Do I wake or sleep?

Some filmmaker has done a documentary about the Harding/Kerrigan saga 20 years ago. I'd really like to watch this but it's airing on ESPN (which I don't get) so I'll have to go to their site or something like that to view it. Accompanying the release of the doc have been a lot of articles looking back at that whole debacle and surprisingly a lot of them seem to be more sympathetic to Harding than her typical coverage is. I'll admit it, I'm a Tonya fan. I was even back in '94 because I thought a LOT of the animosity toward her was due to classism and her looks (she wasn't as obviously pretty/elegant/whatever as Nancy was and she was more muscular and less svelte than other skaters). I remember talking about it with my Mom and was surprised to find out she liked Tonya as well. Look, I'm as much of a snob as any WASP I know but you should applaud Tonya for making something of herself, for working hard and succeeding as a skater. Because Tonya was pretty incredible when she was hitting her programs. She was an amazing jumper, the likes of which the sport has rarely seen. She was the second woman (and first American woman) to successfully throw (and land) the triple axel in competition.

The 3A is inherently difficult for women--it's a completely different kind of jump, and it's also the hardest of all jumps. Instead of skating backwards to approach, you skate forward (but you still land backwards which means that an axel has an extra half-revolution more than any other jump. So a triple axel is 3-and-a-half turns, not 3). And instead of using a toepick--toepick!--to launch yourself into the air, you have to kick your leg back and then forward--you literally launch yourself into the air. So you need upper body strength which is why it's easier for men. To put this in perspective there are still--20 years later!--only a handful of women that have accomplished this jump. Midori Ito (silver medalist in '92), Tonya, Mao Asada (silver medalist in '10, she and Kim Yu-na will battle it out for gold this year), Kimmie Meissner (US skater who was the '06 World champion) and a Russian skater and another Japanese skater. THAT'S IT. That's how significant Tonya was to the sport. And she didn't just chuck triple axels, her jumps in general had incredible power--her height was unbelievable. And her spins were great as well. No, she wasn't the most artistic skater but what she did well, she did very well. But the typical US viewer doesn't know anything about that, they just see "white trash skater" and they feel free to pass judgment on her based on that. Haw haw, look at her thighs! Haw haw, she skates to Ton Loc's Wild Thing! Haw haw--HAVE A NICE WARM CUP OF SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU CLASSIST ASS.

If you really want to see Tonya at her peak, check out her long program at the '91 Nationals where she first lands the 3A. She does it about a minute into the program and when she lands it her joy is simply incandescent. The crowd went NUTS screaming for her, and the announcers totally lost their cool. Even Dick Button was yelling his approval in his WASPy way--"oh, isn't that marvelous, isn't that superb!! Well done!!!" Very cute :) I love Dick Button. And after she lands it she still has the rest of her program to get through! Which she did, in style, and won the gold medal, the national title--over Kristi Yamaguchi who won the Olympic gold medal the next year! Anyway the program is great and girl can DANCE. She rocks the hell out to Wild Thing. (Only Tonya Harding could do her long program to both Wild Thing and Send In the Clowns :)

I haven't made up my mind about whether she was involved with the plot to hobble Nancy. I used to think she probably knew something--she admitted to "hindering prosecution" after the fact--but now I don't know. I read a great article that looks at the whole story within the framework of abuse. I don't think I'd realized that Tonya was abused by her (now ex-) husband or that she'd suffered the same under her mother. If I'd heard it, I might have hedged my bets because Tonya had a history of making dramatic claims, like the famous lace incident. But--I did not know this--apparently Tonya's laces broke all the time because of her jumps. According to the article after her '91 Skate America long program (which was flawless) she told her coach "my boot broke again." But no, the narrative was decided that Trashy Tonya was stoking drama again. Anyway the article is very interesting.

And although I've never really liked either Nancy's skating or her personality, I have some sympathy for Nancy as well (beyond, obviously, the attack which must have been horrible and which no one deserves). I did think she was snide about Oksana in the aftermath (the infamous "she's just going cry again" remark) and I didn't really like the "this is so corny remark." And I just cringed when, for her first joint practice session in Lillehammer with Tonya, she wore the white dress in which she was attacked as this kind of...statement or something. It just looked so drama queenie. Nancy, you ARE the victim, you already have tons of public sympathy, why do you have to PLAY the victim? Let your skating talk for you instead of silly junior high gestures. But maybe those remarks were meant differently (she was being sarcastic instead of mean)--maybe the public was just looking to tear her down after she'd been so propped up during the Olympics, in contrast to Tonya. I imagine she must have been bewildered by the rapid about-face.

But I still think Oksana deserved the gold :)

I'm so excited!



The Games open tonight!  YAAAAYYYYY!!!!  Rooool Britannia!  The motherland!

