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  Annie Barrett is a writer living in New York City. Annie Barrett. Annie Barrett is probably insane. Annie Barrett doesn't care. TH

This is commentary blog on the ladies figure skating long program during the Torino 2006 winter olympics

Toepick!

Last night's figure skating long program competition in Torino was the biggest night of the Olympics, even though Survivor and Dancing With the Stars were also on. What was a girl to do? Watch the Olympics from 2-5 a.m. when NBC helpfully replays each night's primetime events.

Here's the short version: Everyone except this one girl fell. Then that one girl won the gold medal.

Here's the long version:

2:05 a.m. Wow, Silvia Fontana is gorgeous. And from Italy! The commentators can't get enough of this. Seriously. They're obsessed.

2:06 Um, did they just make a joke about someone named Maria Zamboni singing the part of the "slave girl" in the Puccini song Silvia Fontana is skating to, and then follow it up with "We're all connected"? Jesus…. Aww, she's done. I am crying because she is crying! "It's more than a skate!" It sure was, Silvia! I love her sparkly hair clip that's not even holding any hair (I used to pull that trick when I was younger. You see, there's a rubber band holding the hair back, but the band's the same color as the hair so no one is the wiser!)

2:09 a.m. Silvia's waiting for her scores now. It was a little insensitive for someone to say "The scores really don't matter, but here they are." I'm not sure who that commentator was, but it was probably the one named Dick.

2:12 a.m. Ooh, it's time for the Chevrolet Olympic Moment! Thanks for telling me that via a commercial, an announcer billboard, and finally with your huge logo visible on a big screen next to the commentator on my big screen. Excuse me while I go buy a Chevy. Okay I'm back. This COM is about Tugba Karademir. Duh. Her. She's from Turkey and there's always been one important thing she's able to count on. Shit, what is it?!

2:13 Uhhh. I have no idea. We're a minute into this Chevrolet Olympic Moment and I'm so confused. Can she not wear the skating outfits because she's from Turkey? Did someone just burn a flag? And where the fuck is Sasha Cohen? I didn't sign up for this. "Potential turned into talent. And talent turned into a nightmare." That's your paraphrasing of the story of this girl's life? That's way harsh!

2:14 Do you ever have favorite Olympians in random sports that are so blatantly foreign that part of their appeal is the super-foreign accent they're going to bring out when they finally get interviewed? These people are usually Russian gymnasts or figure skaters that you can barely understand. You have to rewind to try to read their lips. But you really want to rewind, because even though they're saying "I'm happy. I'm excited," it sounds so much more amazing with the inflection of a killer accent! (Killer like in the murderer sense. Not the "way cool" sense. Just so we're clear.) Yeah. I thought you did. Well, guess what. Tugba Karademir is NOT GOING TO IMPRESS YOU one bit. Turns out this girl is from Canada! She moved there when she was little so she could train somewhere that wasn't Turkey. That's her big political nightmarish story. She moved to freaking Canada. Are you serious? WEAK MONTAGE, and I'm really disappointed because I love me some sob-story montages (SSM).

Confession: I used to want to produce SSMs as a child because the subject material was so tender and bleak. Watching entire minutes full of thick accents and devastating poverty from the sanctuary of my own comfy American home -- it couldn't get any better for me at age 7. At the time, I assumed wanting to create SSMs was a high aspiration. Now I watch these things and end up laughing.

2:18 Thanks for showing the commentator from Turkey in the press box.

2:21 Maybe I'm stoned or something but this skater is amazing! The Turkish Canadian. Still her. And for the record, skaters in general are killer impressive athletes. (There's your second usage.)

2:25 She just spoke Turkish into the cameras! I love her now! Yes!

2:28 You expect me to believe 246 Olympic hopefuls work at Home Depot? Nice try.

