The 2006 Winter Olympics concluded this past Sunday in Turin with all the typical glitz and fanfare of a closing ceremony that had been in the works for years. And yes, I say Turin. I have never heard of the venerated Shroud of Torino before, and neither has anyone pretentious enough to say "Torino."
The United States performed exceptionally during this XX Olympiad, capturing 25 medals, including nine gold medals, which marked our second-highest medal count in a Winter Olympics and the highest ever for an Olympiad not held on American soil. Four Dartmouth students and one alum captured three gold and two silver medals. Quite impressive. I offer my congratulations to these athletes.
Yet the Olympics got whipped in the ratings by events and shows ranging from the Daytona 500 to American Idol, which I absolutely loathe because it has bumped "House, M.D." off Fox's schedule for the past two weeks.
I can think of a quite a few reasons the Olympics tanked as they so spectacularly did, despite the fact that the United States was so successful. All the pre-packaged star athletes on our side did something wrong. They underachieved, while lesser-known athletes sprinted to the podium. Michelle Kwan withdrew from the Games after receiving a bid under rather questionable circumstances. Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis blew a sure-fire gold with what appeared to many, myself included, to be a premature celebratory gesture and fall.
Then there was the undisputed king of underperforming Bode Miller, who went zero-for-five with two DNFs (Did Not Finish), one disqualification and many answering Nike's "Join Bode" campaign with a sneering, "Where? At the bar?" after rumors of his drinking and partying during the Games surfaced. Ah, Bode, at least you did things your way.
There were other mitigating circumstances as well. Turin is hours ahead of any time zone in the United States, resulting in inevitable tape delays during the television broadcast. Some events were shown 18 hours after they were conducted. The 2002 Winter Olympics, held in Salt Lake City, naturally did not suffer the same fate as far as the American broadcast was concerned. As a result of this tape delay, however, anyone actually concerned enough with the Olympics to tune in had already found out the results and seen footage via the Internet and ESPNews. As for those who were not eager enough to seek out scores and highlights before the scheduled air time, most of those people never planned on tuning in anyway.
There is also a perfectly rational explanation for why so few seem to care that the United States hauled in 25 medals. There is a widespread perception that most of the medals came in events that are unorthodox, to say the least, like the many different snowboarding styles. Even when athletes in more traditional sporting events won, a feeling of negativity and disappointment tended to cloud the accomplishment, most notably in men's speed skating, where the media-fueled feud between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick overshadowed anything positive.
Olympic purists have also pointed out that these past Games had far more events, and thus far more opportunities to win, than any other. Turin held 84 different events with nearly 2,700 competitors, both figures nearly doubling the 46 events and 1,423 competitors who participated in the 1988 Seoul Games. No wonder some sportswriters have called the final medal count misleading; in a way, it is.
The most significant source of American apathy, though, is the fact that American just does not care. We have well-organized and hugely popular sports leagues of our own. The king of sporting events, the Super Bowl, was less than a month ago, and the NBA All-Star Game and Daytona 500 both took place at the same time that the Olympics did.
More significantly, we no longer have a rival, athletically or politically. No longer are we competing to one-up the Soviets and the rest of the athletes from the Communist bloc. Americans do not have to prove superior to the rest of the world via curling or downhill skiing; we won the Cold War and we stand alone as the world's only true superpower.
We can afford to suffer through all the slips and falls and shortcomings because at the end of the day, most Americans genuinely believe we are the best the world has to offer -- especially in arenas outside of sports -- and we have nothing to prove any longer. Will this spell the end of the Olympic spirit? Not globally, but here at home, it might.
