Tuesday in Vancouver

FIGURE SKATING
The men's short program lived up to the hype, some skaters bombed out (Brian Joubert & Jeremy Abbott) while Plushenko, Lysacek & Takahashi were marvelous. Anyone of the three could win the gold. Should one or more of the top three falter at all then Stephan Lambiel, Nobunori Oda, Johnny Weir or Patrick Chan could grab a spot on the podium.

SNOWBOARD
Lyndsey Jacobellis was the sentimental favorite, falling to silver in Torino, but hometown girl Maelle Ricker also fell in Torino, finished fourthand had to be hospitalized with a concussion. When Jacobellis fell out in the semifinals, Ricker had a clear path to Canadian gold.

BIATHLON
Ok, here's my deal. Why in the world does Sunday's biathlon event basically count twice? In the women's event, two athletes had a huge advantage going into the pursuit event Tuesday. Magdalena Neuner and Anastasia Kuzmina each earned one gold and one silver over the two days. Two medals from a combined event. Plus, the biathletes have two more individual events and the relay. The figure skaters have just one chance to win a medal. if they gave medals for the short program, Michelle Kwan would have two golds in her career.
In the men's pursuit, Bjorn Ferry became the first Swedish man to earn biathlon gold in 50 years, since Kles Lestander won the inaugural event in Squaw Valley.

LUGE
Starting from the junior start, Tatjana Hufner continued German dominance, while Austria's Nina Reithmayer broke up the German party with a silver medal, the first for a non-German since Nagano. American Erin Hamlin didn't do any better on Wednesday, finishing 16th overall.

SPEED SKATING
The Koreans continued to dominate at Richmond, with Lee Sang-Haw surprising Jenny Wolf for the gold medal. Lee had defeated Wolf in one of the 500 meter races last month at the World Sprint Championships, but everyone expected Wolf to claim gold at age 31. Besting Wolf by 0.06 in the first race, the two skated head-to-head again in the second 500, with Wolf winning by just 0.02, not enough to overcome Lee for the gold. Just like in the men's event, NBC had a great deal of difficulty using graphics to show where the athletes were in the combination of the two 500 meters.

MEDAL PREDICTION UPDATE:
21 events,
8 gold (38%)
29 medals (46%)