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Feb. 15
action
 The
Bloom bursts … I'm officially
tired of hearing NBC and other outlets pump up the big
"stars" of the Olympics. The U.S. stars, except for Shaun
White, have all choked. Do you think that would deter NBC
from continuing to put the biggest names on pedestals? Nope.
This is how Bob Costas introduced the moguls.
Jeremy
Bloom, who was a star return man at the University of
Colorado and hopes to play in the NFL next season, headlines
the deep U.S. team." And that was already knowing that Bloom
choked and placed sixth in his event.
…
but still gets my vote. I've got
to hand it to Bloom, though. He had an incredible reaction
after not locking up a medal before he moves to the NFL.
"I'm so
happy for the guys who did well," Bloom said, "and Toby
getting a medal for the U.S., and, you know, I've had a
great career with a lot of wins. I didn't come here for a
medal, I came here for the experience, and I've had an
absolutely amazing time. I look forward to what's next in my
future in 11 days from today. And, you know, there's
sunshine, the sun comes up tomorrow."
That's
Jeremy Bloom – this generation's version of Annie.
It's been a
wonderful four-year affair I've had with Bloom since I first
saw him four years ago in Salt Lake City. His wide eyes and
adorable face captured my heart then, and his body has kept
my attention ever since. His willingness to honestly answer
a
few questions of mine early last year (after his King of
the Hard Wood victory) impressed me, and I hope he has all
of his dreams come true in the NFL.
And, when
he's in New York City for the draft, I just want him to know
that Dan has agreed to let Jeremy be my freebie. (Cyd
Zeigler Jr.)
It
is about winning:
I am getting sick of high-profile Olympians who flame out,
then claim winning a medal isn’t that big of a deal anyway.
We have seen it twice already with Bode Miller and we saw it
Wednesday when moguls favorite Jeremy Bloom messed up and
finished sixth.
"It
really isn't about winning the medal for me," Bloom
insisted. "I came here to accomplish my goals. I didn't come
here to win any certain color medals. I was so close, you
know."
What
utter B.S.
Miller and Bloom garnered tons of attention, which they did
nothing to stop, because they were considered solid medal
favorites. They loved and sought the attention and used it
to make themselves more marketable. Then when they failed in
their goal, they basically shrug and try and act like just
competing was important. That’s certainly not the message
one gets when going to Bloom’s website, and Nike didn’t set
up their Bode site just to have him compete.
This
is one more reason why Johnny Weir kicks both their asses. I
loved what he said when asked about competing: "I'm not
going to be the shiny, sparkly, flower-holding figure skater
that sits here and says I'm going to do my best today and if
I don't, then I'll go home and train really hard next time.
That's not me. I'm going to be really angry if I skate bad
and I'll probably say crazy things.” Weir gets it – at the
elite level, like it or not, it is about winning. (Jim
Buzinski)
Some
perspective:
Are our
superstar athletes chokers, or did the American media get it
wrong by trying to write the script of these Games ahead of
time? I think it’s been both, but the main problem is that
American spectators don’t care about Olympic sports except
for during the Games. And even then, Americans are only
interested in gold. In popular mainstream team sports --NFL,
NBA, MLB, NHL -- one team always wins and the other team
loses.
It’s a
mistake to approach the Olympics in the same way. The
Olympics consist mostly of individual sports where there
isn’t one winner and one loser. There are many of both.
Nevertheless the expectations of American fans, NBC and
American advertisers have tried to define Olympic
entertainment by the same standards that we hold for our
year-round mainstream sports. The result is Bode Miller vs.
The World; Jeremy Bloom vs. The World; Michelle Kwan vs. The
World and two lesser medals haunting her past. If
this is how you watch the Olympics and you find them
disappointing, it’s no wonder you’re not interested. You’ve
not only missed the point, you’re missing some pretty sweet
sporting events.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Moguls
 beauties.
While Jeremy is the cat's meow, I was pretty impressed with
all of the beautiful faces that took to the moguls on
Wendesday. And, it was cool to discover personal Web sites
for many of them: Russia's Ruslan Sharifullin; silver
medallist
Mikko Ronkainen from Finland;
Travis Cabral and
Travis Mayer from the U.S; Canada's
Alexandre Bilodeau
and gold medalist
Dale Begg-Smith from Australia. (Cyd
Zeigler Jr.)
Hot
Jock of the day. It would be easy to pick Jeremy Bloom
for this honor, but we have a feeling we'll be seeing more
of him returning kicks for the Indianapolis Colts next
season. Instead, we're going with the fourth-place finisher
in the men's moguls event,
Marc-Andre Moreau (right),
24, who goes 5-10 and 177 pounds. Besides his cute smile,
anyone who can twist and turn like a moguls skier gets our
full endorsement. On his website, he says he has an
"uncommon ability to absorb big
bumps." Our kind of man. (Cyd
Zeigler Jr.)
