On February 22, 2006, that epic moron and boldfaced liar Yuri Mamchur over at Russia Blog bragged about Russia's victory over Canada at the Olympics, noting that Russia would next play Finland. He taunted the United States, saying: "The Cold War is dead, and so is the athletic rivalry between the US and Russia. It almost seems like the Cold War was beneficial for the conditioning of the Olympic players of our countries...Americans today only seem to take the gold in individual winter sports."

What happened then? Russia Blog didn't say. La Russophobe will tell you, though: Tiny Finland crushed mighty Russia 4-0 to set up a gold-medal showdown with Sweden. Russia was relegated to the bronze-medal match. No comment from Mamchur.

So much for Mamchur's prediction of glory for Russia, based on his claim that since "the National Hockey League season was cancelled this year, and the most of the Russian Olympic hockey team resides in Florida (no state income tax), and plays for NHL teams, the Russians had more time to train together back in their motherland." Not only was it false as the basis for a prediction, but a commenter pointed out that, in fact, it was the 2004-2005 season that was cancelled, not the 2005-2006 season. So it was actually a lie. No correction from Mamchur, of course.

Oh yeah, and of course Mamchur also forgot to mention it when, three days later, Russia was shut out in the bronze medal game at the Olympics by Czech Republic. Given all those omissions, it was hardly suprising when he also ignored the fact, a few months later, that Russia had entered the World Championships in Lativa and been eliminated in the quarter finals -- again by tiny Czech Republic. Two major hockey tournaments in one year, and frozen Russia failed to take any kind of medal in either outing.

And this year at the World Championships? Russia Blog again was silent, so you know the news can't be good, and it isn't. Russia was humiliated with no medal the last time the World Hockey title was contested in Russia (St. Petersburg, 2000) and this year the forum was Moscow. Yet, Russia was ousted from gold medal contention by tiny Finland in front of the home crowd, and once again relegated to the bronze medal match (against Sweden). At least this time Russia did manage to prevail in the consolation match, pretty good progress by Russian standards.

Ummm . . . and about that slur against America: It thrashed Russia in the Torino 2006 medal count, winning 52 medals to Russia's 44 even though America isn't a frozen country like Russia and most Americans couldn't care less about winter sports. But this was actually an improvement for Russia, which had been obliterated 34-67 in the medal count to America when the prior games were held in Salt Lake City. What's more, there is only one genuine "team" sport in the Winter Olympics, and that is ice hockey, so implying that America is somehow doing badly in "other" team sports is a bizarre hallucination. What's more, America holds six medals in women's ice hockey while Russia holds none, and stands only three medals behind the Soviet Union in men's ice hockey (21-24) despite the fact that until recently it sent amateur players from American universities to contest the Olympics. In other words, as usual, Mamchur didn't have the slightest freaking clue what he was talking about. He was simply lying to push forward his crazed, pathological agenda of propaganda -- either that, or he is just a garden variety moron. Or both.

Russia Blog: a disgrace to our blogosphere, plain and simple.

Russian Sports Under Putin: Once again, humiliating failure. It has been almost 15 years since Russia won a gold medal in the ice hockey world championships, despite two tries on home ice.