Silent Ice

In 2006, I heard of something only seen on a basketball court. A young 6’3″ African-American participating in the Winter Games, with a twist, speed skating. It was odd but interesting watching the fleet of foot twenty-four-year-old, like watching a surgeon’s scalpel motions executing each cut better than the first. Turin, Italy, and the world was witness as Shani Davis won the 1,000m in 1:08.89 and 1,500m in 1:46.13, capturing gold and silver medals in those Winter Games. Shani Davis has eight gold medals since skating in the world championships and two world records (in the 1,000m and 1,500m), a remarkable feet for a sport that stays in shadows until the Olympics. This journey was well-documented but seldom heard until February 2010. 1:08.94 of pure gold you could call this mechanical cutting of ice speed, sharp blades wielding accurately around the Richmond Olympic oval to start the men’s 1,000m speed skating. Shani Davis would not disappoint even when he needed to be next to perfect in time to capture gold in the 2010 Olympics. The second turn was zephyr gashing, sights set on shattering the clock and his opponents, calm and calculated mechanics invisible like air taking the lead and inside lane to make history… taking the gold not for the game or glory but for the doubters and nay-sayers who thought he was out of his league and not ready for the sport.

Another Chicago historian who is calm and paused on Pennsylvania Ave. is looking for a piece of history reforming US health-care and other political issues that have loomed for decades–a task not done by any Democrat or president. Many see the government as having fallen apart, split, as if there is not being enough done for the people of America. Let’s look at the breakdown: Democrats have 242 seats, which makes them the majority party, along with a Democratic president. 13 of those seats are up for re-election. The Republicans have 160 seats with 18 of those seats up for re-election, which they could lose swaying more favor to the Democrats. People shout the word bipartisanship resulting in a unity that couldn’t be as views and opinions are split on many issues. As voters we have to seek history; we have done it before. Let’s win our own gold medal in November and send our own trailblazers into office, forming a team of calm, paused history-makers who will lead us into the stratosphere so each state can make the government shine like the stars on our flag.

PODS

I am going through Olympic withdrawal.

It happens after every Olympiad, whether Summer Games or Winter. Non-stop athletic competition for two-and-a-half weeks, mostly of sports that I have little opportunity to watch otherwise. And, as I’ve stated in previous articles, I watch almost–and I mean almost–all of them.

To make matters worse, I’m forced to lose my fix by going cold turkey.

The net of it is, I always feel a little depressed after the Olympics draw to completion. Call it POD (Post-Olympic Depression) Syndrome.

The Winter Games conveniently take place during that otherwise dullest period of the sporting year, the February lull between the Super Bowl and March Madness. In non-Olympic years, I hate February, but the Winter Olympics transform the month from one of non-excitement to non-stop excitement.

They thus form a perfect lead-in to what, in other years, is the most intense, non-stop sporting event of the year, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament–aka, the perfect cure for PODS.

P.S. Although the Olympics are over, I had some insights inspired by, but not specific to, the Games which I plan on writing about soon. So the aftermath continues…

Why Is the US Racking Up So Many Medals at the Vancouver Olympic Games?

I am on Olympic overload. You’d think, considering how much of the Vancouver Games I’ve seen to this point, that I’d have written more about them already, but that would mean stopping long enough to do so. After all, there is still food, sleep and work with which to attend. But other than NBC’s lackluster coverage (lackluster? more like abysmal), I’ve enjoyed the Olympiad immensely.

The US has been on a remarkable run in Vancouver, poised to shatter its previous foreign-soil record of 25 medals (Torino in 2006) and even make a run at its all-time Winter Olympic mark of 34 (Salt Lake City in 2002). In fact the former may have already occurred today, but since–as I mentioned in my previous article–I’m avoiding any sports news lest I see results before I can watch them, I wouldn’t know.

Why such a dramatic upswing? Several factors appear to be at play. Firstly, more American women play sports now than ever before. More general participation equates to more elite participation. Despite the IOC’s ridiculous banning of women from ski jump that Gairzo commented upon, female participation in these Winter Olympics is overall 40% of all athletes.

Secondly, the American athletic landscape is more fractured than ever before. Slowly but surely the all-important television coverage of these other sports is extending beyond the two-week period of the Olympic Games, thus opening them up to new audiences. More and more young athletes are drawn away from the Big Four team sports into the plethora of other games available to them. The diversification of talent is allowing the US to compete in arenas it has not previously (such as Johnny Spillane winning the United States’ first ever medal in the Nordic Combined).

