Hero of the Week

Congratulations to Shaun White on being the only superhyped American Olympian to not totally fuck up. In addition to totally owning the rest of the world on a snowboard, his interviews and this Times feature demonstrate that he's also a much cooler person than most Olympic athletes. For example, he admits to both wanting to win and to being nervous as hell. None of the standard "it's an honor to be here representing my country" crap. And he did win. Hard.

Additional early-Olympic Applause to:
1. Kelly Clark, for completing the only women's halfpipe run in history that was interesting.
2. Australian snowboarder Torah Bright for being more technical and MUCH hotter than the Americans.
3. Speed skater Joey Cheek, for winning an event he wasn't supposed to win and having a fantastic name.
4. (This was going to be Allison Baver, the very attractive and talented short track speed skater, but then I found out that she's both dating Apolo Ohno and auditioning for The Apprentice. -30 points.)
5. The Chinese figure skater who got thrown into a wall, basically, smashing her knees in an incredibly painful way, and then continued her pairs run and ended up with a silver medal. Here's hoping the Chinese Olympic Committee awards her by letting her see her parents for five or six minutes.
6. The US women's hockey team for refusing to take "No Bodychecking" for an answer. Still no substitute for the men's competition, though, which starts Tuesday (go Finland!)*

And definitely NO cheers for NBC choosing to show Kelly Clarkson sucking her way through "Since U Been Gone" (STOP singing that live, Kelly, you're ruining it for everyone) but not the snowboard halfpipe medal ceremony that she performed after. Shaun White deserved more, dammit!





*I'm one of the biggest (non-Finnish, at least) supporters of Finnish international hockey. Why? Partially because they're probably the best-skating team EVER, but mainly because "Teemu Selanne" and "Teppo Numminen" are the two best names to ever be placed on the same athletic team. "Saku Koivu" isn't bad either. God I love Finland.