Closing Ceremony
Given the excitement generated by the USA vs. Canada in hockey this afternoon, it’s hardly surprising that tonight’s Closing Ceremony in Vancouver, Canada, was rather anticlimactic. The Britneyesque lip-synching performance did not get things off to a good start…. And I suspect most Olympians were wondering who the hell geriatric Neil Young was as they sat on their hands just dying to party.
I know a few rockers, including Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette, picked things up later on. But by then I suspect the earlier performances had already induced slumber for most of us on the east coast….
Overall performance of marquee athletes
Maria Riesch
Maria Riesch of Germany, who won two gold medals in Alpine skiing, was easily the standout performer of the Vancouver Olympics. Yet most references to her during NBC’s American-centric coverage had to do with her being American skier Lindsey Vonn’s best friend.
In fact, NBC’s coverage was focused on four athletes: Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn, Bode Miller and Apolo Anton Ohno. Never mind that the most decorated athlete was Norwegian Marit Bjoergen – who won 3 gold, one silver and one bronze in Cross Country skiing, but got virtually no coverage at all…..
Shaun White
You don’t need to know what a double mctwist 1260 is to appreciate how well White did in actually living up to all the hype in the Snowboard Halfpipe. Never mind that watching him win the gold medal in this event was not nearly as interesting as watching the profile on his training, which featured a helicopter ride to the top of a snowcapped mountain in Colorado – where his sponsors had constructed a halfpipe for him to try out his new tricks in private.
Lindsey Vonn
After Vonn won gold in her first event, all of the hype about her performing a Phelpsian feat by winning gold in all five of her events seemed justified. Then she won silver … and proceeded to either crash or “ski out” of her next three events, and that was that.
Bode Miller
Miller did much the same; although, he secured three medals (gold, silver and bronze) before skiing out of his final two events in equally disappointing fashion. But, like Vonn, his earlier medal-winning performances (which I praised, on both accounts, in a related commentary) were probably satisfying enough….
Then there was Ohno – who didn’t even win gold, but had more air time than any other athlete at these Games. In fact, nothing demonstrated how misguided all of the attention NBC heaped on him was quite like the sour grapes that spilled out of his mouth after he failed to defend his gold medal in the Men’s 500m in Speedskating. Because instead of accepting that he was properly disqualified for trying to manhandle his way to victory, he played the nationalism card (with a smirk and a shrug – as one sports reporter observed in disgust):
You know, it is the head Canadian referee out there. And there were two Canadians in the race.
For the record, but for Ohno pushing instead of skating his way across the finish line, he would not have been in contention to win even the bronze medal in this race. He showed himself to be a classless jerk. This, notwithstanding that, with the one silver and two bronze medals he won at these Games, he became the most decorated Winter Olympian in US history with eight medals.
Pairs Ice dancing
I just don’t get it. (Maybe they should add double dutch skipping to the Summer Olympic Games.) At least with pairs figure skating there are technical requirements – with jumps, throws, and spins – that make plain the athletic skill required. Ice dancing just seems like ballroom dancing on ice: entertaining but ultimately too subjective.
Actually, I’m only commenting on it because of the controversy the pair from Russia incited with their aboriginal costume and makeup during the original (folk) dance part of the competition. To be perfectly honest, at first, I did not get what all the fuss was about. After all, their Indian costume seemed no more (culturally) offensive than the Cowboy costume a different pair wore.
Then I found out that this controversy stems from the fact that, when this Russian pair performed their routine at the European Championships just before the Olympics, they wore body paint – complete with brown face. That I get. Indeed, just imagine the international outrage if this pair had decided to pay homage to black culture by showing up in black face and dancing to I Wish I Was In Dixie.
In the end though, they should be commended for arriving in Canada with peace offerings for aboriginal Indians leaders as well as for seeking guidance on how to modify their costume to make it a little more politically correct.
That said, the only thing noteworthy about the actual competition is that the Canadian pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won; since I’m sure this provided a desperately needed shot of jingoism for their compatriots who all went into mourning after their hockey team lost to the US the night before. (By the way, how can anyone have a prayer against a competitor with the name “Tessa Virtue”?) The US pair took silver, the Russia pair bronze.
Speedskating Men’s 10,000m
This event is considered the marathon of Speedskating. Yet skaters go at it the way runners go at the 800m: effectively, in a prolonged sprint. Continuing the runners’ analogy, Sven Kramer of the Netherlands was being hailed at these Olympics for being as dominant in long-distance skating as Usain Bolt of Jamaica was in the sprint races at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. And after blowing away the field in the 5,000m last week, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Kramer would emulate Bolt by winning the 10,000m in similar fashion for two individual gold medals.
