Meeting the Press, Worlds '09 Style

I’ve been away from my usual routine over the past few days—not just here with the blog, but generally speaking as well. When all that World class drama is over, I just have to get away from everything for a few days!! (No, not really, but it sounded pretty good, eh?)

And in a few days, my hyper-analytical ways will come back in full force, looking back at the week in Worlds before it fades too far from our collective sights. In the meantime, I’ve gathered a few news articles together so you can, um, read up on others’ hyper-analytical ways:

From Ron Judd of the Seattle Times : a fine summary, though Judd is one of many that has (and will probably continue to) rail on Alissa Czisny:

She only needed an eighth -- clearly within the expected realm of a U.S. Champion -- and failed to get it.

That's a flub of truly historic proportions.

Aaaanyway, from Juliet Macur of The New York Times : a piece that quotes Kristi Yamaguchi about the “only two” Olympic slots for US women, but also points out that only one team worldwide did well enough to be awarded a table for three:

Mao Asada of Japan, the 2008 world champion and Kim’s rival, cried after finishing fourth, nearly 20 points behind Kim…(but) Japan was the only country to secure three entries for its skaters in the Olympic women’s event, increasing their odds of standing atop the podium in Vancouver, British Columbia.

And it’s always hard to choose which Philip Hersh article to feature; this time I’m going with this one focusing on the outcome of Dance…:

The essence of ice dance is entertainment, and there was nothing more captivating than the final 90 seconds of the Davis-White free skate to the ballet scene from Saint-Saens' opera "Samson and Delilah."

The Russians and Canadians both did a lot of eye-catching tricks, and that apparently is what the judges were looking for.

Spoken like someone with a true American bias? Maybe. But he also correctly acknowledged the Belbin/Agosto silver medal as a “triumph”, given what happened last year at Worlds and the seemingly subpar season that followed.

Heaven knows I didn’t give ‘em enough credit to be able to get a silver, much less gold.

But me and my ridiculous predictions are another story…

(P.S. The Clip of the Day will resume in a few days as well… seeing as I’m on a dial-up as I write this, I cannot access video clips anyway!)