By The Beachwood Olympic Bureau
1. Our intrepid correspondent Scott Buckner checks in:
I’ve never been a huge fan of figure skating, mostly because I happen to favor winter Olympic sports where it’s possible to either kill yourself or get disqualified because you simply can’t handle a snowboard like American crash-and-burn Olympian Lindsey Jacobellis.
But I’m paying attention to Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko and his trash talk. Like it or not, Plushenko’s a contender for a gold medal, and when you’re in contention, trash talk is acceptable.
More disturbing is the trash emanating from Team America. “American Johnny Weir will provide another dose of shock value with his outrageous and extravagant performance in the long program, but he sits in sixth place and seems well out of contention,” Yahoo! Sports notes.
Green Day may want to adopt Johnny Weir for it’s Glee-inspired Broadway show, except under the working title American Asshole.
Even when his medal hopes were fading earlier this week, Johnny Weir was a sensation in this country.
Why? Simply because his routine depends on Lady Gaga? Because his handlers made it a point Tuesday to say that his costumes would feature no real animal fur?
Not too long ago, talented Olympians who produced ended up on cereal boxes and deserved all the endorsement cash that comes their way. As of Tuesday, Johnny Weir was nothing more than window dressing in sixth place, with no hope whatsoever of even winning a even a cardboard medal. So what’s the point of giving him airtime?
Johnny Weir is like the worst of American Idol – where people like the talentless General Larry “Pants On The Ground” Platt become a sensation after getting laughed off the stage, just like the talentless William “She Bangs” Hung got laughed off the stage into a career of infamy.
Maybe the French are right: We Americans are too stupid to live.
2. It’s exactly like darts.
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3. Hockey: Women thrash Russia.
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4. Hockey: Men grind out win over Switzerland.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on February 17, 2010