The best and worst moments of the Olympic figure skating event – on and off the ice

There were judging controversies – legitimate and imagined. But that's par for the course in figure skating, whose history has people looking for crooked judges under every rock.

There were epic Olympian performances, and Olympian performances of the opposite kind, the kind where an athlete trains for four years and cracks under the pressure when it's all supposed to pay off.

In the end, one of the marquee Winter Olympics sports was rarely dull. And the host Russians came out of it pretty ecstatic.

Herewith, we bestow the Yahoo! Canada Sports Olympic Toe Pick Awards™.

The "Carpe Diem" Award: It goes to Russia's Adelina Sotnikova, who brushed aside

the pressure, the snubs from her own federation, and some pretty accomplished rivals to joyously nail down the gold medal in the women's event.

Not shown in the photo at right is the reaction of silver medalist Yuna Kim. She's looking resolutely away, completely deadpan, as if it weren't really happening.

Sotnikova didn't even get off the bench in the team event, as the Russians went with the new, hot kid on the block, 15-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya, to skate both the short and long programs. Sotnikova, just 17, had won the Russian national title every year since she was 12. SHE was the one everyone was talking about as the great hope for Sochi, until the last few months. In the end, as with multiple-choice exams, always go with your first answer.

The "Deer in The Headlights" Award: It goes to Canada's Patrick Chan, for whom everything in the universe unfolded as it should to break that Canadian Olympic men's "jinx" and bring home gold.

Chan was close enough after the short program. And when, when Yuzuru Hanyu stumbled in the long program, all Chan had to do was be clean. It was kind of the equivalent of shooting at an empty net from 20 feet away, with no defencemen in front of you – except, of course, that doing quadruple jumps is infinitely harder at its core than shooting a hockey puck. Chan couldn't do it.

The "Imaginary Controversy" Award, Part 5,942,843: It goes to the ice-dance event, where Canadians of all stripes cried foul over the silver medal earned by Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Forgotten in all that "We Wuz ROBBED!" talk was that Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White had won every showdown between the two top teams in the discipline for the last few years. It was no different in Sochi.

The most fascinating part of that competition was the back story, with both teams training in the same venue with the same coach, Marina Zoueva. The Americans, known for the athleticism, stepped into Virtue-Moir territory by going classical with their program. The Canadians, for their part, admitted that they constructed their program to backload the more athletic moves. Unlike in singles skating, this isn't worth extra marks; but they wanted to show that they, too, could be athletic. In the end, though, the judges simply prefer the Americans. What really happened behind the scenes with the two couples and their coach will probably have to wait for the inevitable Virtue-Moir memoirs.

Honorary mention goes to the women's event, in which many thought Korea's Kim deserved the gold over Sotnikova. That one will continue brewing for awhile, with the Koreans leading the charge, and quite frankly making stuff up on the Internet. There is a petition at Change.org that already has 1.7 million "signatures".

The worst part is that a Sotnikova Facebook page (not officially associated with her, apparently) is full of nasty invective about this. As if it were Sotnikova's fault. The page has since been removed.

The "Don't Tease Us Like That" Award: It goes to Canadian Kaetlyn Osmond, the smiling, fresh-faced teenager from Newfoundland in her first Olympics. Osmond came out and impressed everyone with her short program in the team event. Unfortunately, she had issues with all her other programs, and has some work to do. On the plus side, she has four years to do it.

The "Best Parody Twitter Account" Award: It goes to the epic that is "Kevin Reynolds Hair".

That hair deserves its own reality show.

The "Best Kiss-and-Cry Pic in History" Award: It goes to the Japanese official who sat with Hanyu in the kiss-and-cry, after he set a world record with his short program score.

An instant Internet classic.

The "Best and Most Fabulous TV Commentators" Award: In a rout, it goes to American television rookies Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski. The only unfortunate part is most Canadians didn't get to see them.

Actually, most Americans didn't, either; they got the crack-of-dawn shift on a small subsidiary channel, when the figure skating was actually going on live. By the time NBC packaged its prime-time shows, it gave the microphones to those same old embedded correspondents, such as Canadian Tracy Wilson.

Weir and Lipinski would get the occasional few minutes with nighttime host Bob Costas, who would practically pat them on the head condescendingly and thank them for "helping out." They made it fun. They deserved much better.

The "Skating Federation Takes Positive Spin a Bit Too Far" Award:

Not to be a buzzkill, but the 16-year-old Daleman was the third skater to take the ice in the free program. And there were 21 who were to go after her.

The "Figure-skating Tweeter" Award: Again, in a rout, to American Ryan Bradley. He Tweeted on all disciplines, and he was not only funny, he was often bang on (if banging the drum a little too loudly for his countrymen and women).

Some gems:

The "Best Foreshadowing Blast From the Past" Award: Goes to a pic Tweeted by the NBC Olympics account of a very young Virtue and Moir, and Davis and White.

Obviously the big kids won here. (Wonder where they are now? Probably watching at home on TV). But note that a brunette White and clearly thrilled Davis have the second place spot on the podium, while the perfectly costumed Virtue and Moir (Moir probably deeply regrets that neck scarf now) are third.

Even back then, they still finished behind the Americans.

The "Whatever, I'm disgusted with Myself" Award: To Russia's Lipnitskaya, who clearly expected to nail both her programs and walk off with a medal at age 15, preferably gold.

It actually bodes well for her future that she didn't just adopt that "I'm just happy to be here in my first Olympics" posture, smiling that phony smile figure skaters seem to perfect by age seven. She'll be back.

The "Bad-idea Suspenders Wardrobe Malfunction" Award: Also known as the "Cool under Pressure" prize, it goes to Abzal Rakimgaliev of Kazakhstan.

He wasn't the only one to wear suspenders. There was Canadian Andrew Poje, and Frenchman Florent Amodio, and American Jeremy Abbott. But he clearly was the one without a wardrobe consultant with some handy Velcro on hand, as those suspenders kept slipping off his shoulders during the short program. Extra props to him for trying to incorporate them into his program as a prop.

The "Unselfish About my Place in History" Award: It goes to skating legend Katarina Witt, who was one of only two women, and the most recent, to win back-to-back gold medals at the Olympics in 1984 and 1988.

Witt shouted out loud and clear to anyone who would listen that she thought Korea's Yuna Kim should have won - even though it would have meant sharing her place in history. She believed Kim, along with bronze medalist Carolina Kostner, was severely undermarked.

The "I Really Couldn't Give a Crap What People Think" Award: In a landslide, to Misha Ge of Uzbekhistan, who came out looking like this:

We like to call this colour "Soviet Aubergine". It's worth noting, too, that Ge's hair colour was only a figment of his imagination when he arrived in Sochi – and that it clashed horrifically with the dark orange costume he wore for the short program. They really should have an app for that.