Vancouver 2010: Where I rank it, and why

 

 

I get asked a lot which were my favorite Olympics and why.  Its not an easy question to answer, because so many things go into it.  Professionally, my favorite Olympics was the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, which were an organizational nightmare.  The buses went on strike, so spectators had to trudge to an from the opening ceremonies, which were held a mile outside of town.  Since it was snowing, it looked like the retreat of Napoleon's army in the Russian winter.  Hotel and restaurant owners price-gouged to such an extent that it was easy to find a table at any restaurant in tiny Lake Placid.  People left as quickly as they could after an event to friendlier environs.  But I covered all six of the U.S. gold medals--five by Eric Heiden, and that very special one by the U.S. Olympic hockey team--so it was a wonderful Olympics for me, personally.  But I still rank Lake Placid at the bottom of my list.
       So, Vancouver.
      First, the competition.
       It couldn't have ended better, with the overtime goal by Sidney Crosby, Canada's biggest active sports star, putting an exclamation point on the Games, as if it had all been scripted.  The men's hockey gold was Canada's 14th, the most by any country.  The U.S. had the most medals, 37, and Germany was next with 30.  But Canada was able to trumpet that they had "owned the podium" after all, by virtue of winning the most gold medals of any country in any Winter Olympics.  Though by the formula that I suggested in my last post, awarding 3 pts for a gold, 2 for a silver, 1 for bronze, the U.S. still finished on top:
              United States       9 gold     15 silver    13 bronze =  70 pts.
               Germany           10 gold     13 silver      7 bronze =  63 pts.
               Canada              14 gold       7 silver      5 bronze =  61 pts.
       So both North American countries had a great Games.  But I would submit that as the nationalistic fervor gripped Canada in the final week, as the gold medals started to accumulate, the tenor of the cheering changed from enthusiastic and supportive to rabid and edgy.  Many, many Canadians have told me that if the U.S. had scored the overtime goal, instead of Canada, it would have ruined the Olympics for the host nation and left a bitter taste in their mouths.  That is not the Olympic spirit.  Nor is the goal of "owning the podium" and resorting to restricting access to facilities by foreign teams who wanted to train on the new bobsled, luge, skeleton and speedskating tracks.
        Let me add the nationalistic chest thumping did not start with Canada.  But we're not used to seeing it from our neighbors to the north.  The Americans are the very worst perpetrators (U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A!) and I'm certain that four years from now, Mother Russia will also want to prove its greatness by piggybacking on its athletes, as the Soviet Union used to.  And who was the first to use the Olympics, founded as a "friendly competition between nations", for propaganda purposes?  Nazi Germany, which hosted both the Summer and Winter Games in 1936.
        Look, I'm not comparing Canada (or the U.S. or Russia) with Nazi Germany.  The Canadian athletes who finished off the podium did so with grace.  But for a nation that likes to consider itself humble and understated, the Vancouver Games took them into uncharted territory.   It's why I've always loved the Sarajevo Olympics.  I believe Yugoslavia won one silver medal in those1984 Games.  They had been isolated behind the Iron Curtain for so long, they were just thrilled to be host to the sporting world, and they cheered every medal as their own.  They were the best hosts ever.

The Stars Were the Stars

      From Lindsey Vonn, shown here with some random old fart who is way too pleased with himself, to Shawn White, to Bode Miller, to Apollo Ono, to Sid Crosby, to Kim Yu-Na, the athletes we were familiar with rose to the occasion.  That's a good thing.  Upsets are fine in football, but in the Olympics, where for four years most of these athletes toil in obscurity, we need the Michael Phelps' of the world to perform up to the hype.  Or it's just hype.  They did that here.

The Organizing Committee Got Its Act Together 
      My colleague, S.L. Price, called it the greatest comeback in Olympic history.  And it was done by Vanoc, the Vancouver Organizing committee.  The first week was beset with problems, great and small.  The death of the Georgian luger.  The breakdown of ice cleaning machines at the speedskating oval.  Street protests.  Anger that the Olympic torch was behind a cyclone fence.  Grandstand tickets that were sold and then invalidated.  Fans injured at an outdoor concert when a barrier collapsed.
       The last two weeks were rife with solutions.  Those things that could be fixed, were fixed, and new problems didn't arise.  There were no lapses in security.  Buses ran on time.  Police controlled crowds without dampening enthusiasm.  Vancouver was a fun, safe place to be.

