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five-ring circus: Scenes from the Olympics.

Still Watching the Winter Olympics

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from: Troy Patterson
to: Seth Stevenson

Sasha Cohen: Disappointed Rockette

Posted Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, at 1:22 AM ET

Troy Patterson, Seth Stevenson, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discussed the Winter Olympics last week. To catch up on their conversation, click here.

Sasha Cohen Click image to expand.

Howdy, Seth—

Many shameful things have transpired in northern Italy in the week since you mingled ridicule with sympathy—but, primarily, further ridicule—in this space while writing about Lindsey Jacobellis. Here are my favorites:

Italian cops raided Austria's cross-country skiers and biathletes on suspicion of blood doping, doubtlessly giving many local criminals a good chuckle. On Wednesday, skier Bode Miller twisted his ankle while playing basketball. The American team's Alpine director told the AP that he had no problem with the hoops game; still, this turn of events suggests that the downhill blowhard is not so much a "jerk," or, as Dana Stevens suggested, a "douche bag," as a garden-variety "tool." The speed skaters Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis have engaged in a spat so protracted and so marked by little de- and re-escalations of tension that it came to look like they were flirting. The ice-dancing community indicated a taste in costumes that ran, to put it charitably, toward the tawdry.

The women of figure skating are far more modest. In fact, they're rarified creatures, no mere "women." Last night, settling in to watch the main event, I noticed for the first time that the highlight of the Winter Olympics is called the "ladies' free skate." Nobody's talking about "gentlemen's bobsled" or "ladies' hockey." Can you tell me what gives?

Can you also tell me what you clicked over to during the slow moments? NBC executive Dick Ebersol told the New York Times that last night was "shaping up as the most competitive night in the history of American television," almost as if that itself were something for viewers to get excited about. The idea developed a little life of its own. The pop newsmagazines got juiced about a horse race among the ice ladies, American Idol, Survivor, and Dancing With the Stars. Access Hollywood asked Stacy Keibler, apparently a star who dances, for her thoughts on the subject. She talked about having loved the music and costumes of figure skating as a child: "And now I'm kind of a part of that, in a funny kind of way." Funny ha-ha?

I tarry. In Tuesday's short program, Sasha Cohen smiled with her every gesture and radiated Rockette moxie. Last night, on a sore groin—perhaps the same one that felled Michelle Kwan—she hit the ice twice and was merely very good, earning a silver medal and, poor thing, four years trapped in a narrative that's all about disappointment. I wish that Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the bronze medalist, had made a sartorial statement to follow up on Tuesday's pioneering pantsuit. And I wish that NBC had spent as much oomph covering Japan's terrifically fluid gold medalist, Shizuka Arakawa, as it did on three ladies who weren't even in medal contention. Sure, it was lovely to celebrate Italy's Silvia Fontana, who had come out of retirement to skate in a home Olympics. And the story of Tugba Karademir, Turkey's first Olympic figure skater, was an instant classic about sacrifice and dream-pursuit with a current-events kicker. (Was it Jimmy Roberts who wondered what Muslims would make of her skirt?) But Kiira Korpi of Finland? The camera only lingered upon her because of her professional-model looks. Which might have been acceptable if she weren't 17.

How was your week, Seth? Questions? Comments? Complaints?

Yrs.,
Troy

five-ring circus
entries
1234
from: Troy Patterson
to: Seth Stevenson

Sasha Cohen: Disappointed Rockette

Posted Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, at 1:22 AM ET
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Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic. Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate.
Troy Patterson, Seth Stevenson, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discussed the Winter Olympics last week. To catch up on their conversation, click here.


Photograph of Sasha Cohen by Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images.
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