2:30 What? Snowboarding. Ugh. Major sob-story montage for Alaska's Rosey Fletcher, who is currently making hand gestures to the camera. Yes! Hang loose dude! I love how they said "Alaska's Rosey Fletcher." Not the U.S.A.'s, but Alaska's. It's like its own country. You need to make the distinction. Aw, she won bronze! Back from 26th place in Salt Lake. I'm gonna cry again. No wait, I don't care about snowboarding. Bring back the foreign skaters.

2:32 I want pizza. I must have TORINO, ITALY on the mind.

2:34 More snowboarding. It is really interesting to see all these different northern European athletes, though. Austrians, Swiss, Danish, German, etc. I love it. They're all so… pretty. (Does this make me a blonde-favoring racist? Is that even worse than just being a white-favoring racist? Somehow I think it really is, and somehow I know I've been extremely guilty of it for two weeks now. And I love how I'm acting like it's going to stop when the Olympics stop. It likely won't.)

2:35 Wow, Rosey's crying after that shoutout to her late mother-in-law. I kind of am too.

2:36 Fade-out from Bob Costas in the NBC Olympodome set with all the purpley lights. Get me back to the skating! Why is U2 playing in the background? Is Torino the city where the streets have no names? Is that the metaphor something we're supposed to put together on our own? Thanks Bono.

2:54 Just fast-forwarded through some ski jump nonsense. Landed on the "Drink Coke. Live Olympic" commercial. Nice slogan, jerks. I'll bet you a million dollars no Olympian's coach would ever let her drink Coke.

2:56 Here's Miki Ando from Japan. Why is her coach American? She trains in Cleveland? How does that make her from Japan? She just attempted a quadruple jump and landed for a split second before crashing. Great attempt! For real. Good job. I'm not kidding! She's good. Stop looking at me like I'm being disingenuous.

2:58 Still Miki. Oh man, this girl is totally phoning it in. She's fallen like 17 times at this point and willingly just crashed into the wall twice as if she was saying, "Okay, I'll take the deduction. I'll take it!" A commentator just called her split jump "uninspired." I think her back crossovers are uninspired. Get this woman off my screen.

3:01 Scott Hamilton just likened Miki's attempt at the quad to "pulling a rhinoceros out of her hat." Right, Scott. That is exactly what it was like.

3:04 Hey, it's Emily Hughes. But first let's show her sister in the crowd for three minutes. Hey, Sarah. Way to go to Yale.

3:05 Hmm. Why are double axles such a big deal? Everyone acts really impressed when they land them.

3:06 E-Hughes just fell. "Aw. Unfortunate," a commentator says. That's really funny. It's like, how do they decide which of the four commentators will react to a fall? Does one point to the other and mouth "you!" and that person has to come up with something like "Aw. Unfortunate"? I'd like to watch this live.

3:06.30 Did I just begin a sentence "It's like"?

3:07 Still Emily. "Beautiful one-foot landing on the triple lutz!" Aren't they all supposed to be one-footed? Hmmm. I'm really not liking all the required elements at this Olympics, specifically the particularly grace-less move where the skaters just lean back with one leg up. I hate that one, and I also hate the added number of times they have to hold onto one skate and tug that leg until it's about to snap off. That just doesn't look comfortable and not all of them can pull making it look comfortable off. (Emily, right, is actually okay at this. So, bad graphic. But I'm tired.)

3:11 I am LOVING the footage of Sasha Cohen warming up right next to Kimmie Meissner-Gibbler. LOVING it. She's so focused. Kimmie's all self-conscious about the camera and Sasha, and Sasha's just like "Hey, camera, wanna watch me fling my arms out and jerk my head? There, I just did it. That one's for free."

3:14 Wearing pants, it's Sarah Meier of Switzerland.

3:15 Wow, I just finally looked at the screen and Sarah Meier is practically naked. That's practically a Dancing With the Stars-esque costume! Jesus, she looks like Lisa Rinna. She's fake nude! She's missing like half her top. And yet it's very artful, with the sparkles and the elaborate cutout designs. Nice job. "She certainly is a very attractive figure on the ice… with long and stretchy legs." Did a commentator really just say that?

