Totally behind but YAY for Evan Lysacek winning men’s figure skating Olympic gold!

Before the men even did their free skates, I honestly thought Plushenko was going to win. But once I saw Plushenko’s program, I knew that Evan had done it. Even despite Plushenko’s quad. There seems to be so much emphasis on landing a quad but figure skating is so much more than that to me. Otherwise, why do footwork sequences, transitions, spins, spirals, etc. also earn points? Unfortunately for Plushenko, there’s been some minor changes to the Code of Points since he won gold at the last Olympics and with his absence of 3 years, I just think he and his coaches didn’t “play the game” so well this time around. His free skate was completely front-loaded — if he had just rearranged his elements to earn some extra bonus points in the second half of the program, that might have made the difference. On the other hand, Evan knew he couldn’t land the quad (he fell on it at Nationals) so he capitalized on his strengths, made sure that every single piece of choreography would earn him points, and found himself on top of the podium.

So happy Daisuke won the bronze medal too! His free skate was amazing and so technically difficult, even with the fall.

Jeremy Abbott didn’t have the Olympic experience I wanted him to have so here’s hoping he sticks around until Worlds next month.

Ahhhh!!! Ice dancing was so great this year! It wasn’t the splatfest that Torino was! I am so, so happy that Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir and Meryl Davis & Charlie White captured gold and silver respectively. They were fantastic in all 3 of their programs. And is it weird that I totally ‘ship Tessa and Scott? They are so freaking cute (yes, I know she’s dating someone else)…

This free dance was FAN.FREAKING.TASTIC.

As was this free dance. Even despite the cliched Phantom of the Opera music selection.

But it wouldn’t be ice dancing if there wasn’t questionable judging and I really believe that Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto were sacrificed in order for Oksana Domnina & Max Shabalin to win the bronze. I have to admit that I don’t care for Belbin & Agosto’s free dance but it was the best they’ve performed it all season. Domnina & Shabalin had the edge in the compulsory dance but I think they should have been ranked below B & A in both the original and free dances. Oh, well. I’m really going to miss Belbin & Agosto if they retire. They really paved the way for US ice dancing.

*sniff*

Oh figure skating, don’t ever change. Off to watch the Ladies short program now…

Thanks NBC Olympics for the pics.