It’s not always about who wins. Sometimes it just matters who has the most heart. Who overcame the obstacles. I think that’s one of the reasons we were interested in the Nancy Kerrigan story. People from small countries don’t have a huge financial backing, like some of the higher-end athletes from the wealthier countries get (yes, I realize that most of them make extreme sacrifices too, but you do get more with nice sponsorships).

If you missed the Paralympics and live in the USA, NBC is going to air a 90-minute highlight show tomorrow, April 10th, from 3:30-5 PM EST. Central and Mountain times usually are a little different, so you might want to check out your schedule to find out the details.

If you live in the USA, then you probably missed the Paralympics completely… unless you watched it online. As far as I know, NBC showed no Paralympic events on television, and if you were interested, you’d have to watch it online. It’s a shame, because many of the Paralympic athletes have quite inspiring stories. Hopefully they will be able to capture that with their highlight show.

At least they’re showing this. I’ll be over at Glenn Beck’s American Revival tour for the day, so I’ll have to catch it on Tivo.

Short track speed skating is a fairly exciting sport in the Winter Olympics. It is a fairly new sport; it made its Olympic debut in 1992 in Albertville. It has a few small, but major, differences with its older cousin, speed skating. Some skaters, like Shani Davis, have participated in both regular and short track speed skating.

In speed skating, skaters race around a track against the clock. There are two skaters in the rink at a time, and their paths are generally separate. In short track speed skating, skaters must race against each other. While they’re not supposed to bump or cut off other skaters, contact does happen, and when it does happen, upsets are often made. Australia’s Steven Bradbury won the men’s 1000 meter race in 2002 when he just happened to be the last man standing after a massive collision; in another 2002 race, Apolo Ohno came in second, but ended up with the gold medal anyway, after it was determined that the first-place finisher, Korean skater Kim Dong-Sung, had blocked Ohno from passing him in the final lap (this is known as cross-tracking).

Short track speed skating is an exciting event; you can catch the first event, the men’s 1500m (and several qualification heats), starting on February 13th.

Figure skating is one of the most popular Winter Olympic sports in America, although much of the country doesn’t follow figure skating throughout the rest of the year. This means that, although Rachael Flatt is a relatively unknown name right now, in a few weeks, she could be a household name.

Rachael Flatt seems to be your typical 17-year-old high school student. She is a senior at Cheyenne Mountain High School. If you follow her on Twitter, you will see typical entries for a high school student… excitement about getting to sleep in because snow delayed school, getting A’s in school (she’s taking AP Physics), and applying to college. There is one major difference between Flatt and your typical American teenager… Flatt is one of the top US figure skaters.

She took the top ladies’ spot at the US Figure Skating Olympic trials, which were held in Spokane a couple of weeks ago. Incidentally, the other skater that will be going to Vancouver with her is also a teenager: 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu.

While the US was lamenting the lack of talent in ladies figure skating a year ago, and was looking to skaters like Sasha Cohen to have a chance to get a medal, Flatt seems to have come out of nowhere. She has been working towards her goal for years, however. She was the 2008 World Junior Champion, and took home the silver medal in the US Championships in 2008 and 2009. We still have to wait to see how she will do against figure-skating front runners Shizuka Arakawa and Mao Asada, both of Japan.

Skaters in the photo are (from left) Mirai Nagasu, Rachael Flatt, and Caroline Zhang. Photo by David W. Carmichael (Creative Commons).

Here is Flatt skating to Fame

This post will self-destruct in a little bit.

My internet name is Brooke Lorren; I’ve been a fan of the Olympics since somewhere around the 1980s… pretty much for most of my life. Although I’m not much of an athlete myself, the Olympics inspire me to get out and run, do crunches, and become more athletic. I have written several different pages on the Olympics; primarily on Squidoo. You can visit my “lensography” to see many of the pages that I have written. Please note: 100% of the profits from that page goes to the nonprofit group Hope for Haiti.

I’ve never actually been able to go to an Olympics, but I did go to college at USC, where many of the 1984 Summer Olympics events were held, and I have spent several hours in the Olympic pool there. I was able to carry the American Flag during the torch relay kickoff for the 1996 Atlanta games; the torch relay kickoff was held in Los Angeles and I just happened to be in the right place to volunteer at the time. I also was able to visit the site of the 2000 Sydney Olympics while it was still under construction, and I was able to run around the track that the athletes would later compete on.

Other than that, I’m an Olympic fan, like many other people are. I prefer the individual Olympic sports to the team sports. I’m fairly bummed that my finances didn’t allow me to visit the 2010 Games in Vancouver, especially considering that I have family that live nearby. My goal is to get a chance to see the 2016 games in Rio de Janiero… while that sounds like it could be expensive, my husband starts law school this fall, and I’m guessing that a lawyer with three years of experience will be able to afford the trip. Outside of the Olympics, I don’t watch too many sports.

Other than being an Olympics fan, I’m a homeschool teacher, content producer, and gymnastics mom. I’m hoping that this blog will be useful to you.