The 5 Ring Circus

The tents are being taken down, the red mitts are being tossed in homeless donation bins, the ticket scalpers are crawling back into the dark alleys, and the puddles of puke and urine are being washed down the gutter by the reliable Vancouver rains.

These amazing, disgusting, enthralling, and emotional Games are over.

I only wish the Olympics could’ve slowed to the pace of the Snow Leopard (43 seconds behind the leader on his slalom runs), but instead it ripped past us all like Alex Bilodeau.

Thank you all for following along on this blog, and for all the contributors who helped add some content along the way while I was out banging cowbells instead of keyboards (and witnessing 4 gold medals). You were like that proverbial ass push in a short track relay, helping me get through this.

It felt like going into this, I had to hard sell a lot of Vancouverites on how great these Games would be. Now all the sideliners seem to have better Olympic stories than I do. This city really surprised me and dropped its indifference the moment the cauldron was clumsily lit.

I’m going to miss the alternating panning and praising of the Own the Podium Program, I’m going to miss Vicki Chan’s obsession with Johnny Weir, the Snow Leopard’s ubercelebrity status, Norway’s amazing curling pants, Stephen Brunt’s tearjerking montages, Jay Onrait’s morning show, and my girlfriend’s inability to let seven combined illnesses stop her from partying.

Jenny Taylor, still cheering through a Bronchial infection

I’m NOT going to miss the ridiculous venue lineups, the Yoplait Source commercial, the hideous Russian Sochi jackets, the way too revealing speed skating suits (mooseknuckles and cameltoes), the 18% automatic restaurant surcharge, the long lineups for beer tents, the outdated soulpatch of Apolo Anton Ohno, the off-pitch spontaneous anthem singing, those stupid Lululemon hockey helmet toques, the way too aggressive high fiving, and most of all, the CTV “I Believe” song.

The most encouraging thing I’ve heard in the aftermath is that amateur sports will now have a dedicated sports channel so that Canadians can follow our athletes on TV in between the Olympics, instead of the back pages of the sports section.

And though much has been made of this new brand of brash patriotism, I must admit, I lean toward the quieter, more modest Canada. I think we should all look to Sidney Crosby as a role model of class and dignity we need to maintain. We shouldn’t be in any rush to out America the Americans.

As for this blog, it’ll probably be back in 4 years. It’s been encouraging seeing 600 people a day check in on the stories, which rocketed to 5000 thanks to google searches for Ashleigh McIvor after her gold medal. Lesson learned–sex sells. Still, my favourite thing about this blog is that I knew it would have an expiration date of March 1st. Like my Olympic gear, it’s dying to be put away for a while.

Thanks for following the Circus.

The author and Athlete to Watch for Shallow Reasons, Kimi Zakreski

A look at Sven Kramer’s ill-advised lane change by Jeff Funnekotter, our Dutch insider… or is it outsider?… no, insider

Sven Kramer, DQ'd Dutch skater and Michael Cera lookalike

There are two ways to look at the Sven Kramer 10,000 meter debacle.  (Incidentally, in terms of descriptors, ‘debacle’ is reserved for the  Olympics.  Gaffes are for the Commonwealth Games, and faux pas for the Canada Games). For the uninitiated,  Kramer was disqualified for an illegal lane change even though he had the gold medal sewn up.

The reaction to Kramer’s ill-fated lane change here in the Netherlands has been predictably strong.  As anyone visiting Holland Heineken House in Vancouver or watching the Games on TV has noticed, the Dutch  are as crazy about speed skating as Canadians are about hockey, or the British are for hyperbolic slagging of another nation.  It’s not a national day of mourning here though – the pragmatic people from the Pays-bas have a tough ‘het is gewoon zo’ (it’s just the way it is) approach to many things.

