Playing Our Role

American Ice Hockey was doomed the moment it won that preliminary round game against Canada. As everyone who's ever watched a sports movie knows, the team that wins the first, less important game is the villain and thus is completely doomed in the drama final championship game that goes into overtime. We couldn't do anything about this loss. The rules of drama were against us.

Your Olympic Moment of Zen

Ah, skeleton, the event for people that think the luge was too safe, so lets try it head first. But they do have the best helmets. Here's the aptly named Jeff Pain, pride of Canada, capturing the spirit of the National animal, the fearsome beaver:

Crash Averse

My enjoyment of Olympic-level crashing has taken a precipitous drop recently. It used to be, some Swedish skier or German luger or French ice skater would face plant, and I would just crack up. Someone’s lifetime of work would go up in a puff of snow and I would have myself a laugh.

But these days I just can’t get into the crashing. I avert my eyes. I cry out in fear. People I shouldn’t care about, like a Finnish snowboarder or some male figure skater dressed like a peacock go down and I’m not having any fun at all. Sure, you’re supposed get upset when American golden girl Lindsey Vonn crashes out of the super combine but even strangers from strange countries crashing are making me feel bad.

Part of this is clearly the death of Georgian luger. Nothing like death to take all the fun out of crashing. But I’m also hoping this is sign I’m becoming a better person. Personal growth from the comfort of your couch!

Stomp the [expletive] Out of that Thing

Congratulations to Shawn White for once again defying gravity and any sense of self-preservation to bring home another snowboarding half-pipe gold metal.

And congratulations to his coach Bud Keene for getting some choice language out on NBC's air. Of course, this means NBC will give us even more tape-delay nonsense, but good on you coach.

Nice

The uniforms for the US Olympic snowboarding? Plaid shirt and jeans. Or rather hi-tech gortex made up to look like classic slacker-wear.

Openings

The winter Olympics kick off today. Looks like Vancouver will be getting a some snow for the event, so I guess the world doesn't end this year. Basically, the winter games has everything that I love about the Summer Games, only less. Less Countries. Less athletes. Less events and less events I care about. Still, we got speed skaters with their giant legs, this year sponsored by Steven Cobert. The red-head snowboard superhero. Curling! Aerials! Hockey. Canadians!

Fun times.

No Snow

There's no snow for Winter Olympics. I'm worried about that.

Not the Horses!

Oh no. Four horses banned from Olympic jumping for doping.

Ka Pow

Speaking of Olympic bodies, because they are all five foot nothing and wear glitter in their hair, one has a tendency to forget that the female gymnasts are made of muscle as well. Here a clip that's been going around, which shows that prime example of American manhood, the shirtless frat boy, giving silver medalist Alicia Sacramone (5' 1'', 117 lbs) a free shot.



Oh man, that never gets old.

In other Olympic punching news, the tastefully named Charlotte Craig has lost her Quarterfinal Taekwondo match and is out of the competition. But Charlotte's a prodigy and only 17, she'll be back.

Bodies in Motion

The thrill of competition is all well and good, but really we watch the Olympics for the great bodies. I love how each sport pushes it competitors into a different shape. Distance running strips away everything but the bare necessities, while swimming can leave you looking pretty fearsome. So the discussion question is which body would you have if you could skip the whole lifetime of dedication? Phelps is a wonder, but his proportions are off - torso too long, etc. I figure its the side effect of the fish-human hybrid experiment. For my money the male gymnasts win the best body overall, male division. Tyler would like to remind everyone at this time that I am not gay. Now on the women's side beach volleyball get all the attention (Six foot girls, in bikinis, and the hug all the time!) But that may be a function of the lack of cloths. I'm pretty sure that women fencers, judoka and soccer players are pretty killer, but they just wear too many dam clothes to get a good read.

So what say you gentle readers? What kind of body would you want, if you could skip the work? And what kind of body would you want, should you find yourself cruising the Olympic Village late one night? Purely an intellectual discussion, and feel free to include pictures or links to support your point.

Question

So while Georgia and Russia went to war, Bush spent the weekend going to Olympic events and, um, interacting with the athletes. This is is not a rhetorical question: Is it better that Bush is isn't paying attention to the crisis? Would it really be better if he focused his attention on events, and not the shapely ass of beach volleyball team? Wouldn't he make the situation worse? As still yet another Bush foreign policy ends in a bloody fiasco, and the usual suspects start pimping for more war, maybe its better if Bush stays happy and out the way for the rest of the Olympics.

Chicks with Swords

US women sweep the Sabre.

