I have been waiting for two weeks to do this post on our great USA speed skater champ, Apolo Anton Ohno. He finally struck Olympic Gold in Turin/Torino on Saturday!

Leading from start to finish, Ohno upset favored South Korean Ahn Hyun-Soo to win gold in the 500m Saturday. And before the final night was done, he skated to his third medal of these Winter Games.

With a burst at the end, Ohno passed an Italian skater to grab bronze for the Americans in the 5000m relay.

So much for being a bust. For the second Olympics in a row, Ohno is a star.

Congrats to Apolo and to all of our awesome US athletes who give up so much to train and compete in their respective sports.

Three cheers for Team USA!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I have some catching up to do, as pointed out in an earlier post.

First, big time props to Shani Davis, the Gold Medal Champ of the 1000m Speed Skating race. He became the first African-American man to claim an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history yesterday. Despite the controversy between Davis and Hedrick earlier in the week, this was a great race for the Americans and for Davis yesterday. Congrats! Oh, and Davis now exceeds the Gold Medal demographic expectations of an African-American on an USA team. If you consider that blacks make up about 11% of the population, Davis is ahead of that target making him represent 14% of the Golds acheived by the USA. Take that, Bryant Gumbel!

And I missed skiing hottie and Gold medalist in the men’s combined downhill contest last week, Ted Ligety (a PatriotPartner favorite.)

By the way, watching bobsledding in HiDef was really cool. And skijumping last night…. very cool. I love the Winter Games!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Congrats to fellow North Carolinian Joey Cheek for a gold-winning 500m speed skate run today in Turin.

What I’m sure the mainstream media will NOT report is that Cheek announced he’s donating his gold-winning cash bonus of $25,000 to a fund to help those being killed in Darfur region of Sudan….another United Nations success story. *sarcasm off*

As you know, there’s been some media but not a ton [about] the Darfur region of Sudan [where] there has been tens and tens of thousands of people killed. My government has labeled it a genocide, and so I will be donating money specifically to refugees in Chad where there are over 60,000 children who have been displaced from their homes.

He just got a whole lot sexier, huh?

GO TEAM USA!!!! More Olympic blogging coverage here at Pajamas Media’s Gold Rush.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

First let me say that NBC having Brian Williams do “political color commentary” to Bob Costas’ play-by-play of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies was the worst mistake since the network gave the green light to “ALF.” If I heard Williams spouting MSM/Democrat talking points one more time when any nation walked by the cameras, I think my head would explode.

I really expected to hear….“And here comes the folks from Japan. You know, Bob, the United States turned oppressor to the poor Japanese by invading that nation following the slaughter of hundreds of thousands with the American atomic bomb.”

He did actually say: “It is interesting to note that Stephen Speilberg’s movie ‘Munich’ is playing around the world at this very moment.” Big deal. What is the relevance except to drag in the Isreali-Palestinian conflict? Munich wasn’t even a WINTER Olympics, Brian.

But here’s my real beef. Why is NBC using the Italian “Torino” instead of the English-version “Turin.” Did you all know that Torino is the city where the Shroud of Turin is housed in a Catholic cathedral? I had no idea with the Olympics being held in this city of “Torino” I had never heard of before. Is it possible that NBC doesn’t want you to know it is Turin either? Even other networks are befuddled. (h/t: Mediabistro)

‘Turin is the city’s English name,’ anchor Elizabeth Vargas told viewers Friday on ABC’s ‘World News Tonight. ‘Just as we would say ‘Rome,’ not ‘Roma,’ ‘Florence,’ not ‘Firenze.’ ‘” So ABC is sticking with Turin.

With Muslims outraged over a cartoon burning flags of Denmark all over the globe, God help NBC if they even hint to remind people of the Christian faith during the Olympic coverage. After all, they are also complicit in removing more and more references to “Christmas” each year as well.

GO TEAM USA, nonetheless!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Chad Hedrick — Olympic Gold Winner in 5000m Speed Skating

Check out Pajamas Media Olympic coverage at Gold Rush…. our PJ Network Olympic blog!

Chad should get a few more medals before his cute self leaves Torino. Hopefully I’ll be home so I can watch his next race in HDTV!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)