Men's Finals, Second Sock

This is the first Olympics in a while that I've actually gotten to watch a lot of the events -- an added benefit of the Knitting Olympics!  Last night was the finals of the men's figure skating.  Of course NBC saved that until the very last, so I was up until 11:30.  (I must wonder aloud here why NBC went to all the trouble of getting the great Dick Button to do commentary on the skating and then put three other commentators with him.  I don't have anything against the others, but are four really necessary?!)

This fellow, Evgeni Plushenko of Russia,

was the favorite to win, and he did eventually, but I must confess that my sympathies were elsewhere.  It's hard to find fault with someone who says that he owes everything to his mom and dad, but I would rather watch the skaters who dance as well as skate, who are actually listening to their music as they skate, who don't just "connect the dots," as one of the commentators said.  Plushenko was good, obviously, but he didn't thrill me.  I'm lucky in that I can be completely subjective -- I don't have to make my "judgements" according to the rules book, I can give good marks to costumes as well as skating, I don't have to pick just one winner! 

There's a lot of flash on the ice in the men's competition this year.  Johnny Weir had a beautiful short program, with lovely lines as in this sit spin,

but unfortunately he lost a lot of steam in the long program and turned in a disappointing performance.  This --

is not a very flattering photograph of Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland, but there was not a better one at Torino 2006 (I like to credit the photos that I snatch off the internet, so am collecting these all from the same source for that reason).  I confess that my heart skipped a little beat whenever he was on, although Stephane, Stephane, the tiger costume thing, oh dear!  Still, he did skate very well, with interesting choreography albeit inconsistent in execution.

Lambiel won the silver, and Jeffrey Buttle of Canada got the bronze medal --

another who seemed to actually enjoy what he was doing on the ice, to skate as if he loved it and felt it in his heart as well as doing the required moves (fellow Canadian Shawn Sawyer will also be one to watch in coming years).

Matthew Savoie of the United States placed only seventh in the final standings, but will I hope go far in men's skating -- he has a very elegant form and presentation, very graceful to see.

And in knitting news, I started the second sock again.  I really want to love these socks, and even my indulgent eye thought that the flashing was too much.  I rewound what remained in the ball and started again from the other end, but the flashing was pretty much the same -- I tried wrapping the yarn twice on a purl stitch now and then, but ended up with a kind of checkerboard -- I pulled the whole thing out and started a third time about two inches further along in the color scheme.  There is still some pooling, but it is not as obvious, as the teals and pinks don't line up quite as much as they did before.  I had thought that I would just "let the yarn be", and not try to force it one way or another, but I might just nudge it a little....

Comments

[Kathy]

Eh, nothing wrong with nudging yarn a wee bit here and there. Lovely sock so far!