You know the Winter Olympics are an afterthought in a football-high, Tiger-fatigued sports world when the most publicity the upcoming Vancouver Games have received is as an interlude in NBC’s latest Leno-Conan programming switcheroo.
Well, 2008’s Beijing Olympics were a pesky pennant race interrupter until Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Co. reminded us in dramatic and exhilarating fashion what “swifter, higher, stronger” is all about.
With opening ceremonies unspooling on Friday, and the world’s best winter athletes sharpening their speed skates and dusting off their curling stones, don’t get left out in the cold. Here are the 10 storylines you’ll need to know to get started:
1. SOME KIND OF VONN-DERFUL
Lindsey Vonn should emerge as the female counterpart to snowboarder Shaun White this Olympiad — a photogenic superstar and the next best bet to bring a gold medal back south of the border. A two-time reigning World Cup (skiing’s regular season) overall champion, she is set to ski in all five disciplines, though she’s at her best in the downhill and super-G, the speed events. But there’s no sure things on the slopes, where a devastating wipeout is just an icy patch away.
If you remember a Lindsey Kildow from the Turin Games, don’t worry:
She married her coach, Thomas Vonn, and took his name. Vonn, 25, fended off controversy several weeks ago when an Austrian coach said her weight — she’s a solid 5-foot-10 — gives her a speed advantage.
Her toughest rival is German Maria Riesch, whom she counts as a close friend.
2. GOLDEN TOMATO
The grinning face of these Winter Olympics will belong to White, an X Games whiz best known for the color of his hair (red) and the color of the medal he usually wears around his neck (gold). The Flying Tomato, a moniker he has mostly outgrown, is the king of the snowboarding halfpipe, the gold-medal winner from 2006 and a crossover star in a traditionally insular sport.
In its fourth Olympics, the fan-friendly halfpipe has progressed to new heights, with the sport’s elite working to perfect variations on a difficult trick called the double cork, a kind of corkscrewing double back flip. American Kevin Pearce, expected to challenge White for the top of the podium, suffered a brain trauma when he hit his head on the halfpipe trying a double cork in practice on New Year’s Eve and remains hospitalized. His absence will add a somber note to the proceedings.
3. WHO’S GOT NEXT?
The last time the United States failed to medal in women’s figure skating was 1964, three years after the national team perished in a plane crash en route to the world championships. That streak is in jeopardy in Vancouver, where Rachael Flatt and Mirai Nagasu, unproven teenagers who finished 1-2 at the U.S. championships, will be charged with keeping it going. An illustrious lineage from Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill (Flatt’s mentor) to Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan (Asian-Americans like Nagasu) forms the standard, but the more pertinent names to remember are Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes.
It will take a similar unflappable, bravura showing by an Olympic neophyte to reach the stand. Flatt, a 17-year-old from California, is 5 feet tall and the superior leaper of the two. Nagasu, 16, whose parents are Japanese immigrants, is hailed for her elegant skating.
4. HOME-ICE ADVANTAGE
Germany, Norway and the former Soviet Union have traditionally led the Winter Olympics’ medals race, but the gap between hemispheres may be closing. The introduction of several new events, many of the extreme sport variety, has lifted the United States, which has not finished atop the medals table since the 1932 Lake Placid Games.
In Italy four years ago, the U.S.
(25 medals, nine gold) trailed only Germany (29 total, 11 gold) in the final count, and Canada finished third overall with 24 medals. Competing on their home continent, the U.S. and Canada are poised for a breakthrough rebuttal to European dominance in the Winter Games.
5. SNOW WHAT?
Even Mother Nature seems to have forgotten to prepare for the Olympics, as the lower reaches of Cypress Mountain, the site of snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, are light on snow after unseasonably warm and wet conditions.
Organizers are committed to creating a workaround, building a straw foundation to cover with trucked-in snow or man-made powder. Whistler Mountain, which will host skiing, ski jumping and sliding events, has been declared fit. It may well turn out to be a non-issue, but it’s the kind of story — Winter Olympics without any snow! — that you will hear plenty about.
6. DOES THAT BODE WELL?
U.S. ski star Bode Miller carries first-name recognition in the sometimes goggled anonymity of winter sports, but not always for the right reasons. He won two silver medals in Salt Lake City in 2002, and in 2005 became the first American in 22 years to capture the World Cup overall crown. But entering the 2006 Games as the man to beat — and marching to his own beat — his showing was a bigger bust than Pamela Anderson’s: fifth place, sixth place, a disqualification and two DNFs.
He is a lone wolf who quit the national ski team in 2007 to operate on his own and an eccentric who says he will try to qualify for this year’s tennis U.S. Open. His rollercoaster career makes anything possible — a series of wipeouts or a multiple-medal haul — and his events must-see TV.
