Turin – We don’t need another Olympic hero. We demand an American Idol.
And the Winter Games have failed to deliver.
Image counts for everything in the USA. Our Olympic team is putting the country to sleep.
Sure, American athletes have mined seven gold medals, but where’s the golden girl to win the nation’s heart?
If television viewers want snarky, there’s absolutely no reason to tune in to petulant skier Bode Miller when caustic talent scout Simon Cowell reigns as the undisputed world champ.
Our warm and fuzzies for the Games have been left out in the cold by too many U.S. Olympians who have acted like airheads, been mopey and aloof, or sounded downright arrogant.
That’s a big turn-off. The disappointing TV ratings for NBC are proof.
Proud as a peacock? How could NBC be happy? Not when all the network has to show for its $600 million investment in the Winter Games is this lousy tin-foil medal from the Nielsen family.
With the Olympic glow of an all-American party on U.S. soil in 2002 slip-sliding away, teeth grit a little louder when the subject of disappointing performances by athletes wearing the red, white and blue is broached.
“What kind of question is that? Is that a set-up question? Who do you work for?” defenseman Chris Chelios snapped Sunday after the U.S. hockey team’s humbling 2-1 loss to Sweden, which rested injured star Peter Forsberg on the bench and whose No. 1 scoring line, if I’m reading the final stats correctly, were members of ABBA.
Gee, Cheli. Chill out.
The poor guy who politely inquired why American hockey millionaires are having trouble putting the biscuit in the basket was employed by the Olympic News Service, an in-house tool of the Turin Games that nobody ever confuses with “60 Minutes.”
The Americans might be victims of their own recent success. After winning a record 34 medals at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, there’s no way now the U.S. team can duplicate the feat this time around.
“Nobody wants to watch Swiss people doing well,” Cowell gloated to FoxNews.com.
What’s unforgivable, however, is how U.S. stars keep falling down, cratering in the Italian Alps with stupid-human tricks that has reminded the world that America is full of airheads.
On the night of the biggest performance of his life, figure skater Johnny Weir missed a bus to the rink, dithered in a panic like a tenor with laryngitis, stunk up the joint, then blamed bad aura. And Weir wonders why people don’t take his sport seriously.
A snowboarder named Lindsey (last name withheld to protect family members from further embarrassment) threw away a gold medal by biffing a landing and falling on her Jacobellis, which is dudette speak for being such an gosh-awful hot dog she disgraced everyone from Leon Lett to Oscar Mayer.
Revealing what Terrell Owens would look like on ice, speedskater Shani Davis won a gold medal but lost the respect of fellow Americans he stiffed in the three-man pursuit race earlier on the Olympic schedule, proving that any way you spell it, there is no “Shani” in team.
For decades, what kept the passion for the Winter Games burning back home was the Olympic ideal of competing for glory of country rather than the personal gain of an endorsement deal with Visa.
Maybe the patriotism angle was an illusion, but for many American spectators, it’s gone. Do we really need another sporting event dedicated to the look-at-me generation? I thought that’s why the NBA All-Star Game was invented.
One of these quadrennials, maybe NBC finally will learn that it takes more than sassy Katie Couric and a bunch of snow-globe fluff to make the Winter Games feel alive in the States, where everybody knows who won and lost in Europe hours before Olympic competition is replayed during prime time.
Too much soap opera. Too little sports.
If that’s the game, skater Sasha Cohen has no shot with the judges against singer Kelly Clarkson.
This depressing score just in: American Idol 28.8, Winter Games 17.9. Those are the lopsided numbers, in millions of TV viewers, the Olympics were crushed by one night last week, losing to wannabe pop icons trying to croon on key.
As a sports fan, that sad song makes me want to cover my ears and scream.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
