9802230056
DETROIT FREE PRESS
980223
Monday, February 23, 1998
METRO FINAL
1
Photo PAWEL KOPCZYNSKI/Reuters (top photos);JOE STEFANCHIK/KRT
Photo BILL ALKOFER/Knight Ridder Olympics Bureau
The Olympic flame slowly goes out on the Nagano Games ...but nothing
can extinguish the All-American smiles of figure skaters Nicole Bobek and Tara
Lipinski at Sunday's closing ceremonies. Lipinski will fly to New York on
Wednesday to present with Boyz II Men the Grammy for best pop album.
Trenton's Shelley Looney gets carried away with the closing ceremonies. She
scored the gold-winning goal for the women's hockey team. Her captain, Cammi
Granato, carried the U.S. flag on Sunday.
MITCH ALBOM
WINTER OLYMPICS
Copyright (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press
NAGANO TAUGHT US TO TAKE OUR SHOES OFF AND TO OPEN OUR MINDS TO CHANGE
NAGANO, Japan -- The Games began, for many of us, the moment we took off our shoes. It is a
Japanese custom politely -- but forcefully -- inflicted on visitors as soon as
they step inside. And in retrospect, it serves as a fitting symbol of these
mild and friendly Olympics, which often required stepping out of old-heeled
ways and getting used to a new soul, or what Monty Python might call
"something completely different."
These were, after all, the Games that brought us snowboarding. Off with the
traditional shoes, dude, here's some rad boots. Suddenly, expressions like
"stoked" and "catching air" carried gold-medal ramifications. Dyed hair?
Pierced tongues?
"Who have you gotten to know at the village?" I asked
Brendan Shanahan one day.
"Lots of other athletes," he said, "like Ross."
"Ross Rebagliati? The snowboarder who flunked his drug test and got to keep
his gold medal anyhow?"
"Yeah. He's actually a nice kid."
Brendan grinned.
"Rock on," he said.
Rock on? These are the Olympics? Well, wait a minute. I was talking to
Shanahan, an NHL star sharing a bathroom with five other NHL stars at the
Olympic Village. Nagano was the Games that brought pro hockey into the
five-ring fold. Funny. Not too long ago, you got tossed out of the Olympics if
you earned money from your sport. Now we celebrate when millionaires consent
to mingle.
And what's equally funny? The happiest hockey innovation -- at least for
Americans -- wasn't the NHL, but the G-I-R-L-S. The women's gold ranks as an
the most joyously unexpected highlight of Nagano.
The newness didn't end with hockey. These were the Games that gave us the clap
skate, which endangered or obliterated virtually every record at the
speedskating track. These were the Games that offered the first bob and luge
run that had uphill portions. And these were the Games in which an explosive
kid finally beat a graceful ballerina in ladies' figure skating. Does that
happen at the Olympics? Was that really Tara Lipinski, screaming like a girl
at her first rock concert when she won the gold medal?
"She's very much a teenager," said Lipinski's coach, Richard Callaghan, of the
youngest-ever figure skating gold medalist. "But she's also an adult. Does
that make sense?"
Take off your shoes.
A Picabo surprise
The truth is, when you look back on the results from these Games, Lipinski's
surprise was just middle of the road. So little went the way it was predicted.
In skiing, Picabo Street was supposed to win the gold in her specialty, the
downhill. Instead, she took gold in the super-G by skiing with abandon -- yet
finished out of the medals in the downhill, by skiing, as she put it, "like a
pansy."
Likewise, Austria's Hermann Maier was supposed to own the downhill. Instead it
threw him off in one of the most spectacular crashes ever witnessed in an
Olympic run. It made the "Wide World of Sports" crash look tame. It would have
killed a mortal man. But they don't call Maier "The Herminator" for nothing.
True to the pattern of these Games, he not only shocked us by coming back a
few days later, he won two gold medals -- super-G and giant slalom -- when the
rest of us would have been pressing the button for the hospital nurse.
Expectations? Did anyone expect that five-time medalist Alberto Tomba, with
his great tradition of rising to the moment, would ski away from his last
event without even bothering to finish it? Did anyone expect veterans Todd
Eldredge or Nicole Bobek to fall like beginners in the figure skating? And who
expected America's first gold medal in Nagano to come from someone named Jonny
Moseley in something called freestyle moguls? Moguls? How many of you even
know what that is?
"I was on the plane over here and the flight attendant said, 'So what event
are you in'?" Moseley said. "So I said 'moguls,' and she was like, 'Oh,
great.' But I know she's thinking, 'Who's this guy? What is he, kidding?' "
What if you get her on your flight back, he was asked?
"Yeah," he said, fingering his medal, "that would be cool."
Take off your shoes.
Good Behavior Games
Of course, it wouldn't be the Olympics without a few nonsensical episodes.
Nagano always will be the Games that let a snowboarder stay with pot in his
system, but threw out a hockey player for having two passports. It also tossed
out an Austrian snowboarder who spilled beer in a hotel's computer system, but
somehow didn't notice seven destroyed chairs in the Olympic Village until the
U.S hockey team already had left.
