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Todd had one practice session today, at 3:45 pm at the Steiner rink, and there's not a whole lot to say other than that it was pretty terrible. On the other hand, the practice session he had at Steiner on the morning of the short program competition was equally terrible, so I daresay there's no need to panic here. Actually, I didn't think any of the top guys looked especially spectacular today.

On a brighter and lighter note, Todd participated in the Olympic Torch relay ceremony this evening at around 6:15 pm. A hearty band of valiant Todd fans gathered for the occasion (namely, Fran, Mary, Kellie, Leanne, Autumn, Carol and Maia) and came perilously close to freezing to death waiting for the festivities to begin. Finally, Todd came out accompanied by several members of the SLC Olympic organizing committee and a couple of sponsor representatives (from Coca Cola and Chevrolet) and he was wearing a SLC Olympic jacket given him by the OC. Everyone gave a short speech and Todd was last up. He had a written speech, but wearing neither hat nor gloves and visibly freezing to death himself (it was COLD out there, folks!), he managed to get through the short speech with the help of a few pauses to refer to his notes. All in all, a very credible job. After the speeches we were all treated to a display of fireworks that both illuminated and illustrated the route of the Olympic torch (this was on the small ice rink at the Plaza and is somewhat hard to describe) followed by full-fledged fireworks overhead. Very, very impressive and conducive to generating a bit of excitement over the upcoming Olympics.

Todd has a practice session Friday afternoon at the Delta Center beginning at 12:30 pm (SLC time). For those of you who like to keep track of these things, he is scheduled to take the ice for his free skate Friday evening at exactly 9:51 pm (11:51 pm EST). The men's competition is scheduled to end at approximately 10:35 pm (12:35 EST) so it may be a rather long night for some of you on the East Coast <g>.