“If
I won a medal, I’d probably pee.” These words, of
course, are from Johnny Weir, speaking to commentator Mary
Carillo of Olympic Ice on the USA channel. Carillo sat down
over cappuccino and chocolates at an Italian Café with Weir
and his mother (bless her heart) for a two-day segment
called “He’s Here, He’s Weir.” Hmmm. (Later on NBC, in
describing Weir, Scott Hamilton said: "I'm here, I'm Weir.'
Here's Johnny!" Sense a trend?)
Weir has
been a revelation in a sport that until now didn’t seem to
know how to deal with the obvious: some of these guys are
gay. Because of Weir’s “eat it” attitude toward critics, he
single handedly has made progress. But don’t celebrate
prematurely. I still consider figure skating the most
homophobic sport in the Games. Granted, sexual orientation
isn’t often confronted in other sports, but that’s no
excuse. Figure skating hasn’t just ignored its
responsibility to confront homophobia, it silently
discourages openly gay athletes. It doesn’t take an insider
to know this. Just count the number of publicly out skaters,
zero, and then factor in the accounts of many skaters who
feared that judges might dock them for being or seeming gay
(see “No
one out in gayest sport”).
I was
appalled when NBC commentator Sandra Bezic made remarks
during Matt Savoie’s short program that seemed to imply that
he should be rewarded for his simple, masculine presence,
which she praised through the roof. Savoie does wear a
simple outfit and his body language on the ice is about as
masculine as it comes in this sport. But Bezic, who was in
rare bitchy form Tuesday night (she called one skater’s
footwork “trite”), came very close to saying outright that
Savoie was a nice alternative to all the other fags out
there in silly costumes. I can only assume the same
sentiment holds true for some judges.
Johnny
Weir seems to have transcended this double standard, and
good for him. But between the figure skating establishment’s
deep fear of openly gay athletes and the new, overly complex
scoring system, the men’s figure skating event occasionally
feels more like a homophobic math meet.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Johnny
Weir pop-up video: Thanks to
Towleroad.com for pointing us to
Malcontent's pop-up video version of Johnny Weir's interview
on NBC Tuesday night. (Cyd
Zeigler Jr.)
 Hot
jock II: I also liked Italian speed skater Enrico Fabris,
(right) who stands 6-2 and weighs 165. He led his team past
the U.S. in the team sprint. Off the ice, Fabris studies
science and the environment and is taking university courses
over the Internet. He is also a self-taught electrical
guitarist and plays mostly rock and metal music.
(Jim
Buzinski)
What
a dumb event:
The
singles luge competitions have concluded and in case you
thought the idiocy was over, you’re wrong. Wednesday, we
were treated to two runs of doubles luge. This event
is so strange and unnecessary that it’s not even homoerotic.
But it’s not the man-on-man action that bothers me (though
these aren’t exactly cute couples). What happens when I see
doubles luge is that I feel mocked. Here you start with a
completely ridiculous event -- luge -- and to the idiocy of
a man sliding down a twisting sheet of ice you add a second
man stacked on top of the first to create a separate event.
And then the winners are awarded an Olympic gold medal. The
same Olympic gold medal that speed skaters and cross-country
skiers receive. Since the IOC won’t remove luge from the
Olympic program, they should at least vote to make the
medals for luge a little smaller than those for some other
events. But that, I suppose, would send us down a whole new
slippery slope.
In case
you missed it, American doubles luge hopefuls Mark Grimmette
and Brian Martin crashed on their first run and did not
finish. Unbelievable. The event was won by the Linger
brothers of Austria.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Idol
crushing Torino. While NBC was celebrating some solid
numbers for its opening ceremonies broadcast, it has been
all downhill (and not just skiing) since. On Tuesday night,
Fox's American Idol crushed NBC's Olympics coverage, 27
million viewers to 16 million, according to Nielsen. I'm not
remotely surprised. The Winter Olympics highlight marginal
sport after marginal sport; and, the failures of the big
names can't be helping NBC. Meanwhile, Fox has possibly its
most talented group ever of 24 finalists for AI. Maybe it
was just all of the Olympics fans watching the Westminster
Dog Show on USA. (Cyd
Zeigler Jr.)
What's
eating Bode? Nobody can know what's going on in Bode
Miller's mind but Bode. But as a writer, I can't help
wondering what is eating at him, after he blew the men's
combined yesterday. To the TV crews, as he trudged away
from the course with his skis over his shoulder, he was
dismissive of the disqualification for straddling a gate,
shrugging, "I've done it before." But not at the Olympics.
