Old stories and new

Canadians thank Norwegian cross-country coach

Toronto Globe and Mail: The kudos keep coming for the Norwegian ski coach who gave cross-country skier Sara Renner a pole when hers snapped during Tuesday's Olympic team sprint.

Renner has already sent Bjoernar Haakensmoen a bottle of wine. Cross Country Canada has passed on its appreciation. And Norway's chef de mission can also expect a letter of thanks from the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Thanks to the borrowed pole, Renner and teammate Beckie Scott went on to win the silver medal.

"It was reflex," Haakensmoen said Thursday. "I didn't have to think.

"Our policy of the Norwegian team, and my policy, is we should help each other. We should compete on the same ground. Everybody should have two skis and two poles.

"We try to do our best so our skiers can be on the top of the podium, but the issue here is we need to help each other."

For Haakensmoen, giving Renner a pole was a simple act. To others, it's an example of the Olympic spirit that sometimes gets lost in the quest for medals.

"I think it's a fantastic gesture," said Shane Pearsall, the Canadian Olympic team's chef de mission. "To have a coach do this is phenomenal. It's great sportsmanship. It makes you believe in sport." ...

Ironically, Norway finished fourth in the race. Haakensmoen laughed when asked if his skiers complained to him about helping another team.

"No," he said. "Canada was better than Norway. They were clearly better. The pole had nothing to do with it."

This is why the Olympics are great. This is why we watch. Not that NBC showed it--or has even reported it.

HOUR ONE
Men's ice skating
NBC gets right to their bread and butter, with Iliam Klimkin of Russia first up. All black with greenish splatters on the front. Usual classical music; not great first jumps. Only, yet somehow does not seem like the next great Russian skater. Looks older than his age, and also his effort shows. They recount the tragedies he's suffered--father electrocuted, coach dies (not before choosing his next coach, and leaving him music he can use as he matures). Always seems to be setting up in between jumps, not great choreography. Good music though. Falls; closes okay. Scores are fine.

Kevin Van Der Perren of Belgium next, my gosh, they really are showing everyone. Red spangles, futuristic look, to Pirates of the Caribbean (?!) Bezic makes fun of his 'costume'. Celebrates after not falling on the first quad. Exults after his second jump too. He does pretty well in the middle section; crowd is pretty vocal, although again, lower section is not packed.

Ivan Dinev of Bulgaria... in 15th place coming in, but he gets prime time exposure. All black, peasant-sounding music. Very dramatic-looking; not bad opening combo. If this guy were Russian, would he be much better? Totally off-line on a jump, almost totally falls. Needs to recover confidence, and does a couple of jumps later. Pretty graceful; how come we've never heard of this guy? He's pretty slow though. Hmm, where are the Chinese men, anyway--shouldn't that national program of theirs be turning out some contenders by now? Dinev, meanwhile, is struggling. Wow, very pathetic ending, stopped before the music ended, Button says it was like he didn't even care. Never really seen that before. Commentators, and cameras, catch during his routine the chain around his neck breaking and Dinve taking it off and tossing it into the crowd. Marks aren't very good. Meanwhile, crass promo for later, Hammond says Yevgeny Pleshenko's parents sacrificed everything for him, tonight he can pay them back, "in gold."

Men's snowboard cross
Pat Barnell and Todd Richards are responsible for shepherding us through this new sport. Not expecting much from them. This is a strange-looking sport, course is all twisty and undulating, riders chase each other in circles. First qualifying heat--to get to quarterfinals!--gets underway, some Aussia and some Russian win.

Graphic says there are 38 features in all on the course; it seems to double back on itself much less than it appeared, essentially a long snake. Alternate American Graham Wantanabe in next heat, looks more Native American than anything, hippyish. It's really quite a flowing sport, fun to watch. Ooh, Watanabe goes down in a crash with another rider, who powers on. Watanabe gets back on course, afterwards is very quick to congratulate two who go on. Just happy to be here. Seth Wescott shows for the first time--I already know what happens here--talking about the course.

Wescott up next, out first immediately. He's just cruising, camera not doing a good job of keeping up with him. Crash hinders the other 3, he just cruises to victory. Another heat, bunch of foreigners, they look slower than the previous group, riding more deliberately and not as flowing. Japanese guy wins.

