The 2006 Winter Olympics will be getting underway in just
three weeks. It hardly seems like four years has passed since the Winter Games
in Salt Lake City, but it has.
The activities are scheduled to begin with the Opening Ceremonies on Friday,
February 10th from Turin, Italy. The pre opening buzz in several of the
individual Winter Olympic disciplines already is getting a bit unbelievable.
Take, for instance, figure skating. As the ultimate Glam Sport of the Winter
Games, figure skating gets more than its share of headlines … sports news gurus
are convinced it's what most people want to watch. This quadrennium is no
different.
With the off-ice politics of figure skating maintaining a subtle resemblance to
professional wrestling, it does manage to attract interest.
Already we have a legendary competitor, Nancy Kwan, physically unable to perform
at the final qualifying contest for medical reasons. But, because of her stature
in the sport, she still was named to the 2006 team.
Wilder still, though, is the specter of Marie Reine Le Gougne taking credit for
an improved, fairer, judging system.
You may remember Mme Le Gougne's involvement in a judging scandal four years
ago. She reportedly complied with a directive from the head of her skating
federation and scored a Russian pair higher than the Canadian pair whom,
everyone else seemed to agree, had skated better.
It supposedly was part of a deeper scam to help a French Ice Dancing pair.
Anyway, the International Skating Union changed the scoring system for the
entire sport and put those changes into effect during the summer of 2004.
Everyone seems to think its better.
Mme Le Gougne says she was the sacrificial lamb of the whole 2002 affair. She
and her then-boss, Didier Gailhaguet, both were barred from being involved in
figure skating for three years. Those restrictions have expired.
She told the Associated Press this past week that she suffered for her actions
in Salt Lake City but felt vindicated when judges using the new scoring system
thanked her for her actions that made it necessary.
NBC has the US broadcast rights for the 2006 games. Besides the network itself,
it will use its subsidiaries, CNBC, USA and Universal HD to carry some of the
activity.
Unfortunately for NBC, the time difference between the US East Coast and Italy
will keep it from carrying much live action in prime time.
Fortunately for those of us whose "day jobs" actually take place in the evening,
the live coverage will be in the daytime. That should spare us from much of the
torture of talking heads spinning sob stories. Hopefully, we will get to
actually watch sports.