Looking back at the Olympics: The highs and lows

It's almost a full week since the Olympics wrapped up, so I thought now would be a good time to look back at them. The emotions have faded, allowing for more logical analysis, but the implications of the Games—both positive and negative—will still be felt for some time to come.

Ever since the Olympics were given to Vancouver, I've been juggling excitement and loathing. As I wrote in my initial piece, the Olympics are an interesting topic to write about, because they present such crass commercialism, excess and corruption alongside such genuine moments of inspiration. They bring highs and lows, and they come as a group package. I'm not a fan of those who fall head over heels in love with the Games while ignoring the very real issues and problems they present, but I'm also not a fan of those who lose track of the positives in their rush to condemn and criticize, especially when they hurt their own cause with senseless violence [Doug Ward, The Vancouver Sun]. The Olympics come as a package deal, and ignoring one side of the story is problematic, regardless of which side it is.

There were some brilliant highs for me during the Games. One of the best was the atmosphere that sprung up around town. It was a triumphant atmosphere, but a welcoming one as well from what I saw; it reflected Canadian pride, but embraced people from all nations. Moreover, it was refreshing to see Vancouver, which often seems so strait-laced, truly let down its hair and party for a few weeks [Bruce Arthur, National Post].

There were plenty of highlights from the athletic competitions as well, including the success of athletes like Kevin Martin, one of the best curlers ever [Neate Sager, Fourth-Place Medal], and the Canadian hockey team. There were touching stories, such as Alex Bilodeau's victory in men's moguls over Canadian-turned-Australian spyware king and all-around bad dude [Paul Waldie, The Globe and Mail] Dale Begg-Smith, and the inspiration Bilodeau's older brother Frederic, who has cerebral palsy, provided [Randy Starkman, The Toronto Star], the Canadian teams claiming gold and silver [Joe O'Connor, National Post] in women's bobsleigh, and CIS and CFL star Jesse Lumsden's impressive perfomance [Vicki Hall, Canwest News Service] in the men's bobsleigh.

For me, perhaps the ultimate moment was Jon Montgomery's gold medal [Dan Robson, CBC Sports] in men's skeleton [Jeff Blair, The Globe and Mail] and his ecstatic celebration afterwards, made even more appropriate by his win coming on the heels of [Jesse Campigotto, CBC Sports] Melissa Hollingsworth's defeat. Maybe it's just my hoserism talking, but there was something perfectly Canadian about the way Montgomery accepted and chugged a pitcher of beer on his way through the village to a CTV interview. It seemed to reflect the overarching attitude of Canadians towards the Games, with our desire to show the world who we really are, not some sort of PR veneer.

At the same time, though, those great moments often came in spite of VANOC, the IOC and the Olympic broadcasting consortium, not because of them. Right from the start, the Olympics were marred by the horribly tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, which CTV then tried to sweep under the rug. The IOC quickly went on to blame the victim rather than look at the real issues with the luge track's design, and the story was soon swallowed up by other problems with the Games, such as the bizarre decision to use hay bales for seating at Cypress Mountain (which resulted in massive amounts of tickets being revoked [Erik Rolfsen, The Province] thanks to unsafe conditions) and the failure [Martin Rogers, Yahoo!] of the supposedly green ice-cleaning machines at the speed-skating oval in Richmond, which led to another ridiculous move to bring in a Zamboni from Calgary instead of using one of the infinite supply of the machines available at other local hockey rinks. While all this was going on, CTV, the main Canadian broadcaster of the Games, was ignoring the vast array of problems cropping up in favour of unabashedly draping themselves in Olympic banners, carrying the torch (literally!) for the IOC and VANOC and passing over the stories and achievements of foreign athletes in favour of some good old-fashioned homerism. Don't tell CTV that there's supposed to be no cheering in the press box; much of the time, it appeared that they were organizing a pep rally for the IOC and Team Canada rather than actually trying to cover the Games. The endless corporate involvement also put a damper on things; it's tougher to enjoy an event that's supposed to highlight the purity of sport when you're bombarded with promotions for RBC and Coca-Cola all day.

