Olympics - Day... Whatever!

Are you like me and sleep-deprived because you've stayed up to watch the half pipe? or skating? Somehow, I've even been too tired to blog, altho I've been stalking all the usual suspects.

Tonight, I've decided to stick to the important stuff. Not gold, silver and bronze.... but the fashion report!

Half pipe - You have gotta love a sport where the "uniform" is blue jeans and a flannel shirt! I realize that all the teams actually have high tech fabrics and designer duds, but the US uniforms really do look so much like jeans that I spent two evenings watching the pants instead of the snow boards! (Turns out they are fancy Gortex fabric made to look like distressed denin.) I worry about Sean White, tho. He wears his jeans pretty low for a guy who is flying 15 feet above the pipe and landing half way down the wall. One of these days he's gonna have to choose between landing the jump and grabbing the pants. The American women have the same pants and a different plaid shirt.



Men's figure skating - Here it's soup to nuts. One guy appeared to borrow snow boarding duds for the short program. Turned out to be lycra made to look like jeans, but he was definitely at the casual end of the scale. In his winning skate he wore a sleek black costume with Sworski crystal snakes wrapped around his torso, but for the short program he wore an even sleeker number with feathering sleeves that hung down over his fingers. Dave Letterman described it as "Edward Scissorhands" - which was unfortunately close to the truth. The Russian skater was similarly flashy in black and red spangles and American Johnny Weir was all feathers and silver shimmer.

Ice Dancing - My personal favorite - both for action and for fashion. Tonight's compulsory dance was the tango, so there were lots of possibilities. Most couples went for some sort of classy, sophisticated look. Lots of the women had the appearance of bare backs. You know, the supposedly skin colored fabric that actually looks like they have covered their backs - or whatever - with bandaids. There were a few who actually were nearly bare-backed and they looked much better. One of the more odd choices was a French couple who went with a polka dot look. All of those black, red and white dots are actually individual "jewels". Up close she looks encrusted!

The other French couple went in a completely different direction. From the front, she looked like she was wearing a very short red suit, but from the back....

And the American Tanith Belkin chose this fancy number for her tango. All that flesh in the front is fake, but she had some in the back that appeared to be natural.

This really has to be the best of all sports. Assuming that you can skate - and I can't - you get to dance with a good looking guy in a snazzy dress and all those spangles. It's the best.


Late breaking news! I said that I was sticking to fashion tonight, but this news is too big not to give you - in case you have not been paying attention. The US today suspended the captain of the curling team. Apparently he has not been curling well, so they are pulling in a substitute in the hope of doing better. The US men's team had been contenders for gold, but now have lost several preliminary matches and may be totally out of medal contention. You heard it first here at the Garden Bench!

As you can see, they are pretty laid back in the fashion department. Appears to be a Nike shirt, black pants and street shoes. Give me spangles any day.