from L.A. or New York, but when you're from Spokane, and you run into people from your home town, it's pretty amazing!

Freestyle Aerials Review

Let me start with the most noticeable feature of the day - Fog. It was very foggy on Sauze. But what a fun event to watch. We were sure they were going to cancel Aerials today. It was so foggy several times that you couldn't see the giant video screen, leave alone the mountain. The grandstands were in perfect postition to see the whole run, so when the fog did finally clear up, you were able to see them from start to finish. The ladies go really really high!

It's a very up-tempo event. There is great music playing the whole time, and there were cheerleaders. The announcer was Italian, with a great grasp of English, but most everything ended with an -o- or an -a-. So every time the gals would start their run, he would say. . . Let's go back up to the top-a. It was the first time I have ever heard an announcer curse. When we were waiting for the fog to lift he said "Let's get this damn fog out-a-here."

Unfortunately we did not have anyone from Team USA who made it to the finals. We sat next to two young girls from Australia, so we adopted Australia for the Aerials. The best part, is we are already down from the mountain, and it is not even 11:30 p.m. yet, so the day is still young.

Day 7 - Back to the Mountains

We are headed back to the Mountains to see Freestyle Aerials today, at Sauze d Oulx Jouvenceaux. It is another warm day here in Torino, but its always cold in the mountains, plus the competition does not begin until evening. The trip requires a bus ride, a train ride, and then a shuttle bus ride. It is a minimum of an 1 1/2 hour trip from Torino to any of the mountain events. It is always an adventure!

A fun day at the Figure Skating Venue

The ladies short program always creates quite a buzz. The anticipation is obvious. We sat next to two young ladies from Japan, who were great fans. They cheered loudly for everybody, and when a skater from Japan was on the ice, I thought they both might faint! They had two Japan flags, and one of the girls had created this very elaborate sign made of cloth, sequins, and rhinestones. It was elaborate, and spelled out Fumie Suguri. She finished in 3rd place at the end of the short program.

Meet the other Toby - A bronze medalist

Meet Toby Dawson - Here with his Olympic Bronze Medal for Freestyle Moguls.

The Ladies Short Program

Tuesday night was the beginning of the biggest drama of the Games. The Ladies Figure Skating Competition has begun. It was great to see that Team USA had come prepared to skate! The entire team were on their game. It started early, the second skater of 29 skaters, was our own Kimmie Meissner. She looked great. She held the lead for a majority of the night. She was finally knocked out of the lead by Russias Irina Slutskaya, who ended up in second place. When Emily Hughes skated, she performed a Personal Best, and skated as well as we have ever seen her skate. The spin to end her program was dramatic! Then the final skater of the night was Sasha Cohen. She looked beautiful. She skated a flawless program, and just squeaked into the lead by 3/100 of a point. So that all sets the stage for a very exiting program Thursday night. We can hardly wait.

Meet Gold Medalist - Tenley Albright

The lovely lady between Toby and I is Tenley Albright. Fifty years ago, she won the Olympic Gold Medal for Figure Skating right here in Italy. In 1956 the games were held in Cortina d Ampezzo, Italy. The gentleman to Barbs right is the President of U.S. Figure Skating, Ron Hershberger and to Tobys right is his wife Gayle.

Hello from the International Broadcast Centre

This is just one of many entrances to the IBC. It is amazing to see the infrastructure they build that is only going to be used for less than a month.

Here's Brian Boitano

We ran into Brian Boitano, 1988 men's figure skating Olympic Gold Medalist at the Figure Skating Venue.

Day 6 Visiting the media center

The U.S. Olympic Committee gave us a day pass to the Media Center. It is located in the old Fiat Plant. As you walk in, you walk under this huge concrete structure that winds up about 6 stories. It was their test track, to test out new vehicles. The Media Center is huge, with all of the international and national media, every newspaper outlet you can imagine. It is a hub of activity. I am currently borrowimg one of the computers from a friend of ours that works for the USOC media department. Tonight we have tickets for the ladies short program, as they begin their medals quest. We also have ticket to the ladies Free Skate Final on Thursday night, where we hope to see another U.S. Medal!

Meet the FIRST Olympic Silver Medalists in US History!

Here they are - as promised, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, Olympic Silver Medalists for Team USA! It has finally started to sink in - the significance of what we witnessed last night. It was the first time in 30 years that the U.S. medaled in Dance, but 30 years ago it was a Bronze medal - never before has the U.S. achieved such success in Dance. It's surreal!