Friday, February 15

Whether it’s the Winter or Summer Olympics, athletes train incredibly hard to gain whatever competitive edge they can. Much has been made of one way that they seek the upper hand: use the most cutting edge technology and equipment. This seems to be a bigger factor in the winter games than the summer games.

A few examples: in case you didn’t notice a difference in the body suits the speed skaters are wearing (when I first saw them I thought Blue-man group was doing a new commercial) check out the Nike "swift skin." Nike said it spent four years researching "project swift." Its elite apparel innovation team created the full-body speed skating attire.

Sports critics acknowledge "swift skin" is the most innovative piece of competitive apparel to date. Erica Hill, writing for Tech Live gives you a stitch by stitchless description of the "in" thing to wear when you’re flying around the ice. But the final word on whether or not the suit makes a difference has to go to the understated Annemeike Romeiun, technical manager for the Dutch speed skating team. "We think that when you are in good shape it brings you some more speed." In other words, you still have to skate fast for the suit to work in helping you win. The Dutch, United States and Australian speed skating teams are wearing “swift skins.”

The Monitor’s Mark Sappenfield points out a number of ways technical innovations make a difference in these winter games, from new ways to freeze ice, grooming the downhill slopes, to even more improved slap skates. Mark too chimes in though, that no matter what new gear comes down the slope, an athlete has to use it better than anyone else in the world.

Now if there was only some way to get the subjectivity out of judging figure skating events.

One feature needed in any team sport - and one that technology will never replace - is teamwork. Much has been made of whether the professional hockey players will gell as a team agin this year. Men's hockey play kicks off today and ESPN has a thorough take on who the medaling teams might be. But if you’re looking for pure, traditional, Norman Rockwell teamwork try "O Canada" and the women’s curling team.

If there was some way to bottle the way these women work together as a team and in life, well, the word champions would be upgraded in every sport. (And hey, lest we fail to mention the New England Patriots showed they had the stuff of the Canadian women’s curling team it when they ran out on the field in New Orleans as a team forgoing individual introductions at the Superbowl)

Wednesday, February 13

You've been training for 12 years. You love to go fast. It could be speed skating. It could be alpine downhill. Or sailing through the air in the long jump for more than a football field. The big day arrives – Olympic competition. And you lose out on a gold medal by 1.24 seconds in a 3,000 meter race like Renate Groenewold of the Netherlands did to Claudia Pechstein of Germany.

Do the math. Years of practice. Maybe 1,500 thrusts of your legs in the race. And you silver instead of gold by 1.24 seconds. The bend of a knee.

Or by 1.5 meters in the ski jump (less than half the length of a ski) out of a combined two-jump distance of 269 meters in the K90. That's how much Simon Ammann of Switerzerland beat Sven Hannawald of Germany. Maybe a bird flew across Hannawald's flight path and a wing flap cost him the distance.

This is one reason Olympic competition, Winter or Summer, is so exciting. It's impossible to not be in awe of such commitment all hung out in seconds. It's why we marvel – and draw inspiration – at the spirit of the games. Take a look at NBC's site listing the results. Then do the math and see if you can put a value on the human heart.

My favorite example of all-or-nothing in the blink of an eye? Has to be Lasse Kjus of Norway beating Stephan Eberharter in men's alpine skiing. Differential – .06 seconds. What's that? Three snowflakes on the track when Eberharter competed that weren't there when Kjus went downhill.

Perspective on a level playing field

Perspective is always in order when it comes to competition, especially team sports. Any nation can have a wonderkind athlete whom absolutley nobody is going to beat. Think back to American speed skater Eric Heiden who won all five gold medals for speed skating in the 1980 Olympics.

But what do you do when reality checks in and the other side, through sheer population numbers has got an almost insurmountable advantage? Consider a pertinent quote from the German women's hockey coach after his team was drubbed 10-0 by the American women's team in the opening round. (FYI: 10-0 in hockey is the equivalent to the Jamaican bobsled team competing. Why bother?)

German coach Rainer Nittel noted his team is ten years away from being able to compete with the United States: "The little difference between us and the Americans is that they have another 45,000 players in girls' hockey to choose from."

Another way of stating this from a fans perspective: There are a lot of underdogs at any Olympic competition. After admiring the incredible talents of the athletes, and rooting for our country's team, most of us watch to see if any of the underdogs will pull off an upset. That's fun.

Tuesday, February 12

Ask a sports purist (like myself) when is a competition not a competition and the answer is: When style points are awarded based on the subjective evaluation by judges. Give me an event where you measure speed (a race); altitude (the high jump); or distance (the javelin throw). "Show me the score" when points decide the winner; or a race where someone is first and someone is second. Sports without a measurable outcome is, well, entertainment. Style points for aerials on a snowboard? OK, but not for me.

