Ted Ligety made a statement today finishing eighth in the Super G at the the Lake Louise World Cup. Crystal’s Scott Macartney, who has been hammered with injuries the last two seasons, did not finish. Here’s a release from the U.S.  Ski Team:

Olympic Champion Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) stepped up his status as an all around skier as he notched the third top-10 career result in a speed event Sunday as he finished eighth in the super G in the Audi FIS World Cup in Lake Louise.

“It’s nice to come down like that. I’m pretty psyched about it especially since I’ve been so slow in the downhill training runs here, and even the training in Copper. So to get eighth is a surprise.” Ligety said.
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Two 100-foot-long streetcars that will provide free transportation during the Olympics are scheduled to arrive in Tacoma on Dec. 1 aboard a cargo ship named Tomar. The streetcars will be loaded onto trucks and hauled the rest of the way to Vancouver.

The streetcars are on loan from Brussels, Belgium, and will be shipped back after the games, said Kathryn Nickerson, a spokesman for Bombardier, the company that manufactures the streetcars.

Bombardier, a Montreal-based plane and rail vehicle manufacturer, is a sponsor of the games and designed the Olympic torch.

Nickerson said the Flexity Streetcars are unique because they have …

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Many of the world’s best short track speedskaters choose not to wear protective Teflon bodysuits under their skinsuits so they can go a fraction of a second faster.

J.R. Celski won’t ever make that mistake again.

“I’d rather go a 10th of a second slower than set myself back this much again,” the Federal Way native said Wednesday afternoon while waiting to board a flight from Denver to Salt Lake City.

Racing without the protective suit at the Olympic Trials on Sept. 12, Celski, 19, fell and cut his left leg to the bone with his right skate. He believes …

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I talked to speedskater J.R. Celski a few hours ago as he was boarding a plane in Denver for a flight to Salt Lake City. He says he will return to skating with the team Saturday, 11 weeks after he sliced his left leg to the bone during a fall at the Olympic trials.

He skated three times while recovering in Colorado Springs and said after his most recent skate “I felt like I hadn’t been off the ice for that long.”

I’ll have a short story on Celski in the paper later this week and make reference to his …

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Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, the best chance for ice dancing gold at the 2010 Olympics, pulled out of the International Skating Union Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in Tokyo, Japan, Dec. 3-6, according a statement just released by U.S. Figure Skating.

Belbin has an infected wisdom tooth that requires surgery. On Nov. 5 she posted on her Twitter account: “I’m a little uncomfortable w/ my dentist’s choice of the term “ticking time bomb” to describe my wisdom teeth. I live on the edge.”
Here’s the statement from U.S. Figure Skating.

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Check out Olympic silver medalist Gretchen Bleiler tomorrow night on Conan O’Brien show.  O’Brien’s  “Tonight Show” airs at 11:35 p.m. on NBC.

“I am super excited to be going on the Conan O’Brien show,” the snowboarder said in a statement released by the national team. “I think he is the man and I love watching his show. It’s going to be an awesome experience to be on the couch myself.”

Just saw this on the CTV website. From tomorrow’s Globe and Mail. Funny stuff.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/worldcupwatch/sport=bs/newsid=20434.html

Just got this from the U.S. Luge team:

The first men’s World Cup of the 2009-10 luge season, held on Saturday, November 21, saw American Tony Benshoof move one step closer to becoming a member of the 2010 Olympic team as he battled a re-herniated disk in his back to finish sixth.
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