ARCHIVED ARTICLE

February 25 , 2002 - DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE



Odd state, Utah. Polygamy is illegal, yet rampant. College students are deemed scandalous for making out. Some of them get expelled for appearing on MTV. They have the weirdest freaking alcohol consumption laws this side of dry counties in the South. As if a 3 year-old IOC scandal and post-9/11 security woes weren't enough to make people wonder how miserably the 19th Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City would fail, the quirkiness of the host state was sure to be the factor to do the whole event in.

But somehow, in a case of divine intervention bigger than Team USA's 1980 "Miracle on Ice," our generation witnessed what were the most electrifying - and at times most confusing - Winter Olympics ever held. Sure, there was a judging issue here, a beer riot there, and I'm sure everyone is still wondering why the hell Mary Carillo is a commentator for NBC (she must've roughed somebody up) - but for once, all the good things outweighed the bad, and the glory of the Games was back, and on our own home turf. Not bad for a recently-devastated nation, huh? Since everyone else will be doing it, I want to be among the first. I hereby present my Winter Olympics recap, being written just moments after the Closing Ceremony.

But first, some crow
As an online pontificator, I take a calculated risk in spewing out my opinions - and disguising them as fact. While I don't have millions of readers (I'm often lucky to get my friends to even read my stuff), I'm still putting my thoughts out there on the permanent record. In my sports-related spewage from barely two weeks ago, I marveled at the greatness of the Olympic games and how all the rest of the sports world could take a lesson from it.

By the time I had published that piece (ok, uploaded it to the server if you want to pick nits), scandal reared its ugly head in the ice rink. The ultra-cute Canadian pairs couple got into a big snit with the ultra-cute Russian couple and all the international sports world looked like it was going to come to an end. Figuratively, of course. With a little intervention - and some bitching and moaning - they were awarded a (well-deserved) duplicate gold, as well as heaps of fame. All is well, right?

Wrong. The Russians (the bureaucrat types, not the athletes) started their own bitching. After losing a hockey game, the complaints intensified. After losing a cross-country skier to allegations of doping, it became an all-out threat to pull out of the games. Not to be outdone, the South Korean delegation also threatened to pull out because they didn't like the interpretation of short-track speed skating rules.

Luckily, IOC chairman Dr. Rogge suffers no politics. He held his line, and the whiners eventually shut up and stopped embarassing their athletes.

Still 5 zeroes for NBC
If the squawkers in the Russian and Korean delegations weren't doing enough to embarass their athletes, NBC certainly was. For the first half of the games, it seems, the coverage didn't seem all too homespun, and in fact, it was bit more balanced and less USA! USA! than anyone expected - in fact, that was a stated goal of the network: to balance patriotism with a need to be more internationally united in these troubling of times.

So after a week, people like myself (and much more prominent figures in the world of media - like those who get paid and actually published) were heaping praise on NBC. Sure, the tape delay issue was still bullshit, and Bob Costas and numerous others were still as annoying as ever. I suppose the praise went to their heads. After apparently fulfilling their small obligation of providing balanced coverage, the homespin kicked into high gear.

Mind you, while I have my criticisms of jingoism and blind rallying around any flag, I think it's totally and completely appropriate in sports. Whether it be the Olympics or the World Cup, there is no better time to hoist the flag of your nation and proudly chant its name. It's a time when such division is actually a form of unity in a much bigger picture - where despite the donning of different colors, everybody's spirit is the same. It's not about domination or nationalistic superiority, but pride and determination on the world stage in a time made for competition.

Then why the bone to pick with NBC? It's not about fairness in media. You and I both know that will never exist, anyway, and I'm quite sure that if you're watching the Olympics in Japan, you'll see more coverage of Japanese athletes, and in the Netherlands, more coverage of the Dutch. That's totally normal, and I wouldn't expect any network to abandon its solid coverage of the home team. No, it's about raising expectations, often to ridiculous heights.

The mind-bogglingly homespun media puts unnecessary stress and pressure on the athletes. Sure, it makes the tragic backstories that much more rewarding when a featured competitor wins it all - but if they don't, it makes everything seem that much more tragic. Expectations were off the charts for Nagano moguls champ Johnny Mosely. National coverage. Commercials. Local media crawling up his ass. With a collective sigh from the crowd in Utah and the hometown audience in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mosely performed his killer "dinner roll" move and failed to impress the judges. All that build-up, if only for a big letdown. Luckily, Mosely is a laid-back kind of guy and took it in stride. He knows the nature of the game and didn't let the hype get to him.