Yet, a week later, much of what I wrote in my day-after piece still holds true. The commercialism, the mistakes and the problems were on full display throughout, but the Olympics found a way to overcome. There were brilliant highlights from many of the athletic events, some featuring Canadians and others featuring superb athletes from around the world (a few examples include Latvian bobsleigh pilot Janis Minins [O'Connor], Korean figure skater Yu-Na Kim [Maggie Hendricks, Fourth-Place Medal], and American Shaun White putting on [Trey Kerby, Fourth-Place Medal] the greatest snowboarding display I've ever seen.

Perhaps more importantly, there was a genuine enthusiasm and atmosphere that sprung up in Vancouver. It was both patriotic and inclusive, and that truly highlighted the Olympic spirit in my mind, no matter what some morons who fulfilled Godwin's Law [Dashiell Bennett, Deadspin] or trotted out the old Canadian cliches [Jason Brough and Mike Halford, Orland Kurtenblog] might think. Canadians truly embraced the Games, not in the way they were instructed to by VANOC, CTV and the IOC, but in a deeper, more real way that turned out to be much better. The enthusiasm was genuine, not commercial, and the Olympics displayed something pure and exciting despite the best efforts of those in power to reduce them to a sanitized commercial enterprise. That's what I'll take away from these Games, and that's why I'll remember them in a positive fashion.

[P.S. If you're looking to follow any of the writers linked above on Twitter, I highly recommend them. Most of them are listed in these tweets of mine; simpler than linking them individually in here.]

Fear And Loathing In Vancouver: On CTV's Jingoism

(This is part of my ongoing series exploring the different sides of the Olympics; see this post for an explanation. I would have used "hoserism" instead of "jingoism", but I prefer to associate that with things I like.).

One of my central issues with the Olympics is the difference between what they are and what they claim to be. This shows up in almost every arena imaginable; the Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of sports at their purest, but the omnipresent corporate tie-ins detract from that a bit. They're supposed to be run by an international body that has the good of athletes as its top goal; in reality, they're run by an incredibly corrupt organization* that sees nothing wrong with blaming the victim to cover up its own flawed decisions. They're supposed to be an international gathering to promote peace and goodwill, but quite often, it seems that what they're really promoting is national chest-thumping.

*You can read Andrew Jennings' great book The Lords of The Rings for many of the juicy details on the IOC's scandals over the years. One of my favourite stories was how Salt Lake City organizers arranged hookers and Viagra for visiting IOC officials before the vote on where the 2002 Games would be held.

As I've written before, those issues don't make the Olympics all bad. There are plenty of extremely positive aspects to the Games, and they can be a lot of fun to watch, to be around and to write about. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the Olympics, and I certainly am. My argument is just that the bad needs to be taken into consideration as well as the good.

Unfortunately, CTV's television coverage has failed in that department. Their Olympic coverage has no sense of balance whatsoever, and appears more like IOC-approved jingoistic puff pieces than any attempt to accurately present the Games. It's not just that they ignore the issues around the Games, although that's part of it, but even when they're covering events, they frequently ignore what actually happened in favour of sappy homerism. To me, that's a huge shame and a disservice to Canadians.

Let's go through some examples. The first and most egregious is their coverage of the Olympic torch relay, an event which has very little to do with the "spirit of the Olympics" and much more to do with the Third Reich. True journalistic coverage would feature frank coverage of the relay's shameful beginnings, a balanced, thorough discussion on if it had moved past that to something that people could be proud to enjoy and fair coverage of the anti-torch protest movements. Of course, CTV isn't particularly interested in journalism when it comes to the Olympics, so they presented us with endless over-the-top sappy camera shots and stories instead, trying to pump us up to watch their endlessly promoted Olympic product and imploring us to "Believe".

That alone wouldn't set CTV apart from most of the national television broadcasters covering the Olympics, though, as just about every country's television stations get caught up in the hype to some degree. (The print and radio coverage certainly isn't perfect, either, but it does often tend to at least try to offer some balance). What really stood out about CTV's torch relay "coverage" was how 27 of the torchbearers were journalists working for the CTV-led Olympic consortium. As William Houston wrote back in October, "The question is: Did these people have a procedure involving the brain that went badly wrong? Or are they just naturally soft? They’re supposed to be journalists. They will be at the Olympics as reporters and commentators. They’re expected to be objective and independent. They are not supposed to be part of the Olympic cheerleading torch procession. Nevertheless, over the next few months, off they’ll go, boosting the International Olympic Committee and VANOC as they prance across the country, torch in hand."