And he did, finishing 7.57 seconds ahead of a skater from South Korea. Except that he had actually beaten himself by making an illegal crossover into another lane during the latter stages of the race. He was disqualified; the South Korean was awarded his gold.
To understand what a blunder this was, just imagine if, after breezing across the finish line in world-record time in the 200m in Beijing, Bolt was disqualified for running out of his lane as he bolted around the corner. But it only compounded Kramer’s heartbreak that his coach is the one who signaled to him to make that crossover: stunning, stupid, embarrassing, and costly….
Given that Speedskating is to the Dutch what soccer is to the Brazilians, that coach might want to consider defecting to … South Korea.
Women’s Figure Skating
Figure skating is usually the signature event of the Winter Olympics. No doubt this is due, in part, to the elegance of champions like Peggy Flemming, the sex appeal of champions like Katerina Vitt, and the athleticism of champions like Tara Lipinski. It seems fitting therefore that the star of this year’s competition was a South Korean skater, Kim Yu Na, who displayed all of these qualities, and then some.
Moreover, Kim was the only athlete who lived up to the hype surrounding her – with all due respect to the few Americans dominating TV coverage, as well as to Petter Northug, the Norwegian who won the Men’s 50km Cross Country, the most grueling event of the Games, but failed to win any of the other individual golds he himself predicted he would win.
In fact, no one in recent Olympic history has inspired more national hope and engendered more national pride than she has among her compatriots. Therefore, just imagine their unbridled joy when she won. And, since the bickering that followed the men’s figure skating event utterly destroyed the myth that there’s no politics in Olympic sports, just imagine the sense of vindication the Koreans must have derived from Kim defeating her nemesis, Mao Asada of Japan, so convincingly. Mao settled for silver.
Ironically, both of them were upstaged by bronze medal winner Joannie Rochette of Canada, who performed a heartfelt routine in honor of her Mummy who died suddenly just days before she was scheduled to compete. To be honest though, after Olympic mourning for the Georgian Luger permeated so much television commentary during the first week of these Games, I found all of the contrived, if not exploitative, wallowing in this skater’s grief during the second week unseemly.
Ice Hockey
As indicated above, figure skating is usually the signature event of the Winter Olympics. Whenever the Games are held in Canada, however, hockey becomes that event. And so it was in Vancouver.
First, it should be noted that the Canadian women’s team won the gold medal in pretty impressive fashion. (Unfortunately, both IOC and Canadian officials chastised them for not only tarnishing their gold medals but also making a mockery of the Olympic spirit by swilling champagne, guzzling beers, and smoking cigars in celebration right there on the rink.)
Yet, with all due respect to the women, all of Canada’s pride was invested in the men winning gold. And every member of its national team was surely mindful that failing to win in hockey at these Olympics would bring more humiliation and shame to Canada than the USA men’s team failing to win in basketball at the Los Angeles Olympics (1984) would have brought to the US. After all, the Americans can take pride in being the best in the world in many other sports. For Canadians, beyond ice and snow, there’s nowhere else to go.
No doubt this is why the entire country fell into an acute state of depression and anomie when the USA defeated Canada in a preliminary round a week ago. Conversely, the entire US reacted as if it were the gold medal game. But here’s how I put this game into context, unwittingly expressing more confidence in team Canada than most Canadians:
This was only a preliminary-round match, which means that even though the Americans won this battle, the Canadians can still win this war. And I’m betting on it. But, “woe Canada….”
[2010 Winter Olympics Update II, TIJ, February 22, 2010]
Well, the Canadians won the war; and in dramatic fashion too by defeating team USA in overtime 3-2. Frankly, such was the significance of this game that if it had produced Canada’s only gold medal of these Olympics, most Canadians would still have been imbued with enough pride to last another generation.
After not winning a single gold in two previous stints as host country, Canada ended up winning more gold medals at these Winter Olympics than any other country: Canada 14; Germany 10; and USA (tied with Norway) 9.
I’m sure my American friends would want me point out, however, that the USA won bragging rights in the overall medal count: USA 37; Germany 30; Canada 26; Norway 23; and Austria 16.
NOTE: The mighty Russians were expecting to win 40 medals and ended up winning only 15. Therefore, the pressure is on, and from no less a person that their neo-Czarist prime minister, Vladimir Putin, for national redemption when Russian hosts the next Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
Related commentaries:
Winter Olympics update II
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.