Since these five days much water has flowed under the bridge. And now I can say for sure that in spite of anything that may happen during the last week, at this Olympiad Russian team has done everything it really could. And it has done much more than at Salt-Lake-City Olympiad four years ago. It’s only a pity that all achievements Mr. Tjagachev will arrogate to himself. I’m sure of that, though the major part of our gains has been done not due to something, but regardless of it.
Unfortunately I can’t avoid mentioning one more doping scandal. Olga Pyleva got into a pretty mess because of doping; she had to return silver medal, was disqualified for two years, kicked out of the Olympic village and all that jazz. By the way the beyond played no role there. The medication is well-known; she used it for rehabilitation after ankle-bone injury. This medication was produced in the Moscow Area and it’s strongly recommended to be used for sportsmen. You’re welcome to chew it! All the wounds will simultaneously skin over, adhesions will resolve, bones will knit, potency will rise. It must be a miraculous medication. There is only one “but”. All over the world, i.e. on the other side, this medication is inscribed in the list of the forbidden because it is doping. It’s still not clear, why Olga Pyleva didn’t know about that, or if she knew, why she had been taking it. They nearly tried to blame the doctor – this son-of-a-bitch fed her with something strange. But this quack didn’t make her take the pills. In general, everything is strange and obscure. But Pyleva’s career is likely to be over.

Just as I had expected, the fifth Olympiad day brought us only scandal with Pyleva. The program included nothing connected with Russian way of life. For example, there was short track. Of course, it’s possible to find a pair of low-sized persons somewhere in the Russian remote place. It’s also possible to tell them about skating-rink. But it will be absolutely impossible to make them change their valenki for skates, and, moreover, explain why they should pursue Koreans and Chinese even having no simple bear-spear on hand. That’s why Korea has already got three gold and three silver medals. I’m not speaking about the Chinese. In spite of my conjurations, no one of them was caught in doping. It’s a pity they don’t want to consider my opinion.

But Thursday happened to be very rich. And it made me happy a bit. For example, I eagerly became engrossed in the world of skeleton. I was a bit familiar with it; but watched it nearly for the first time in my life. Generally, it’s nearly the same as luge. From the very beginning I was glad to see that Germans (God bless them) prefer to go down with their feet ahead. It’s easier for them so. Or, perhaps, they are getting ready beforehand. Perhaps that’s the reason for German hegemony absence in skeleton. Very few will have enough courage to go down with head on. This kind of sport is considered to be extreme on the American continent. But it’s clear why. I suppose that even checkers are extreme there. Though, as they say, it’s much easier to drive lugs in skeleton. I don’t know, as I have never tried. But I was sincerely glad that the representatives of Canada and Switzerland, and not those of Germany and the USA, were winning. For some reason a cold snap freezed my relations with these states. Even my long-lasting sympathies towards Schumacher and Michel Jordan are in the background now.

Unfortunately I failed to watch snowboard competitions. This time it was really a pity, though Americans snatched silver and gold again. But board-cross discipline (about which I learnt for the first time) changed my plans. I can only guess what it is, and I’d be very grateful for any information about it. Reward is guaranteed.

Surely I wanted to be glad not only for the bummers of Germans and Americans, but also for our successes. There turned up a thought that after taking the third place in jumps Russian biathletes would be able to keep it in the relay-race. But it was too early to expect that. I had missed the beginning of the relay-race, but when I started to watch, saw no Russian biathletes; though I found great pleasure and even gloating delight in watching German lanky fellow sapping his strength on the last lap. They had started with a big advantage, but this fact didn’t cheer me up. My concepts concerning world harmony are still incompatible with the hegemony of one separately taken state. Or two states. That’s why I flatly greet collapse of German biathlonist and the iron grip of the Austrian who had outstripped him. And the gold goes to Austria.

