The Torch: Vancouver Style, Olympics 2010

I feel the need to talk about the elephant in the room even if it contrasts with our ordinarily light-hearted tone here at Saving Private Mommy:  the horrific accident that killed Georgian Olympic luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.  The tragedy occurred on the THE FASTEST TRACK IN THE HISTORY OF THE GAMES.  According to NBC, this $110-million track was built to be the world’s fastest.  Speed equals danger.  Why would any country, least of all Canada, aspire to DANGER?  While there may be technological advances that make this kind of threat to existence possible, and while human beings may be better trained now than ever before, they have not become any less vulnerable to impact at high speeds.  Unlike the new Ford Taurus, they are not equipped with anti-lock brakes and cranial air curtains, so why are the tracks becoming FASTER AND MORE DANGEROUS?  And did you see how many women fell on the downhill competition?  These falls were severe, where skiers slid seemingly endlessly in a fast, violent tangle of equipment and limbs.  The LA Times reported Canada’s Emily Brydon, who finished 16th, as saying, “I was not skiing the course — the course was skiing me.”

The tragedy on the luge should not have happened.  One death in the name of what used to be amateur worldwide competition is one too many.  I can’t imagine the unspeakable pain Kumaritashvili’s family, friends, and teammates must feel.

The ugly shadow upon luge and upon the Vancouver Olympics is here to stay.  Even Lindsey Vonn and all her tears of golden joy can’t wash away this sorrow.  Neither can the winning race of Shani Davis especially since IT WASN’T TELEVISED.

Why would it be when we have 18 minutes of Lindsey Vonn crying?  (Not your fault Lindsey.  I cried for you, too, but after a while it just got embarrassing.  For both of us.)  Perhaps it was the media getting back at Davis for refusing a role in the US relay in 2006 and justifying it by saying, “I’m a solo entity.  I don’t skate for US Speed skating and I have no obligation to them.  I felt they were putting pressure on me to be a part of their organization.”  While that doesn’t make for a cute Olympics TV profile, it’s a man’s right to kill his stamina and tear his ligaments in the race of his choice.

So did they do an all-media snub and aren’t willing to talk about it?  Why would you snub anyone and not TELL THE WHOLE WORLD that you were snubbing them, why you were snubbing them, and to what extent you were snubbing them.  If I recall correctly from my days in eighth grade, high school, and last month, snubbing is to be publicized if it is to be effective, yet not a peep on Google.  Have I gone crazy?  Am I the only one who noticed this?

And speaking of going unnoticed, did Queen Elizabeth II or Prince Chaz or even Camilla Parker Bowles know there were Olympics going on in land of Canucks that makes up the flannel-clad, lumberjack arm of the all-to-Commonwealth?  Perhaps they don’t want to be connected to anything called a Canuck, but surely those down-to-earth lads of that Buckingham house, Will and Harry, might want to shake hands with a flying tomato (who looks no more like a flying tomato than Lindsey Vonn looks like a tumbling banana or an exploding lemon drop.)  Why even have a queen or a Crown to serve if all she provides for you is Royal Assent when you want to change the smoking laws and you use her name for a few of your hospitals.  I don’t think she’s good for Canada’s self-esteem.

It seems like Canada is the Rodney Dangerfield of North America.  They can’t afford, in any way, to host a tarnished Olympics, with malfunctioning torches to boot.  (Oh, the symbolism.)  Since I am a Canadian native, I ache over this.  I don’t want to say Blame Canada, but I might say…Oh, Canada.

Come back tomorrow for more of Saving Private Mommy Olympic Coverage.  Eat your heart out, NBC.  (Okay, I’m getting carried away, but still…)  And speaking of too big for my britches, Greta has inched to the 89th position on Babble.com’s Top Mommy Bloggers.  She’s dying to get on the podium.  Help her own it, and watch her cry through interviews.  (I swear I do love you, Lindsey Vonn, even though you’re really too pretty to truly like.)  Click and vote, vote, vote (I’m on page 2) and tell your friends.  I want to be dubbed the Ascending Helmet.  Is that too much to ask in a world of snowboarding fruit?

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