Next, American Nate Holland. Gosh, I immediately don't like him from profile. He gets out to usual strong start, others get into a crash. Hmm, being in front apparently matters in this sport. He's noticeably shut it down, would be funny if it was close at the end. Whoah, almost screws up last jump, or maybe just trying to showboat. Final heat, another American, Jason Smith. Again, American's in front, just cruises. Another wipe-out behind.

Women's skeleton
First competitor from Germany apparently two months pregnant; they lie on their stomach and go down head-first. One announcer is among the worst shouter ever, everything is delivered loudly. German sets a track record. Next, a Swiss, who just gave birth. Hmmm, interesting theme developing here. Shouter announcer is just ridiculous, other announcers are matching him now. Funny thing is they shout in short spurts, they have nothing to say. Next, American, Katie Uhlaender. Nice start. Hey, this is the team where they fired the coach for sexual harassment--are these fine sports journalists gonna mention it? Nah, of course not. Might get in the way of all the shouting and boostering. She finishes poorly, 6th. And that's it... boy, this is pathetic.

HOUR TWO
Just the quarters
This is shaping up to be the worst night of the Olympics so far. Apparently NBC is only gonna show us ice skating, snowboard, and skeleton (if you can count that). People are gonna be turning off in droves, it's really insane. Who's making these programming decisions? There are tons of other sports being contested, why show us four rounds of a sport nobody cares about? Why show every single ice skater?

Anyway, first heat goes off, German and Slovak win, after the requisite trailers crash. Another heat... four altogether. It's just the same thing, over and over again--get in front, cruise; otherwise, crash. Seth's heat. Even the announcers have run out of things to say, silence at the start. Top two zip, others fall. Two kinds of boots here, hard and soft. Seth wins. They show the view from the rider's perspective bumping to break.

Next, Holland vs. Smith and two others. Americans out front. Closely-bunched riders chase Smith. Holland wipes out, Smith advances. Holland's not happy finishing last. Replay you can see him pushing another rider, which is illegal. Fatty then messes up in the air, gets hit landing.

More skating
Footage of Evan Lysacek being comforted by his mother after a poor short program the other night. Then the U.S. team's coach gives him a few happy-talks before he skates tonoight. He's got 29 family members watching; all in black. Determined look in his eyes. Good music, powerful strokes. Looks like he's mad. Two nice opening jumps. Nails another triple. Hamilton's getting very excited. Yeah, his boy language is totally different than the other night, he's in control tonight, confident. Hmm, he's nailing every jump so far. Not perfect, but very good. More jumps, easy as pie. Announcers strangely quiet. Not a word out of Button or really Bezic so far. Crowd gets into it, clapping in tune. Hmm, last jump, all nailed. Wow, he's even exhuberant on the ice as he finishes up, as Scott says, the crowd is gonna go nuts. Good music to finish up with, Hungarian Rhapsody. Button comes in with 'good for him,' Scott is just so happy for him. Wow, nice scores, grabs first, crowd roars--a personal best.

Next, fellow American Matt Savoie, in odd brownish peasant outfit. He's also skating with confidence and speed. Wow, also nailing all his early jumps. He bobbles a jump a bit, but recovers nicely. Beautiful cello/piano music. Not something I've heard a million times, but the cello part especially is so beautiful. He skates well to it, this may be my favorite performance so far. Scott calls him a 'skater's skater', says every skater in the building is admiring him; Bezic hopes young skaters are influenced by him. Music changes, flutey now, strong beat. Nails his triple, very passionate choreography. Wow, almost hits the wall on the second part of a combo, singles it and avoids trouble. 'Old moves in new ways' says Button. So smooth; spins are good too. Nails last jump, right before he ends. Wow, very nice. Into second.

Americans are 1-2 at the moment. It's still early and neither will make the podium probably, but still a good showing by the American men. Afterwards Evan talks about how he was probably sick with a stomach flu leading up to the short program but didn't realize it because of the adrenaline.

Next is the odd Emanuel Sandhue of Canada, black top with a werid design, bright blue pants. Skating to some original composition, drum-like--falls on his first quadruple jump. As Hammond said, talented but uneven. Falls again on second jump. Hmm, Bezic says he's talented enough to be Olympic champ, and the other skaters fear him... falls a third time. Bezic says it's a lack of training that's dooming him. He acts like he's given up by the end. A few nice, effortless jumps near the end. Bezic notes it's hard music to skate to, bold and angular; while his natural style is sweeping. The music actually isn't half bad, it's got some Indonesian gamalong influence, Chinese influence in there too.