As one commentator already remarked, Bode would be forgiven
every attitude if he was winning. He got away with the
partyboy stuff at Salt Lake, having the psych advantage
of playing on his home court. But in Europe, under the cold
stares of European and Asian skiers who keep themselves on a
tighter rein, he has gone into meltdown.
It's easy for fans and commentators to be judgmental about
a high-profile athlete in this situation. Is it the
pressure? The pressure even got to super-cool Johnny Weir,
who fessed up to it in his post-program interview. In
Bode's case, all those tons of purple velvet in the mantle
of "almost the greatest American skier" must have a crushing
weight. Is is the beer and babes thing? Is it something
else that nobody has a clue about?
Embarrassingly NBC has continued to air their little
Bodemercials, which were obviously filmed before the Games
when the U.S. media assumed that Bode was going to kick
ass. But major-media commentators have their knives out for
Bode now. There's a very pointed analysis on Bode's
"career suicide" at
MSNBC.
Of course the men's Alpine schedule still has events ahead,
with Super G next. Bode may get mad at himself yet, and
turn things around.
Amid all the soap-opera around skiing, the U.S. women's
hockey team have been quietly doing their job -- undefeated
so far. They had a close call with Finland, but pulled out
5 goals in the last period, and are now are slated to play
Sweden in the semifinals on Friday. If they whack Sweden,
they may face Canada in a final showdown hoped for by many
fans. My Toronto friend Heather and I will have an really
interesting time on the phone, watching that one.
Okay, so Canada and the U.S. have been the women's hockey
teams to beat at Torino. But so far both teams have been
careful not to get careless and take themselves for
granted.
(Patricia Nell Warren)
Woman’s
Downhill:
After
horrendous crashes marred the training runs earlier this
week, the women’s downhill event was finally contested under
flat light conditions. Michaela Dorfmeister ended Austria’s
downhill drought and claimed gold by nearly half a second.
Martina Schild of Switzerland skied to silver and Sweden’s
Anja Paerson ended the day with a bronze medal.
The top
US finish was turned in by Julia Mancuso, who was 7th.
But the big story of the day was an American who finished 8th.
Before an Olympic event some athletes might worry about
whether they’ve drank enough water, worked out the soreness
from the last race, or picked the right skis. Lindsey Kildow
had to worry about whether she’d be released from the
hospital in time to start the women’s downhill. Kildow
suffered an ugly spill on a training run Monday and was air
lifted off the mountain and to a hospital in Torino. That
she was even on the starting list is incredible. But to
attack the run with enough confidence to yield a Top 10
finish is phenomenal. Good for Kildow for climbing back on
the horse so quickly. That sort of determination will get
her a medal someday.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Short
Track:
The
American and Canadian men each won their semifinal heats in
the 5,000-metere relay (aka the one where they grab
each others’ asses) and will meet in the highly competitive
A Final along with very strong teams from Korea and China.
That final will take place on Feb. 25.
Apolo
Anton Ohno won his heat and Rusty Smith placed second in
his, which qualifies them both for the quarterfinals on
Saturday evening. Both Canadians also won their heats and
will move through to the quarterfinals. The semis and finals
will also be run Saturday night.
In the
only event awarding medals tonight, Canada’s Anouk
Leblanc-Boucher claimed a silver in the women’s 500 meters.
Meng Wang of China won the gold.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Speed
Skating – Team pursuit:
Chad
Hedrick lost his bid for 5 medals at these games, but got
his American team into the C Final, which will be held on
Thursday. They will skate against Russia. In the women’s C
Final, Jennifer Rodriguez will lead the American women
against the team from the Netherlands.
(Ryan
Quinn)
Spamalot:
Dale Begg-Smith, winner of the gold in moguls, can drive
around with his gold medal in his $300,000 Lamborghini.
The
Australian, who also lives in Vancouver, is worth $40
million from an Internet pop-up ad company he founded,
Bloomberg News reports, a figure he denies. He is called
“The Spam Man” in Australia. The official website of the
Olympics said he drives a $300,000 Lamborghini.
Begg-Smith
refused to discuss details of the company at his post-race
news conference, Bloomberg said. He said stories of his
fortune were exaggerated. “The company is nowhere near as
big as people make it out to be,” said Begg-Smith, who said
he flew economy from Australia to Italy.
“It
is complicated. It is technology for companies to monitor ad
campaigns. I don't do anything that pops up. I just make
software," he said, refusing to even give the name of his
company.
The
Age, an Australian paper,
gave more details: Two main companies called
AdsCPM and CPM Media appear to be associated with spam,
pop-up/under ads, spyware and adware. The companies make
money by skimming a small percentage off each time an ad
scores a hit or is directed to a client's site.
"I
don't know where you guys get your numbers from," he told
the Age. "I make a decent living, not millions of millions
of dollars like some people like to say." (Jim
Buzinski) |
