christine brennan, thanks for joining us from sochi. >> howie, my pleasure. you. >>> we appreciate christine standing out there in the dark. >>> al roker doesn't mind mixing it up with politicians. did it go too far when the "today" show star off with the relatively balmy olympics in sochi delivered icy twitter blasts when mayor bill deblasio decided against closing the city's schools. now my daughter's city school is being let out early. is it worth putting kids' safety at risk and this one? talk about a bad prediction. long-range deblasio forecast, one term. writing off the mayor just a month into his term. now, deblasio could have ignored the nbc weatherman. but instead, he stirred up a tabloid storm. >> i respect al roker a lot. watched him on tv for many, many years. it's a different thing to run a city than to give the weather on tv. >> by friday, roker realized he had stepped over the line. >> i'm very passionate about the weather. i made a prediction that there would be one term of his administration. i apologize for that. >> glad he apologized. roker

christine brennan, it's great to have you join us again. once again a spoiler alert for our viewers. we're going to talk about some results. chris teen, here we are at the end of the first weeks, the americans have had a tough day on the ski slopes. >> that's right, judy. the u.s. ski team, the alpine ski team, is one of the highest profile events at the games, bodie miller, ted ligety, and julia maciewso. miller and ligety did not have a good day. miller has not had awe good olympics, coming up with the term "to bodie" meaning being shut out. he's 35, 36 years old. you know, it's-- at this point in his life, this is towards the end. but i think the disappointment is that there were no med althoughs. julia mancuso now is the only one who has won a medal for the u.s. >> woodruff: we watched figure skating yesterday where the big news last night were some big falls. and the surprising exit of a russian favorite. >> reporter: judy, it was 30 minutes that seemed like it was the bermuda triangle had entered the figure skating arena. first off, y

. >> brown: and for that, we're joined from russia again by christine brennan, who's covering the olympics for usa today and abc news. i spoke with her earlier this afternoon. christine, welcome. i know the most exciting thing on your mind because the ice dancing victory last night by americans mayoral davis and charlie white. tell us why was that such a big deal. >> it's the first time it's ever happened so that alone i think jeff makes it headline news, the sense that for as long has there has been ice dancing the united states has not won a gold medal until last night. this has been a long time for the united states. the team is always 11th or 15th at the olympics. it was basically block judging by the european countries. otherwise the russians would win. the americans were innovative and interesting and the russians never had a chance. the judging came in 2004 and the americans went to second in the olympics and there was much more of an opportunity for the united states and canada to get into the medals. and then of course the magic of last evening with davis and white together for 17

i caught up earlier today with sportswriter christine brennan, who's covering the olympics for usa today and abc news. >> chris brennan from sochi, thank you for joining us. first, a warning for our audience. we have spoilers coming up. put i can't help by starting by talking about the great competition in women's hockey between the u.s. and canada. >> that's right. it was a great game. canada won this round. canada won 3-2 over the it's. they're bitter rivals and know each other, the two best teams in the world and it is, to me, the best rivalry and the best competition going for the u.s. anyway. it's a great rivalry and battle between the two countries and the reality is, the two best teams have won all of the gold medals in the olympic competition start get in 1998 in nagano and my guess is they will be seeing each other again for the gold medal in about a week. terrific and a great step forward for women's sports. this is not the way it looked in '98 or moving on to 2002. this is a quick, fast, crisp game and take look terrific out there and i think women's sports took a big step for

christine brennan from the usa today will report on the opening ceremonies from the sochi olympics. >>> big news out of major league baseball, alex rod dropping his lawsuit against the league. they success -- alex rodriguez dropping his lawsuit against the league. she suspended him for 160 -- they suspended him for 162 games saying this is in the best interest of everybody, alex. just walk away. >>> maryland and georgetown running out of time, the two heavy hitter programs in the area lacked a little punch when it comes to college basketball. combined 19 losses already in the first week of february. maryland is hosting maryland state and georgetown in a must win game. butler pays a visit to the verizon center tomorrow and if you don't know by now, butler shticks, but at 13-9 -- stinks, but at 13-9 georgetown has not played very well either with a five-game losing streak which coach thompson described as? >> we learned that losing stinks and it hurts and, you know, we're in a hole and we still are climbing out of that hole. we're not out of that hole yet. we just realized we have to do

for more on today's action we turn to usa today's own christine brennan at the scene in sochi. >> reportery has been talking about the fact is the u.s. not doing so well? the reality is the u.s. is tied for the lead in medals with norway at the halfway point, but there is that sense because of skiing where the u.s. only won one medal in al pipe skiing or figure skating -- alpine skiing or figure skating one medal, that maybe these athletes weren't doing what they should have been doing, shani davis an example, but i think you look at individual things like aaron hamlin winning the first luge and other events where you pick up a bronze or silver the u.s. is doing okay, but they do need some of their bigger names to come through in the next few days, the ice dancers and a few others. in the meantime it's great fun here in sochi. >> reporter: finally we turn to basketball where the maryland terrapins continue their acc swan song tomorrow for the 177th time duke versus maryland at crazy cameron, final time in the regular season as acc foes. maryland needs this one bad. they don't like duke. wo

today columnist and frequent game on contributor christine brennan is in sochi filing this report about the controversy surrounding sochi. >> hey guys i'm here in sochi and i thought we'd be talking about putin's anti-gay law and this $50 billion budget, but we came here talking about wastebaskets, toilet papers, lightbulbs, it's been a very strange first week here. the games start and then we'll start focusing on the athletes. but i'm surprised and frankly i don't think it's good for putin and the russian organizers. already this will be a footnote to their games no matter what happens. the lack of organization, the russians, they seem almost overwhelmed by this task and that is kind of sad. so in my 16 olympics, i've never seen a run up in the games like this. but we'll get it going and then focus back on to the athletes, thank you so much. >> thank you. she said that her accommodations are fine as it appears most are, but there's just several unlucky few journalist who is have created this fire storm, which is sad because it is overshadowing the fact the olympics started today. >> ye

. >>> let's bring in usa today's christine brennan, also an abc news contributor who's covered 16 olympics. joining us live from sochi this morning. good morning, christine. i want to start with the fabulous opening ceremonies. it looked fantastic. and just give us a sense of the mood. how the athletes are feeling, how it's going over there, how the crowds are. >> reporter: you know, martha, i'm an american, like so many of us, as we thought about this, family and friends, asking, should you go? the concerns, obviously, as a journalist, of course i was going. i'm here now. i have been here almost a week. and i have to tell you that security concerns are not front and center in my mind and have not been since i landed. that might sound surprising to people. but, for example, the opening ceremonies. that certainly was the three-hour time period where we were concerned and thought if there's something that could happen, it could happen here. to talk about a snowflake malfunction being the big glitch, the only thing, the only news that happened from the opening ceremonies, that would have been