2010 Winter Olympics Preview
Erik DeckersLaughing Stalk syndicate
Copyright 2010
As I write this, we're just 24 hours away from the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. I love the Winter Olympics. You can keep your track and field, your gymnastics, your women's softball. Give me downhill skiing, the bobsled, and curling.
To get us into the Olympic spirit, here's a quick look at what's happening around the city with the athletes.
Sasha Cohen recently told sports reporters that the U.S. skaters did not have a chance of winning a medal at this year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver. While I'm all for national pride, I think Cohen's being a little ungrateful to the country where he filmed "Borat" and "Brüno."
I mean, who the heck does this guy think he is to come to our country, make our fellow citizens feel foolish with his crude and juvenile movies, and then to pass himself off as some kind of skating expert, saying, "(They) are good skaters, they're just not at the same level as the international girls." What a freaking jerk. Man, if I ever see that guy, I will personally—
What? I'm thinking of Sacha Baron Cohen, the British actor? And this was Sasha Cohen, the American Olympic silver medal figure skater?
Yeah, she's right, they totally don't stand a chance.
American skier Lindsey Vonn is using pain killers and numbing cream to ease the pain in her severely bruised right shin, in the hopes that she can ski this weekend. Vonn was injured last week, badly bruising her shin on a training run, which jeopardized her chances for competing in the games. This is especially devastating news, since she has been considered a favorite to win at least three gold medals. Vonn has said she plans on skiing in all events.
Tonya Harding and her ex-husband, Jeff Gilooley, could not be reached for comment.
Russia continues to face problems with their athletes taking performance enhancing drugs, said the International Olympic Committee. IOC president Jacques Rogge said he was especially concerned, since Russia will host the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, yet many of their biathletes and cross-country skiers continue to test positive for a variety of banned substances. (The biathlon is a sport that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting.)
Russian Olympic team spokeswoman Elena Voly held a press conference at the Vancouver Media Center. She vehemently denied these accusations, slamming a meaty fist onto the podium, cracking it. Her Adam's apple and massive biceps quivered in anger as her deep voice boomed out across the press center denouncing what she called a smear campaign by the West.
Canadian thieves have committed what may be one of the most unpardonable sins of this Olympics: they stole the uniform and shoes of Mirjam Ott, captain of the Swiss women's curling team.
This is quite a blow to the Swiss team, and to Ott in particular. The uniform can easily be replaced, but curling shoes are to curlers what baseball gloves are to major league ball players. Players take weeks to break them in, and will keep them for years.
The crime has Olympians up in arms, and the sports media angrily denouncing the cowardly thieves. If the crooks are caught, they face several years in prison, and will be subjected to watching every minute of the ice dancing competition.
There's always someone who wants to ruin it for everybody. And in Vancouver, it's the Olympic Resistance Network, an anti-Olympic protest group made up of social activists, anti-capitalists, and pasty-faced whiners who have nothing better to do than to be a royal pain.
For months, the protestors have been decrying the presence of the Olympics in Vancouver with things like community choirs and placards during one demonstration, or lighting torches and playing the Rolling Stones "Street Fighting Man." (Because as everyone knows, the Rolling Stones are anti-capitalists who don't really want the hundreds of millions of dollars they have already earned from their lucrative four-decade career.)
"Our main goal is to be the voice of opposition, to disrupt the games with a message of resistance and the true social impacts," groused Anna Hunter, an organizer of the unwashed rabble.
The expected crowd of 1,000 whiners and complainers will gather at 3:00 pm on Friday, and march the eight blocks to the opening ceremony, where many will collapse from exhaustion, after years of a largely-meatless diet and sedentary lifestyle of sitting on couches reading Marx.
Good luck athletes, and go USA!
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