The same goes for Seattle's short-track ass-kicker, Apolo Ohno. A Sports Illustrated cover story. A Nike endorsement deal. Continuous mention that "he's here to get four gold medals." Countdown clocks on the bottom right corner of the NBC screen saying "4 minutes to Apolo Anton Ohno." And in the home-stretch of a race, he goes down - through no fault of his own, mind you, but it cost him the gold medal. His response? "Hey, that's the sport I'm in and that's how it goes." What a level-headed guy. The audience wasn't as forgiving. They booed the eventual gold medalist from Australia as he took his victory lap. People around the country made fun of him. For what? Winning fairly over the favorite.

But if Mosely and Ohno had the fortitude to survive the high expectations of the hype machine, Michelle Kwan, in all her grace, did not. Yes, she certainly is one of the greatest figure skaters of her generation, but the media practically guaranteed her the gold, in the figure skating equivalent of pointing out an upper deck home run. After all, she was the veteran; she'd come so close before; she deserved it. She was there to be the champion. (If I remember correctly, the same was being said of these Ram guys from St. Louis nearly a month ago...) She ended up with the bronze medal - which truly is nothing to sneeze at - and ended up weeping through her performance to Sting's "Fields of Gold" the next night during the exhibition skate.

What the rampant act of overhyping athletes does is set us up for disappointment. What it doesn't do is to remember that in the world of athletic competition, anything can happen.

Anything happened
Enough bitching and moaning. The Russians and Koreans did enough of that to last us until everyone reconvenes in Torino in 2006. (Or Athens in 2004 if you swing that way.) Let's look at the amazing side of all this, the things that truly made these games some of the best ever.

First, in the gentile world of figure skating... Let's forget about the über-cute Canadians (we'll see enough of them in the coming months until they fade into the ether of Olympic glory past). Let's skip past whether ice dancing is a sport. (It's not, no matter how hot the women are.) Through all the overhyping of US skaters Michelle "has to get the gold" Kwan and Sasha "talk to my mom, Mr. President" Cohen, the unassuming, relatively unheralded Sarah Hughes emerged as the big winner. And I love it. Sure, she had a Time magazine cover, but everyone questioned why. Other than that, she was skating around in the shadows of Kwan and Cohen. Despite the stories they could have used, they only made a couple of mentions on her big night. (She's from New York - instant story there; she has a 3-hour roundtrip to practice every day; her dad was an Olympic hockey player.) Instead, she went out and "had fun" as she put it, and dazzled the crowd. All those flowers that were meant for Sasha and Michelle rained on her instead, and she seemed generally enthused just to be skating there. I really hope she gets that 1600 she wants on the SATs. She's a good kid.

Apolo Ohno's another good kid. Okay, he was a bad kid for a while, but apparently his hairdresser dad set him straight. (Insert rimshot here.) What can you say? The guy was genuinely likeable, shrugged off the ridiculous expectations, and won the crowd. He's one of the few individual athletes whom I sat and rooted for from the start, if only because he participates in the coolest damn event in the winter games.

How about the recovery stories? Just look at the snowboarder dude (Klug) who came back to win the gold after a liver transplant. A freaking liver transplant! Or how about that Chris Witty? She's the one who somehow came and won a gold in speed skating after just getting over mononucleosis. If you've ever had mono, you know what an amazing accomplishment that is. And Bradbury, the Australian short-tracker who was booed after his win - did you know that only a year ago, he broke his neck in competition? At the same time, his skate impaled his leg and he lost 2/3 of his blood. There were so many good storylines at these Winter Olympics that the media didn't have to hype them - they were naturally there.

There were some unprecedented moments in these games, as well. Bradbury was the first Aussie to win winter gold. (He was followed shortly by a sheila in freestyle aerials.) Vonetta Flowers (women's bobsledding) was the first black winter gold medalist. "Miami Ice" Sanchez was the first Cuban-American. Tiny little Derek Parra not only broke a world record in speed skating, but he was also the first Chicano winter champ.

The US racked up more winter medals than ever before. Due to a home-field advantage, this was expected, but no one expected us to top twenty medals.. let alone thirty! With the games being held in Salt Lake City, the US earned an unprecedented number of medals...

America, eh?
But these games really belonged to those wiley Canucks. Sure, the Olympiad may have been on our turf, and we may have won more medals overall, but for once, the Canadians broke out of playing second fiddle to the U.S. of A.

