Thoughts on the Winter Olympics

Still trying to get caught up.

Winter Olympics: we watched a great deal of the Games here at the
homestead, though I caught most of them on the computer's PVR
recording. I was hugely disappointed in the US performance overall,
though of course there were some bright spots. The figure skating,
which my daughters loved, was, in my opinion, incredibly bad, with more
falls than I've ever seen in any Olympic competition. The US continues
to win some medals, mostly in sports we invent and get added o the
Olympic schedule so that we can...um...win some medals. We won four
golds in speed skating (about which more later), one in the men's
combined (skiing), and one in the women's giant slalom, and other than
that we won nothing at all in sports that were part of the Olympics even
ten years ago. You can make the case that Apolo Ohno's short-track gold
counts in the "invented sports" arena as well.

As for the real winter sports, like cross country skiing, biathlon,
downhill, ski jumping, luge, bobsled, etc. - except, again, for speed
skating - we won absolutely nothing except Shaunna Rohbock's impossible
silver in the 2-woman bobsled and Julia Mancuso's gold in the giant
slalom. Oh, and the women's hockey bronze, after losing for the first
time in the history of the sport to any team other than Canada. Yes, I
know about Pete Fenson's bronze in curling. We're all proud of him.

A few years back, I remember an interview with one of our cross-country
skiers, who had finished something like 43rd. The question was asked,
"what do we have to do to compete at the elite level with some of these
other countries like Austria and Norway?" and her answer was, "well, we
have to find something that works for us. We're not going to get up at
4 in the morning, eat our bowl of oatmeal, and go ski for six hours.
That's not going to work for us. So we need to find something that
does." To me, that explained a great deal.

Count the disasters: the Chad Hedrick "I'm going for 5 golds" meltdown,
his public and childish feud with Chani Davis, Davis's own "I got me
here, not any of these other guys, and I'm here to win for me" rant, the
women's hockey team flaming out, the men's hockey team winning only one
game out of six, every single one of our figure skaters kissing the ice,
Daron Rahlves failing pretty much to show up for the Games, and of
course the winner of the Icarus Award for stupidest, most collossally
embarrassing performance of the new millennium - Bode Miller, who failed
to finish two of his runs and managed just a 5th place in one event -
his best showing of the Games. Guess skiing drunk is not the best way
to win.

Bode Miller is the iconic American, unfortunately. He "does it his own
way", and when he is weighed in the balance and found wanting, he says
"hey, at least I got to party on an Olympic level". No, really, that's
what he said. Who is the most recognizable US athlete at the Games?
Miller is. This is incredibly sad. He's a hedonistic head case with
acres of talent and no desire to be anything other than a boorish jerk.
Good thing his "Are you a Bodeist?" commercials were so bad that nobody
can remember what they were advertising.

The saddest part of it is that there were actually a few Americans at
the Olympics that really should be the ones everyone remembers - Apolo
Ohno and Ted Ligety and Shauna Rohbock and Sasha Cohen and Tony Benshoof
and especially - oh, especially - Joey Cheek. All of these people
competed in real Olympic sports against very difficult odds and all of
them were successful. Cheek won a gold medal all out of the blue, was
moved to tears when he realized what he had done, then donated his
$25,000 bonus to charity. He inspired others to do the same, including
athletes that didn't GET bonuses. What an incredible man. Why is HE
not the one doing the commercials?

But the best moment of the Games, bar none, was the celebration at the
finish line of the men's combined, when from absolutely nowhere Ted
Ligety won the gold. He skied perhaps the greatest slalom ever in any
competition, making up an unholy .75 seconds on his final run. But the
real drama was in second place, where a long-time fairly middling skier
named Ivica Kostelic from Croatia won the silver medal. Some silver
medalists (Cohen comes to mind) are disappointed. Not him. He was
elated. His sister Janica has won practically everyting there is to win
in alpine skiing. Ivica has never won anything. But there was Janica
at the finish line of every race, hoping, praying that her little
brother would win something - anything at all - after all the hard work
he put in.

And then he did. He won the silver medal. Janica came flying through
the barriers and threw her arms around him and the two of them stood
there in the snow, holding each other and sobbing. It's hard for me to
see the monitor even now, typing this, because of how deeply that scene
moved me. I'll never forget it.

That is why, next time around, though I know we'll have a Tonya Harding,
or a Bode Miller out there acting like wastrels and thugs, I'll be
watching for the great moment, that one spectacular moment when all the
hard work pays off for someone deserving, and a little ray of genuine
joy peeks through the clouds.