Nagano postponed its downhill five times -- too much snow, too much wind, too
much fog -- cut the four-man bobsled from four runs to three -- too much rain
-- and even suffered a minor earthquake during the men's slalom. Yet it also
staged one of the most elegant and understated opening ceremonies anyone can
recall, highlighted by scantily clad sumo wrestlers braving the cold to honor
tradition.
That spirit prevailed. Honor tradition. Behave yourself. If the 1994
Lillehammer Games were forever stamped by the bad behavior of Tonya versus
Nancy, then these were the Good Behavior Games. From the consistent grace of
the Japanese athletes, to the understated humility of Norwegian cross-country
skiers and Dutch speed-
skaters, to the American luger, Wendell Suckow, who finished his last run,
missed out on a medal, but pulled out an engagement ring and asked his
girlfriend to marry him. Now that's getting caught up in the moment.
Even the NHL Dream Teams -- with the exception of the United States' farewell
party -- behaved splendidly, embracing the Olympic Village, never acting as if
money made them better. Check out Wayne Gretzky's tears when he realized he
wasn't going to play for the gold medal. Who says pros can't bleed for the
Games?
Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan kissed on the medal stand, with Kwan hiding
her heartbreak in a brave show of manners and respect. No Tonya theatrics. No
Nancy two-face, rolling her eyes when she thought the cameras weren't looking.
"I don't want to ruin this moment by worrying about who I lost to," Kwan said,
holding her silver medal. "This is a special moment all by itself."
Oh, if they could all be that way.
CBS turns a blind eye
Then again, at least you got to see that moment. Figure skating was about the
only sport that interested CBS enough to show in its entirety -- even though
it wasn't live. The fact is, you saw more of figure skating practice than you
saw of many actual competitions.
This is not to be taken lightly. For better or worse, the Olympics have
married television. TV pays the bill; TV calls the shots. And if the
rights-holders such as CBS continue to try to overproduce by undercovering,
interest in the Games will wane, because most people can't see the
competition. Detroiters are lucky to have the CBC on their airwaves. But your
liking the Games shouldn't hinge on a network's entertainment decisions. Based
on the ratings, most of America simply shrugged and tuned to something else --
and that's a terrible insult to the athletes who have worked all their lives
to get to this wonderful stage, only to find the curtain pulled down in favor
of a four-minute fluff piece on a Japanese McDonald's.
What made this worse is that, as is often the case in this strange yet subtle
land, there were so many moments when you just had to be there. For me, there
were two that stood out. Both symbolized the sub-theme of these Games: change.
The first came in the little-watched cross-country ski events, when Bjorn
Dahlie, the winningest athlete in the history of the Winter Games (and still
lesser known in America than the alternate on the figure skating team), was
talking with reporters after finishing another gold-medal race. The race was
long since over, but as fans filed out, the announcer said, "Wait! We have one
more skier on the course!"
The skier turned out to be Philip Boit of Kenya, who had learned to ski only
two years ago. His form was awful, but he was trying, and Dahlie watched on
the large screen, then began leading the cheers, urging Boit on. Finally, at
the finish line, the last-place finisher fell into the arms of the first-place
finisher. It was a meeting of old and new, a legend and a competitor from a
country that never tried the sport before. Dahlie whispered to Boit, "You're a
champion, too." Nice.
The other moment took place at the Hakuba ski jump, the team competition, with
the largest crowd of Japanese spectators assembled for any of the Nagano
sports. In the last Olympics, Japan lost the gold medal because of one man,
Masahiko Harada, a clownish, rubber-faced jumper who earned his nickname
"Happy Harada" for his effervescence after winning.
In Lillehammer, however, it was Unhappy Harada after he flubbed his last jump
so badly he made Eddie the Eagle look good. He dropped his team to silver, and
had to live with that shame for four years -- in a country where shame is its
worst sort of punishment.
Now, here in Nagano, the team was counting on him again. But his first jump
was, again, uncharacteristically poor. Whereas all the other contenders were
landing 120 to 125 meters, Harada plopped to Earth at under 80 meters. The
massive crowd at the bottom of the jump groaned, and a Japanese nation
watching at home was thinking the same thing: Can't we replace this guy? Do we
have to suffer again?
But Harada had one jump left. He came down the ramp, staring at a life of
being labeled a "sempan" -- Japanese for "choker" -- and he lifted off and
flew 137 meters, tying the course record, helping bring his team the gold.
In the winner's circle, he was so overcome with emotion he wept until the
Japanese interviewer began weeping, too.
Take off your choker shoes, Harada. You are a hero now.
Change. For the good. For the weird. For the inspirational. That's what Nagano
was about, and that's what those who were here will remember. Every day, in
the media cafeteria, near the cash registers, there was a "lost items" board
that the Japanese displayed. Along with keys, combs and buttons, there were
coins and bills -- one yen, five yen, 1,000 yen. Workers had found them, and
instead of keeping them, had put them up for the rightful owners to claim.
So, too, did the Japanese give us these Olympics, up on the world board, for
the athletes and viewers to claim as their own. It is an approach that for
many of us was as unusual as removing our shoes. But by offering up these
Games so selflessly, the people of Nagano ensured that they would, in a very
real way, always remain their own.
To leave a message for Mitch Albom, call 1-313-223-4581.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
OLYMPIC;END