Russia, Russia, Russia

So maybe letting Russian athletes with no previous (previous - note word!) doping history compete in the Winter Olympics on the condition that they compete for themselves and not for their country has had an effect on the Russian psyche, and not been an issue in the competition after all.  The rump Russian team at PyeongChang, as of this writing, was sixth overall in the medal count and won its first gold medal only this past Thursday - in the women's individual figure skating competition.  Alina Zagitova took first place over her fellow Russian Evgenia Medvedeva, who won the silver. Canada's Kaetlyn Osmond won the bronze medal.

(Mirai Nagasu, the triple-axel heroine of the team competition and America's best hope for an individual women's figure-skating medal, came in tenth.)

So, despite a Russian presence, Russian prestige has never been lower than at these Winter Games.  I suppose the Olympic Athletes from Russia's male hockey squad could still win a gold medal, but it won't mean as much if they have to hear the Olympic, not the Russian, anthem played in their honor.  Unlike the old Unified Team of 1992, the team comprised of athletes from Russia and eleven of the other former republics of the Soviet Union in the wake of the U.S.S.R.'s dissolution in December 1991 (the Baltic States, having seceded from the Soviet Union in September 1991, were able to put their own teams together in time for the 1992 Winter and Summer Olympics), these Olympic athletes from Russia aren't really unified . . . or a team.  

Let The Games Continue

And so it went. The medal podium for the women's figure skating event at the Winter Olympics was without an American last night for the first time since 1964. To give you some perspective, my parents were still dating, the first Beatles album on Capitol had just been released in the U.S., and Lyndon Johnson ("Let us continya") was beginning his third month as President during those Winter Olympics.

Already some people are asking if maybe the Americans are slipping in women's figure skating. Considering that the United States has been shut out of the medal podium in this sport for only the second time since 1960 (when American Carol Heiss won the gold), I don't think it's a crisis just yet. Indeed, Marai Nagasu finished in fourth place with a personal best score and might have won a medal (not "medaled;" "medal" is not a verb!) if the judges had been more generous. She's already being talked about as a potential medalist - maybe even a gold medalist, which would place her in America's most exclusive women's club. One caveat: Yes, she's the future of American figure skating, but it's possible that she always will be. I remember when Katarina Witt won the gold medal in women's figure skating in 1984 and another American fourth-place finisher, Tiffany Chin, was being talked up as a possible medalist for 1988. What actually happened was that Chin quickly entered the "Where Are They Now?" file and Witt became the 1988 Olympic champion. (Congratulations to South Korea's Kim Yu-Na for setting a record score in winning the gold at Vancouver.)

Nordic combined is another story. Let me . . . Spillane! :-D Johnny Spillane won silver medals in three Nordic combined events - the individual normal hill / 10 km race, the team large hill/4x5 km race, and the the individual large hill/10 km, finishing in the the latter race behind fellow American Bill Demong. There's been a lot of history made, as Americans had rarely been competitive in Nordic combined before; now they're winning medals in silver and gold.

Apolo Anton Ohno is already the most decorated American winter Olympian ever, with eight medals, and he could add to his total tonight with two short track skating races, including the 500-meter race. Enjoy it; these could be his last Olympic races ever.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge is making more noise about dropping women's hockey, because, as noted, it's not competitive enough (the American and Canadian teams always seem to play in the gold medal game) and has indicated getting rid of women's ski jumping for the same reason. Though these actions - along with eliminating softball from the Summer Games - are regarded as sex discrimination, let me repeat that softball's male counterpart, baseball, was eliminated for the same reasons.

Ugh, I'm done . . . for now. :-)

Miscellaneous Olympic Musings

You'll notice that very rarely in the past twelve days have I commented on political issues in America. There's an obvious reason for this; I've been so obsessed with the Winter Olympics, as I reliably am on a quadrennial basis, I've been commenting on the Games almost exclusively, so I don't have much time for much else . . . though that could change as the CEO of Toyota prepares to testify before a U.S. congressional committee today and the ballyhooed "health care summit" is held in Washington tomorrow.

It's sort of an Olympic truce I've been following, you might say.

In the meantime, the Winter Olympics. Bode Miller hoped to get another medal, this one in the men's giant slalom, but this time he didn't finish the race. It wasn't a case of being unprepared or ill-prepared; he simply missed a gate and went off course, a mistake that could have happened to any skier.

In women's figure skating . . . Canada's Joannie Rochette somehow managed to put on a flawless performance in the short program last night two days after her mother died of an apparent heart attack. She should get a medal just for competing so well under personal pressure. :-) She is currently in third place.

Meanwhile, it seems ironic that, even as Americans advance in ice dancing, they could be shut out of medals in women's figure skating for the first time since 1964. (No one in America noticed the shut-out at the time, apparently because of Beatlemania. :-D) Americans Rachael Flatt and Miari Nagasu are respectively in fifth in sixth place, and the real favorites for the gold are South Korean Kim Yu-Na and Japan's Mao Asada.

It's been said that the that the American female figure skaters who won the Olympic gold medal (roll call, please: Carol Heiss, Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski, and Sarah Hughes) are the most exclusive women's club in America. Michelle Kwan, alas, isn't on that list for reasons that boil down to nearsighted judges in Nagano, but her silver medal from those Games put her in good company with the likes of Linda Fratianne and Rosalynn Sumners. This year, an American woman might not even get as far as bronze. :-(

Even so, the United States is gaining in winter sports that it had been uncompetitive in for decades; they just won the silver medal in the men's team Nordic combined skiing event. Americans remain also-rans, though, in the biathlon, even though it involves rifles. You'd think that, with the gun culture in the American heartland and the NRA rolls overflowing in snowy states like Michigan, we'd excel in that event. There's only one thing to do to insure more competitiveness in the biathlon . . ..

Put rednecks on skis! :-D