Ok, so Jeremy Buttle (of Canada) winning gold was all over the Canadian news today, and that's nice. But one skater I really like is Johnny Weir so I was really pleased to see his good results. Loved his comment in the Canadian Press (I think the 'second' referred to his placement after the short program, not the entire competition):
"I nearly peed myself," he said of being second after finishing eighth last year.Some of the other skaters I like, including Stéphane Lambiel and Daisuke Takahashi, didn't place as well, but that's ok. Congrats to them all as well. =)
Personally, I think competition shouldn't all be about the medaling, though that's important as well. The trouble with medaling is that it is only an ordinal level of measurement; it tells you the ranking order, but it's not as descriptive as an interval or ratio measurement. For example, in the recent US championships, Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek actually tied for first place; eventually Lysacek won by 0.01 on a tie-breaker (because he scored better on the long program, while Weir's points came primarily on the short program). This kind of victory is hardly decisive at all (I personally think Weir is better), thus reporting the final results as an ordinal ranking can be misleading.
Anyway, my point is, the competitors are all good. They certainly all trained hard and tried their best. Some stumbled on their quads (quadruple axles), but that's extremely difficult and kudos to them as well. For me, if everyone can jump a triple or quad, then that's boring; what I like is the artistry and flow of the entire program.
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