Confessions of an Olympic Naysayer

So, I have spent a lot of time lately bashing the Olympics. There are certain events that are beyond lame and a waste of everyone’s time. There are some I will never understand. And almost all of them are tweaked to get more out of them then they are worth. And the pinnacle of this waste is figure skating. 15-year girls with bigger thighs and smaller chests than I have and “flamboyant” guys (code word for “homosexual but still in the closet”) flying around the ice while people clap along to the music. It’s not for me.

Which is why I was surprised I actually liked the Ice Dancing Competition. Imagine ballroom dancing on ice. I kind of like ballroom dancing, and this seemed to translate over onto the ice nicely. There are no lutzs, axels, or other weird names. Basically a man and woman (not teenagers) are dancing about and doing many of the same moves found on non-frozen footing. But the ice makes it all the more graceful.

There was also some drama. An Italian couple came out of retirement for the games and they were in first place after the first night. But on the second night the guy fumbled the pass (so to speak) and the fell on each other on the last move of their performance. She glared at him and then stomped off in disgust and did not speak to him at all until 5 seconds before they started their routine—a day later. They performed flawlessly (at least in my eyes) and ended with a teary embrace in the middle of the ice. How precious.

Also on the first night, a girl was getting twirled about and the guy lost hold of her and she went flying, landing squarely on her hip. If you haven’t seen the highlight, you need to. She could not go the next day so her partner went out, touched the Olympic rings, saluted the crowd, and gracefully withdrew. Quality stuff.

As I said, it has been an unexpected treat to watch the ice dancing. I will not watch the figure skating as I think that is still lame. You can call me what you want, but I’ll take ice dancing over Baseball spring training any day.