Sunday, February 26, 2006
Wrap Up
The Winter Olympics, also known as the reason I have been so neglectful about writing, are coming to an end today. I will not be watching the closing ceremony, as it always makes me cry and this year it involves Avril Lavigne, and that would send me into a coma.
So let's take a look back at the 2006 Olympics and remember that I will be back with non-Olympic talk soon with subjects including but not limited to: Law & Order: SVU, Project Runway, Tom and Katie (of course) and the Oscars. Woo!
I love this guy. I love that he came out of nowhere to win the gold in the men's combined and I love how deliriously happy he was for, like, the entire week. I also love the fact that the US motivational coach screamed "TED LIGETY! DO IT FOR YOUR MOM!" as he went down the hill. I think it's just the name Ligety that makes me smile.
Yeah, Sasha Cohen choked in the free skate. We all expected that. Actually, no, I didn't, I was foolish enough to think that this would be the time that she'd skate two clean performances in a row. But I was so surprised that she came back from her two falls and skated an amazing performance. Not as amazing as her short program, which was brill, but still fantastic. If she couldn't win the gold, I am pleased as punch that Arakawa did because (1)her free skate was fantastic (2)she was pretty.
The heffa skated to "Hello" by Lionel Richie and didn't get a medal for her trouble. Yes, she's not a very good skater, but come on! Perhaps she should have used a Lionel bust as a prop and would have won...?
For most of the Olympics, Apolo Ohno (or Apolo Anton Ohno, as he is called, but I don't know when that began or why he needs the middle name. Is it to differentiate himself from the myriad Apolo Ohnos running around?) was referred to by the press as a colossal flop because he only won a bronze in his first race
Apolo Ohno, just another lousy sequel.
That's a...healthy outlook. They made it seem as though the guy eats infants for breakfast and routinely tells kids that there is no Santa Claus. I'm not the biggest fan of his on earth, mostly because that soul patch hurts my feelings, but I was very happy that he won a gold and another (lowly) bronze medal. Suck on it, haters!
The "Curl Girls" were overrated and annoying (Cassie Johnson doesn't so much speak as she does squeak), but the men won a bronze! Eeee! And they had a streaker at their match! That's a sign of your sport truly arriving. And so I bid the endless hours of curling coverage adieu, just when I was beginning to understand it.
I am hard pressed to name another human being as wonderful as Joey Cheek. From general adorability to donating his two bonuses to charity and leading others to follow suit, resulting in $300,000 worth of donations, and being chosen to carry the American flag at the closing ceremony, Cheek has just been delightful over the past two weeks: happy to be there, talented and kind. We need more people like him!
I blatantly cribbed that from NBC, because it is all too fitting. The man sucked. To the extent that I felt really bad for him and worried that he might actually have a mental illness of some kind. But he kindly reminded me of why I hated him in the first place, aside from his dickish attitude and nonstop "Are you a Bodeist?" commercials (What the hell does that even mean?):
"I just did it my way. I'm not a martyr, and I'm not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here"
"Me, it's been an awesome two weeks," Miller said. "I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level."
I wonder if the reporter said, "Uh...you're a douchebag" at any point during this interview, because I would be hard pressed not to. Maybe that's why I am not a reporter. It is just infuriating. Why be at the Olympics if you aren't going to compete? Is it just because you wanted to swindle Nike out of money? Did you take pleasure in taking someone's spot on the team? Did you want to ruin the reputation of the American ski team single handedly? Because if so, yeah, you rocked.
ALSO, if you want to be fast and awesome, maybe you should, I don't know, get in shape? There was a point in time when he was aesthetically pleasing, but that ship has sailed. Because the bloated look is not cute.
I don't want to wish physical harm on a person, so I will settle for saying that I hope someone vomits on him.
When Giorgio Rocca, AKA my Italian Skiing Boyfriend, announced that he'd ignore all other races in favor of focusing on the slalom, I was skeptical, since he is a headcase and I was sure that he'd psych himself out. But then I came around to the idea and said it was better if he rested.
