Spokane bids farewell to the Nationals crowd with a pretty snowfall this morning: it’s been mostly dry, even up to 50 this week; and the day they leave, a dusting of snow. I think it will warm up to a drizzle, but it was slickerly out there on the road curve this morning, and the morning traffic was slowing down.

Saw the coverage of the exhibition, and I’m glad they showed the deduction on Nagasu’s skate. As Jane points out, under the old system, she probably would have won gold, BUT that wouldn’t have pointed up that serious, and even dangerous, error and given her several weeks to get her head together about it, because the Olympic judges will not be kind on it. What she did, besides shorting the rotation on a spin, which I did see, was at the other end of the rink, where she landed a jump still rotating, and completed her rotation as her blade hit the ice. She knew it: that’s a lot of rotational strain on the ankle and knee as the blade engages the ice, when it should be a smooth contact running straight backward. I appreciate her attitude: she didn’t feel she was going to the Olympics this year, was hoping for the next, and now she really really needs to fix that problem, which she has started to do: she was clean on her short program. Nerves. Haste. Youth. She was a baby skater confused and frightened by skating in a spotlight at exhibition the last time she was here. Now she’s Olympic material.  The worst thing the system could do is let her get away with that mistake, because bad landings will tear up your joints and end your career. So yes, after the NY Times runs stupid articles critical of the results, claiming it’s the judging system at fault, the skating audience needs to know there’s substance and reason for the results.

So—for us, back to work. We need to clean up the house, and get back to our manuscripts, and I need to get the car seen to.