I wonder what the quality of skating coaching is, that these commentators seem to be making spot-on points that should've been addressed by the skaters long ago. Maybe Sandhue is the exception; I don't know though, hopefully all the skaters taped the coverage.

I'll tell you right now, I don't think that Weir kid will do well later tonight. Not sure he's the kind of guy who thrives off his teammates, feels more like someone who likes being the exception, out of step with the others. But who knows, it's based on nothing really except a personal dislike for the way he comes across.

Nearing the top of the hour--the funnily-named Shawn Sawyer of Canada. I wonder if there are lots of Americans walking around with names that when people in other countries hear them, bring a smile to their lips, whether for associations or near-associations. He's all in black, standard heroic classical; hmm, a lot of speed into his first two nice jumps. Then steps out of third jump. Doubles his next jump; looks bad when it's popped halfway through, better to plan before you're in the air not to do it. Button really likes his lines and his spins; Hamilton sets up his spiral as being nice. Oddly trips in transition to it; Hamilton says he's never seen a man do a spiral like that, except for one guy once upon a time. Button says at the end he'll stand up and applaud for him, he found him magnificent, even at just 21. Were it not for the flubs....

Again, NBC's programming leaves something to be desired--Sawyer's routine straddles end of 9/start of 10, and then they got to commercial at 10:03. Do they not understand tv viewing habits? The Olympics is one of the only events where people watch without knowing what they want to watch. Give them drama, excitement, heartbreak, and above all a sense of anything could happen, and people will watch. Show them junior Canadians and commercials, and you'll get clobbered in the ratings by Idol, and find yourself in the same league as the likes of House.

HOUR THREE
Who's Seth--where's Jimmy
We know he won gold; so Chevrolet, sans Jimmy Roberts, profiles him. The report's entirely in Wescott's first person. It's ok; he rides in a lot of helicopters and goes down a bunchof mountains in Alaska. Some beautiful footage; whoah, including totally insane footage of someone--him?!--boarding with an avalanche chasing him.

Finishing off snowboard cross
The unlikable Holland is interviewed at the top, apparently filed some sort of protest. Odd, he's so unlike the other athletes, openly whiny and non self-confident. Protest is denied. First semis, bunchof foreigners advance, also not without controversy, Canadians file a protest--denied.

In other semis, Wescott and fellow American Jason Smith against a Frenchie and an Austrian. Wow, this race is fun to watch; some surfing in here. Whoah, Seth in 'unfamiliar' position of non-first. And Frenchie finishes first, Seth second. Nice scene, he embraces Frenchie.

Odd, wonder why NBC is going straight into finals. Ah, ice skating constrains how late this can be shown, hence the non-prime position for an American gold medal winner. Four guys; Slovakian, Frenchie, Spaniard and Seth. It's him and the Slovakian, whoah, Seth makes up a ton of distance on a jump, then makes a great sneaky pass on the inside. Coming home, neck and neck, Seth in front, cuts other guy off, wins! Again, aggresively going for it and asserting your will on the other guy. He wins by like half a board's length. He's very earnest, almost serious in the post-race interview--America, this is a real sport, I'm a real athlete. Seems cool.

Odd, announcer at the end sounds like he's reading prepared remarks, a bit stiff and aiming for loftiness.

Crowning Russian
Coverage of the final six skaters start from their warm-ups. I remember they did this with the women in Salt Lake, it's kindof cool. Audience is going nuts, rattling some sort of noisemakers. Cut to a profile of the man of the hour. Wow, the town he grew up in looks cold, and harsh. St. Petersburg by contrast, in Yevgeny Plushenko's words, looks large and beautiful; they had to move there so he could properly train. Wow, this is a pretty affecting piece, he says they had to collect bottles so they could afford to eat, his dad worked hard for very little. He really comes across as a good guy. Per Russian custom, he's married already, to a sociology student.

He skates first in the final group, in black with a broad red collar around his neck. Looks like a champ. Godfather theme in the background; very fast, quad/triple/double is his opening jump, which he nails. So fast around the ice. Nails his next jump combination too. No choreography, just wants to finish the jumps as soon as possible. Nice height on more jumps, and yet more--we're like 45 seconds in and he's done like 8. 'Jumps, then arm movements' is all he does, says Button... final jump competition, like a minute in, 3.5 left to--dance?! Gosh, no real bobbles or falls, he's good, or else the other men are just not good enough.

