Olympic Roundup (Winter Games Edition)

Here are some japes and pokes at the Winter Olympics, to which I am looking forward to far more than the Super Duper Ultra Mega Hyper Toilet Bowl:

n Isn’t it funny how most of the sports on display at the Winter Olympics are barely discussed in the three years leading up to them? No one hears about speed skating, ski jumping, or even the biathlon except during those sixteen days when nobody shuts up about them. Isn’t that strange?

n One of the competitors that NBC will all but have paid to have won a gold medal is a man called Apolo Anton Ohno, who competes in something called short track speed skating. I like this guy’s last name. Ohno sounds like something I’d be screaming while hurtling into the retaining wall at forty miles an hour, hoping all the while that it’s padded,

n You know how most of the speed skaters, alpine skiers and such will wear skintight snow suits while competing? I just thought of another use for them. If the athletes keep their suits, they could take them down to the Seychelles or something in the summer and go scuba diving in them. Although I do hear they have a tendency to bunch…

n I understand Al Michaels will be anchoring much of NBC’s coverage, and so I will be more than slightly interested in how much editorial freedom he will have. I would just hate to think of Al Michaels (who, like Brian Boitano, seems like a man who doesn’t take shit from anybody—ask anybody who’s seen South Park) toeing NBC’s apparent company line of all but openly rooting for American competitors. Keep in mind, of course, that thirty years ago this month, it was Michaels at the epicenter of an outbreak of patriotism when the U.S. Hockey Team beat the Soviets at Lake Placid.

n Can you believe it’s been twenty-six years since Scott Hamilton’s backflip at the Sarajevo games? God, that was amazing. Every time Scott would execute that maneuver at exhibitions, my mother would sigh with contentment and I would invariably have flashbacks. My mother had a crush on Greg Louganis, too, but that’s another story for another, warmer day.

n Such is the transitory nature of the Olympic Games that I dare you to find me ten people who know off the top of their heads, for example, the skaters in the Ladies’ Skating Competition in Calgary in 1988. I can name three: Katarina Witt of East Germany, the gold medalist; Elizabeth Manley of Canada, the silver medalist; and Debi Thomas of the States, the bronze medalist. No fair looking at Wikipedia.

n The bad news is that it does not appear as though Jamaica is sending bobsledders. But they are sending a freestyle skier. Some you win, some you lose.

n That reminds me of an anecdote. In 1992, when CBS broadcast the Albertville Games, they sent Sean McDonough (son of the great Boston Globe columnist Will McDonough) and Lesley Visser (also a onetime Globe columnist) to cover the luge competition. Evidently, between them McDonough and Visser coined this phrase: “You snooze, you luge.” I’d sure like to see a guy luging while sleeping.

n Curling evidently is very popular in Canada. During the Torino Games in 2006, one night I found myself in a hotel bar watching women’s curling—Denmark vs. Canada. There were two women on the bar along with me watching the careworn, bespectacled faces of the Canadian curlers. One of these women at the bar said, “This is what happens when the PTO goes to the Olympics.” The other lady asked no one in particular, “Are they discussing strategy, or next year’s bus schedule?” I wanted to tell them that music was once a medal event at the Olympics. I wanted to, anyway.

n Because the Super Duper Ultra Mega, etc. and the Winter Olympics are closer together than ever before, and to wrap up this little bonbon, I wonder: How much more queso dip is ingested per household during the Super Duper, etc. than on any one day of the Winter Olympics? That would be a really interesting point of discussion for anyone watching that sort of trend. For that matter, how many more orgasms take place during Super, etc. than on any one day of the Winter Olympics? After all, the Earth doesn’t stop spinning on its axis because of the little men running around in your teevee set.