With that move, CTV lost its objectivity and officially became a promoter of the Olympic mythology. You can see it every time those torchbearers are on air; the very people supposed to be bringing us objective information can't be taken seriously because of their involvement with the Games, and you can bet they never have anything bad to say about the rampant commercialism that goes hand in hand with the Olympics.

 

CTV sees nothing wrong with having a Coca-Cola truck in the torch relay procession. 

However, the network could have at least partially redeemed themselves with fair and balanced coverage of the actual Games. They've done that to a degree on their website, but their TV offerings have given us little to suggest that they aren't just presenting Olympic propaganda. One of the most poignant examples comes from the death of 21-year-old Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, which has cast such a shadow over these Games. Once it came out that Kumaritashvili had crashed, most media outlets went full-out to try and learn the details and debate the issue of track safety. CTV briefly mentioned that he was hurt, then returned to their feel-good shots of crowds cheering the Olympic torch instead of trying to piece together what went wrong, how serious it was and if the track design was an issue. A cynic might opine that they didn't want to dampen the country's Olympic spirits in advance of that night's Opening Ceremonies, which they just happened to be televising.

That's been far from the only example of CTV neglecting basic journalistic principles, though. At least other outlets in the consortium have discussed many of the issues around the Games in addition to providing positive coverage. It's possible that CTV has done so too, but whenever I can stand to tune in for a few minutes before being overcome by the syrupy propaganda, they're talking about another heartwarming Canadian athlete's story. An Ottawa BeaverTail would be less cloyingly sweet and patriotic.

It's also troubling that the CTV-led television stations are providing little to no coverage of other nations' athletes, or the actual sports going on. One key example came in the women's bobsleigh last night on Sportsnet, where the heavily-favoured German team suffered a crash that looked quite dangerous. There was very little discussion of why they crashed or if they were okay, and much more of a focus on how this paved the way for Canada to claim gold and silver. CTV then one-upped Sportsnet on the Fail-O-Meter by cutting away from the Slovakia-Sweden men's hockey game for a pointless, sappy interview with the bobsleigh gold medallists; while we were forced to watch their treacle, the Slovaks scored two quick goals, paving the way for their eventual victory. Of course, the only meaning that game had to CTV was that it determined who will face Canada Friday; the rest of the world's only here to compete against us, you know.

Are there good things about CTV's coverage? Sure. Life isn't black and white, and it would be pretty difficult to disagree with absolutely everything they do. Their website coverage has been very good, and has included several pieces critical of elements of the Olympics (most from Globe and Mail journalists rather than CTV types, but at least they're posting them). They've made it easy to find video highlights of any event and watch streaming video of events online, and they deserve applause for that. Perhaps most importantly, they realize that it's 2010 and tape-delayed sports just don't work anymore, unlike NBC. They are providing coverage of the Games, and some of their event coverage has been solid, hockey in particular. However, I, for one, would have appreciated it much more if they had delivered a journalistically balanced version of the Games as a real sporting event, rather than the treacly Olympic and Canadian propaganda they appear to have opted for.

Fear and Loathing in Vancouver: Ignoring the real problem

The Olympics have suffered countless calamities over the past week, including the mechanical failure at the conclusion of the Opening Ceremonies, a slew of weather issues, the cancellation of many of the tickets for events at Cypress, the collapse of a barrier at an Alexisonfire show and subsequent injuries to many concertgoers and the failure of the non-Zambonis at the Richmond Oval. For these events and a slew of others, the Games have taken a beating from many, particularly British journalists. Yet, as Bruce Arthur of the National Post points out in an excellent column today, the biggest issue around the Olympics is still the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the cover-up that's followed it.

The IOC's initial response to Kumaritashvili's death was promising. The grief Jacques Rogge and John Furlong demonstrated appeared real and heartfelt, and their tribute to Kumaritashvili at the Opening Ceremonies was appropriate and well-delivered. However, shortly thereafter, the IOC changed their tune dramatically, blaming Kumartiashvili for his own death [Jere Longman, The New York Times] after a brief investigation. Arthur accurately called their news release on the matter "a truly heartless and despicable missive", which about sums it up. Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili nailed it in his comments at a news conference [Donald McKenzie, The Canadian Press] shortly thereafter, saying "No sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death. No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal."

Blaming the tragedy on Kumaritashvili is missing a big part of the picture. Yes, Kumaritashivili made a mistake, and yes, that led to his death. Clearly, the course can be navigated without tragedy, or we would have seen other deaths. What the IOC is overlooking, though, is that these kind of sports by nature are a delicate balance between speed and safety, and the Whistler track falls on the wrong side of that line [Jeff Passan, Yahoo!]

As Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail wrote a week before the crash, many concerns had been raised about the track's incredible combination of ridiculous speed and tremendous G-forces long before Kumaritashvili's death. The New York Times reported today that Venezuelan athlete Werner Hoeger had been trying to warn Canadian and international luge officials of the track's dangers since he suffered a concussion on a race there in November, and Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili of The Associated Press wrote that Kumaritashvili had called his father shortly before his death to relay his concerns about the track. Other athletes had commented on the track as well, with Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg being one of the most outspoken [ The Daily Telegraph]. "I think they are pushing it a little too much," Campbell-Pegg said before the fatal crash. "To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we're crash test dummies? This is our lives." Unfortunately, her comments and the comments American luger Tony Benshoof made to NBC [Blair] turned prophetic: "When I first got on this track, I thought that somebody was going to kill themselves."

The worst part about the luge tragedy is that the IOC has completely overlooked the inherent flaws in the track. Yes, they made some changes, but as Yahoo!]'s Trey Kerby commented, those changes should have been made beforehand. "I'm not a professor of luge safety, but doesn't it seem as if these extra measures should have been installed when the track was built?" he wrote. "Isn't it common sense to pad steel beams and to try to eliminate the possibility of a slider flying off the course? It's terrible that a life was lost to learn these lessons."

Even that would be more acceptable if the IOC admitted they got it wrong, and they were now fixing the problem. That wasn't how they approached it, though; the safety changes were depicted as unnecessary changes made only to reassure athletes. As Longman wrote, "Olympic officials insisted that the changes were not made for safety reasons, but rather to accommodate the emotional state of Kumaritashvili’s fellow athletes — a bogus notion." They've also announced that the track at the 2014 Olympics will be slower [AP], but won't admit that there's anything wrong with the track in Vancouver. They've tried to cover up the problem, and you can bet they're happy that everyone's moved on to more trivial complaints about the weather and the security. In the end, a man's life has been lost needlessly and the IOC has done their best to blame him for the tragedy. That's the real shadow that hangs over these Olympics.

Fear and loathing in Vancouver, but there's still a bright side

One of the biggest problems with the Olympics in my mind is the way they divide people into camps. At the one end of the spectrum, there are those who get so wrapped up in nationalism that they cast a blind eye to the issues around the Games. They denounce anyone who dares to question elements of the Olympics as unpatriotic and label them as traitors and un-Canadian. At the other end are many people involved in the protest movements, who overlook all the positive aspects of the Games in favour of promoting their own narrow agendas. Both sides try to outshout the other and wind up becoming even more extreme in the process, leaving little room for rational thought and debate.

Where do I fall? Well, it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with this site's mission statement that, in the words of Pogo creator Walt Kelly, "I'm for the extreme middle." There are massive problems associated with the Games, the IOC, VANOC and the Canadian media's coverage of the Olympics, and those issues need to be addressed, not simply swept under the rug in the name of patriotism and nationalism.

At the same time, there are many great, inspiring things about the Olympics, and many people enjoy them, There's a lot of terrific sports action to follow, and a plethora of interesting angles to cover. Ignoring all that in favour of a narrow protest is fine for some, but it's not a path I'm interested in. What's more troubling are those who go beyond peaceful protests to violent activity and vandalism; that doesn't bring any attention to the issues around the Olympics, but rather encourages more outrageous nationalism as a counterreaction. Both sides have clear problems, and that's why the Olympics aren't a black-and-white issue.

That's why I'll be looking at things from both sides and trying to deliver a nuanced perspective throughout the Games here at Sporting Madness. Posts on the issues with the Olympics will be filed under the "Fear And Loathing In Vancouver" category (a homage to the late, great Hunter S. Thompson, and a tack I think he'd approve of). Posts on positive elements of the Games will be labeled with "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life", in homage to this brilliant bit of cinema:



There are also some parts of the Olympics that don't readily fall into either category, so those will just have regular titles. The Neutrals might approve of this, or they might not. In any case, hopefully I'll be able to present a reasonably balanced picture of what it's like to be around an Olympics. It should be an interesting ride.