Skater team races were also held on Thursday. By that moment after Zhurova’s gold and Dorofeev’s silver we fell short of the bronze medal for the complete set. Men failed to do it, meanwhile girls didn’t let us down and drought long-awaited medal.

But it wasn’t the end. Especially for us, as nearly for 100% we knew that Evgeni Plushenko would be given gold in figure-skating. Beginning with the short program he skated so, that the first three places could be given to him in advance. Unfortunately he was awarded only one. It’s a rare miserliness. I didn’t expect such a decision from visually friendly Italians. By Jesus, they are just like Ukrainians with their suet. But surely Plushenko is the first. It’s the fifth gold for Russia.

10 km XC classic style skiing race became an apt illustration of fair distributional system both for men and women. It is generally agreed that, like all other normal human beings, Baltic people are 90% made of liquid, but this fluid is braking. It’s quite possible. But every family has its black sheep. At the moment there are at least two people in the combined team of Estonia, who destroy the national coloring in a mocking manner. I’m speaking about Kristina Smigun and Andrus Veerpalu, who have left all the world ski elite out of work. They may be called the disgrace of the Estonian nation, but they may be also called national heroes. I hope Estonians will make a right choice, and we’ll get to know not only about Zvetochnaya Street, but also two more.

The victory of French Baverel-Robert in woman biathlon sprint became the last Thursday surprise. Relative failure of our girls, though all of them got into top-ten, can be explained by the incident with Pyleva, especially as there was no one to replace her in the sprint. Meanwhile there was certainly something mystic in the failure of the German team. During the World Cup, when the idea “Olympiad is for Russians” still didn’t come to my mind, German team and especially its coach, wearing cool nationally colored baseball cap, impressed me very much. By the way I immediately felt strong desire to buy the same. I still do now, but not so much. And this cap became per se a kind of German team talisman, especially taking into account that they were great. It sounds stupid, but Bundes-coach wasn’t wearing this talisman at first two races. Perhaps, that’s what it’s all about.

It goes without saying that weekend program was extra rich. And the main life maxims were proved once again. For example, that talent isn’t money; you can’t spend it. Especially we can’t violate what we haven’t established. It primarily concerns mountain skiing, skating and ski-jumps.

Mountain skiers seem to have exhausted sensation limit. The presence of Deneriaz turned out to be quite enough. Everyone has finally got fed up with these cheeky monkeys, who can’t ski as it should be, have never seen normal skis, but are all cool cats. Deneriaz was the only cool cat among the Frenchmen. Only respected and well-known persons are included into both men and women bonus lists. A long-waited gold medal (the second one) was won by Norwegian Kjetil Andre Aamodt in giant slalom. Thank God, it has finally happened, as at the moment it isn’t possible to buy any handkerchiefs in Norway. All the country is in tears. All the plans are ruined. It’s a complete bummer. And Janica Kostelic has already solved her health problems. As a result Croatia has got the first golden medal.

Skaters have also recalled the rules of rank existence. The most important thing is that they have increased the distance from 500 to 1000 m. It’s a real cheap shot for Chinese, Japanese and all the like, as they haven’t learned to skate so far yet; though up to the second turning they gather speed best of all. But the fact, that to speed up is only half the work, has been proved by Shani Davis of America and Marianne Timmer of Holland once again. Our Zhurova and Dorofeev were worthy of respect, but “lame” workmate from Sweden spoilt everything for Dorofeev, while the distance turned out to be too hard for Svetlana.

The Austrians, leaded by Tomas Morgenstern were the best on 120-meter ski-jump. We may refer it to the failure of the season leader Jakub Janda of Czechia, or to the bad luck of stable Finns, but frankly speaking, the triumph of the Austrian team is absolutely deserved. My congratulations!

The principle of non-resistance with violence to the leaders worked only partially in biathlon. It started snowing and German coach put on his cap in despair. German team in the face of Kati Wilhelm and Martina Glagov immediately took gold and silver. In short, it was a kind of chiromancy. Courageous Albina Akhatova was the third. She did everything, subduing pain, on pricks, - just keeping going, in a word. I’m taking off my head to her.

