Women’s Figure Skating
As consolation prizes go, this is one for the history books.
Recall that Russians were in mourning yesterday after Finland eliminated their celebrated Men’s Hockey team from medal contention. In fact, watching Russians burst into tears gave credence to journalist Vladimir Posner’s prediction that, if Russia fails to win gold in Men’s Hockey, nothing else matters.
Perhaps. But watching Russians beam with pride after Adelina Sotnikova won gold in Women’s Figure Skating today suggests otherwise. You’d never know that this is just their consolation prize – not only because Russia failed to win gold in Men’s Hockey, but also because Julia Lipnitskaya, the one it seemed all Russians hoped would win gold in Figure Skating, wilted under pressure.
So here’s to Sotnikova for doing for Russians what neither the nation’s favorite team nor its favorite daughter could do: make them feel proud again….
I gloated in my Day 12 commentary below that I wanted Yuna Kim of South Korea to win. She certainly skated her heart out and gave the very best she could. It’s just that it was only good enough for silver.
And, as she bowed to polite applause at the end of her performance, I got the palpable sense that she was bowing to what she knew was a better performance. Sotnikova, Russia’s first-ever queen of the ice, was that good, which even the American commentators begrudgingly conceded.
Apropos of which, the American princess, Gracie Gold, was neither graceful nor golden. She fell on her butt, and finished off the podium in fourth. This result is especially noteworthy because it’s the first time since the 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Olympics that no American made the coveted podium in men’s or women’s competition in this feature event.
Carolina Kostner of Italy won bronze.
Incidentally, commentators continually speculated on how results at these Games would affect competition in this event at the next Winter Olympics in South Korea. But as I listened I couldn’t help thinking that, given all of the scaremongering about security in Sochi, holding them in Pyeongchang seems a case of going from the frying pan into the fire.
After all, instead of a few insurgents in one region of Russia threatening to dispatch female suicide bombers to terrorize Sochi, foreign athletes and spectators attending the Pyeongchang Games will have to worry about a notorious North Korean regime across the boarder threatening to launch nuclear missiles to obliterate all of South Korea.
And the United Nations indicting that regime this week on crimes against humanity, which harken back to Nazi Germany, is hardly reassuring. After all, if North Korea’s preternaturally paranoid and genocidal leaders fear Western powers are laying the legal framework for military action against them, they might just begin laying the ground work for preemptive strikes against Westerners when so many of them would be assembled like sitting ducks in Pyeongchang.
Women’s Hockey
Canadians often betray the inferiority complex that seems a natural condition of living in the attic of their putative American betters. Not so, though, when it comes to Olympic competition in Hockey, where Canada is like David and the United Sates like Goliath. Well, at least when it comes to their women players.
For the fourth Olympics in a row, the Canadian Women’s Hockey team slew all opponents to win gold. They wrapped up this quadruple-quadrennial feat today in thrilling fashion against their American nemesis.
But this loss must have been particularly devastating for the Americans. Not least because they so dominated the entire game that they were leading 2-0 with just three minutes to go. That’s when the Canadians took out their proverbial slings and struck with two quick pucks, forcing sudden-death overtime. At that point, I suspect the Americans could see the proverbial writing on the wall: overtime was just prolonging their anxieties and intensifying the agony of their fated defeat.
Frankly, after getting their butts kicked four consecutive times in this fashion, even the Americans must now see the folly in casting the Canadians as the underdog in Women’s Hockey at the Olympics.
It’s too bad that, like Russia, Canada seems interested only in how its Men’s Hockey team fares against the Americans. Which is why national celebration of the women’s triumph today will get short shrift as all Canadians focus their attention on the men’s semifinal game against the Americans tomorrow. Never mind that winning will only provide premature vindication – assuming that winning gold, not just beating each other, is their respective goal.
For now, though, here’s to these Canadian hockey players – who might end up giving their nation in mourning something to cheer about tomorrow, just as Russian figure skater Sotnikova is giving hers something to cheer about today.
MEDAL COUNT
United States: 25; Russia: 23; Canada: 22