Other Olympic Notes
Catriona LeMay Doan won the gold medal for Canada in the women’s 500 meters. She discussed her faith with a CBC interviewer, with slight defensiveness. She obviously didn’t want to be confused with other Christian athletes who believe that God awards the gold medals. Sports Illustrated picked her to win the 500 and to place 3rd in the 1000.
The Canadian Women’s Hockey team is very poorly coached. On February 14, they were leading the U.S. 4-1. The U.S. team scored a goal, which rattled the Canadians, who responded with a foolish penalty. Another quick goal, and the Canadians were really rattled, disorganized, and confused. Coach Shannon Miller merely kept pacing behind the bench, while the Americans kept scoring. They lost the lead. She didn’t call a time out, she didn’t speak to her players, she didn’t change goalies… nothing. This was a golden opportunity for the Canadians to take the high road, play clean, determined, defense, and show the U.S. how unflappable they were. Instead, they fell apart. With more than a minute left in the game, Miller pulled the goalie without securing possession of the puck or a face-off in the U.S. zone. The Canadians lost 7-4. This is merely the most recent in a long series of negative indicators– Miller cancelled the team Christmas party after a poor game against the U.S., and imposed a gag order on star player Haley Wickenheiser. There was also some controversy about the selection process for the team.
Brian Stemmle has CLASS. His terrific run at the downhill, in which he was leading 3/4 of the way through the race before hitting a fluke rut, was electrifying. In an interview afterwards, he blamed no one but himself, even though a lot of us were tempted to think the hill should have been better maintained.
At the 1994 Olympics in Spain, the U.S. basketball team stayed in private villas and hotels and refused to mix with the mortal athletes in the Olympic Village. The NHL players deserve high praise for choosing to live in the Olympic village with the rest of the athletes. Class again.
CBC coverage is the worst I have ever seen. Brian Williams is boring. Most of the “features” are poorly conceived and weakly presented (read “cheap”). There is very little insight into either the competition or the character of the athletes.
There was a time when the viewers were informed when what they were watching had been taped earlier. It is a kind of fraud to present 12 hour old events as if they were just happening. And when it really is happening, you don’t know.
Please please please get rid of those drab middle-aged men who present the medals. Who are they? What are they doing there? How did they get those jobs?!. They are the self-serving crony-apparatchiks of the IOC. Wouldn’t it have been great to have Eric Heiden, for instance, present the gold medal for speed skating, or Peggy Fleming present the medal for figure skating, or Nancy Greene for skiing? Come on, wouldn’t it? The Olympics remind me of war when I see those men: wasted, hollow old functionaries without courage, grace, or skill, controlling the destinies of the young and innocent.
Let’s see… Elvis Stojko skates a 3 1/2 minute routine including several triple-triple and triple-double jumps, makes all of them perfectly… but he can’t skate from the centre of the ice to the boards without practically collapsing in pain? Why did this remind me so much of the Keri Strug farce at the summer Olympics? My guess is that Elvis was really in some pain– every athlete at this level of competition always is–and probably had a bit of the flu. My guess is also that, knowing he couldn’t win on merit alone because he didn’t include a quad in his program, he made a play for audience sympathy. Stojko’s not stupid: he knows when the camera is on close-up. He wanted us to be impressed with his courage and determination. He wanted the judges to know that he could have done better if he hadn’t been injured. Maybe he really hoped it might win him a mark or two. Whatever the reason, I thought it was coy, and I wished he’d shown a little more class. And I’ll bet you most of his competitors think so too.
I hope the people who arrange housing in the Olympic village had the genius to put the curling teams into the same dorms as the snowboarders. But then, marijuana probably is a performance enhancing drug for curlers….
This is about the fifth Olympics in a row for which it was predicted that Canada would take a “record haul” of medals. Who is responsible for these predictions? Whoever it is should be sacked.