Just a shout out to my bestest friend ever, Rusty, who’s skating in the short track men’s relay tomorrow. Ok, he’s not my bestest friend ever, but I like to lie to him and tell him that.

I’m so proud of him, making his third Olympics when most people would have a hard time even going there once. (Although watch out for me in 2010 - curling is my way in, baby!!!) He’s had a tougher journey this time around, being an old fossil on the short track team (26 is an old fossil on that team, to me, anyway) as well as suffering an injury a couple years ago. In a race Rusty got hit in the face by another skater’s blade, which sliced his nose and could have done some major damage to his eye if he wasn’t wearing protective lenses. He had to have some reconstructive surgery done on his nose to put it back together. Some skaters would have been hesitant to get back on the ice after an injury like that, and to tell the truth, right after the accident he wasn’t the same. I was afraid he wouldn’t have the competitive fire that he had before.

But time heals, and although he didn’t qualify for all the distances this year, he still made the team. He did AWESOME in the 1000m race, making the finals after some pretty close races. He was skating like the Rusty I remember watching. It was great to see him skating the final, and in a sport where the spotlight is pretty much on Apolo, for a moment the light shined on Rusty, too. We were all cheering for him that night, and although he finished fourth, we know he tried his best…

Tomorrow he’s skating the men’s relay. It’s gonna be a crazy race and I hope he stays out of traffic and stays safe. We’ll be watching, once again, and cheering him on - hopefully they’ll show him on TV this time! Nothing would be better than for Rusty and the rest of the guys, Apolo, Izy and JP (and Anthony, too) to get a medal on the last day of the Olympics, and maybe for Rusty’s last race ( I dunno if he’s retiring this year or not)

So if you’re reading this, I know you would have given me a hard time for making a post about Shani and not one about you. Of course, if you created a lot of drama at the Olympics, maybe you’d get some press time, too. But at least you had Katie Couric touch you a lot during your Today show segment!

Go Rusty!

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