2010 Vancouver Olympics

I feel that it was just a few months ago that I was watching the 2008 Summer Olympics at Beijing. Now the running event have been replaces by speed skating. Lately, I have been trying to watch the Olympic Games. Skating( figure and speed) seem like good sports, while other contact sports such as Ice Hockey don't have the same appeal. However, my favorite so far is Curling.(For any of those out there who have played shuffleboard, this pretty much the same thing on ice.) In this game, there are "stones" which are ,well, stones which players have to slid across shaven ice. Meanwhile, while the stone is being thrown, other members of the team come in front of the stone with brushes and try to brush the ice in front of the stone out of the way. This can be used for doing two things. One is to speed up the stone, or to "curl" or slowly curve the path of the stone. The court that the Olympic sport is played on a narrow rectangular shape. One both ends, there is a circle with 3 rings, and one tiny circle in the middle. Though there are two circles, in one game, only one circle is played on. The objective of the game is to get your team's stones closest to the tiny circle. Of course, stones are also used to block paths and protect the other team from knocking your stone out of the desired position. The most recent match I watched( also my second match) was today between U.S and Switzerland. Both were pretty good teams. I switched the TV on at the 8th end( by the way, there are 10 ends, each having about 6 turns for each team, and each team has to finish 10 ends in 73 minutes, but they play on the same court) and the score was 5-4 in favor of the U.S. I like Switzerland so it was a neutral game for me. Either of the outcomes was fine for me. One end ended and at the start of the 9th end the U.S started leading the game 6-4. Another end passed, and the score was now 5-6 and switzerland had gained a point. Now the tenth end was starting, and the pressure was on for the both the Swiss team to tie or to win, and for the U.S team to maintain their 1 point lead. Switzerlad had gained a point and had tied the score, making it 6-6. Both teams were forced into a sudden death, end 11. Eventually at the end of the end11, both teams had a rock in the inner ring. From above, and most probably from the player's level, both rocks were a equal distance from the center. Out came the measuring ref. She checked the U.S rock. It was about 3 of their measuring units away. She moved to the Swiss rock. It pushes the boundary. The Switzerland team won! I, as I told you above, was pretty happy( I would have been pretty happy for U.S too) . The Swiss team was really happy, having pulled their team out of near disaster, while the U.S team looked sad and depressed since they were playing such a good game with a 2 point lead and ended up losing in overtime. So far, as the 17 of February, U.S. has 4 gold medals,3 silver, and 5 bronze for a total of 12 medals. U.S. has the most medals followed by Germany with 8