The Weather--yuck

      The weather wasn't just an aesthetic problem.  It severely affected the alpine competition, especially the slalom and the ski cross events, which were held in pea soup fog and driving rain.  About half the slalom racers skied off the course.   Four years, and then your fate is determined by whether you ski during a break in the fog or not.  As for the city, where I was the entire time, except for four or five days in the middle, which were lovely, it rained every day.  Not driving rainstorms.  Just a steady, spitting drizzle.  Bad luck?  Maybe.  But it all goes into the mix when it comes to ranking your favorite Olympics.

The Crowds--Unreal
       They just kept showing up, milling around the streets, clogging the sidewalks, wearing their Team Canada jerseys (they're called sweaters here), their funny hats, their facepaint.  Cheering Ca-na-da! till they were hoarse.  Watching the hockey games through tavern windows while standing in the rain.  It was all about being there, sharing the experience.  They didn't need tickets to feel part of these Olympics.  Walking to the press center Sunday morning, where I would catch a bus to the gold medal hockey game, I passed three bars that had lines to get in that stretched around the corner.  It was 9:20 a.m., and, since it was Sunday, the bars didn't open till 11 am.  They waited without complaint, surrounded by like-minded Canadians who would remember Sidney Crosby's goal the rest of their lives.  I'm glad I didn't have to see how they'd have behaved if the U.S. had won that game, but as it was, they were just giddy, proud, happy, thrilled fans who brought an energy to these Games the likes of which I had never seen.

So here it is: My Favorite Winter Olympics

1) Sarajevo, 1984--  Heavy snow.  Heavy smoke in loud, hot bars filled with burly locals who tried to make you understand their native tongue.  A population so appreciative to have contact with the outside world, you had the feeling they'd have done anything for you.  

2) Lillehammer, 1994--Cold, clear air.  Fresh white powder.  Grandmothers who did their shopping from sleds.  Small.  Old fashioned.  The only taint?  Tonya Harding was there, too.

3) Vancouver, 2010

4) Calgary, 1988--What I remember best is the figure skating.  Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, and Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov all won gold medals; I wrote about them all; and I was hooked.  Snow early, then a warm snap as a chinook blew in.  Canadian friendly.

5) Albertville, 1992--A wonderful opening ceremonies, very French.  Wonderful food, of course.  Managed to get a couple of days of skiing in Meribel during the Games.  Kristi Yamaguchi won the gold medal; and Paul Wylie won his silver.  Both great stories to tell, especially Wylie's.  (He was 27).  Too spread out, however.  Which is now the trend.

6) Salt Lake City, 2002-- They did a great job, after a very rough start. (Remember the scandal about bribing IOC officials).  As good a combination of mountains and proximity to a city as any Winter Games site ever, and the weather was perfect.  Only problem was, well, it was Salt Lake City.

7) Torino, 2006--Another site where the city and the mountains were just too far apart, a couple of hours by bus.  Rain in the city, snow in the mountains.  The food was, again, fantastic--it was Italy, right?  But the Italians didn't embrace the Games as the Vancouverites did.

8) Nagano, 1998--This is mostly a personal thing that I can't even explain.  The Japanese did a great job with these Games, and the people could not have been more hospitable.  But there was no place I found to gather with my colleagues at night, and the hotel room was small and the bed hard.  The hotel elevator gave me a chuckle, though.  The floors were inscribed in the brass plate as follows: 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Robby.     I swear.


9)  Lake Placid, 1980.  My first.  I shared a bedroom in our condo with SI Editor Bob Ottum, who became a great friend and mentor.   He and Willaim Oscar Johnson, our skiing writer, would write at the kitchen table with their manual typewriters, Ottum with a bottle of vodka in front of him, Johnson with a bottle of bourbon.  It was an eyeopener for me, I'll tell you.  And a good one.  Real pros.  I miss them.  I miss the camaraderie we shared in that small condo.  It gave me my love of the Olympic Games, which has yet to diminish.
     

The Medal Count

The Olympic Games is not supposed to be about medal counts.  But it always has been and it always will be, so they might as well get it right.  Every paper you open, and even the official Vancouver media website, has a table like this one from this morning keeping track of the medal.

     Country                   Gold            Silver       Bronze       Total

United States	8	13	13	34
Germany	9	11	7	27
Canada	10	7	4	21
Norway	8	6	6	20
Austria	4	5	6	15
Russia	3	5	7	15
South Korea	6	6	2	14
China	5	2	4	11
France	2	3	5	10
Sweden	5	2	2	9

      My problem with this table is the Total.  They are assigning the same value to a bronze medal as to a silver medal, and the same to a silver as to a gold.  But as we all know, and as anyone who saw the U.S. women's hockey team in tears after they received their silver medal, while the Canadians were loutishly drinking beer and smoking cigars on the ice after getting their golds, all medals are not even close to being created equal.

