Here are links to some of today's best Olympic-related stories:
Swiss men's skater Stephane Lambiel will be carrying the Switzerland flag into te opening ceremonies. Congrats, Stephane! Here's the Associated Press article.
U.S. men's skater Johnny Weir will be rooming with U.S. ice dancer Tanith Belbin at the Olympics. USA Today provides us with some fabulous details.
And the best news of all: Mao Asada hot dogs! The Vancouver Sun reports on a street vendor who has created a hot dog inspired by the Japanese ladies medal threat. It's made of Kobe beef and cut three times to symbolize Asada's awesome triple axels. And the NBC Olympic blog has been so kind as to judge the Mao Asada hot dog up against Yu-na Kim's record-breaking Skate America short program. Spoiler alert - even wonder-girl Kim is no match for the Mao Asada hot dog.
And Canadian men's skater Patrick Chan made some comments about Russian Evgeny Plushenko's style, amid much talk about the skating transitions (or perhaps the weakness of the transitions) in the Russian's programs. Here's what Chan said, according to AFP:
"I love the new system, it's a great way to promote an all around skater especially a skater like me," said Chan.
"He's (Plushenko) confident that the quad will really help him, that he doesn't need transitions. He's old, I can't tell him it's not good.
"I think we'll start seeing more skaters like me in future generations."
Chan believes that Plushenko and Joubert will try and intimidate him with the quad in practice ahead of the competition.
"Of course they'll (Plushenko and Joubert) do it in practice and will nail it on front of me," he said.
Rumor has it that Plushenko stayed around today to watch Chan's practice, which I suppose was a possible attempt to intimidate Chan. Chan seems super confident. He seems to repeat one major talking point: quads are not that important when you can skate like...Patrick Chan. heh.