But the autopsy is extensive. The replays, shown in excruciatingly slow motion on every channel, show Kramer’s coach advising him to go in instead of out, zig instead of zag, tally instead of ho.  Then we see the coach’s own ‘oh, snap’ look (in slo-mo, “oooooohhhh snaaaaaapppppp”) as he radios to some unseen co-coach to try to blame someone else for at least a minute or so.  To his enormous credit, he absolutely owned his mistake in every interview after the race, and I suspect nobody in the entire country feels as badly as he does today. Even though Kramer could have ignored his advice (equally tough to do though when you’re in the zone and trained to listen to your coaches).  One suspects that Vancouver’s immigration office received an orange-tinted request for political asylum today.

But where do we place our sympathies here?  On the one hand, we can’t comprehend how Kramer must feel after YEARS of training to get to this point, only to have victory vanquished by a technicality.  On the other hand, for those who have seen this clip, you may not mind that he was served a healthy heap of humble pie yesterday.

What’s more stupid, after all – a reporter asking a foreign athlete a standard question (albeit somewhat rudely) for video identification  for what is surely just a tool to help her editors figure out who’s who on the tape reel, or a coach and skater missing a simple lane  switch that they’ve practiced thousands of times?  Do you feel bad for the smiling and talented young kid who trains day in and day out, or do you are you pleased that the arrogant rude punk received some harsh comeuppance? Inside lane or outside lane?

By Jeff Funnekotter

For anyone not well versed in golf, Amen Corner describes the 11th, 12th, and 13th holes of August National golf course, home of the Masters. They’re a particularly difficult stretch of holes, and if you come out clean, the tailors start scrambling to get your measurements for the Green Jacket (a wearable trophy).

I mention Amen Corner, because this weekend at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics presented a very similar challenge to Canada’s Olympic team. Sadly, I’d say we came out of the weekend, ummm, about 8 over par.

I don’t mean to be an armchair athlete. I appreciate how tough it us to perform under the microscope of 34 million mitten-wearing hosers. And I know how tough the US and German teams are. It’s just, I hoped the law of averages would lead us to more than 1 silver medal over 48 hours.

The Hamelin brothers really deflated me. 2 chances to win a medal in a final heat of 5 skaters. In the words of my friend Jeff, “they skated a masterful 500 meter race. Problem was, it was in the 1000 meter event.”

Denny Morrison and Manny Osbourne-Paradis also got to me, pulling out a lot of excuses and finger pointing for their poor performances. Uncharacteristic of both athletes, and quite un-Canadian.

Melissa Hollingsworth was tough to watch, putting in a disastrous 4th run to slide right off the podium. Her coach was there at the bottom, handing her the Canadian flag in an anticipated celebration of a medal. She held it up with a forced smile, but might as well have used it as a kleenex.

While we’re talking about the track, one of our 2-man bobsled teams actually crashed while in 3rd place. This despite all those extra runs they had as part of the Own the Podium program.

The Canadian men’s hockey team folded to the Americans, forcing a sobering cup of coffee down the throat of all party-primed Canadians. From my point of view, we hit a hot goalie. Better now than in the playoff round.

And toughest of all was Chris Del Bosco, Skier Cross Athlete for Canada. He took a tight line on the second last jump looking to upgrade his sewn-up bronze. Instead, he ended up blowing up and landing in a crumpled heap within a stone’s throw from the finish. Still, I like that he was going for a better medal, because, in his own words “3rd is alright for some people.” Chris Del Bosco was really going for it, and I credit him for that.

This is a really verbose entry, but I’d just like to say this. There’s been a lot of debate about the Own the Podium initiative. Though I like the program in theory, I wish they didn’t give it such a brash name. To borrow from adspeak, it was a blatant overpromise. We’re talking about podium domination while other countries are just going out and doing it.

Yes, we have some medals. And yes, there have been some great performances. But we won’t be threatening the Americans, and probably not the Germans either. We probably won’t match our Torino numbers, marking the first leveling off on our graph of Winter Olympic progress.

As for this “there’s too much pressure at home” talk, that didn’t seem to bother the Australians in 2000. The cacophony of  cowbells and clapping should give you the extra 10 in 110%. I’m trying to stay positive, I’m trying to stay supportive, but so far too many of our athletes have taken their cue from the 4th pillar in the opening ceremonies, failing to rise to the occasion.

