On the mountaintop, burning like a silver flame

So I should start out by saying that, yes, I missed two weeks. I know, I’m a bad person, but I still plan on being committed, and perhaps I’ll write two extra entries outside the usual Thursday ones. If you’re wondering, the excuse for the first week was that I had about nine million other school-related things to do, and for the second week it was because I was drunk. This week neither of those excuses apply, so here I am! Also I should point out it’s technically Friday as I write this… but who cares.

The issue, again, is what to write about. I juggled the idea of Giambronegate (or, as it’s been more commonly called, the Giamboner affair) but that’s so old now; he’s already awkwardly back to tweeting as if nothing ever happened. The other alternative I can think of, since it’s happening right now, is the Vancouver Olympics. The thing is, this blog is almost turning into an Olympics/Transit blog with some municipal politics thrown in… but who cares.

SO! Vancouver 2010 is apparently where it’s at right now… sort of. First off, I may have mentioned this before, but I always find the Winter Olympics to be less exciting than the Summer Olympics. Two showstopper events are figure skating and hockey, while a lot of the other events are technically specific. For example, I had no idea what the major difference between “short track” and “long track” speed skating is… and I still don’t. There seems to be an endless supply of speed skating variations, all complete with athletes I never knew existed until the media starts digging the dirt on medal hopefuls. Same with skiing, snowboarding (at least most of these are obvious, though I had no clue what “snowboard cross” meant), and the multitude of luge, skeleton, and bobsled events… all exciting to watch but at the same time hard to get into.

That’s not to say the Summer Olympics aren’t like that either, but there’s just so much more going on that it’s easier to get a taste of everything. You watch some swimming, some gymnastics, some running, a bit of diving for some good measure, and then cap it all of with a dose of fencing. There’s something for everyone. In the Winter Games, if you don’t really like watching hockey, it’s slim pickings. Or at least that’s what I think.

Anyways, now that I’ve gone on and on about why I like the Summer Olympics more, what should I say about Vancouver 2010? Are they a flop? A disaster? Excellent? So-so?

I think the cause of the problems that Vancouver is having (of which there appears to be many) can be broken down like this:

1/3 is having to go right after Beijing; with the amount of effort, money, and time they put into their event, going after them is like singing after Pavarotti in a vocal recital. It’s not our fault though; it’s safe to say that China works a lot differently than Canada does, and they had the manpower, regime, and work ethic to allow for something like that to be produced (it is a communist government after all). They also had a lot more money to go into it. Can you imagine a large nationwide tax hike to pay for a fancier Olympic Opening Ceremony? Not going to happen in Canada. I have yet to watch the opening, but from what I hear it was slightly corny, slightly good, and slightly bad. And slightly sad, which I’m getting to next.

1/3 is bad luck. Obviously the first thing to come to mind is the death of the Georgian luger (lugist?) Nodar Kumaritashvilli, which was a serious, unfortunate incident; it goes without saying. Also unfortunate was that it put a black cloud over the beginning of the events, almost like an omen of sorts. Was there any way to prevent his death? Possibly, but it’s hard to say; if the track was known to be fatally dangerous to certain riders I doubt they would have continued without altering it. Whatever the case may be, it was very unfortunate, and that was augmented by terrible weather. When have there ever been Winter Olympics where they had to import snow? And in Canada? If that’s not bad luck then I don’t know what is.

The 1/3 is actually on the organization of the games itself. First of all, make sure your torch-raising apparatus works before you broadcast live to the entire world, so that Katrina Lemay Doan has something to ignite. Secondly, don’t put the other nice torch so far behind an ugly fence… if you’re going to prevent people from touching it, build something and incorporate it into the design, don’t put up some stupid rent-a-fence! Thirdly, let’s not be so aggressive! Just because the games are in Canada, it doesn’t mean we need to win three million medals (well, OK, thirty, but still). We now look like complete idiots because we’ve been piping this “Own the Podium” bullshit; halfway through we’re 10 behind the USA and haven’t come even close to half our goal yet. Goodbye $117 million!

OK, so there’s still time for these games to pan out, but it’s interesting to see what’s happening. It makes me wonder what would have happened if Toronto had hosted the 2008 Olympics. I know, I’m on this subject again, but think about it: if super cool Vancouver is having a hard time, what the hell would have happened here? I almost shudder at the thought… almost, because now we might able to learn from their mistakes (if we do ever get to host the Olympics).

One final thing- another issue I had was the large amount of useless pressure the media was putting on Team Canada to win a gold medal, simply because we hadn’t won any in the two other games hosted in Canada. Call it a curse all you want, it was dumb. Is the same set of athletes who competed in Calgary in 1988 competing now? How about all those athletes from Montreal? It’s not like we hadn’t won any gold medals in, say, Turin, or Salt Lake City, so I don’t understand why there was this lingering fear that we were going to blank again. If anything, it would make the athletes more nervous, wouldn’t it? Thank goodness for Alexandre Bilodeau, who got that over with quickly and efficiently. And, he has a inspirational brother with Cerebral Palsy! How could anyone not love this?

Anyway, this entry got a lot longer than I intended it to, but it will certainly be interesting to see how these games pan out. Maybe the bad luck will end and we’ll make it to thirty medals. Maybe not. As with anything, time will tell. Now I’m going to watch some figure skating.