Beijing Blech

This Winter Olympiad sucks.

I've had the TV tuned to the Winter Olympics while involving myself in online activities.   My mother has never been able to comprehend how I can possibly go online and watch television at the same time and give both my full attention.  Well, maybe I can't, but it's still a good way to economize my time.  Anyway, I was watching the Olympics while working on my laptop a couple of nights ago, but when it became apparent that the opposite was true, I turned off the TV.  And for good reason.  The competition is dull, the most interesting events don't get decent coverage - would you believe that I've only seen one long-track speed skating race, and it wasn't the one Erin Jackson won? - and there always seems to be one of the following events on when I do tune in . . .  figure skating, freestyle skiing, and curling.

Definitely lots of curling. 

And I don't think I want to see another curling match unless one of those stones blows up.

Another reason not to tune in is because, thanks to the thirteen-hour time difference between New York and Beijing (or the sixteen-hour time difference between Los Angeles, where Mike Tirico is hosting the Winter Games from thanks to COVID, and Beijing),  you know the results of the competition before you see in on TV no matter how hard you may try to avoid hearing what happened.  Oh, sure, I was glad to hear that Kamila Valieva ended up out of medal contention before I saw any figure skating Thursday night, but I also heard who won and, as I expected, there were no Americans who won medals.  By the time the gold-medal game in women's hockey was broadcast late at night, and I lost complete interest in men's hockey once I saw online - again, before seeing it for myself - that Americans were out of medal contention. (Oh great, now Christine Brennan is going to talk again about how well the women have done at the Winter Games and made no attempt to hide her smugness - you can almost hear her thinking, "The women keep winning all of the events the men lose.  Nyahh!")  

And I completely lost interest in skiing - both sexes - when Mikaela Shiffrin got disqualified in a third race. 😢

Do I miss the travelogue features that NBC obviously couldn't do this time due to the COVID outbreak?  No.  I see stories about Chinese culture on the evening news!  And unlike NBC's puff pieces, these stories tell the truth!

Would you believe that the motto of the Beijing Winter Olympics is "Together for a Shared Future?" 

Ha ha, charade you are!

I'm definitely not tuning in to watch the closing ceremony tomorrow night - there are to many other programs on TV tomorrow that I want to watch anyway.  Besides, if the Winter Olympics are so damn terrific, how come NBC, which aired the Super Bowl this past Sunday, devoted so much air time to Super Bowl coverage before the game even started?

What, they don't like curling? 😛

Russian To Judgment

My jaw dropped when I heard that Kamila Valieva - a fifteen-year-old Russian figure skater who tested positive for steroids at the Beijing Winter Olympics - is being allowed to compete in the women's figure-skating competition.

But she won't receive a medal if she places higher than fourth, so why worry about any of that?

(An investigation into the doping of Miss Valieva will start soon.  It will have an impact on the eventual results of the women's figure skating competition, but it is expected to take months.)

I have no doubt that Kamila Valieva did not intend to cheat.  After all, this is Russia - not Ireland.  ("Steve," my other self is telling me right now, "we don't talk about 1996 anymore!")  The Russian Olympic Committee - which competes for itself, not the Russian nation - probably gave her a steroid pill and told her it was a vitamin, and you have a bunch of she-male swimmers in eastern Germany who went through the same thing back in the 1970s and 1980s.  Valieva is innocent.  That does not, however, make it hunky dory for the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the International Olympic Committee to let her compete even if she takes a second drug test and tests negative.  She should not be allowed to compete because the Russians tried to cheat by giving her a steroid and, by not letting her compete, it would send a message to the Russians and to everyone else - especially the host nation, China - that doping for an edge, even if it's done without the athlete being doped unaware of it, will not be tolerated.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport and the International Olympic Committee not only tolerate it, they've just endorsed it.