I might go to the Shark Club and try to get ruffied. I just want to forget all about this weekend.

At the beginning of the Olympics, I arrived at work to find a pass reading “ALL ACCESS” on my keyboard. It was given to me by a thoughtful coworker who knew of my Olympic passion, and thought the pass might carry some cachet. It took me about 3 seconds to figure out that despite the lanyard and bold letters, it was nothing more than a piece of junk mail promoting Yahoo’s “all access” online coverage of the Games. I contemptuously  threw it in the garbage, angry that it got my hopes up for those few fleeting moments. Stupid advertisers.

The extremely convincing pass, modified with some red tape.

I mention this pass because apparently that very same crap on a string can get you within 12 steps of the American Vice President. Today the RCMP admitted that a mentally ill man used the pass to get through 2 layers of security at the Opening Ceremonies. Fortunately the 3rd layer of security probably spotted the facebook and twitter icons on the pass and got a little suspicious. They apprehended the man within spitting distance of the Second in Command.

The mentally ill man won’t likely be charged, but the security guards confiscated the pass and plan on using it to get into the Gold Medal hockey game.

TODAY’S HAPPENINGS:

• Shaun White showed that bandanas aren’t just for protesters, convincingly winning the men’s halfpipe. Afterward, redhead women all over Vancouver were mistakenly asked for their autographs.
• The two man luge event wrapped up tonight, leaving only figure skating to make fun of.
• The US is off to such an huge lead in the medal count, they gave a few out to homeless guys in Vancouver’s east end, just for charity.
• The “I Believe” song on CTV will drive someone to homicide, and it will probably be me.
• Stephen Colbert filmed his show in Vancouver today, and more people showed up for that then the Canada Pavilion. Rightly so.
• Women’s Ski Jumping may have been blocked from the 2010 Games, but that didn’t stop Anja Paerson in today’s downhill.
• Marianne St-Gelais of Canada manages to grab a silver medal despite having to skate against a couple of dudes.

Watching the Vancouver 2010 Olympics from abroad provides a unique perspective. I’m in Amsterdam at the moment, outside the Van City snow globe, and thus perhaps a little less attached to a foreigner’s perception of these Games.

Or not. Based on the early returns, I’d have to say… up yours, Heather Havrilesky and Rick Reilly. Both are American-based writers – Havrilesky for salon.com, and Rick Reilly for espn.com. Both are fairly acclaimed and normally entertaining writers (although having read Reilly in Sports Illustrated since I was a kid, I can say that he’s a shadow of the writer he once was). And both recently ripped Canada a new one for both the opening ceremonies and the stereotypical attributes of Canadians in their respective columns this past week. And not in the normal, fun-loving satirical way either.

What’s that you say? We’re too polite? Too boring? We say “eh” a lot? Wow – fresh stuff. About as fresh as Apolo Anton Ohno’s soul patch.

Yeah, Vancouver’s opening ceremonies were at times full of cringe-inducing fromage and jingoism. Name one Olympics in the past 50 years where you couldn’t say the exact same. From a country that always has an Ashlee Simpson or a Toby Keith vomiting into a microphone while fighter jets fly overhead at its big events, you really don’t have a leg to write on. Yeah, we screwed up on the torch-pillar-thing. Nice work on the Obama swearing-in, where the most powerful man in the free world had to awkwardly mumble his way through and then have a do-over the next day. Yeah, our Zamboni failure sucked the drama out of the men’s 500-meter speed skating event. Er… YEAH.

The point is: lambaste us for something original, say something you haven’t said or heard a thousand times before, and step your own game up before talking shit.

P.S. For an idea of what constitutes legitimate and funny skewering check out Steve Almond’s salon article:

(Thanks to Jeff Funnekotter for the contribution. Follow his travel blog at www.funnekotter.blogspot.com)