The first coup - Team USA marched out in the opening ceremonies in their highly coveted berets and team jackets, which were made by Roots... a Canadian apparel company. (You would think that our team would wear an American brand, eh?)

Coup number two: Not only did Sale and Pelletier get their duplicate gold for their pairs figure skating performance, but this pair of Canucks became a household name around the States. Between Pelletier's quick wit and Jean-Claude VanDamme accent and Sale's big brown (crossed) eyes and quirky Fargo-esque accent, they quickly rocketed into "America's Sweethearts" status. (Until Sarah Hughes came along.)

Number three: Curling. Canadians love their 42-pound slab of granite, and... oh, what do I care about curling? They really went nuts over it up north, ok?

Number four: Yeah, that Wotherspoon guy took a spill in the long track, but bleach-blond short-tracker Gagnon edged out Ohno for the gold medal in one of the events.

Number five: We can make all the noise we want about Cammy Granato and Team USA's dominance of women's hockey, but you have to admit - as much as our ladies cried and cried over the loss, it was refreshing to see Canada finally win one. After years of being shut out, it was a pleasant surprise.

Number six: The men took their turn at surprising our boys as well. In the most exciting hockey game I've ever watched (ok, so I can count on my hands how many I've watched in my life), the US and Canada duked it out, with Canada taking the gold with a 5-2 victory. The game was much closer than the score would make it seem, but the Crazy Canadiens got the last laugh by winning the final gold medal of the games. And ending a half-century drought.

So, Canadians, enjoy it while you can. You Molsonites came out on top this time, so live it up. Hang out in the States for a while, make the rounds of the talk shows, do the guest appearances, and bathe in the glory of success. Because when you go home, you'll be subjected to that ridiculous Canadian content law and be forced to listen to Celine Dion and Barenaked Ladies for the rest of your lives. (See, you should emigrate and play for us... like Peter Jennings.)

Closing thoughts
This is getting entirely too long, so I'll finish up now with some commentary on the closing ceremony. Like the opening ceremony, this stuff is usually tripe. A big old gala that makes for a good time in person, a mediocre time on TV, and not much for memories. This time it was different.

Perhaps it's because I got so into the games. Perhaps it's the star quality of the athletes. I'm not sure, but like the crowd of thousands that expressed its disappointment when the IOC chairman officially closed the games, I was bummed that the 17-day roller coaster had come to an end. Through the controversies, through the spectacular victories, and through the annoyance of tape-delayed coverage, I was glued to the TV set. I've largely weaned myself from television, but you couldn't tear me away from the tube if the games were on this time around. And now I find myself actually sad that it's over. I think I last felt this way after the Lillehammer games and being charmed by CBS' coverage of Scandinavian quirks.

So it was with great sadness that I watched as the Cauldron was extinguished, but I have to say, I enjoyed watching the closing ceremony as much as I enjoyed watching all the events. I dreaded it not only because it marked the end of a great time (thanks, Utah, thanks world!) but also because NBC was promoting it as an event headlined by N'Sync, Bon Jovi, and Christina Aguilera. I wanted to skip it, but being the junkie that I had become, I couldn't; I braced myself for the jolt.

Somehow, it was good. Even N'Sync was really good - their a capella rendition of the national anthem was actually nice and didn't offend me. Hell, I think they should do away with the boy band thing and become a doo-wop outfit. Then I'd listen to them. The "American Musical" shebang was entertaining as well - who would have ever imagined Kiss appearing at an Olympic closing ceremony... with Kristi Yamaguchi and Katerina Witt skating to their music!?!?? It was great to see Moby toward the end of the show... with Bon Jovi following. I was a bit suspicious of JBJ (even though I was a fan in my youth and still enjoy listening to Slippery When Wet) - but after seeing the crowd rock out to them, how could I not have enjoyed it? In fact, the only performance that was completely irrelevant and utterly stupid was Christina Aguilera's. Her song ("Infatuation") had nothing to do with the occasion. The set wasn't thematically tied into the evening. She looked like a complete whore. I could go on about how worthless her appearance at Rice-Eccles Olympic Stadium was, but I've wasted enough words on her sorry ass already. And I'm not about to let that forgettable experience ruin a completely unforgettable Winter Olympics.

The 19th Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City truly rocked. I'm not sure if this one will ever be topped, but I'm seriously considering booking a flight for the next one in Italy. Ciao!

Had enough sports? Tough! Selection Sunday is just days away, meaning that March Madness is around the corner. Faithful readers, I'm afraid you'll be suffering from more of my sports spewage in the near future. MUAHAHAHA