The ruling to let Valieva compete stated that "irreparable harm" would be done to Valieva because she, if she were to be banned from competition, would be penalized for something that is most likely not her fault.  But it's more complicated than that.  As sportswriter Dan Wetzel noted, "Valieva isn't just some competitor. Her ability to effortlessly land quads has, in just four months on the senior international level, allowed her to set nine world records and register the three highest scores of all time." The real irreparable harm, he says, would be sending the Russians a signal that they can cheat any old way they want.

"How about the irreparable harm to the skaters who haven't tested positive for a banned substance?" Wetzel asks. "How about the irreparable harm to the Olympics itself?"

The best we can hope for is for someone other than Valieva to win and for two runners-up not named Kamila by their mothers on the podium with the winner.  Oh yeah, I can assure you that the winner will not be an American.  Nathan Chen, after all, won the men's figure skating gold medal for the U.S., and given that figure skating is a subjective sport - it's base on opinions of judges not who crosses the finish line first - the judges in the women's competition are likely to move heaven and earth to make sure an American woman does not get on the top spot of the podium.  (Don't believe me? You'd have to go back to 1960 to find a Winter Olympiad when Americans won both men's and women's single figure-skating gold medals, and they were, respectively, David Jenkins and his future sister-in-law Carol Heiss.) So, although I wish the best for Mariah Bell, Alysa Liu, and Karen Chen (no relation to Nathan), I expect none of them to join the group of American female singles-figure-skating Olympic champions (with seven members, that group may be the most exclusive women's club in America). 

And that's a shame, because I think I can safely assumeg that none of them are doping.  Which is more than I can say for anyone from Russia - who, ironically, competes for the national Olympic committee as opposed to the country because of a ban on Russia for, well, doping.

I'm confused too.

Downs and Ups

Slovenia, Slovakia . . . 

Tomato, tomahto.

Ha ha!  At the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the U.S. men's ice hockey team had a rotten tomato of a game against Slovenia, but the guys redeemed themselves in a game against another small country once part of a Communist federation, Slovakia. The U.S. beat the Slovaks 2-1, putting themselves back in the hunt for a medal.  Now they have to face the Olympic Athletes from Russia team.

This could be tough . . .

But not as tough as the break that Mikaela Shiffrin got when she skied the women's slalom, her specialty event.  Though this is the event that she is must famous and was most favored for, she finished a disappointing fourth.

Well, even Crosby, Stills and Nash sang a flat harmony every now and then.

And then there was figure skater Nathan Chen . . . 

Oh dear . . . 

At least he was able to advance.  

Mirai and Mike

Figure skater Mirai Nagasu landed a triple axel in the 2018 Winter Olympic team-mixed skating event.  She's only the third woman, appropriately enough, to do so at the Winter Games. 

Why am I making a big deal over a Japanese figure skater?

Because she's not Japanese, you stupid Trump supporters.  She's an American.  An American of Japanese descent, yes, but an American just the same - she was born and raised in California.  Her parents are from Japan - they're immigrants.  And Martin O'Malley and I will be the first Irish Catholics to point this out for you.

Here's something else we'll point out for you.  She's the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Winter Olympics.  

Now, to my complaint about NBC's coverage of the PyeongChang Winter Games.  Who's this Mike Tirico upstart? 

Dammit, where's Costas?

I mean, seriously?  Bob Costas said no to the prime-time hosting gig?  Look, I can take change.  I can accept the fact that Alberto Tomba retired from skiing.  Ditto Julia Mancuso, the woman who's come closest to being my Winter Olympics crush (I had a thing for Kristi Yamaguchi until I found out she was a Republican).  And even though it took me forever to accept that Jim McKay had to retire from covering the Olympics, I moved on.  But Costas stepping aside now?  No, it's too soon.  I mean, come on - nobody does it like Costas! 

No wonder NBC's Olympic ratings are off.

Meanwhile, British sportscaster Rebecca Lowe is handling the daytime coverage for NBC.  That's going to offend the Trump voters.

Skiing just started after weather delays.  Expect at least one crash that will be played over and over and over for several days after.