  Should Sweden, with five golds, two silvers, and two bronzes, really be listed behind France, with only two golds, three silvers, and five bronzes?
          I'm told Olympic historian David Wallechinsky tracks who wins the medal race at the Olympics by listing them by gold medals accumulated, using silvers and bronzes as tiebreakers.  But that's equally non-sensical.  Canada's Joannie Rochette's bronze medal in figure skating was nearly as sweet as any gold.  Tiebreaker?  I don't think so.

      The solution?  A points system.
       What, then, is a gold medal worth, relative to a silver, relative to a bronze?
       Is one gold worth two silvers?  And one silver worth two bronzes?  If so, then it should be 4 pts. per gold, 2 per silver, 1 per bronze.  Then the current medal standings would look like this:


      Country                   Gold            Silver       Bronze       Total

United States	8	13	13	71
Germany	9	11	7	65
Canada	10	7	4	58
Norway	8	6	6	50
Austria	4	5	6	32
Russia	3	5	7	27
South Korea	6	6	2	38
China	5	2	4	28
France	2	3	5	19
Sweden	5	2	2	26

    South Korea would move ahead of Austria and Russia in the medal standings, China would pass Russia, and Sweden would move ahead of France.  All three of these changes would more accurately reflect their performances.   The top four countries wouldn't change their order under the 4, 2, 1 system.
        But is one gold really worth four bronzes?  Would an athlete rather have two silver medals, or one gold?
      It's a fair question.  I happen to think two silvers trumps one gold, and an athlete with three bronze medals can look a single gold medalist in the eye as an equal.   Hence a simple 3, 2, 1 system would be my preference.  That would mean the medal count would look like this:


  Country                   Gold            Silver       Bronze       Total

United States	8	13	13	63
Germany	9	11	7	56
Canada	10	7	4	48
Norway	8	6	6	42
Austria	4	5	6	28
Russia	3	5	7	26
South Korea	6	6	2	32
China	5	2	4	23
France	2	3	5	17
Sweden	5	2	2	21

  By this formula, South Korea again moves up two places, into 5th place overall, and Sweden again passes France.  But China remains in 8th place, and the top four places, again, don't change.  Easy to understand, simple to compute, and more accurately representative of the athlete's accomplishments.  As easy as 1, 2, 3.

Hottest Olympians; hottest hockey tournament

In my first two Olympic Games, 1980 and 1984, I covered hockey and, to a lesser extent, speedskating.
Then I switched to figure skating, and I've never looked back.  People ask me all the time if I miss covering hockey.  I really don't.  That may have something to do with the fact that two of the gold medalists from the Calgary figure skating competition, Katarina Witt and Ekaterina Gordeeva, were among the most beautiful women in Winter Olympic history.  That took some of the edge off having to deal with the weird politics of the sport.
     Consensus is that here in Vancouver, there's an unusually large contingent of beautiful Olympians, many of them medalists.  Lindsay Vonn (right), who has a gold and a bronze, is in many ways the face of these Vancouver Games for America.  But she has company when it comes to hotties on the podium.  I'm guessing, because few of them are American, NBC has ignored these ladies.  More's the pity.  One more reason to follow this blog.

Meet Torah Bright, gold medal, halfpipe.  Australia

 
    

 


 Say hello to Tina Maze, Slovenian silver medalist, Super G:

 Ashleigh McIvor, Canadian Gold Medalist, Skicross

 

Curling created a bit of a stir in these games when a topless photo of the Danish skip, Madeleine Dupont, started circulating on the internet, courtesy of the website Deadspin.  The offending photo was soon taken down, but not before Dupont had been heckled to tears during her match against the Canadians.  

 

But the most beautiful curler is 43-year-old Cheryl Bernard, the skip from Canada, who will win either the gold or silver medal.  Her eyes could burn a hole into the granite rock she slides.

 

As usual, figure skating has more than its share of lovely athletes.  Tanith Belbin, who finished fourth in ice dancing after winning silver four years ago in Torino, makes anyone's list of beautiful Olympians.   

 

But the loveliest lady on the ice?  She skates tonight: Kiira Korpi of Finland.  Who needs a triple axel when you look like this? 

Okay, enough eye candy.  They're athletes, too, right?  Remember that.  An extraordinary group.  

