Old-fashioned Olympics don't have leg to stand on
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Yeah, right. Maybe that motto flew back in 1894, when the father of the modern Olympics proposed it, but let's be honest here. A viewing audience that prefers the early elimination rounds of "American Idol" to the Grammy Awards and the Olympics is not interested in highfalutin ideals of sportsmanship.

Who needs personal bests and good-spirited competition - we want drama. We want flare-ups and meltdowns in our politics, our crimes, and, of course our Olympics. So while those lofty ideals of blah blah blah were great back in the day, we need the International Olympic Committee to come up with a more relevant motto. Some suggestions:

Bitchy. Buzzed. Klutzy.

Actually, let's put klutzy first. Particularly when it comes to ice dancing. It's the only way to make the sport bearable. Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean so klutzy that the skaters can't skate at all (like me), because that would be truly boring, but klutzy enough to keep things interesting. And by interesting, I mean that they should splatter across the ice (without injuring themselves), fight to choke back tears, and maybe lose a few beads from their outfits - and then recover enough to finish their program, score just high enough to stay in medal contention. Rinse and repeat.

That's what would really keep those sets tuned to NBC. On Sunday night, after the Canadian, Lithuanian and two Italian pairs all messed up, my phone started ringing. "Was she glaring at him?" the caller asked, referring to Barbara Fusar-Poli, the 2002 Olympic bronze medalist, after her partner, Maurizio Margaglio, seemed to get in her way, bringing them both down. A glare? One can only hope.

My friend gave an evil little laugh, and confessed she watches mainly for the falls. OK, ONLY for the falls. "Once you've seen Big Bird do a triple salchow, how exciting is it to watch someone in a little skirt do it?" she asked rhetorically, making the case for her NASCAR attitude. "But if they fall, I'm all over it."

I started to tsk-tsk her, pretending to extolthe beauty of the sport, but she wasn't buying. "Come on," she said, "these people are professionals, they have it coming. We get a schadenfreude dispensation."

Then she softened a bit. "You know what the real tragedy of her fall was?" she asked. I couldn't even begin to guess. "When she put her head in her hands in despair you could see that she needs her roots done like nobody's business. Those are the roots of defeat."

And she was off to tune in for the rest of the games, remote in hand to record any falls from grace.

Faster. Oopsier. On tape.