A typical Plushenko performance, after a while he's just running out the clock, wild spins and big circles, lots of big cross-ice glides. Makes a mistake, doubles a triple, but you wouldn't really know; nails another jump. Bezic says it's somewhat tight, slower than usual, which is amazing. Hamilton says he's disappointed, solid technically, but average artistically. Oh? I mean, he's not great, but he was very good. Looks like he's finally let it out, shows some emotion after it's over, the audience just roars. Button says he's bamboozling us with his hands--oh well, count me tricked. Again, not exhilirating, but very good. One coach has crazy Rasputin-like hair, other is bald and in command. He's in first by almost 40 points, it's totally ridiculous. Next, Button promises us, an uninterrupted 30 minutes of skating. Nice--but the best has already gone, it's all downhill from here.

Next, Swissie Stéphane Lambiel, defending world champ, skates, crazy tiger-print top with weird sleeves, black pants. Doubles opening axel, but then nice quad/triple/double combo. Standard classical music--Vivaldi--he slightly mistimed one of his jumps to it, almost falls on another jump before nailing a third. Man, forgot how many jumps the guys do. Bezic says his program is far more difficult than Pleshenko's... again, you gotta skate clean though. Falls on a quad, then nice combo. Then falls on a triple. Wonder if four rotations is about the theoretical maximum for a skater. Surely somebody, somewhere, in practice spun five times once? Not bad, obviously into second.

HOUR FOUR
It goes on
Johnny Weir's up, in aquaish/black fishnetty top over black w/silver stripes. His dad's here, never seen him live in seniors before. Pressure, pressure.... Good classical piano music, Beethoven I believe. Just don't fall on your first. Wow, nice opening combination. Smooth second; not bad third. He's pretty good so far. Well-done spin. He's actually pretty graceful, has an interesting feel. Steps out of a triple; gonna be tough to beat the Swissie. No quad in his program, Sandra says can't afford mistakes. He's noticeably skating slower; his jumps look more impressive somehow, because it takes a lot of energy, not the effortlessness of some of the other skaters. Don't fall here... apparently he just missed it, put it in later. Last few jumps, he's been barely hanging on, but has hung on. Laboring openly, minute left. Fast dash across the length of the rink. He's shy a jump opportunity, Hamilton says. See if he has the desire to put it back in. Nah. Button says it was just a down program, vastness of the stage. Poor U.S., Hamilton says he just needed another double axel.... Pretty low marks, crowd not happy; into 4th at this point, stalks off.

Afterwards, MSNBC reports (again, nothing on NBC):

Weir, who skated a cautious program filled with errors, stormed out of the rink when his mediocre marks were shown.

“I missed the bus. They changed the schedule,” Weir said. “It was every 10 minutes. Today it was every half-hour. I was late getting here and never caught up. I never felt comfortable in this building. I didn’t feel my inner peace. I didn’t feel my aura. Inside I was black.”

Missing the bus? He's missing the point--of what Olympic competition is about, and what it takes to be a champion. If you can't even control your reaction to things, or for gosh sakes get to the rink 20 minutes early on the biggest day of your life, how can you call yourself an Olympian?

Back to action. Jeffrey Buttle of Canada, red prince-like top, all black pants. Looks jaunty. To Samson and Delilah, and old program says Sandra. Nails the opening combo. Falls, but worth it for the points commementators say. Touches down on triple axel. Goofy guy, some odd moves and gestures as he mimes out the story. Nails most of his other jumps, into third my guess. Indeed so. Once again, no American men will medal.

Next, Brian Joubert, Frenchman; deep V-neck shirt, looks like watermelons--reds and grays, black pants. Bezic--another all jumps, no choreography. Deep, Russianish music. Touches on opening quad, misses landing on second quad, but head down, keeps going, bobbles another jump. Finishes sixth. This is getting tedious.

Luckily, one last guy, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan, 19. In purple, with the requiste black. Traditional music choice--actually same as an earlier skater. Totally falls on quad try, right back up. He won't medal. Triple, then skips second jump. Very rocky, hope he can pull himself together. Nice jump combination; good spins. Bezic says he's a 'beautiful' skater, should be one to watch in Vancouver. Hmm, upcoming Summer and Winter games both in cities with Asian populations. More nice jumps. Seems to be settling down a bit. Think he'll be out of the medals; and he finishes way back, 8th.