3:20 Why will Kimmie Meissner-Gibbler be the next-to-last skater?!

3:25 "Joannie [Rochette] is a beautiful skater who doesn't always believe in herself." That sounds like how you'd introduce two friends who don't know each other at a party. "This is Annie. Annie is a world-class eater who doesn't always hold out for dessert."

3:30 Joannie Rochette is speaking French and pinching her ear. That must be some sort of code to a family member. I wonder if anyone just makes shit like that up on the spot to look quirky. Either way, she's cute! And speaking in her native tongue. I love her.

3:31 What the hell is Sasha Cohen eating backstage? Her coach is following behind her menacingly, like it's a secret cup of steroid pudding.

3:34 Here's 19-year-old Carolina Kostner of Italy. The young Italian skaters cheering her on are so cute! My sister is loving them right now. Aww, her skating outfits will be auctioned off to raise money for a hospital in Genoa. Meghan! Genoa!

3:35 Ooh, this girl's really long and slinky. I like the music. Except for that one she sort of wiped out on, she keeps landing so many triples. There's the ugly leg lift again. Ew.

3:37 Okay, I don't care if she fell. This girl is really good. I love her.

3:38 Except I really, really want to wipe that smudged black eye makeup off her left eye.

3:45 Yes! A lengthy sob-story montage about Russian skater Irini Slutskaya. Wow, her life sucks. Her mom is sick, and the SSM is panning through her green-tinted apartment like the girl is forced to live in an underground dungeon with her dying mother. But in general this is heartbreaking. The SSM is working! It's reeling me in!

(SSM continues) ….Eh. I don't like how that flock of birds getting scared away from the foot of a red brick wall is the most likely accompaniment to the words "so she put skating on hold." Is that supposed to symbolize putting skating on hold? Doesn't add up.… Oh, Slutskaya is sick. She has Vasculitis, which is inflammation of the blood vessels. They told her to stop skating.

3:48 SSM just ended. Right away a commentator jumps in: "Knowing all she's been through, it's difficult to root against Irina Slutskaya." It's kind of funny that everyone in America was just thinking the exact thing. But since I'm sort of an ex-pat these days, I suddenly love Slutskaya now. I hope she wins.

3:50 Sasha keeps falling during the warmup. WTF?

3:51 I'm really not liking Sasha's tan skate covers. Why do they find those attractive? And I thought I'd be more in love with her outfit after seeing the cool blue/pink one on Tuesday. But this one ain't so great. If only someone from Project Runway had designed something pretty enough to wear here. Fat chance.

3:54 The Budweiser commercials with all the crown designs are actually kind of cool until you realize they're for Budweiser.

3:57 This woman Tracy Wilson is telling us the skaters' strategy. I'm not really listening, but I did just hear the phrase "you bet your boots."

3:57 Here's Elene Gedevanishvili, the 16 year-old from Georgia (not the state). She's just landed four triples in a minute. I love her dramatic black-stockinged look. I tried to use "black-stockinged" in my DWTS story and it showed up as misspelled. No spell check on DR, though. Oh. Too bad she fell. I love her. (I love all of them. I'm sick.)

4:02 There's Sasha! She's next. I can't wait.

4:03 Ha! Elene's coach looks like Frank from Footballers Wives.

4:06 Here is an example of how sick I really am. After a commercial break, I just accidentally fast-forwarded through footage of Sasha Cohen blowing her nose at the edge of the rink and decided this was important enough to rewind and watch in real time. It was sooooo worth it.

4:07 Sasha looks freaked out!

4:08 "Those eyes are different from the eyes you saw before the short program. Eyes of doubt." How did she know?!

