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The best of frenemies at the Olympics

The triumph of Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States over Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada in the Olympic ice dancing competition marks the latest and perhaps last chapter in one of the best rivalries in sports. 

Rivalry has gotten a bad rap. Cain and Abel, for starters. And who can forget Tonya and Nancy? Certainly not NBC, which has a Mary Carillo documentary airing later during the Olympics as we recall the 20th anniversary of Nancy’s knee-whacking at the hands of Tonya cohorts.

But true rivals can be friends, intimates – and in my just-released novel, “Water Music,” even lovers – as long as they respect each other and leave the competition on the field of “battle.” As my rivals discover, that’s easier said than done.

But it can be done. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were true rivals. During the glorious summer of 1961, they chased Babe Ruth’s single season home run record – while sharing an apartment. (They even shopped and barbecued together.) 

Davis and White and Virtue and Moir are rivals in that tradition. Read More

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Hanyu’s golden moment

Can I pick ’em or can I pick ’em?

Four years ago, I picked Evan Lysacek to win gold in men’s figure skating in Vancouver, and he did. The moment the new team competition began in Sochi, I knew that Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan would win the men’s gold. He just had the right combination of athleticism and artistry, focus and looseness – even if his free skate was less impressive than his short program.

Still, he was clutch while Patrick Chan of Canada, the three-time world champion, never seemed to lose his deer-caught-in-the-headlights quality. Just as some people seem to inspire confidence, others make you wonder why they can’t consistently come through when it’s all on the line. As NBC commentators Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic noted, Hanyu’s flawed free skate left the door open, and yet, Chan failed to walk through. Read more

 

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Goodbye, Evgeni; Hello, Yuzuru

Is there any sport with more drama than figure skating? The men’s short program Thursday may not have been Tonya and Nancy – What is? – but it was emotion-packed. First, Evgeni Plushenko withdrew and then retired. You could see the pain etched on his face as he tried his jumps. I haven’t been his biggest fan, because of the arrogance and defiance he brought to his silver-medal finish at Vancouver, but you’ve got to give the guy credit for leading the Russians to gold in the team competition. He’s a gamer. Still, at 31 and with two back surgeries behind him, Evgeni represents the past.

Right after Plushenko withdrew, the unsteady American Jeremy Abbott crashed on a quadruple jump, but had the presence to get up and finish, the crowd supporting him all the way.

But then came a group of young men with charm, personality and the technical goods… Read more

 

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Shaun, Bode, Peyton and the winter of their discontent

Not a great season for the favorites, huh? First Nole loses in the quarterfinal of the Australian Open and Rafa is injured in the final of the same event, then Peyton has a disastrous Super Bowl, Bode Miller flames out in the Olympic downhill and Shaun White goes down in his signature half-pike.

Time: Time is another country. We tend to think when someone wins that he’ll win forever. But over time, new people come along to challenge the status quo, the way iPod challenged Shaun, the way Matthias Mayer took on Bode and the rest of the field to win the downhill. 

Afterward, Matthias thanked destiny: “My mother is very religious. She believes in this and of course I was brought up like that. It’s a little bit easier for me if I think that way: That everything turns out as it should.”

I would agree but boy, there’s a part of me that really doesn’t want to think that way. Is it destiny for some to suffer? Why? Read more

 

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Observations from the ice

Is there a better night in sports than the first Sunday of the Winter Games? Figure skating and one of the most thrilling events in all of sports – the men’s downhill. The only thing that would make my rapture greater would be if there were curling, too.

Curling combines two of my favorite things – competition and housework. Watching people sweep and cry “Ai, ai” as that fat curling stone comes down the ice in a kind of wintry shuffleboard is beyond adorable. It was David Letterman of all people who cemented my love of curling. One year to promote his “coverage” of the Games, which consisted of reports from his mother, his publicist sent us entertainment writers curling stone paperweights. I keep mine in its little plaid box in my library. (It’s in a plaid box, because curling comes from Scotland, the land of kilts, Sean Connery and Andy Murray. We owe Scotland so much.)

But back to skating. Read more

 

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Does Nole have the eye of the tiger?

So after losing to Stanislas Wawrinka in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, Novak Djokovic elected not to play the first round of the Davis Cup against Wawrinka and Roger Federer, who had chosen to descend from Mount Olympus for the occasion, thereby virtually ensuring that his beloved Serbia would lose to Switzerland. 

Nole claimed exhaustion and instead went skiing. (His parents were skiers under the old Communist system in the former Yugoslavia.) And while the Serbian Davis Cup team coach Bogdan Obradovic defended that decision, saying Nole has always been there for his country, others wondered why.

“I’m sure he’s exhausted after playing five matches,” one poster wrote sarcastically. (I love how the Internet has given us ignorant snark the way swamps once bred yellow fever.) Read more

 

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20 Questions to ask before the Super Bowl

  1. Will there be a super-duper storm for the Super Bowl as predicted by the Farmers’Almanac?
  2. If there is a storm, will Peyton Manning, who is said to have trouble in the cold, be affected by the weather?
  3. Will the rest of the Denver Broncos be affected by the weather?
  4. Will the Seattle Seahawks be affected by the weather?
  5. Will the fans be affected by the weather?
  6. Will anyone talk about anything but the weather before, during and after the big game?
  7. Why is the blogosphere just now waking up to the fact that the Super Bowl is going to be played outdoors?
  8. Why can’t the blogosphere understand that though Super Bowl XLVIII is being played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the teams that play in that stadium have New York in their names, hence New York is co-hosting the Super Bowl?
  9. Why can’t the blogosphere understand that Metropolitan Opera star Renée Fleming is more than capable of singing the National Anthem?
  10. How many people in the blogosphere can sing the National Anthem, getting all the words right? (Bonus question: How many know the second verse?) Read more

 

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