Thirdly, a large percentage of the new sports that have debuted at the Winter Olympics over the last twenty years, if not originated in the US, definitely experienced their major growth in North America. Seven of the twenty-seven athletes in the Women’s Moguls were from the US or Canada. Snowboarding was developed in the US during the 1960s and 1970s and has reached new heights since Shaun White became the face of the sport. Thus the American influence on the very sports of the Winter Olympics has increased, and US success in those games has followed suit.

Lastly, these are, for all intents and purposes, a home Olympics for the United State, what with Vancouver’s proximity to the US-Canada border (the longest open international border in the world).

Jumping back to Shaun White… the guy is simply amazing, completely on another plane way above anybody else in half-pipe. His air was higher, his tricks more impressive and complex. I did not think he had the speed coming into his last hit to attempt the Double McTwist 1260 (or The Tomahawk, as he calls it), yet he somehow seemed to will himself through the trick. Incredible.

Has there been any bigger (positive) surprise than the US Men’s ice hockey team? It was almost inconceivable that they would score the top seed entering the elimination round, yet that’s exactly where the United States finds itself. Considering that the Peacock has the current NHL broadcast contract (for what it’s worth), NBC is doing itself a great disservice by relegating hockey coverage to MSNBC. A strong run by the US to the gold medal–along with strong coverage of such a run–could boost the NHL’s presence in the United States and thus NBC’s broadcasts of the league as well.

Instead, hockey plays second fiddle to ice dancing, a “sports” that’s an insult to all other Olympians! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate dancing as an art form and a physical one at that, but it is not a sport. So instead of serving a potentially large hockey audience that could be watching NBC year-in, year-out, the Peacock coddles a small ice dancing audience with significantly lesser upside. Who are the fans of this “sport”, anyway? Most figure skating fans I know consider ice dancing a joke. If they don’t like it, who does?

It’s a shame, since this could very well be the best Olympic hockey tournament ever. The balance in the sport is at an all-time high, with the inclusion of NHL players actually benefiting the Olympic game as opposed to the farce of letting in NBA players that gives the United States such a huge advantage. Of course, we’re talking NBC, home of no ratings, The Jay Leno Show, the Jay Leno / Conan O’Brien flap, and no good decisions in the last ten years. What do you expect?

Olympics Blackout – Or Should It Be Whiteout?

No, NBC’s coverage of the Olympics has not been blacked out. Unfortunately for those who want any surprises when watching the Peacock’s nightly broadcast, that all but means a personal sports news boycott during the day.

I am a huge Olympics junkie. I will literally watch almost anything (in the Winter Games, I do draw the line at ice dancing, a “sport”–and I use that term lightly–which to me is the equivalent of taking figure skating and stripping out the only elements that make it interesting and worthy of being a sport). I’m also someone who checks sports news websites frequently throughout the day for the latest and greatest.

But if I do so during the delayed broadcasts of the Olympic Games, I risk finding out results before I have a chance to watch them. It all harkens back to why sports is the most DVR-proof forms of television programming

Thus, I am currently forced to go on somewhat of a personal sports news blackout for the next two weeks. Not entirely, since I do know some of the category links to bypass the main pages and jump straight to NCAA Basketball coverage (for example).

Things could be worse… since I live in Los Angeles, in the same time zone as Vancouver, I can catch up either early in the morning or late at night, before and after any of the day’s competition. The Beijing Games were a far greater conundrum.

One wonders how long NBC (or any other network, if they eventually steal the rights away) can afford to maintain the same broadcast paradigms in our 24/7 instant internet news world.

Reflections on the first three days of the Vancouver Games

• How much must the host country hate the US right now, with two golds snatched away at the last instant (Hannah Kearney over Canada’s darling Jenn Heil in Women’s Moguls and Seth Westcott over Mike Robertson in Men’s Snowboard Cross?)
• That having been said, could Canada’s first ever gold medal on home soil (how sick are you of hearing NBC mention that?) gone to a more likable young man than Men’s Mogul winner Alexandre Bilodeau?
• Is Snowboard Cross the most exciting recent addition to the Olympics or what? Easily the most unpredictable, potential disaster at any moment sport outside of Short Track Speedskating.
• Are there any athletes at the games with better attitudes than snowboarders? No matter how disastrous their own runs, they all seem to shrug it off and are as almost as happy for the winner than they would have been for themselves. Fits in with the sport’s overall image. I love the fact that Shaun White, who made roughly $8 million last year and could easily afford the best accommodations Vancouver has to offer, has elected to stay in the Olympic Village. Hear that, NBA players? Not to mention, no one (shown on the broadcast) seemed to enjoy the Opening Ceremony more.
• Most exciting event so far: Men’s Nordic Combined–the race to finish was intense. It was great to see the US win its first medal (silver) in a sport that has been part of the Games since the very first Winter Olympiad.