In other news, I have started pet health insurance for the babies and have started taking them to the vet again.  Tibby is the picture of rude health as they say, but Tatia is getting a little skinny and has lost some hair.  They did blood work and everything seems normal ("boringly" normal, they said) but we started her on a steroid regimen and I got some special prescription food for her, very fatty.  She has gained a little weight and is even sassier toward her brother so it seems to be working.  His appointment is next week--can't *wait* for that exercise in complete embarrassment.  "What is that NOISE?"

THIS is pretty incredible. A few months ago, FIG (the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, the governing body of international elite gymnastics) ruled that the 2000 Olympic women's team bronze medalists had falsified the age of one of their gymnasts and recommended to the IOC that they strip this team of the bronze and award it to the 4th-place team, the US. Today the IOC did so. The country? Take a wild guess. China, of course.

I'm not at all surprised that China was proven to have cheated--one of their other Sydney gymnasts, Yang Yun, had already slipped up and admitted herself on TV that she was underage at the time. What shocks me is that 1) FIG gave a crap, and 2) that the IOC actually acted on it.

FIG is a shady, badly-run organization--their president, Bruno Grandi, is a complete mess and does stupid shit like having gymnastics meets in Iran. You know, Iran, where women aren't going to be able to wear the leotard, or even compete. So naturally half your athletes can't compete, your judges and coaches can't be there. Good thinking, Einstein. Grandi also pushed for the 6-3-3 system, so that teams with fewer good consistent gymnasts can win more, thus making the whole TEAM concept irrelevant! He hates the All-Around and Team competititons and wants to eliminate them completely--I doubt this will happen, but that's just such a stupid idea anyway. No AA means no Nadia, no Mary Lou, no gymnastics heroes for little girls to idealize and lead them into the sport. And I personally dislike him and FIG because when Paul Hamm won the gold AA in Athens, and it was then discovered that a judge had neglected to give the South Korean bronze medalist the correct start value on one of his routines, which lowered his score (and after that, it was discovered that another judge had negelected to penalize the SK gymnast for an extra hold, which meant his score was actually higher than it should've been--it's confusing, I know, but basically Yang Tae Young got a gift overall and should not have even won the bronze).  FIG sent Hamm this sleazy letter "suggesting" he give back the gold he'd won.  They ignored the second hold for which Yang was not penalized and acted as though Hamm was cheating somehow. Unbelievable.  Basically FIG likes to make a dramatic show when the spotlight is on them, but after the meet is over, they do nothing.

And the IOC is like this as well.  They make a fuss about drug testing and zero tolerance--and to the point of ridiculousness, as when they stripped poor Andreea Raducan of her AA gold for taking a cold tablet which 1) had been prescribed to her by the team doctor, 2) hindered, rather than helped, her performance, and 3) IS NO LONGER A BANNED SUBSTANCE.  But when the heat dies down, they do nothing.  Look at East Germany in '76.  It has now been not only proven but admitted that the East German women's swim team juiced.  One poor swimmer was so messed up, she actually underwent sex-reassignment surgery.  But has the IOC vacated the results?  Nope.  Shirley Babashoff deserves the golds she should've won that year, but the IOC will never do anything about it.

But I am happy for the US Sydney team.  They were dogged quite a bit for not medalling at all, some nasty gymnastics fans out there, and this is some nice vindication.

As more evidence has come out, but the IOC has turned a blind eye, I haven't wanted to blog about this because frankly, I found the story alternately maddening and depressing. Everyone could see there was evidence (and China has done this before--one of their medalists in Sydney admitted to being underage. Admitted it on state TV) but the IOC just kept saying "her passport says she's of age, therefore it's a done deal" and FIG just shrugged. That's the maddening part. The depressing part is how cynical some people have been--how they don't seem to realize that if this is true, it's spitting in the face of those who AREN'T cheating, those who DID wait their turn until they were old enough to compete. Like the AA gold medalist, Nastia Liukin--who almost certainly would've competed in Athens if the age limit were lower. She was that good even back then. And we have 14- and 15-year old who could've competed this year. But the rules say the gymnast has to turn 16 the calendar year of the Olympics--and it's to protect the gymnasts themselves, to keep them from pushing their bodies too hard, and in response to some scary-ass stories of exploitation in the '70s and '80s .

So I tried not to think about the story too much because I figured nothing would happen. The IOC has extremely selective vision and they pick and choose their battles. they had no problem going after poor Andreea Raducan in 2000 with both guns firing, stripping her of her gold medal in the AA for a cold tablet, but when convincing evidence turns up that the host country might've falsified documents to screw over athletes in order to scrabble a few more golds? No way, man. They don't want the fight. They can bully a Romanian sixteen-year-old but not China, not the country that sentences 70+-year-old women to hard labor (and how damn sad is that? That article brings tears to my eyes, that is just unbelievable).