LESSON: Always trust your first instincts. The man crashed in thirty seconds. He is never going to leave his therapist's couch now! I can only imagine what conversation he and Alberto Tomba are having and if Tomba is grossed out that he crashed because he crossed his skis. Like, "Ewww! Get away from me with your inferior cooties!"
DID YOU KNOW...that Lindsay Jacobellis tore up a picture of the American flag and screamed "Fight the real enemy!"? She must have. That's the only logical explanation for the way she has quickly become shorthand for "national disgrace".
Yes, she showed off at the end of her race and that's why she lost the gold medal. Yes, that was basically the dumbest thing she could possibly do. Yes, she deserves to be made fun of. But, seriously, the coverage became too much. When we have a president who wants to sell our ports and a drunken vice president who shot someone, losing a gold medal due to your idiocy isn't exactly in the top five of worst things going on in the world, you know what I mean?
I do still laugh at those final seconds of her race, because I am a mean and awful person underneath it all. Hee! She wiped out!
Aside from Ben Agosto and my new BFF Tanith Belbin, ice dancing was a crime against humanity. The worst offenders, of course, were Babara Fusar-Poli/Maurizio Margaglio and Elena Grushina/Ruslan Goncharov.
The lasting memory of Fusar-Poli and Margaglio's ill-fated trip out of retirement will, rightly, be the fact that she stared him down for a full 40 seconds after he fell and ruined their routine, which led to hours of them not speaking and culminated in his sobbing backstage while she drank water. They eventually kissed and made up, but that ending to the story is not outlandish enough for my liking. Screw happy endings!
Also outlandish? Their outfits. I...ew. From her bad dye job to whatever color scheme that was, the whole thing was ick. I mean, come on! If Roberto Cavalli could dress Carolina Kostner, he could have dressed you! And yes, the snowflakes on her costume looked like spiders, but that was worlds better than your costumes.
Grushina just looked like a skeezer.
Pasties and tassels?! OMG!
Newflash, Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis: you're annoying.
As much as I want to be on Shani's side, his whining is growing old. But I have to grudgingly take his side because (1)Apolo Ohno and Joey Cheek both like him and I trust them and (2)The Dutch hate Chad Hedrick. For serious!
The show began when Shani Davis' mother, accompanied by an entourage that included members of the Dutch curling team, appeared in a bright orange cap and coat, both of which were emblazoned with "Holland."
"I tried, Mom," Davis said after finishing second in the Olympic 1,500-meter speedskating race. "I wasn't strong enough."
"You beat Chad, and that's all that matters," one of the Dutchmen said, speaking of bronze medalist Chad Hedrick, who apparently is Dr. Evil in the Netherlands.
It devolved from there, with some of those same Dutch curlers Cherie Davis had met only a few days earlier getting kicked out of a postrace news conference, with American rivals Hedrick and Shani Davis exchanging unpleasantries and with Shani Davis walking out of the news conference before it ended.
Greatest thing ever!
Hedrick also loses points for his scary, Hilary Duff teeth; multiple exclamations of feeling "betrayed"; his family telling Laura Bush that they are Bush people; trotting around the memory of his dead grandmother for sympathy; the eyebrows.
I really hope that, in a week or so, he realizes that he eclipsed an amazing Olympic performance (3 medals!) by being a complete and utter dickhead. Because that's what I am going to remember, not the fact that he did really well. Loser!
Mallory at 2/26/2006 02:12:00 PM
3 Comments
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at 3:13 PM
david said... straight to the point and thanks for hitting the nail on the head about those 2 idiots in chad and shani. may we never see athletes like them again!
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at 11:13 PM
K said...
Whee, pretty new layout!
Olympics were so fab omigod I don't know how I will be able to readjust to daily life without them.
Our closing ceremonies flag bearer won five medals!! Astounding! I want to be a speedskater now.
And seriously, those Italian figure skaters will never not be funny.-
at 6:03 PM
CLC said...
M:
Really dig the new format. Orange just makes me very happy. Also, very much like your new Italian ski BF - he is yummy. You have impeccable taste. Speaking of your impeccable taste in BF's - just saw that Cleveland is already hard at work on a long term contract with your mid-western BF, Grady Sizemore... :)