7. VANCOUVER CA-PUCKS
Host Canada and Russia have emerged as the favorites, which conveniently boils down to a international grudge match between the league’s two biggest stars — Penguins center Sidney Crosby and Russian winger Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals. Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, competing in his fourth Olympics, anchors a star-studded Team Canada, while Devils teammate Jamie Langenbrunner captains a Team USA squad that has plenty of speed but runs short on experience. Sweden is the defending champion, and don’t sleep on the Czech Republic, led by Jaromir Jagr.
On the women’s side, the world champion U.S. team, coached by Miracle on Icer Mark Johnson, will attempt to rebound from semifinal loss to Sweden in Turin and keep rival Canada from an Olympics three-peat.
8. ‘CROSS’ WORD
Looking for the event that will emerge as a hit from these Games? Try ski cross, added to the lineup for 2010. Ski cross combines elements of Alpine skiing (a timed race to the bottom) with conditions native to freestyle skiiing (jumps and rollers that send racers flying through the air) and a dash of roller derby (in the knockout rounds, the top two finishers in a four-person race advance). The results (first one to the bottom wins) are easier to comprehend than skating’s points system, plus there’s always the potential for a multi-skier pileup. OK, it’s no curling, but…
9. GET TO THE POINTS
After a judging scandal in 2002 invalidated the results of the pairs figure skating competition, the sport set out to revamp its scoring system. The 6.0 scale is gone, along with it the murky presentation category, replaced by a more mathematical
method that some have complained robs the sport of its artistry. Each program now contains a set number of elements and points are deducted for errors in execution — similar to the system now used in international gymnastics and seen in Beijing.
Critics such as American skater
Johnny Weir, a veteran who prides himself on the pageantry of his routines, have complained about the elevation of grim numbers-crunching at the expense of individual expression. In other words, it may be more fair,
but it also can be less fun.
10. COLBERT NATION
Comedy-newsman Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” came to the rescue of the cash-strapped U.S. speed-skating team in the run-up to the Games, calling on his viewers to raise money to sponsor the squad.
It’s not a joke: the influx bailed out the team, which lost its key sponsor in the recession, and “Colbert Nation” will be recognized with title patches on the speed skaters’ uniforms. It’s the perfect setup for Colbert: material in keeping with his jingoistic on-air persona, nightly publicity on NBC during sweeps month and a downright good deed.
FAMILIAR FACES
Apolo Ohno
Ohno, synonymous with short-track speed skating in the U.S., is back for his third Games. The owner of one “Dancing with the Stars” title and five Olympics medals, his next medal will make him the most decorated American man in Winter Olympics history.
Lindsey Jacobellis
Last seen at the Turin Olympics squandering a sure gold medal in snowboard cross by crashing during a showboating finish, Jacobellis returns with the ultimate redemption narrative. She’s still the best in the world, and an upright first-place finish would be doubly sweet.
Henrik Lundqvist
The Rangers’ all-world goalie will trade in his Blueshirt for the blue-and-yellow sweater of his native Sweden, and try to fend off the likes of teammate Chris Drury, who will skate for Team USA. If the King heats up, Sweden will be a tough out.
Tanith Belbin
The ice dancing tandem of the beautiful Belbin and Ben Agosto, better known as Belbin and that other guy, returns from a silver finish in Turin to contend for a medal again. Compatriots Meryl White and Charlie Davis are also in the running.
NEW STARS
Jeremy Abbott
Abbott, 24, put the world on notice with a tour de force at the U.S. championships earlier this month, blowing away the field with a long program that featured a quad toe loop and eight triple jumps. If he recaptures that form, gold could be his.
Steven Holcomb
Jamaica has more fame in the bobsledding world than does the U.S., but Holcomb is out to change that. He drove a four-man sleigh to sixth place in Turin and, after overcoming a degenerative eye condition that had him steering by feel, broke through with gold at the 2009 worlds.
Kim Yu-na
Kim, a 19-year-old from South Korea, positioned herself as the favorite for gold in women’s figure skating. Kim won the 2009 world championship and holds the points record for a short program and a free skate.
Hannah Kearney
Kearney is participating in her second Olympics, but you wouldn’t know it: She didn’t make it out of the qualification round in moguls skiing in Turin. The 23-year-old Vermonter was the 2009 season-long World Cup champ.
Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong
Cue Jimmy Roberts in the studio, grab a Kleenex and meet the inspirational story of these Olympics: Nicknamed the Snow Leopard, Nkrumah-Acheampong is Ghana’s one-man, self-taught ski team. He plans to race in the slalom and giant slalom. Getting to Vancouver was a victory by itself.