| Jim Austin's Vermonter at Large |
 Jim Austin  His previous columns are archived HERE. |
Posted 03.01.02
Oh Ca-Na-Da
What was your take on the Olympics? Was it a crass money-driven, flag-waving, jingoistic orgy of ugly Americanism or one of the best ever?
I thought the games were the best ever.
Finally, our previously winter-games-challenged-athletes gave us something to cheer about. I have to admit that I got a bit sick of the skeleton guy who won the gold for his dear old grandpa who was killed by a drunk driver. It got so thick he looked like he was angling for a made for TV movie (Kevin Bacon as the kid and Wilfred Brimley as dead Grandpa).
And if I never see the perky face of the teary little Canadian figure skater again it will be fine with me. The media need to keep the soap operas off the air for a few weeks every four years but seem unable to kick the habit.
After living around the globe and working in other countries, I sort of thought I was past getting steamed up over whose country beat whom.
That was until the U.S. versus Canada Gold Medal Men's Hockey Game.
In any case, I am sure the wheels of commerce and all the other wheels in the country stopped for this game.
Other great Canadian feats came out of short track skating. The Wunderkind Apolo Ohno rocketed into the games on the wings of unprecedented media coverage but only managed one undisputed medal. Canadian veteran Marc Gagnon took two gold, one defending the gold medal relay, and a bronze to boot.
The blood-doping, drug-taking scandal was an unfortunate ending to the events. I feel sorry for the second and fourth place finishers who didn't get the chance to hear their anthem or, in the case of the fourth-place athlete, to even mount the podium.
The IOC is right to do it though. They have to at least try to stop the cheating. Too bad baseball and football doesn't make an honest effort to stem the steroid tide.
It's certainly a double-edged sword. Now that Mark Maguire has retired because of chronic injuries brought on by years of steroid use, he can stare at his batting awards while listening to his testicles shrivel.
Hitherto unknowns tend to spring out of the woodwork into the public eye during the Olympics.
Janica Kostolic, a chunky skier from Croatia, became the first athlete since Jean Claude Killy to win three alpine gold medals and she threw in a silver for contrast.
One of the most endearing was the Swiss teenager who surprised the hell out of the ski-jumping community by taking two golds. The Harry Potter look-alike was so happy that he was totally incoherent during the post results interview.
Americans athletes took the thrasher sports on the halfpipe and had the medals flying in a dozen other venues. Their 33 medals tally was edged out by Germany by only one. If the judges had taken a few more urine samples at the Deutsche Haus after the x-country skiing we might have won the whole thing. Still, 33 medals are 10 more than any of the pundits predicted.
And Canada, eh? Seventeen medals, eh? That's not too bad, eh? I went oot for a case of two-four after that, eh? |