They show the on-ice medal ceremony; nice job, Yevgeny. All three men look happy to be where they are, which is why they are where they are.

Skeleton ends
There's gotta be an American somewhere near the top of this. Right? Nice opening shot of sunset along the Alps. British rider Shelly Rudman kicks off second heat. Blistering pace, into first. Without a pause she ends, Canadian M. Hollingsworth-Richards starts. Wow, they're showing this--and teased it--just to show some British woman, a Canadian, and now one final rider? We're not a colony anymore, you know.... Swiss rider, Maya Pedersen, the best in the world comes in a second up. Gave birth last year. She wins, by 1.23 seconds.

Seth speaks, again
In studio with Bob this time. Again, pretty serious, also looks quite serious, tone is too. They talk about the avalanche he got caught in; some very odd camera angles, as if the robot was unsupervised. Wow, this is a long interview, and not at all like the usual puff/banter stuff. Maybe because he's actually answering thoughfully, and germanely. And Costas, of course, knows the right questions to ask.

HOUR FIVE
Speed skating team pursuits
Show the women first, Germans win over Canada. Next up, the men. Italy vs. Canada, with mad-looking Chad Hedrick looking on. Canadians stumble. Crazy thing is they're still neck-to-neck with the Italians; but they're starting to pull away. And Italy grabs gold. Best part is they air Italy's RAI's call, it just sounds so much exciting in Italian--especially since one of the announcers' son is a winning racer.

After 15 years
We learn in the course of NBC's end of the night whirlwind recap that the winner in the women's biathlon won a competition for the first time in her career. As the Reuters story says:

French biathlete Florence Baverel-Robert pulled off a big upset by winning the gold medal in Thursday's 7.5-kilometre Olympic sprint.

The 31-year-old, who had never won a top-level competition in 15 years of trying, hit all 10 targets before completing the course in a time of 23 minutes, 21.4 seconds.

NBC couldn't have spared a few minutes during prime time to show this?!

NBC television also chose not to mention this story, at all:

Carl Van Loan watched the Austrians rally for their first Nordic combined gold medal Thursday and criticized the Germans for putting their weakest skier last.

Then he found himself on the defensive after being blamed by teammate Todd Lodwick for another American failure to win a medal in the event.

Van Loan was "the weakest link," Lodwick said after the U.S. finished seventh.

"We've got one guy way out of shape and picked for the team," Lodwick said. "That's not the athletes' decision, it's the coaches' decision." ...

Van Loan didn't argue for his own performance. He acknowledged being the least-productive member of the U.S. team, which also included Johnny Spillane and Bill Demong , and struggling on his jumps. But he didn't appreciate the public shots from Lodwick, who is competing in his fourth and final Olympics at age 29 and will retire after two more World Cup events.

"It was not my best performance and I'm sorry to the team I let them down," Van Loan said. "That's the best I had and I gave it everything. Todd is not a team player and never has been. He has threatened to not ski this event because of selfish reasons."

Lodwick, who like Van Loan has exercise-induced asthma, does much of his training on his own under personal coach Tom Steitz.

"That's something we deal within the team," said Spillane, a close friend of Van Loan. "After the jumping, we used this as preparation for the next competition. It was really over after the jumping. It's a big disappointment." ...

The Americans were fourth in this event in the Salt Lake City Olympics and had high hopes of a medal.

"We had three extra guys and we thought that was strength," Elden said. "Unfortunately, they weren't able to pull each other close enough. We're a team here. I don't want to talk about any weak links."

It's shameful; NBC covers Americans like crazy when they win, but when they don't, they pretend they don't exist. Journalistically, there's no excuse for not covering this story; their only possible defense is they're not covering the Olympics as journalists, they're doing it as programmers.

Which is pathetic. Not to mention from a programming decision, who wouldn't wanna hear about this story? Take a page from American Idol, NBC--conflict, good and bad, is interesting. Show us fewer qualifier events; it's not necessary to see every figure skater.

Find the stories--or at the very least cover the obvious ones.

Photo of Evgeni Plushenko by Franck Fife/ AFP.

Photo of Seth Wescott, right and Radoslav Zidek of Slovakia at the finals finish line by Lionel Cironneau/ AP.