| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2010 4:18 pm |
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Sports 
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2010 Olympics: Go and have your gold-medal experience Here's my confession: I cry at the Olympics.Perhaps in this day and age you don't find that the least bit shocking. But in my world, where “no cheering in the press box” is the sportswriter's first commandment, crying is a sin somewhere between coveting your neighbor's wife and idolatry in that other set of commandments. You may actually be more surprised that anybody would cry at what has become an over-hyped and over-commercialized spectacle — and, even worse, one repeatedly tarnished by young men and women pumped up with the latest in hi-tech pharmaceuticals. Yet I still believe that the Olympics pack more emotional wallop than any other sporting event. There remains something about the combination of athletes and nation — cue the “Chariots of Fire” music — that elevates the Games above all other competitions. Which is why, though hockey is only a second-tier sport in our country, the “Miracle on Ice” — the U.S. upset of the Soviet ice machine at the 1980 Olympics — remains atop every list of great sports moments in American history. I have been privileged, as national sports correspondent for Newsweek magazine, to witness some of the premiere athletes and sporting events of my generation. I have seen Michael Jordan dunk, A-Rod go deep, Tiger sink it and Beckham bend it. And I was in Yankee Stadium when my beloved, hometown Boston Red Sox broke the reviled New York Yankees and, ultimately, an 86-year curse. Still, it is the Olympics — I have attended 10 to date — that have stirred the greatest passions within me and repeatedly moved me to tears. I cried for Dan Jansen in Norway, as he skated with his infant daughter wrapped in his arms, a picture of blessed relief after he lifted the proverbial monkey — hell, a whole monkey house — off his back; for Michelle Kwan, the class of her generation, when on one night in Nagano, her best just wasn't good enough; for Kerri Strug, who shrugged off a sprained ankle and landed a golden vault on one leg for our “Magnificent 7” gymnasts in Atlanta; for Jason Lezak, who swam the greatest relay leg in history to make Michael Phelps' eight-gold dream come true in Beijing; and for figure-skating queen Sarah Hughes, incandescent in Salt Lake City as she did what few ever do in the Olympic pressure-cooker — had the greatest performance of her life at the biggest moment. I wept when the legendary Norwegian cross-country skier Vegard Ulvang took the athletes' oath in Lillehammer after having spent a futile month combing rugged terrain north of the Arctic Circle in search of his brother who had disappeared while skiing home; when Muhammad Ali, a man who once divided this nation, lit the torch in Atlanta to near-universal acclaim; for a reunited German team in Barcelona, three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; and for a divided Korea that watched as its athletes in Sydney, from both North and South, strode arm-in-arm into the Olympic Stadium under a unification banner. By now you may regard me as a man of extraordinary sensibilities or, quite possibly, as a sap. But ultimately this exercise is not about me, but rather you. My goal is to encourage sports fans in the Everett area to put yourself to the emotional test: because in just 96 days, there is an Olympics coming to you. Now you may not regard Vancouver as an Everett suburb. But compared to the past three Olympics — Athens, Turin, Italy, and Beijing — or the next three — London, Sochi, Russia, and Rio de Janeiro — the 2010 Winter Games are virtually in your back yard. You may worry that the cost of the Olympic experience is prohibitive and that tickets are impossible to secure anyway. But there is always a secondary market — both online and on the streets — and the less sexy sports like luge or curling often come at bargain prices yet still can generate a kind of thrill unlikely to be found at Mariners, Sounders, Seahawks or Huskies games. It will even be exciting to watch events — for free — on one of Vancouver's giant, outdoor screens, cheering alongside passionate fans from around the world. Over the ensuing Sundays, until the Games open Feb. 12, I will share some of my most memorable Winter Olympic moments. Presumably, some of them are yours as well. My hope is that by rekindling them, I can convince you that a once-in-a-lifetime experience is within easy reach. And that awaiting you at Vancouver 2010 will be what is truly the sports fan's gold medal: first-hand Olympic memories of your very own. Mark Starr has been a national sports correspondent for Newsweek since 1982 and has attended 10 Olympics. Look for his columns each Sunday in The Herald leading up to the 2010 Vancouver games. |
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