Final Olympic Post

Actually, it's not all that clear it's from the Olympics.  Whatever:



Linked by Wombat-Socho in the catch up edition of "Rule 5 Monday" at The Other McCain.

Olympic Babe Of the Day - Kate "Dancin" Hansen

Today's Olympic Babe of the Day is Kate "Dancin" Hansen, the luge rider for the United States who scored 10th in the field, but seems to have had a heck of a lot of fun doing it. Hey, it's only luge.

A video went around the internet yesterday that Kate had taken a video of a wolf stalking the dorms at Sochi. That turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by Jimmy Kimmel. Come on, doesn't anybody watch him?

Ghosts of Olympics Past

Some cool photos from the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France in 1924.

The Bob sled course was just piled snow, and obviously crude and rough:

Hockey, figure and speed skating were on outdoor venues:

The speed skaters don't have fancy skin tight suits, just an ordinary coat and tie.

And Curling....

Old farts with real brooms! And one woman on the team (unless it's a guy in drag). There have been some improvements:

Olympic Babes - The Rest of the Russian Curlers

A few days ago I did my 6 AM eye opener on the "skipper" for the Russian Women's Curling Team, Anna Sidarova.  Being a lazy slug, I hadn't realized, until I was watching them play Sweden today, was that the whole women's team is so hot, they have to keep moving to avoid melting a hole in the ice

Why so serious, life's so much fun?

Curling seems like a pretty silly sport, but I could watch these girls slide big rocks across the ice all day.

Olympic Babe - Cross Country Classic, Theresa Johaug

Today's Olympic Babe du Jour is Theresa Johaug, featured a few day ago in some of the pictures with Marit Bjørgen, another Norwegian Olympic Cross Country skier, and bronze medal winner in the Ladies Cross Country Classic last Thursday, beating Marit, who only finished #5.

A New Sports Drug at Sochi?

Mechano Growth Factor.  Again, from behind the Science pay wall.

Each Olympics, there is a race between athletes seeking an artificial advantage and the antidoping experts trying to catch them. At the Winter Olympics in Sochi, a new chemical may be in the mix. Mario Thevis, a forensic chemist at the German Sport University Cologne, tested a substance obtained by German journalists during an undercover investigation of a Russian scientist selling "full size MGF" for $1000 per milligram. Thevis confirmed the sample contained mechano growth factor (MGF), which can prompt muscle growth and is undetectable by current testing methods.

Never heard of it before. For those who don't think milligrams, that's a million dollars a gram, or roughly 20 million dollars per gram.   Pretty expensive for a Gold Medal.

Q:What is the substance you found in the sample?

M.T.:The closest way to describe it is human IGF-1 isoform 4. The mRNA of isoform 4 is elevated when mechanical stress is applied to muscle tissue. We could deduce that we were dealing with a highly pure and therefore probably highly dangerous substance.

Which, we therefore presume means that MGF helps the body build up in response to exercise and training.  Sounds like it could be a big help if it were used judicially. What's the chance of that?

Q:What might the side effects be?

M.T.:We don't know. It could cause any of the side effects associated with IGF-1, such as cardiovascular issues. Some of the growth factors also have cancer-causing effects. We can't prove or rule out any of these.

 If it has side effects, we don't know them.  OK, so how do we know who's using it?

Q:Now that you know this might be in circulation among athletes, why can't you test for it right away?

M.T.:Practically we can, but we have to demonstrate that our test is fit for the purpose. We have to evaluate whether our detection limits are in the range for physiological or therapeutic amounts, even though we have no idea how much that would be.

We don't.

Extended interview at http://scim.ag/_sochi.

Olympic Babe - Lolo Jones - The Bob Sled Babe

Lolo Jones has found an interesting way to maximize her chances of winning medals at the Olympics, compete in both the summer and winter Olympics:

Lori "Lolo" Jones (born August 5, 1982) is an American track and field and bobsled athlete who specializes in the 60 and 100 meter hurdles. She won three NCAA titles and garnered 11 All-American honors while at LSU. She won indoor national titles in 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the 60 m hurdles, with gold medals at the World Indoor Championship in 2008 and 2010.

She was favored to win the 100 m hurdles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but tripped on the penultimate hurdle, finishing in seventh place. She went on to win silver at the 2008 World Athletics Final. Jones is the American record holder in the 60 m hurdles with a time of 7.72.

Jones also competes as a brakewoman on the U.S. national bobsled team. She won a gold medal in the mixed team event at the 2013 World Championships. She is representing the U.S. at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Olympic Babe of the Day - F is For Finland

Kiira Korpi is Finland's star figure skater, and quite a figure at that:

In Finland her nickname is Jääprinsessa (Ice Princess) due to her resemblance to Grace Kelly, the former Princess of Monaco. Writing for GoldenSkate.com in 2008, Barry Mittan described her as "widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in figure skating".

Could be:

Some Olympic Rule 5

When you're hot, you're hot. . .

Speedy 30-year-old skater offered up an embarrassed smile as she held her outfit together after her gaffe. ‘I totally forgot that I had nothing under my suit,’ she explained.

Olga Graf, Russia's first medallist at their Sochi Games, had the noisy crowd at the Adler Arena on their feet as she delivered a personal best in the race on Sunday.

The 30-year-old chess-playing skater roared across the finish line and punched the air with delight after clocking her time on the giant scoreboard, which briefly put her in gold medal position.

As she slowed down the back straight to savour her skate, Graf unzipped her skin-tight suit to the waist and waved to the fans... then suddenly realised she had no shirt underneath.

Olympic Babe du Jour - Marit Bjørgen

This morning's Olympic Babe du Jour is Norwegian  Marit Bjørgen, arguably the best woman's cross country sprinter, winner of 3 gold medals in 2010, and one so far in 2014.  One more and she sets a woman's record.

To see the rest, go to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Babe page.

Another Olympic Babe

The next installment just has to be US figure skater Ashley Wagner. We need to get her in quickly, before she crashes and burns and take the US team's hope for a medal with her.

She didn't fall yesterday.  That's something anyway.

Earlier in January, Ashley had what has been referred to as a “disastrous” performanceat the 2014 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which also happen to be the qualifying rounds for the U.S. Olympic team. A long-standing favorite going into the competition, Ashley shocked viewers everywhere by taking not one but two bad falls during her routine. She came in a disappointing fourth place.

Ashley is known for having fallen twice during the Olympic trials and still having been chosen over someone ranked higher (Mirai Nagasu). Hopefully she can keep her ass off the ice long enough to get the medal.



She was also chose by "Covergirl" makeup to be their new face:

Olympics Babe of the Day

I decided to try something different this year, to keep the Olympic babes all on a single page, and refer to that. Will this be a daily feature, or just whenever the mood strikes? Can't tell you that yet.

My first entry, Vanessa Mae, representing Thailand in alpine skiing:

First up, courtesy of my friend from Thailand GOODSTUFF, who is promoting Vanessa Mae.  While I knew she was an accomplished (and good looking) violinist, I wasn't aware that she is also an alpine skier, and is representing Thailand at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Life ain't fair, some people get all the talent.



I didn't even know Thailand had mountains with snow. I thought the national sport was mud wrestling with pythons. And she'd look good doing that too.

Linked at Wombat-socho's majestic catch up edition of Rule 5 Sunday (well, Monday, really), "Rule 5 Monday: A Double-Stuffed Presidential Collection."