THE HEIGHT OF OLYMPIC INJUSTICE

I’m not sexist…really.

My rant on the unfair application of Title IX, found here: http://www.deepintosports.com/2009/07/07/title-ix-no-gender-equality-women-sports/ is based on simple fairness.

If any women’s sport or athlete could generate the dollars for her game the way Tiger Woods, Sidney Crosby, or Peyton Manning does for his game, I would be compelled to watch because my editor is a fairly smart guy.

The reason female athletics generally hold so little importance in my life can be attributed to several disparate, yet legitimate reasons.

I raised and coached three sons in baseball, soccer, and football, and have always looked at sports through the eyes of my boys and the inner little man hanging onto the monkey bars of my soul.

Also, there just isn’t time for me to watch women compete because of my considerable investment in professional football and hockey, and March Madness, not to mention the PGA Tour and an occasional tennis match.

I’m a busy man.

The main reason I relegate female competition to the back-burner of my viewing priorities is because I watch sports to see the best athletes in the world compete at the highest levels for the biggest prizes.

Nothing would thrill me more than to see a team of females strap it on (pun intended) against the New Orleans Saints, Los Angeles Lakers, or Pittsburgh Penguins and compete at a championship level.

Unfortunately, that scenario will find its reality only after a few thousand more years of human evolution. Until then, let’s keep it real; even the supremely gifted Williams sisters would be hard pressed to win more than a game or two in a match against Roger Federer. A decent high school boy’s team would give the women Huskies of UConn all they could handle on a basketball court. The best female softball players on the planet would have a hard time making contact with a Mariano Rivera fastball.

It is not sexist to point out the obvious physical disparity in male/female muscle mass, nor is it sexist to view most male competition as being contested at a higher level of proficiency.

Yes, reality can be cruel, but it’s still reality.

Before my legion of female readers assaults me with the usual shrieks of protest, please know I rooted for Billie Jean King against Bobby Riggs because he had a big mouth and an even bigger ego to think he could beat the greatest female tennis player ever, who was 27 years his junior and in her prime.

When my boys were in Little League, there was a brou-ha-ha over a 12 year-old girl playing on another team and I was one of her most vociferous supporters.

I do sometimes watch women’s tennis or golf when I want to visualize the perfect form needed to execute an effective stroke or swing.

And, up to now, I had always made a genuine effort to watch every female Olympic event, hoping the American girls could stick it to the birth-certificate-challenged Chinese, the steroid-enhanced Germans, or the pain-in-the-ass Russians.

I really love the quadrennial competition in which nations come together in peace, but during which viewers can summon their worst devils and find a good reason to contrive palpable hate for countries they have never visited and people they don’t know.

It’s the American Way.

You might imagine how much it pains me, therefore, to ask all who read this column to…

BOYCOTT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

If you can’t commit to eschewing the full fortnight of competition, please find the courage to turn off the television during the ski jumping competition.

Why? The world record holder isn’t allowed to compete on the ski jump because the International Ski Federation and the IOC believe she and her gender-mates might harm their uteruses (uteri?).

Joking aside, I can’t believe that I wrote the previous sentence. What’s more, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S F*@#ING TRUE!!!!!!

Let me clarify; Lindsey Vann is not the female world record holder, she is the world record holder in the ski jump–set on the very hill Olympians will jump from in Vancouver.

Get the video story here: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/35352964#35320777

I thought it was an elaborate satire from “The Onion” until I saw the pain in these young women’s faces.

The video is over ten minutes long, so I’ll point out a few choice moments in the piece you can click forward to…

Gian-Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation, jumps right into the Golden Tampy Hall of Fame when he actually verbalizes the Cro-Magnon position I italicized above at the 2:17 mark of the video.

He is vastly outdone by the aptly named Dick Pound at 3:55–this guy’s nickname in high school had to be “Limp”–and his blatant, condescending threat beginning at the 7:25 mark condemns him to 9th level of Dante’s Inferno of Utter Stupidity.

The women’s team spokesman, Vic Method, blames the IOC’s blatant sexism on the European male. It seems Limp Dick’s colleagues’ egos can’t withstand a “little girl”–starting at the same point on the hill–out-jumping them.

Here we have the rare sport that puts all competitors on the same level. Imagine how NBC could market the event as the truest “Battle of the Sexes” ever conceived.

But the European males won’t let that game begin.

My name is “Porpora”. All my ancestors are from Italy/Sicily. I’m almost sure that makes me European.

On behalf of my misguided and chicken-shit brethren, I accept the first ever Continental Golden Tampon Award. God knows, none of them have the guts to think they deserve such a dishonor.

I have never been so ashamed to have a penis.