Meanwhile Norwegian men team longed for the medal. All the fiords in the country of Vikings have been covered with snots because of the ski and biathlon team failures. It even seems that very soon they’ll have to buy Russian fish. Everyone’s eyes were fastened on Bjoerndalen. He had, to put it more precisely, was obliged to succeed. It has been impossible to outstrip him for many years. Still the pitcher goes often to the well, but is broken at last. For example Frenchmen became fed up with Ole-Einar’s back long ago. And this time Rafael Poiree was in bad mood. Meanwhile nearly from the very morning Vincent Defrasne awfully wanted to ski. And he profited by the occasion, especially taking into account the absence of problems with shooting. Who’s that old man appearing in the distance? Is it really Bjoerndalen? I don’t know anyone of this kind. To be more correct, I’ll pretend not to notice him.

Well, in this way Defrasne made the Bjoerndalen. And since that time the Norwegian Sea has become useless for navigation.

What else do we have? Do we praise the madness of the brave? Surely we do. The most important thing is not to grow deaf. Our fans who came to watch women relay-race, certainly couldn’t avoid that problem. It happened because Yulia Chepalova nearly managed to shorten half-minute lag after two first rounds in the running lag; because Eugenia Medvedeva (again with her husband’s help) outstripped everyone for about 100 meters while finishing. It was Russia’s sixth gold. Unfortunately men team, headed by Vasily Rochev, failed to complete something of this kind. I doubt they are not brave enough. They’re likely not to be so mad.

I think for two days the whole country has been watching two-man bobsleigh competitions. Though we are stronger in 4-man. But there was some hope, and the major thing was that the medal was looming up again. But we were not up to it a bit. Alexander Zubkov and Aleksey Voevodin became the fourth. Andrew Lange was really much stronger. I won’t argue, even though he’s a German.

And the last thing, - I’m speaking about the weird. Besides all this medal hysteria at the weekend dance pair figure-skating competitions were also taking place. We’ll see the apotheosis in the free dance, just as the medal distribution.
This kind of sport is purely our, Russian. And hypothetically we could be able to win all gold medals, but I’m completely sure, that we’ll be not allowed to. It’s enough for us to have won twice. It’s high time to stop. The question is how to do it. The first variant was shown on Saturday.

I watched it all till the very end on purpose. Our Navka and Kostomarov were the best - it’s my firm point of view without any touch of sour patriotism. But the judges were of other opinion. The Italian pair appeared on the ice. Before that no one had seen them nearly for four years, because it’s impossible to see non-existence of something. The guy has been going into journalism lately, sometimes commented something. I no nothing about his female partner, but surely she hasn’t been going into figure-skating. Their performance should have been a purely patriotic gesture. Or it was the case of the principle “better a small fish than an empty dish”. It was worth watching. No, they haven’t completely lost the practice of skating. But they had certain problems even with elementary synchronism. Later it would turn out that experts were giving them the position not higher than the seventh one. What about me, I wouldn’t have given even the tenth. But the umpires awarded the first.

I felt no desire to watch yesterday’s original dance. The directions were already clear. I finally watched, but only because our skaters (and not only they) are perfect. I even didn’t bother myself with justice, because it was impossible to opposite the judges, and moreover, spit into their faces.

But there is some justice in the world. The Italian, as a real macho, tried to make much of his female partner. In all possible senses. But it is no fun getting old. And that guy didn’t resemble a beefcake. In general, he was the wrong man both for dancing and the partner, because finally he dropped her down. It all looked rather funny. And now Navka and Kostomarov are occupying a fitting place. But the judges seem to have found a substitution for the Italian pair in the face of Americans, who are the second at the moment.

According to Dmitriy Guberniev’s favorite phrase, “the moment of truth” will come tonight. But it will be purely for judges.

Hasta la vista. Savar.

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