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.    

Slipping and Sliding

More about Vancouver:

People who are talking about Jacob Ellis screwing up a bid for an Olympic snowboarding medal are obviously not paying enough attention to the Winter Games. It was Lindsey Jacobellis who, vying for a gold medal in the women's snowboard cross competition, hoped to overcome the humiliation she experienced when she showed off on the way to the finish line at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino and tripped, letting someone else beat her and settling for silver. This year, she didn't even get that far, going off course, missing a gate, and getting disqualified. Unless she pulls a comeback at Sochi in 2014, she's destined to be a trivia question.

And when is she going to do something about that hair?

Meanwhile, if you think football has too much scoring, then by all means, don't watch women's ice hockey. China lost its first game to the United States, 12 to 1, and they lost to Finland 43 to 5. The Americans beat the Russians 13 to 0, and Canada won 18 to 0 against Slovakia, a team that defeated Bulgaria in non-Olympic competition in 2008 - 82 to 0. The Bulgarian women's hockey team sustained the kind of loss normally associated with Charlie Brown's baseball team.

The incessant scoring by mostly the same teams - the Americans, the Canadians, and whoever happens to be playing China or Bulgaria - has led many to declare that women's hockey favors the same few countries too often and therefore should be eliminated as summer Olympic events like baseball and softball were. The event's defenders noted that ice hockey - unlike softball, apparently - is slowly gaining among women in parts of the world other than North America, and that players in other countries should soon be up to speed.

Meanwhile, in men's hockey, the U.S. beat Switzerland, 3 to 1.

In men's figure skating, American Evan Lysacek is well on his way to medal contention and possibly the the gold medal. Not so for American Jeremy Abbott, who stumbled last night while skating to an instrumental version of the Beatles's "A Day In the Life." Jeremy proved to be . . . a real boob.

(You have to be a fan of a certain animated Beatles movie to get that joke.)

Ah, satire. :-D