Winter Olympics, to the Extreme

It took a while, and maybe it's been all the commercials, but the Games have gotten to my head. I can't hold it in anymore . . . Give me snow, give me ice, give me Torino! I guess the Olympic spirit is in me, after all. It took a while, but I'm feeling it now. And so are the German athletes and the Norwegians and the Russians too. They all have the spirit. They're all winning medals.

Unfortunately the Olympic spirit doesn't seem to be in many of our American athletes. Sure, Shaun White came through and won a gold in the aerial snowboard competition. (In fact, our snowboarders have probably had the most success of any of our athletes in these Olympics.) And speedskater Shani Davis made Winter Olympic history by becoming the first ever African-American to win a gold medal in the Games. But, on the whole, we haven't been all that impressive. We're LOSING, for crying out loud. That's right, I said it. Losing. I know the Olympics are supposed to be all about team, country, camaraderie and the like, and we're not supposed to get caught up in the medal standings, the battle for first place and the International trashtalking glory that comes with it, but come on now, we're the United States of America. Our country is huge and there's a lot of cold weather that reigns over our land. We've got Alaska, North Dakota, and Colorado within our borders. We should dominate the Winter Games. But for whatever reason, it's just not happening.

Bode "Bonehead" Miller coughed up any chance of our placing in the medals of skiing. And our men's hockey team fell flat on its figurative face, with a quarterfinal loss to Finland. The women's hockey club, at least, was able to take a bronze. Even Sasha Cohen couldn't seal the deal in women's figure skating---after a strong short program, she fell twice in her long performance and had to settle for a silver. And silver isn't even the same tint as gold.

But maybe I've gotten a little out of line here. Perhaps my perspective on the whole Olympic shebang is a little jaded. After years of rooting for inept New York Knicks, Jets and Mets teams, I appear to have finally reached a point where I'll take the glory of victory wherever I can get it, even if it's in the Olympics.

Maybe I'm just an Ugly American after all.


-JAB