      Briefly, then, a word about the hockey tournament, which, however it turns out, will go down as one of the most interesting, most competitive in Olympic history.  Among the upsets and near upsets?  Switzerland, the surprise team of the tournament, lost in a shootout to Canada, won its first playoff game over Belarus, then gave the U.S. all it could handle in a 2-0 loss, the second tally into an open net.  Second biggest surprise?  Probably Slovakia, which beat Russia in the preliminary round, 2-1, then knocked off defending champion Sweden, 4-3, to get the semifinals.  Near upsets?  Little Latvia only lost to the Czech Republic in the playoffs, 3-2.  And Norway gave Slovakia a scare in the first round, falling 4-3.  Every team but Germany was competitive in every game in the men's draw.  Parity has arrived in the men's game.

Not true, of course, in the women's game, where the U.S. and Canada, driven by their own fierce rivalry, have further separated themselves from the rest of the world, leading some to speculate that women's hockey might be tossed from the Olympics until the rest of the world catches up.  Well, you can relax on that score.  Women's hockey is secure.  The rest of the world will, eventually, close the gap, as more and more Swedes, Finns, etc. come to North America to play college hockey.  In the short term, we should just marvel at the skills being exhibited by the women players in North America.  I'm looking forward to today's women's final between the US and Canada as much as I am to the gold medal game for the men.  

My predictions for the women:

U.S.: Gold

Canada: Silver

Finland: Bronze

Men:

Canada: Gold

US: Silver

Slovakia: Bronze

Mid-term Report Card

We're a little more than halfway through these 2010 Olympics, so I thought it would be a good time to hand out the midterm grades.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
B-
Obviously its a huge undertaking putting on an Olympics, and things are going to go wrong. Well, they have. The transportation system has generally worked well, but early in the games there were reports of long waits for buses in the rain. After selling Grandstand admission tickets to the moguls competition, organizers decided not to honor them--they did give refunds--ostensibly because of safety concerns, but probably, according to those who were there, because of inadequate infrastructure at the mountain.  The food kiosks, bathrooms, and footpaths were so crowded that those with seated tickets complained.  So they cancelled Grandstand seating, disappointing thousands.
     Then there is the continuing saga of the hideous fencing around the Olympic flame, which I wrote about earlier.  Organizers have now removed the lower four feet of the cyclone fence and replaced it with custom-made Plexiglas. (This has been an expensive mistake.)  Better for pictures, no question.  But still an ugly fence around the flame.
        Early on, the ice resurfacing machines at the speed skating oval broke down, delaying the competition and requiring two zambonis to be driven to Vancouver from Calgary as replacements.  Now some of the speedskaters are complaining the the surface of the brand new oval is "sticky."

     And there have been injuries which could have been prevented, to both spectators and athletes.  A dozen or so outdoor concertgoers were taken to the hospital when a barrier in front of a stage collapsed. Cross country skier Petra Majdic of Slovenia was badly hurt during a training room when she overshot an icy, 180 degree turn and fell ten feet into an unprotected rock-filled gully.  And most tragically, of course, was the luge competitor from Georgia who was killed during a training run, a death that might have been prevented had the walls of the dangerous turn been higher and the steel column he crashed into been padded.
    All in all, it's a list of problems a little bit longer and more serious than one usually encounters at an Olympics, and quite a bit longer than the most recent Games in Beijing, where everything worked and everyone behaved. That said, people are having a lot more fun here, and the organizers, in every instance, have made adjustments after the fact to help rectify the problems. They have been feeling the heat.

COMPETITION:
A
I can't remember an Olympics when I wouldn't have awarded the competition an A. The athletes are beyond comparison when it comes to dedication, humility, courage, and desire. Watching the cross country skiers and biathletes collapse as they cross the finish line, paralyzed with exhaustion, never gets old. (I'm guessing NBC almost never shows those sports, since Americans never win them. It's too bad. One of many, many problems I have with NBC's coverage.)  No better example than that of the aforementioned Slovenian cross country star, Ms. Jajdic.  Having suffered four broken ribs and a collapsed lung from her fall into the rocks while training, she came back and won the bonze medal in the individual classic sprint.  She was in such pain afterward she had to be helped onto the podium during the medal ceremony, unable to climb up the step without assistance.

       Led by the amazing  U.S. alpine team (2 golds, 2 silver, 3 bronze), which has six more alpine medals to date than any other country, the U.S. has been the surprise team of these Olympics.  As of Sunday night Americans had accumulated 24 medals (7 gold, 7 silver, 10 bronze), eight more than second place Germany.  So far, they have done so with unusual grace and civility--Bode Miller (above) has been a paragon of good behavior, and Lindsay Vonn (below) has been...has been...let's just call her a great ambassador for America.

