Down and Out in Denver

Last night I headed over to Alastair’s place with the intention of watching our regular Thursday night program: Models of the Project Runway.  We thought we’d top it off with a little Olympic figure skating. In the end PR and MotR were reruns so we watched the Olympics exclusively. But not before Alastair cooked up a little feast.  Dear reader, we do cook every once in a while!  We began with a lovely manchego cheese on Carr’s water biscuits (the kind with a little bit of pepper sprinkled on them) and a tart Spanish verdejo.  Very nice.  The main course was fresh pasta with pesto and sockeye salmon.  Alastair was outdoing himself.  We finished with mixed greens and a mustard vinaigrette and I have to say that Alastair does love his mustard; I only choked the one time.

After dinner we settled in to watch the ice skating, interrupted periodically by aerial ski jumping or some such mind-boggling sport.  A few thoughts:

Joannie Rochette

Longtime readers of DOD will know of my affinity for our neighbors to the North and so it will come as no surprise that I was rooting for Joannie Rochette, even though I knew she probably didn’t stand much of a chance against the teenage powerhouses Kim Yu-Na and Mao Asada.  Add to this the tragedy of Rochette losing her mother just a few days ago and her perseverance despite the loss, and I was hooked.  Rochette took the bronze with Kim and Asada nabbing the gold and silver, respectively, as expected.  What struck me most in watching them skate (aside from the fact that they were all ridiculously good) was how different they looked.  Kim and Asada look like the late teenagers that they are (both are 19): they’re slim and tiny.  Rochette, 24, looks like a woman.  And Rochette is actually the shorter of the three.  I tried to find a picture of all three on the podium but they don’t seem to be available, and the official Olympics site is guarding their photos.

This brings me to my next oh-so-deep observation: Kim, Asada, and Rochette were competing in “Ladies” figure skating.  According to the official Olympics website, the other Ladies’ sports also seem to involve skating (figure or speed), skiing of any variety, and snowboarding.  When female people play hockey or curl or hurl themselves down tracks in various sorts of sleds they are called women.  As they should be.  ”Lady” is an outdated term with all kinds of class implications. Can you imagine if men competed in “Gentlemen’s Speed Skating?”  I think not.  Why the discrepancy, Olympics?  Is this how the sports are called in their non-Olympic incarnations?

Finally, I offer grudging congratulations to Apolo Ohno, who, NBC never fails to remind us at every other commercial break, is the most decorated US winter Olympian in history (note the use of US there; Norwegian cross-country skier Bjorn Daehlie has him beat for the real title of most winter Olympic medals ever, period).  Just as we were told constantly that Michael Phelps is now the most decorated Olympian of all time.  Bear with me; this is not just my irritation with the United States’ obsessive need for self-promotion.  It has much more to do with the fact that those athletes (and this is not to say that Ohno and Phelps are not both phenomenal athletes) who can be the most decorated athletes are those who compete in sports that have multiple events.  If you play hockey, for instance, you’re out of luck: one medal tops per games.  You’d have to win at four or five consecutive Olympic games to compete with Ohno or Phelps in only one year.  And it’s not just the team sports.  Look at Kim Yu-Na’s performance last night.  In order to qualify for one medal she had to perform both a short program and a longer free program (the ice dancers — and yes, they are silly — have to do three).  Both performances were phenomenal, but she’s only entitled to the one medal for both of them.  And those of us who watched last night know that she — and Asada and Rochette and Mirai Nagasu and the other top competitors — are no less skilled and athletic than “the most decorated” of their fellow Olympians, but they will never join their ranks.  So enough with this “most decorated” business, I say!  In that spirit, let me congratulate the Canadian women’s (not ladies’) ice hockey team, which yesterday won their third consecutive gold medal!