Sunday morning began foggy, but by mid morning had cleared enough for a nice walk along the lakeshores near our hotel in Lake Placid. The larger lake for which the town is named is on the west side of town, with the smaller Mirror Lake, seen above behind Ellen, on the north side of town, right opposite downtown Main Street.

Later the sun came out, and I finally was able to get outside pictures of the Olympic Center. Above is the skating arena from the 1932 Olympics.

Around the corner and connected, is the 1980 Olympics skating arena, where Skate America was held. Looks big from the outside, but seemed small from the inside compared to other arenas we’ve seen, though the rink itself is, of course, olympic-size.

NBC Broadcast commentators Tom Hammond, Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton get ready for their live broadcast of the afternoon’s program. From what we could see, they covered the first two ladies, then were off for a while, probably running their recorded coveraged of the men’s free skate from Staturday, then they were back on for the final group of women.

Sarah Hecken of Germany began her free skate in last place, but did well, and was quite happy about it. We liked her dress, too.

Fumie Siguri of Japan always seems to skate well, and with lots of speed, but often gets marked down for poor jumping technique. She didn’t finish in the top three. Emily Hughes did better today, and moved up, but also did not make the top three. American Rachel Flatt had an excellent skate with no mistakes we could see that was good enough to win her the silver medal, and was quite delighted about it.

Yu-na Kim of South Korea, though, was in a class of her own. She had a fall and a few other small mistakes, but despite that was way ahead of the rest in style, grace, skills, and presence. She won the gold easily.

Ladies medalists: Rachel Flatt of the US, Yu-na Kim of South Korea, and Julia Sebestyen of Hungary, who won the bronze.

Champion Yu-na Kim. If she can avoid injury and keep the pressure of expectations from getting to her, I see no reason why she wouldn’t take the gold at the coming Olympics, too.

Belbin and Agosto of the US once again led the field in the Ice Dance final, though the other medalists put in fine performances as well. Cappellini and Lanotte of Italy did a routine based on the “Twilight” movie and novel that was very effective.

Ice Dance medalists: Cappellini and Lanotte of Italy took silver, Belbin and Agosto of the US gold and the Zaretskis of Israel bronze.

Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, champions. We have high hopes for them at the Olympics, too.