Love of Sport

I love the Olympics. I neglect my love for long stretches of time, but every time the games roll back around I fall in love again. I love the whole world watching one thing. I love that all these sports are getting their chance. Track and field, gymnastics, swimming all become important for two weeks. I will not rest till fencing gets it due. I love seeing what the athletes can do. Do you realize how high the high jump is these days? That marathoners run at a faster pace for 26 miles than I can keep up for one lap around the track? How narrow that high beam is? Or that female weightlifters can now lift twice their own body weight over their head? I love that ping-pong and badminton, played at this level, stop being games and become superhuman feats of reflexes and skill. I love watching the medal count, to see if China can catch the US and Russia at the grand game of being good in everything. I love the Countries who have one shot with one athlete in one event or its nothing. I love Countries that are so poor and war torn and generally messed up, that even getting a team to the Games is a triumph. I love that world is growing so small that one of the lost boys of Sudan is going to carry the American flag in the opening ceremony. Or that the Russian basketball team is going to field an African-American émigré. That's right, a black Russian. I love it when the American scores the huge upset. I love it when the Americans completely dominate. Softball is going to going to get kicked out of the games in 2012, the US is so dominant. I love American getting upset by some Country you couldn't find on a map, its so small. I love nationalism that doesn't come from war, or racism, or fear, but a nationalism that's just about "Run you magnificent bastard! Faster! He's catching Up!"

I don't love it all. There's the drugs. The judging. NBC trying too hard. Tape delays. The fact that China has the games this year. That the Olympic truce is not going to hold in way too many places. Heartbreaking injuries. The interpretive dance portions of the opening and closing ceremonies. We need as a nation a better chant than "U-S-A, U-S-A" The Australians have "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy, Oy" which is so much better.

But trying to hate this stuff never works. Because in the end, I love the Olympics. They get me every time.

The Games Begin

I always love the parade of Nations. You can keep the rest of the opening ceremony (2,000 Chinese school children dressed as snow flakes! 24 giant dancing paper lanterns! This light is the symbol of peace!) But I always dearly love the sight of the athletes marching in to stadium.

The Political Games

Gold medalist (speedskater) and Darfur activist Joey Cheek has been banned from entering China for the games. The Chinese can't help being the heavy-handed authoritarians that they really are.

Political gymnastics

Read King Kaufman's take on China, Olympics, and the dread "Politics." Nothing is above politics. Certainly not the Olympics.

You Seem a Decent Fellow, I Hate to Kill You

The Princes Bride sword fight.



The US Olympic fencing team has been named. Office web site here.

Wimps

Chicken:

It was an Olympic-sized fake-out, and by the end of the day, instead of the violent clashes that some had feared, the Beijing Olympic torch run left only thousands of frustrated protesters on one end of San Francisco and mostly relieved runners and officials on the other.

The finger-pointing is bound to go on for days about whether changing the route at the last minute was right. But on Wednesday, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other officials said that once they got a good look mid-morning at the chanting, surging, flag-waving crowds along the torch's advertised route, they felt they had no choice.

I'm sure Mayor Newson knows what kind of city he runs. If you work hard to bring China's Olympic torch to your city, you better just take your protest medicine. None of this half-assed, hidden ceremony stuff. International spotlights are hot. You want the attention, you take your attention.

Protest Competition

When the Olympic torch toured the streets of Paris, protests over China's human rights record was so intense they shut down the parade and put the Olympic flame out of sight. That's a pretty high bar, protest-wise.

The one place in North American where the torch is going on parade: San Fransisco. That's right, liberal hotbed of the Country. I'm sure Franciscans can out-protest the French.

Game On.

Go, Win, Protest

A fresh round of unrest in Tibet. One of my less well though out foreign policy proposals has been that the Palestinians and Tibetans should switch resistance tactics. The Palestinian would get a lot further with democratic Israel using non-violence and civil disobedience and the Tibetans would get a lot further along by blowing some shit up. Violence against a democracy only incurs popular resentment and retaliation, while a dictatorship will happy to ignore peaceful protests and go about its business of oppression.

Which brings us to China and the Olympics. China does bad things. They oppress their own people, oppress the Tibetans, and help prop up the genocidal regime in the Sudan. They are also hosting the Olympics this summer. There have been rumblings of boycotts. Steven Spielberg has already walked off the job in protest.

Personally, I don't think athletes should boycott the games. China is going to be the center of the worlds attention regardless of whether or not a particularly shot-putter or gymnast competes. The thing to do is to use the attention of the world that comes from the Olympics to put pressure on the regime. Hold a Tibetan flag when you're up on the metal stand. When Gene Gray sticks a mic in your face and asks what it feels like to lose, say it hurts, but it nothing compared to what the people in Darfur are going though. Be a bad guest. China thinks the Olympics are it day in the spotlight. Its time to make that spotlight as hot as possible.