Beijing Blahs

I was happy to see American Nathan Chen (below) win the gold medal in men's figure skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics.  I think the Elton John medley he skated to helped him with the judges. 😃 Ditto for Chloe Kim in women's halfpipe snowboarding.  And I just have to give a shout-out to Lindsey Jacobellis, the Dan Jansen of snowboarding, who finally won a gold medal in the women's snowboard cross and followed it up in the mixed-team snowboard event with another gold medal.

But these Winter Games have mostly been a bummer.  Shaun White finished his Olympic career with a disappointing fourth-place showing in the men's halfpipe snowboarding competition. (Even Jackie Joyner-Kersee managed to finish her Olympic career with  a bronze medal.)  Mikaela Shiffrin could do no better than place ninth in the women's Super G ski race.  And reminders of China's repression and zero-COVID policy are everywhere - not just with the absence of fans in the stands but also with a face-covering mandate so strict that people have to mask up outside - and so we get pictures like this! 

That's Mikaela Shiffrin - you only know that because I just told you - checking her Apple tablet while looking like she's about to fly a jet fighter or audition for a role in a Star Wars movie.

Well, maybe she can still win a medal in the downhill. 

Even without COVID, these Winter Games don't feel right.  You sense that even by watching them on TV, the way NBC covers it.  Everything is rigidly controlled by the Chinese, and the vibe among the competitors mostly reflects that.  The good cheer is more fake than the the snow.  And the commentary is more pat than usual.  What would you rather do - listen to Dan Hicks or pull your own teeth? Me, I'd rather pull Dan Hicks' teeth.

The coverage got so pat that, on Friday night, I was watching the mixed-team snowboard cross race . . . and I actually fell asleep. 😮

Enough.  I want my classic Winter Olympics back.  I want the Winter Games held in a small ski town up in the mountains in a remote area.  Preferably in a country whose government doesn't monitor its citizens with their own smartphones. I want the atmosphere to be so cozy that you can imagine the athletes and the fans hanging out together and having cocoa in a homey ski lodge - and you feel like you're there with them.  I want a twelve-day Winter Olympiad, not a sixteen-day one - sixteen-day Winter Olympiads are just an excuse to make more money.  I want fewer athletes - except for the Jamaican bobsled team, no more athletes from tropical climates! I want Mike Tirico to host the Winter Games from a studio with a fireplace - a real fireplace, not a fake one like the one Stephen Colbert sat in while a "fire" was going!  And unless climate change is really bad, I want . . . real snow!

In 2026, when the pandemic should be over, the Winter Olympics will be held in Italy - the outdoor events in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the indoor skating events in  Milan.   There won't be any restrictions, but the grandiosity of holding the Winter Games in two separate places a hundred miles apart doesn't give me much hope.  It may be too late for 2026 to have a classic Winter Olympiad.  But then, there's always 2030 . . .

Medal Drought

If not for the real problems affecting our country (relax, I'll get to the Mueller indictments later), overpaid television commentators would be talking about the United States' current fifth-place showing in the Winter Olympics medal count as a national crisis comparable to expensive gasoline.  The athletes from Nordic and Slavic countries keep winning all of the skiing medals - wow, big surprise! 

Actually, there was a big surprise - Ester Ledecká of the Czech Republic won the women's Super G slalom, dethroning leader Anna Vieth of Austria and preventing a sweep of the Teutonic Alpine countries (Tina Weirather of Lichtenstein, once a favorite in this race, had to settle for bronze, and Switzerland's Lara Gut had to settle for fourth place.  Ledecká shocked everyone, including herself, by taking the gold by one one-hundredth of a second . . . on skis borrowed from Mikeala Shiffrin.  It was a "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment for NBC, which had already declared Vieth the winner and had to break into coverage of another event to report that Ledecká had won.

Lindsey Vonn, another favorite in the women's Super G, came in sixth after a solid run that was compromised by a mistake toward the finish line.  Meanwhile, Nathan Chen, despite a strong comeback in his second performance in men's figure skating, didn't come close to a medal of any color.  (The winner?  Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan.)   All disappointing, yes.  But a national tragedy?  No.  So, if you're taking these losses in skiing, including the women's cross-country, as seriously as our withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, lighten up.  Especially if you're part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who only pay attention to skiing when the Winter Olympics are on - or dismiss men's figure skating as to effeminate.  

Maybe this medal drought is Trump Karma.

Want to make America great again in the Winter Olympics?  Encourage your kids to take part in winter sports.    

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.