Until I saw this:

Faced with almost insurmountable evidence which suggests that [gymnast] He is two years younger than the birth date listed on her Chinese passport, the IOC has launched an inquiry that could result in the stripping of He's gold medals.

About damn time.

...someone had a birthday today and when I came upstairs there was a piece of soft, cheesecake-y goodness waiting for me. YUM.

I've been downloading a ton of figure skating YouTube videos onto my iPod lately. All sorts of skaters--mostly ladies' singles, but a few pairs' and ice dancers' programs. I even found Tonya Harding's long program from '91 Nationals where she got 6.0s because of her triple axel (only the second woman in the world ever to complete a triple axel in competition). Man, she depresses me--what a waste of a damn good athlete. Do y'all know how hard a triple axel is? Even NOW, only a few women have ever been able to do them--more women attempt quads than triple axels, they're more difficult for women because of the upper body strength needed to get the extra half-revolution. I want to have sympathy for Tonya because I know she had a crappy upbringing but she is her own worst enemy, and her "me against the world" bravado is very offputting.

One person I did not download was Nancy Kerrigan--her skating puts me to sleep. (That spiral named after her, where she grabs her extended leg and reaches forward with her other arm? BO-RING. Much prefer Sasha Cohen's vagina-hinge fan spirals.) I was Team Oksana all the way in '94! I loved her long program, and her competitive fierceness in adding another triple into her program as she was still skating, to make up the difference in difficulty between her LP and Kerrigan's. LOVE that kind of fierceness!

Yay Carly Patterson! (Although after seeing her interview with Bob Costas, she is a bit of a CarlyBot.)

Yay USA gymnastics!!! This'll answer all those naysayers who say Americans only win titles on American soil!! We rocked tonight and last night!! Eat Greek dust!!

And congrats to Sveta too--I've always liked her and her extravagant Russian personality.

I'm getting a little more money next week--I realized Atrium hadn't been paying me overtime rates because my hours are divided between two different divisions now (left hand, meet right hand). So, good.

I know the women's AA competition is over--now I'm desperately sticking my fingers in my ears, as it were, not to be spoiled, so I can watch it unfold on NBC tonight.

I need a margarita.

On the Washington Post website, Sally Jenkins wrote:

Sally Jenkins: Hi. I agree with you: this is the most egregious violation of the Olympic ethic that I've ever seen, and it's my fifth Olympics. They should cut down the Iranian flags at every venue and Fed Ex them back to the Iranian governement. And they should revoke Iranian membership. Period. End of debate. There are no ifs ands or buts about this one.
however, the IOC is notoriously shy of controvery. [sic]

And this (from an article on the Post):

During the Opening Ceremonies on Friday, the Israeli team received a tepid reception from the 77,000 spectators. In contrast, the much smaller Palestinian team strolled around the stadium to rousing cheers.

That is just so goddamn sad. Berlin '36, Munich '72. And now this. In the scheme of things, that kind of insult isn't so bad--it just really bothers me that the spectators have no historical perspective at all. That there is even an Israeli team at all is a miracle, since many of them were murdered in cold blood by the countrymen of these "cheered" athletes, and were given a hero's welcome. I don't begrudge the Palestinian team getting cheered--maybe they can find a way to bridge the gap--but I would be kissing the hands of the Israeli athletes. I would be embracing them.

After Jenny and Mom left on Saturday, I walked back to my partment and slugged in front of the TV, watching the Olympics. I had a rather ambitious agenda for the day: 1) get my legs and bikini area waxed, 2) got to church, 3) do a little load of launday and 4) hit the tanning salon. But I ended up doing only 2 and 4--I scrambled to church at the last minute and got there in the middle of the Magnificat. After church, I walked through a street fair (and picked up a pair of darling earrings for only $2) and then baked in ersatz sun.

Sunday I had to do a grueling promo for Maybelline. I stood in a Rite Aid for 4 hours while no one wanted a demonstration, and only a few people took coupons. My feet were killing me after that--it really is much more tiring than it sounds. I also had a weird encounter--I saw a guy who looked familiar. He came over and started talking to me and he said I looked familiar as well. We started trying to figure out where we'd seen each other, and I realized how I knew him--I'd modeled with him at FIT. And I'd found him intensely annoying. Of course now that I'd been talking to him, I couldn't ignore him and he was just as pushy and condescending as he'd been before. Weirdly (because he seemed very unmasculine--I thought he was perhaps some kind of transgender type, with this rubbery weird face and absolutely no muscle tone at all) he was pushing me to have a drink with him. At first I thought he meant it like "we're two artists, let's talk about doing a project together" then I realized oh no, he wants a date. Ew!!! I said "is this a date? Because I'm seeing someone" and he was all "It doesn't have to be--you're an actress, you should explore." EW!!! And when he left was all "think about it," like I'm considering law school or something. What is there to think about? You're nasty and I'm not interested. Incredibly annoying.