The Olympic Lists (5 of 10): Athletes from the European Union Nations

Yes, we are buried in snow here in Virginia as our folks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, West Virginia, Washington DC, New York City..............in fact, we may get at least 24 inches........maybe even up to 32 inches by day's end! The Weather Channel is reporting 14 inches in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., at this hour.

But, for those of you not watching the live figure skating from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics with commentators Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski, we have a list of Olympic athletes from 10 of the 28 European Union countries:

1) Tina Maze (pictured) 30. Women's Slovenia. Women's Alpine Skiing. Has won gold and bronze.

2) Viktor Roanenkov. 20. Estonia. Men's Figure Skating.

3) Lelde Priedulena. 20. Latvia. Women's Skeleton.

4) Matthias Mayer. 23. Austria. Men's Alpine Skiing. Won gold.

5) Coline Mattel. 18. France. Women's Ski-jumping. Won bronze.

6) Zoltan Kelemen. 27. Romania. Men's Figure Skating.

7) Ireen Wust. 27. Netherlands. Women's Speed-skating. Won gold and silver. (She is the lesbian athlete who got a surprising hug from Russian premiere Vladamir Putin).

8) Felix Loch. 24. Germany. Men's Luge. Won gold.

9) Andrea Kesler. 24. Hungary. Women's Short-track Speed-skating.

10) Marcus Kruger. 23. Sweden. Men's Hockey. Plays for Chicago Blackhawks. His team bat the Czech Republic 

http://www.weather.com/

http://www.nbcolympics.com/

http://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-olympics/2014

http://www.rnw.nl/english (Radio Netherlands)

Olympic Athlete Profile (7 of 25)- Daisuke Takahashi/Men's Figure Skating/Japan

I was initially going to post an entry on American men's figure skater Johnny Weir, who has his own show on The Sundance Channel, but we decided to go with one of his rivals Daisuke Takahashi of Japan since he is more likely than Weir to medal tonight based on the short program which was performed on Tuesday.

Along with current leader Evgeni Plushenko of Russia and Evan Lysacek of the United States who is in a VERY close second, Takahashi, who is in a VERY close third, gave an amazing performance which included a triple-axel and a triple lutz-triple toe-loop.

Takahashi, 23, told various media outlets that it was his best performance of the season. He added that he was pleased to see many fans supporting him:

"The audience was really good, there were lots of Japanese fans and Japanese flags and that really helped," Takahashi said. "I am glad because I haven't scored so high in a long while."

Takahashi, a four-time Japanese national champion who also competed during the 2006 Turin Olympics, began skating when he was eight years old. Initially, he was going to try ice hockey but he didn't like the sport's protective gear.

As for Weir, his Sundance Channel show airs at 10:30 on Mondays. He is assuredly not the only Olympic athlete we will have to snub due to time and space constraints, and we apologize for that!