NEW PICTURES!! Finally, the Victor Awards...

[Ruffian of Old]

Yeah! He's so awesome! Forget those bickering little school girls, it's all about the Cheek.







I'd hit it.

[peggy]

Hey girlie, you still here??? Something you said earlier about studying???
Nice pictures.

[Ruffian]

I know, I know! I swear, I'm really going this time. No more oogling hot guys in spandex until I'm done reading, scout's honor.

[peggy]

Good girl. I came back here because I didn't want you to think that I was being "short" with you. My hubby is disabled and I had to get the wheelchair ASAP. He is usually settled before I log on. I miscalculated his needs this time.
Anyway, good reading!!

[guest]

fuglyeunuch said:

majestic said:

In regards to the car accident, I had remembered reading about it in his autobiograpahy...so, I pulled out the book and typed out the paragraph in which he discussed it. For anyone who has the book, it's the last paragraph of the chapter entitled "Climbing the Mountain" (pages 100-101.) I assume, by reading this passage, that Apolo was the one driving.

Here is what was written...

"Two and half weeks before the Olympic trials, Shani and I were driving home from practice and the roads were slushy, but not too bad. We were in the outside lane on a divided six lane road going 10 miles under the speed limit, which was 45mph. All of a sudden, my SUV started to veer to the left. 'What the hell is going on' I wondered. 'I'm not trying to turn.' I looked in my rear view mirror, thinking that someone had bumped the car and I just hadn't felt it. No one was there. We kept veering, sliding across three lanes on what we later discovered was a patch of black ice. Seconds later we hit the median. I looked over at Shani. 'You okay?' BOOM - we flipped over the median and rolled twice into oncoming traffic. The SUV crumpled like tin foil (total devastation), but there were no oncoming cars and we escaped to safety. It was the scariest moment of my life. I thought I was going to die, and I thought my best friend, Shani, was going to go too."

I gotta know what kind of SUV crumples like tin foil in a single car, less than 35mph accident. I sure don't want to buy it.

It was a black Toyota 4 - Runner. That was the SUV that had the big speakers in the back end. I'm sue they were ruined in the rollover.

[laura6]

where you been at guest?/

[fuglyeunuch]

guest said:

fuglyeunuch said:

I gotta know what kind of SUV crumples like tin foil in a single car, less than 35mph accident. I sure don't want to buy it.

It was a black Toyota 4 - Runner. That was the SUV that had the big speakers in the back end. I'm sue they were ruined in the rollover.

So, what you're saying is there is plenty of room in the back of the Lexus? There really is a bright side to everything.

[fuglyeunuch]

ruffian86 said:

Yeah! He's so awesome! Forget those bickering little school girls, it's all about the Cheek.







I'd hit it.

Hit it, spank it and kiss it better.

No, seriously. Joey Cheek may not have Apolo's charismatic good looks but he is an amazing man who makes me very proud to share a flag with. I want more.

(He also doesn't look too bad in stretchy fabric. How cute is that second picture, anyway? Look mom, I can tie my shoe!")

[guest]

laura6 said:

where you been at guest?/

Busy Laura. It's been like a three ring circus.

How have you been?

[laura6]

guest said:

laura6 said:

where you been at guest?/

Busy Laura. It's been like a three ring circus.

How have you been?

pretty good.....are you enjoying this??? LOL
just when it gets to dull for words......
i was looking for you b4..i had questions for u.....

[billiey36 guest]

"As for the USOC arbitrater finding "no evidence" it would have been a nightmare for him to find it - the two best guys on the team would have been banned from competing in the Olympics. Apolo was predicted to possibly sweep the medals. Both Apolo and Rusty did medal and Apolo put ST on the map. Realistically how hard was the poor guy looking for evidence??? When all he found and all he could have found was hearsay and mighty suspicious, but not impossible, results of a race of course he let it slide. What else could he do? "

The arbitrator was an outsider who knew nothing about short track--that's why he was used, so no one could make the kind of accusations you're making in that statement. No one questioned his decision.

If you talk to three different people about what they saw and/or heard and they all know the same details, that's pretty strong evidence.

If you come out of that interrogation and say there's no evidence, then their answers didn't match up.

That only pertains to whether O'Hare actually had witnesses or not, and he apparently didn't have credible ones.

Apolo is the only one who knows why he skated that race the way he did. Of course it's possible that he was looking out for Shani.

Some people want to believe he would do something like that. Others want to believe he's not that type. And some just prefer to wait for evidence before making a judgment.

[MT]

Good god, if the arbitrator knew nothing about short-track, how the hell was he supposed to judge an accusation of race fixing and team skating?!?!? It is almost impossible to prove when you DO know something about ST! Are you saying they intentionally brought in an incompetent?

BTW, I'm not making any accusations that the arbitrater necessarily covered up a provable infraction. I don't think it was possible to prove anything. Someguys overhear someother guys studying the points and realizing/mentioning "hey, if I come in first, so and so comes in second, what's his name doesn't place, and Apolo, (yeah right) doesn't take the race, then this is what the Olympic team will be. That'd be cool." Next thing ya know, it actually happens that way, unlikely as it is. Then, barring one of them coming forward and confessing he wanted to see if he could make the race come out like that, ("Gee, what a new and exciting challenge and we're only talking about the last position on the team who almost certainly won't be skating in any Olympic event anyway.") there IS no evidence that would hold up for a minute under any defense what so ever.

To have pursued the unprovable allegations would have torn up the Olympic team just weeks before the Olympics for no good reason, tons of bad press and a probably massive round of lawsuits from athletes who had had their careers destroyed with no provable wrong doing.

Rusty and Shani, and maybe Apolo too may have never done anything wrong at all and just got caught up in an unbellievably unlikely situation that looked really bad. I certainly hope so. But, I'm not a blind worshipper of any man refusing to admit they could ever be human enough to have made a judgement error just so that I can keep my fantasies going and keep them up on an entirely unfair and unsustainable pedestal.

MY Apolo has three dimensions, a dark side, which he struggles with and triumphs over, and yes, he likes rutabagas best. He told me so.

[MT]

BTW, O'Hare did have credible witnesses one of which was on the Olympic team no matter how the results of the investigaion came out. He withdrew and dropped it when it became apparent there was no hope to prove anything, the team was under terrible strain from the allegations and the Olympics were just around the corner.

The entire team worked hard to pull together and soon, the fiasco was eclipsed by additional Apolo controversy at SL anyway. O'Hare may have gotten screwed (whatever), but, ironically, Shani ended up feeling like he hadn't been done any favors at all by being let on the team and then never even getting to race in one of the relays. In fact, he used his bitterness over that as part of his reasoning for never even considering the Team Pursuit event in Torino. He had plenty of his own races to fill his plate and wouldn't selfishly take the place of another LT-er who might then have to sit out the entire Torino games on the bench.

I liked that. Shani is no glory hound unlike his "teammate," Chad.

[peggy]

I don't know. I've had my downfalls too. I haven't been straight as an arrow that's for sure but this has shaped me as a person and built my character. I wouldn't change anything in the past because its made me what I am today. I'm so grateful for alot of things that happened to me to make me as strong as I am.

I pulled this quote from the OZ. The date September 2002.
I obviously don't know what he is referring to, could be almost
anything but at least he admits to not always being perfect
and that is the part that I like.

I can't even imagine what it must be like to have to present yourself, day in, day out as the perfect package.
(no pun intended )

[sara]

mt said:

Good god, if the arbitrator knew nothing about short-track, how the hell was he supposed to judge an accusation of race fixing and team skating?!?!? It is almost impossible to prove when you DO know something about ST! Are you saying they intentionally brought in an incompetent?

BTW, I'm not making any accusations that the arbitrater necessarily covered up a provable infraction. I don't think it was possible to prove anything. Someguys overhear someother guys studying the points and realizing/mentioning "hey, if I come in first, so and so comes in second, what's his name doesn't place, and Apolo, (yeah right) doesn't take the race, then this is what the Olympic team will be. That'd be cool." Next thing ya know, it actually happens that way, unlikely as it is. Then, barring one of them coming forward and confessing he wanted to see if he could make the race come out like that, ("Gee, what a new and exciting challenge and we're only talking about the last position on the team who almost certainly won't be skating in any Olympic event anyway.") there IS no evidence that would hold up for a minute under any defense what so ever.

My best friend is an arbitrator. To arbitrate this case in particular, it wasn't necessary to know anything about ST. It was only necessary to be impartial and to have the knowledge and judgment to hear the evidence and judge if it had any legal value.

Now, my own opinion. Don't sports commentators speculate all the time in the media? They say things like, if this team wins the next 3 games and that team loses at least 2 of the next 3 games, then it is statistically possible for this team to be the wild card for thus and such division. How is a couple of guys speculating in the locker room as to what could statistically happen different from that. It might have been different and there might have been intentions involved, but from what was presented, how is anyone, including an arbiter, to know. It had no legal substance just because that is what actually happened. Sometimes a lousy football team actually does get the wild card position because what the sportscasters speculated about actually does happen.

So can we drop this. It is old news. (old news...now isn't that a real oxymoron)