       The next most surprising team?  The South Korean speedskaters, both short track and long.  They have collected a total of four golds, four silver, and one bronze, easily the most of any country in speedskating, which was once ruled by the Dutch and the Germans.  South Korea will probably add one more gold in women's figure skating, where the favorite is Yuna Kim.
     The most disappointed countries in terms of performance? Certainly the host country, Canada, which is tied with South Korea for 4th overall with just 9 medals.  That wouldn't be so bad except Canadian sports officials had made a huge campaign promising the country they would "own the podium", stating repeatedly that their goal was to win more medals than any other country.  They also pushed the bounds of sportsmanship by severely restricting access by other countries to Vancouver's facilities for training--a policy that, critics say, contributed to the death of the Georgian luger.  Certainly, there are more medals coming their way.  Ice dancing looks like s good bet for gold tonight.  Hockey and curling remain to be determined, though Canada's men's hockey team has disappointed to date.  Still, officials have conceded they are not going to be winning the medal count.
       It's also been a weak showing for Russia, which is hosting the next Winter Games.  Traditionally a Winter Olympic power, they have only seven medals to date, two of them gold.

  ATMOSPHERE:
   B+

The main reason Vancouver doesn't rate an A in atmosphere is the weather, which, when it hasn't been raining, has been springlike.  Trees are literally in full flower downtown, daffodils are blooming, and people are roaming the streets wearing shirtsleeves.  Doesn't feel like a Winter Games.

That has brought out the crowds, and that has led to a carnival atmosphere on the downtown streets.  It has also led to plenty of arrests for drunken revelry and a few barroom brawls.  Hockey crowds, especially, have an edge to them that is slightly worrisome.  (I spoke to a number of people who were worried about walking home last night after the U.S. beat Canada in hockey.)   Last night as I was leaving the press center a raccoon darted across a crowded street and into a hedge.  I was going its way, as it happened.  A young man in a funny hat, plenty well-oiled, took off after the raccoon.  "I'm a raccoon catcher," he bellowed.  Then, to me, "Where did he go?"  I shrugged, nodding toward the hedge.  Suddenly the raccoon appeared ahead of us, on a low wall, obviously wondering whether to make a break for it.  "There he is," the young guy said, slowing.
       "I wouldn't try to pick him up," I warned him.  "He'll bite you."
       "I'm not going to pick him up," the raccoon catcher said.  "I'm going to kick him."
        Of course you are, I thought.  Why wouldn't you?  Canada lost a hockey game, so you kick a raccoon.  Brilliant.  Fortunately, the raccoon disappeared.

       Bottom line is the people of B.C. are loving their day in the sun, donning their Canadian sweaters, painting their faces, and generally reveling till all hours of the night, every night.  So far the hosers have been mostly guilty of belting out some very bad renditions of Oh, Canada! at the top of their lungs on the street.  It's so much more festive than it was in Torino four years ago, where it was as

  
if the local populace was intent on showing itself too cool to embrace a sporting event like the Olympics.  Empty seats could be found at many events in Italy.  Not so, here.  Canada loves its winter sports, and it shows.  Even compulsory ice dance was a sellout.



TV COVERAGE:
Incomplete
  I'm the worst person to try to give a grade about the television coverage you're getting, since I'm watching the Games in Canada.  They're doing a great job.  From everything I hear, though, NBC is still delaying the coverage of too many of the marquis events, packaging them for prime time rather than showing them live, and--this I hear over and over--showing way too much of Bob Costas.  Someone asked me if he had it in his contract he had to be shown a certain number of minutes every hour.  His ego's that big, but I doubt his agent's that good.
      No, Dick Ebersol, the man who does NBC's Olympic programming, just doesn't trust the athletes to be enough.  To him, the Olympics is entertainment, not sports.  So he trots out Costas, Steven Colbert, Al Michaels...who else?  I don't watch.  Rather than show the athletes from all nations competing.  Here in Canada, as in most countries, the television host ushers the viewer from one sport to the next, briefly setting the scene, laying the backdrop, then introducing the announcers at the venue before disappearing for the next hour or two.  At NBC, the host (Costas) doesn't usher.  He is like the guest who won't leave after dinner, pontificating, carrying on, laughing too loud and staying too long.  Sports?  Why rush off to watch sports?  He knows the outcome, after all.  It's been taped.

     But I'm curious what you think.  Post a message below about NBC's coverage, and the grade you'd give them.  You may have to register to do so, but only once.  It won't take long.   Inquiring minds want to know.