Skate Canada, the second in the Grand Prix figure skating series, took place in Ottawa this week and ended today.  With only a small batch of competitors in each division, it was easy to focus in on the ladies: three Canadians, three Americans, two Japanese and four European skaters.  Beginning with the short program on Friday, long time Canadian champion, Joannie Rochette triumphed, skating to "Summertime" and receiving a standing ovation, coming out 7 points ahead of Fumie Suguri, former world medalist, and Caroline Zhang, rising American star and former world Junior champion.

Figure Skating fans can prepare for a wild ride between now and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada.  With fifteen months to go, the 2008-2009 figure skating season began this past week with Skate America in Washington, and not only were most of the major American contenders at the event, but so were some of the best in the world.  Blowing away the rest of the pack of the ladies, Kim Yu-Na of South Korea, record holder for highest points ever in short and long programs, won handily in her

We're halfway through the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics so it's time to rate NBC's coverage.  First a caveat, I haven't seen every single hour of the coverage, but really, who has?  My opinion based on the many hours I have watched?  For once, I'll give them a thumb that's almost pointing up.  Some thoughts:

I thought this week I would write a brilliant post on the Summer Olympics but then something happened. I got in a car and drove 1100 miles with my in-laws and my children. I am ashamed to say it, but I haven't watched more than 20 minutes (total) of Olympic coverage since the USA Men's Basketball Team defeated China.For those of you keeping track at home that was about a week ago.

Raise your hand if your kids are sleepy.  Mine are.  They've been staying up entirely too late watching Olympics, and who am I to stop them?  I was 12 years old when Mary Lou Retton won her gold medal, and I remember having my nose firmly glued to the TV.

Dara Torres: 9 time medalist in swimming, 5-time Olympiad, 41-years-old (and the oldest female swimmer), incredible powerhouse. And stirrup queen to boot. With 7.4 million Americans diagnosed with infertility, it makes sense that a portion of Olympic athletes would need a little help in the non-equestrian stirrups. But certainly Dara Torres's openness in talking about IVF has made her a hero in the infertility blogosphere.

As I write this post I'm watching live Olympic tennis. American James Blake is in the deciding third set against Dominic Hrbaty of Slovakia and it's tied 3-3.  I'm not watching this match on television.  I'm watching it live online.  That's right, live streaming of Olympic events have come into their own with the Beijing Games, and the first and best stop for all your action is NBC's Olympic Website. The team that put this site together deserves a medal of their own because it has just about anything an Olympics sports fan could want. As long as you stay within NBC's restrictions that is. 

The Olympics open today in China to a multitude of emotions, including anger from Tibetan, Darfurian, and Burmese human rights activists about China's role in the conflicts in these countries.

Grab your remotes, get set, go! The 2008 Summer Olympics begin on Friday with the flag-waving pageantry of the opening ceremony. To mark the occasion, how about cooking up the Kung Pao Chicken from Appetite for China? Just click this post's title for the recipe.

I was flying back from BlogHer in San Francisco on Monday when I saw a clip on ESPN (thanks for the tv's at each seat Virgin America) that floored me.Becky Hammon, who was came in second in the MVP voting last year for the WNBA, felt slighted by the American Olympic Women's Basketball Team when a list of potential players was released without her name on it so she decided to play for the Russian Olympic Team.Becky Hammon was born and raised in South Dakota.

If you live in the United States and you want to get your YouTube fix, you flip on your computer, log on to the site and you're good to go. But if you happen to live in China, you're just as liable to flip on your computer, type in the YouTube address and get an error message and a blank screen.  At first you might think, oh my computer's slow today or something must be going on with the server, but you'd probably be wrong.  That's because China's been blocking YouTube to its citizens for the last several weeks in order to block the viewing of videos of anti-China protests in Tibet.  Many of those protests have become violent and depending on who you believe, they were fostered by pro-democracy pioneers who were set upon and brutalized by the Chinese government or rioting agitators determined to foster unrest and make China look bad, especially during this Olympic year.

The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing is providing leverage for Tibetan, Darfurian, Burmese and Chinese human rights campaigns: