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Her Jay
Location: Ontario for now....
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Some more nice thoughts from the Brits and Russian press, maybe the Brits are still pissed about their seizure inducing animation for their games, or there just bitter about the Millenium Wheel, the Russians well they're just bitter all around because of their shitty showing.
Quote:
Now that it’s over, Canada is looking around like Sally Field, wondering if they like us. Well, do they? Do they?!
That depends. Are you eating borscht right now? Washing it down with vodka? Then, probably not.
Vancouver 2010’s emotional 180 caught some of the world’s press unaware. Our Winter Olympics staggered out of the gate with a fatal tragedy, an embarrassing technical glitch and a series of stuttering starts at the venues.
“Worst Games Ever?” London’s The Guardian wondered on its front page a couple of days in. “Premature” would be the kind way to judge that sort of tabloid grave digging. A two-fingered salute might better capture Canada’s collective response. The Brits jumped on with both feet, and only grudgingly climbed down in the last couple of days – some more grudgingly than others.
A few of the critics were nearly as painful as VANOC CEO John Furlong’s command of French. Russia’s Pravda ripped us early, and, in its own words, it left blowing us “a giant raspberry.” It also accused us of murder, corruption and, worst of all, “insolence.” “Hysterical” does not even begin to cover the tone here.
Many of us used to love Pravda, mainly for the tractor statistics. But it’s going to be hard for Canadians to ever again warm to their strange blend of ruthless totalitarianism and swimsuit shots. Next to them, all the other haters seemed quite reasonable.
“It was a bit too much Canadian, and perhaps not enough international … perhaps, they failed just a little bit,” judged The Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan, who was the one crowing early about “worsts” and “evers.” Little of that by the end, thankfully.
If Donegan was tough but fair, The Times of London’s Rick Broadbentpreferred tough, full-stop:
“Alas, not all of Vancouver's problems can be dismissed with a mime artist. A man died, the weather played havoc with the schedule, a mountain was a near disaster of a venue, and the Olympic flame, a beacon of sport's importance to all, was locked away behind a wire fence. The British media was hammered for reporting this, but it merited it.”
It gets worse. Here’s Broadbent’s colleague, Simon Barnes, the Times’ chief sports writer:
“Canada has not come of age in Vancouver 2010. Canada has regressed into a sneering but ultimately impotent adolescence. It’s been — well, rather unattractive on the whole.”
This is coming from a fifty-something guy with a ponytail, so, whatever.
London, we see you over there, jumping up and down and waving your arms. Sorry we stole your thunder for a while. We’ll quiet down for the next couple of years. That soft, metallic sound you hear is us sharpening our knives.
Our neighbours to the south chose to focus on the uplifting finish, rather than the downbeat start.
On USA Today’s Olympic blog, readers were judging the Vancouver games the best ever.
“Well done, Canada,” the Washington Post wrote. “Now turn out the light.”
Yahoo’s Fourth-Place Medal wrote that these games were “filled with sadness, joy, inspiration and thrills,” calling them a “flawed success.” They also declared that Canada actually finished second in the medal standings, rather than third, thanks to some sabermetric rebalancing of the charts.
We give the Americans an unholy amount of stick, but it’s hard to beat the feeling that one of the spin-off winners after this whole thing is Canada-U.S. relations. The Bush years were tough on our friendship, but throughout these past two weeks, it felt like the Stars and Stripes had our collective back.
Take Bill Plaschke, who makes his living eviscerating people in the L.A. Times’ sports pages. Even this noted curmudgeon ended the games with a moving paean to Canadian kindness.
“Canada, you were gold,” Plaschke summed up, prompting Kobe Bryant to wonder if Plaschke will ease up on him, too. Unlikely, Kobe. You never made Bill’s daughter fall in love. Canada did that.
Sports Illustrated’s in-house conscience, S.L. Price, bet that absence will make the heart grow fonder. “(Canada) made itself known. Here's betting that, come 2014, it will be missed,” Price wrote.
Hear that, Sochi. Better make sure your spiffy ice-rink amphitheatre on the seaside doesn’t flood.
Not that we’re hoping or anything.
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Brits, Russians grumble as Games end - Vancouver 2010 Olympics - thestar.com
Why are Brits writing about the winter games anyways, they don't even have enough plows to clear their roads, hell their trains don't even work right in the snow, maybe they should write about the rain olympics, something they actually have a clue about. |