Bob Sledding

We watch the Olympics throughout most of the day, so that you don’t have to.

And today, we also bring you a news story related to the Games which, though reported by the NY Times, hasn't gotten a great amount of coverage elsewhere.  That's at the end, but first on to the events themselves --

I was underwhelmed by the short program for pairs figure skating, but I thought the free skate was pretty good.  It doesn’t air on primetime until tonight (when they’ll likely have the top pairs), but the full event was on during the night, and I recorded it, and then watched during the morning.  There was a very nice moment when the team for Israel skated to “The Impossible Dream,” which ends on the line, “To reach the unreachable star” – at which point the man lifted his partner above his head, which she held in a difficult, twisted position.  “Oh, that’s perfect,” analysist Johnny Weir said – but not for how well it was done (though it was), but rather, as he explained, “That move they just did is called a ‘star.’”  Conversely, when the German pairs skated, they did very well…except on their two attempted lift, they weren’t able to get the woman raised either time.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before. Their scores plummeted.  Though one of the U.S. teams with Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier finished just out of the top five, they had a wonderful skate, and still ended up high, in sixth place.

And I was very happy that the early perception I wrote about after watching the U.S. figure skating championships and European championships, the NBC analyst team of Terry Gannon and skaters Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir were superb, back at the level when I first saw them before becoming the network’s main team, when they were the “B team” sort of auditioning on a less-watched NBCsports channel. Over the last few years, after being promoted, their success got a bit out of control, to the point of Lipinski and Weir acting like “we’re the show.”  But this year, they’ve been back to insightful and objective commentary, analyzing during a skate (which I love), being quietly funny and still outlandish in the moment, not overall.  And as always, they work wonderfully with anchor Terry Gannon, which is excellent in what can be a thankless job.

Happily, they’ve finally been having a lot more of bobsledding, which is one of my faves.  And nice to see pilot Elena Meyers Taylor get the Bronze Medal, the fifth Olympic medal of her career, the most-ever by a U.S. bobsledder.

I’ve also adjusted one of the reasons for loving bobsledding, which in the past has focused on the four-man event.  That’s because, as I’ve written, it allows me to keep my dream alive of making the Olympic team.  I wouldn’t be any good, and we’d lose, but in the four-man event there are two team members whose only job is to help the other two teammates push a sled 15 feet and then pull themselves into the sled and sit for the rest of the race.  And I can do that.  But what I realized is that I could also be a brakeman, which means I could compete in the two-person event (which only has the pilot of brakeman) if they needed me and called at the last minute.  I’ve always ignored that race, since the brakeman is someone who has to be big, very strong and fast, pushing the sled before stepping into the opening at the back and sitting the rest of the result.  But I realized that if it’s just a case of needing a brakeman to compete, then simply stepping into the opening at the back is even easier than pulling yourself over the side!  And again, sure, we’d be bad and lose.  But the point is, I could do it!!

Finally, there was a news story in the NY Times (which you can read here) – that I saw discussed elsewhere – about China propaganda during the Olympics.  Apparently, the Chinse have created fake accounts, bots and influencers on social media to try to combat the critical news stories during the Olympics about the country, notably their human rights violations.  The sub-headline reads, “The country’s propagandists have used a variety of tools online to promote a vision of the Games that is free of rancor or controversy.”  Among the more aggressive of the efforts has been a Twitter account called Spicy Panda, which has been posting cartoons and videos against stories that pointed out problems.  One cartoon sent by the Spicy Panda account accused the U.S. of using “its deceiving propaganda weapon to stain the Olympics.”

The article notes that by using these various tools --

“China has been able to selectively edit how the events have appeared, even outside the country, promoting everything that bolsters the official, feel-good story about the Winter Olympics and trying to smother whatever doesn’t.”

So, what we get from all these efforts are a “Potemkin village” of stories from China that don’t actually exist in the real world.  Instead, the article explains, the world public is told that “At Beijing 2022, the hills are snowy, not brown as usual this time of year. A Uyghur skier is the symbol of national unity, the tennis player Peng Shuai [who disappeared for months after saying a Chinese official sexually abused her] just a curious spectator. Athletes and foreign journalists praise the polite volunteers and marvel at the high-speed trains and the robots that boil dumplings and mix drinks.”

Just one more reason, I suspect, even without knowing this, why TV viewers – myself included – have had an uncomfortable sensibility while watching the Games, as enjoyable as many aspects of them are.  And another reason why, like with the Opening Ceremonies, I won’t be watching the Closing Ceremonies…which otherwise I always like to do.

More to come…