The controversy with Monday night's gold going to the Russians (the 11th consecutive gold triumph) in pairs skating makes the point of how subjective competition builds in controversy. The judges saw something that everyone at the Salt Lake Ice Center didn't, not to mention everyone in front of a television set in Canada.

Here are a couple of takes on the pairs skating controversy: First from a disinterested point of view: Sports Illustrated. Selena Roberts of the New York Times captures the feel at the arena when the scores were posted.

The Toronto Globe and Mail, rising to the occasion in defending their nationals in the ice-dancing competition offer what I found to be the best insight on how troublesome subjective judging can be as the Russians continued their 42-year reign in ice dancing. And try this just one more from the New York Times on why on such the controversy won't go away)

Debate doesn't happen in diving during the Summer Olympics because there are so many preliminary dives and rotating judgeships. But when there are only two or three chances before a winner is determined, debate heats up on the subject: style points vs. competition.

We've got dozens of discussion forums going on about the Winter Games, and the issue of judging is understandably a hot topic: just what is the relative merit of a smile on the face of a figure skater? MonitorTalk has both a poll and the opportunity to join a discussion on the subject.

Visit a number of discussion forums tied to the Olympics (a search will turn up dozens) and you'll see how seriously people take this issue. One from Toronto gives a taste.

Everyone likes an upset and where better to find one than in that Olympic curio, curling. Mighty Sweden, the reigning world champ, lost the opening "sweep off" to one of the lower seeds in this event, team USA. The US win was brief as team Canada followed with a decisive 8-3 win over the Americans.

For bowling aficionados, er, I mean curling devotees, you'll have to wait until Feb. 20th to see which of the four semi-finalists - Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark - gets the curling gold.

And finally, if the pressure and controversy get too much for you, get a better perspective and a little distance from it all on one of the more unique websites covering the Winter Olympics, try the ultimate seat on space.com - for satellite photos of the Salt Lake venues.

Friday, February 8

Welcome to the csmonitor.com's Olympic blog.

The Olympic torch has made it to Salt Lake City. The snow is falling. The powder is waist-deep in many places.

So is news coverage.

You can be forgiven if you feel overwhelmed by words falling like snow out of your television sets, from your newspapers, and certainly off of your computer screens. For the next two weeks in this space we hope to do some snow plowing and shoveling for you. The Monitor will highlight some of what we think are the better, more interesting, more relevant, (or just plain quirky enough to be considered) stories for you on the Winter Games. It's easy for us to say, in all humility, "No way will we be exhaustive." We do hope you find us helpful, interesting, and at times, funny.

Make no mistake, we know you know the real story is the events, not in reporting on the events. So, sharpen your skates, strap yourself into that bobsled you've always wanted to ride, (hey, even bring that old straw broom out of the attic, there's ice to heat up in the curling competition) and enjoy the games.

But first, some history.

Reborn in Athens, Greece, in 1896, the modern Olympic Games are among the great events showcasing individual and team accomplishment. For the next two weeks millions around the world will delight in how a remarkable collection of athletes who have trained for years compete in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Too, we don't want to be spoil sports, but this is an opportune time to raise a caution flag about the emotions we bring to the games. Perhaps it's the idealist in me, but take care not to let a fixation of the press on the number of medals won country by country distort the truly inspiring individual efforts taking place in Utah.

Nazi Germany probably did more than any country to cause the obsessing with national medal counting when it hosted the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler linked his totally perverse view of racial theory and eugenics to the number of medals his countrymen would win. He expected a propaganda coup for Aryan supremacy.

Not!

Along came Jesse Owens handing Adolph a reality check by delivering one of the greatest individual performances ever by an athlete on the international sports stage. Take a look at jesseowens.com to get a sense for the stature of this remarkable man and athlete. When the national anthems are played at each medal ceremony, Owens's universal spirit is a nice ideal to keep in mind whatever country wins.

And then there was the cold war. It turbo-charged medal counts by country, especially the rivalry between the USSR and the USA. That legacy, though greatly diminished, is still with us. Putting aside the matter of whether the Greeks of antiquity intended the individual or the nation-state to be the focus of athletic competition, a history of how countries fared in winning medals can be found on the CNN/Sports Illustrated site.

(In case you're interested, Norway is number one.)

The Boston Globe, a newspaper that has always provided top-drawer coverage of the Olympics offers an informed overview on likely US medal winners. Being the host country for an Olympics doesn't seem to offer an undue advantage to individual athletes.

And for a decidedly different perspective on "The Star Spangled Games" from The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading daily newspapers, on how the Americans may get a comeuppance in these winter games.

Much has been written about security measures taken post 9/11 and the Monitor's Mark Sappenfield, who will be filing daily from Salt Lake City, sets the security scene with this article.

Not surprisingly seating is still available for most events, including the opening ceremonies, if your last-minute plans include a trip to Salt Lake.

And finally, for a very user-friendly schedule giving fingertip access to all the Olympic events check out AP's interactive calendar.