4:09 FUCK! She fell. This is horrible! FUCK! She did it again. I'm devastated. "This'll be a fight to be on the podium now." Ugh. So Sasha won't win the gold medal. All the more reason for her to join the cast of The O.C. next season as Seth Cohen's long-lost twin sister. They'll meet at college and kind of fall for each other but then realize the only reason they like each other is because like all people, they're secretly in love with themselves and they just happen to share a lot of the same DNA!

4:12 It really sucks that she fell so bad because she's a beautiful skater.

4:13 Give me a break! The woman commentator just said "Most people skate to Romeo and Juliet. She is Juliet." Gag me.

4:14 "I tried, I just couldn't get up on those jumps." We know sweetie. We saw it too.

4:16 Japan's Shizuka Arakawa (left) is a vision in geometric blues. I sort of wish she'd just chosen one of those shades and gone with it. Either one, really. You just want to tear one of the halves off because you think the rest of the other color is underneath. I can't stop thinking about this. It's annoying. And apparently her nickname is "Cool Beauty." Also annoying.

4:24 Fumie Suguri is "skating to Rachmaninov's Concerto #2." Oh my god, that's the composer that Mike Teevee's mom named in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Facotry. And I read on some crappy movie trivia website a few years ago that she was actually wrong, and the tune Willy played on his little pitch pipe was by some other composer. So basically DR just turned into the same type of crappy movie trivia website it just critiqued. Zang.

4:28 Jesus, I thought Fumie (Japanese for "to smoke") was just going to spin herself to death there at the end.

Commentator: "She has sort of a concerned, uncertain look on her face."
Annie, to the TV: "No, that's just her face!"

Seriously. That's just the way her facial features fall on her skull. She just always looks like that. It's disarming!

4:31 Kimmie Gibbler believes it is possible! And she has the arsenal to do it. But not if she steps out on her first jump.

4:33 Still Gibbler. Says a commentator, "She has very long arms that any ballerina would give her eye teeth for!" Why the eye teeth? I'm trying to picture a ballerina actually doing this… why would it be those particular teeth? Are they less important for ballerinas to have? They're obviously less important, advantage-wise, than having long arms.

4:36 Watching Irina Slutskaya warm up, I'm struck by how much more invested I am in this competition than the people in the stands in Torino. I'm aware that this seems absurd – the people in the crowd are physically so close and possibly related to the skaters, and I'm in my cave in New York gawking from afar – but often after a long and intense night of TV coverage including SSMs, I truly believe I'm better suited to watch the final performance from my perch right here, at my convenience and with my own snacks, than some of those random people in the stands. They didn't get commentary, extreme close ups, or SSMs. Come on! What a gyp.

4:40 I used to be annoyed by Irinia's constant nose-scrunching (because I used to do that myself. Just stop! Both of you!) but after seeing the SSM about Slutskaya's blood vessel disease, I'm not minding the nose scrunches at all. Scrunch it up for all I care, Slutskaya. Grrrr. She looks evil at the start. Please don't fall. I love you.

4:45 She fell. But I'm really digging her pseudo-electronica music right now. You go, girl. Set that orchestra to a synthesizer beat. You want to play What Would Electric Light Orchestra Do (WWELOD)? Nothing wrong with that.

4:46 Did I really never notice all week how dreadful this girl's haircut is?!

4:47 Cute closeup on the Japanese gold medalist, but can we talk about how hypocritical it is of the com to just say "She earned it!" after they were all basically begging for some other skater to beat her "beatable" performance the whole time? Sheesh.

4:48 As she only earned the bronze medal tonight, "It'll be a bittersweet reunion for Irina Slutskaya and her mom," according to a commentator. Geez! Am I just dead tired or was tonight's coverage severely harsh?

4:53 Medals ceremony. Sasha's just looking around, seemes bored, whereas I think Shizuka is afraid to have any fun up there on the top. I hope she gets to eat a big platter of sushi after this. But it's probably back to training for her tomorrow. Don't fill up!

Did anyone seriously just make it through all of that? Congratulations! You're now a member of the DR Hall of Fame. Go ahead and sign the "guestbook" below.