Time on the roundup - five thirty
NBC's Olympics coverage is like the Big Brother TV show. Because the Olympics coverage is on tape delay, they can assemble the "best" bits out of all of the tape that they have, and then put it into a story line.
This is different from what Howard Cosell claimed to be able to do. Cosell maintained that his talent (one of many) was to establish a story line for an athletic event as the athletic event was going on.
NBC and Big Brother come up with the story line after the event is over.
But I bet that they both cheat beforehand. I'm sure that NBC's reality show writers started working on tonight's show well before the event actually concluded. And what did they use for source material? Stuff like this, printed in Myrtle Beach Online way back on February 10 after having been compiled by the Dallas Morning News. In their list of Olympic duels, this one was included:
World champion Irina Slutskaya of Russia vs. U.S. champion Sasha Cohen. What contradiction in rivals! Slutskaya is a sturdy lightning rod. Cohen is a fragile, enchanting stunner of an athlete. It's hard to root against either of these gamers. Both have suffered illnesses, injuries and general family challenges. Slutskaya was so strong in the mid-January European Championships that beating her will take every possible break and benign smile from the skating gods.
By Tuesday night, the NBC reality writers really started cranking after the short program:
With all the pressure of skating last resting on her slight frame, U.S. champion Sasha Cohen performed brilliantly to edge Russian favorite Irina Slutskaya in the women's short program Tuesday night.
Cohen earned a total of 66.73 points for an ice-thin lead of 0.03 points over Slutskaya heading into the free skate Thursday night, when the Olympic medals will be decided.
One NBC writer probably wrote a first draft for Thursday's program that went something like this:
JULIE CHEN: It's the next to last day in the Olympic Skating House, and we're getting ready for the showdown between Sasha, the young skater from the United States, and Irina, the strong skater from Russia.
[JULIE pivots toward another camera]
JULIE CHEN: These two skaters battled it out on Tuesday night, with Sasha barely beating Irina.
Unfortunately, the other writers reminded the first one that Julie Chen is not working the NBC Olympic games, and that it would look pretty silly for Bob Costa [OE 5:33 - also known as Bob Costas] to do a dramatic pivot, so the whole idea had to be rewritten.
Well, reality invaded this reality show, and the NBC reality writers had to perform another rewrite. Why, why, why?
She was elegance on ice, her spirals superb, her skating sublime. That she was standing in the end didn't hurt, either.
Which one? Which one? Sasha, or Irina? Turns out it was neither one:
Shizuka Arakawa made this one look easy. Her brilliant performance Thursday night gave Japan its first medal of these Olympics — a gold in the showcase event....
[She was] mesmerizing, even spellbinding.
Everything American champion Sasha Cohen and Russian star Irina Slutskaya were not. They gave Arakawa plenty of help by tumbling to the ice often enough to make it a rout.
After the three were separated by a mere .71 points in the short program, Arakawa won the first figure skating gold ever for Japan by nearly eight points....
Emotionless for most of her four-minute routine, Arakawa broke into a smile that only got bigger when the scores were flashed. When her personal best of 125.32 points for the free skate were displayed, she flashed a "V" for victory sign then pumped her fist when she moved into first place with 191.34 points.
Cohen already flubbed her first two jumps — and her shot at gold.
"I was very disappointed with my skate," Cohen said. "I definitely gave 100 percent in my effort, I gave it my all. So I have no regrets with that. But it just wasn't my night."
That left Slutskaya, a two-time world champion and 2002 Olympic silver medalist. She lacked sparkle in her free skate and the fall crushed any chance she had.
"I'm a little disappointed in my skate," she said. "It's life, it's competition, and we can't change anything right now."...
Arakawa sang her national anthem on the podium, then held the medal tight while she took a victory lap — only letting go when she was handed a Japanese flag.
Cohen also waved, pleased with her "gift." But Slutskaya stood stone-faced, even shell-shocked, on the podium. While the other two medalists acknowledged the crowd, Slutskaya looked like she wanted to be anywhere but the Palavela arena.
All of this happened several hours ago, but NBC is just starting to show it on tape delay right now. That is, if you live on the East Coast. If you live on the West Coast, the tape delay will be tape delayed. (If you're upset with me for giving a TV spoiler, don't look at the Internet.)
Here are the results:
1 ARAKAWA Shizuka JPN 191.34 3 1
2 COHEN Sasha USA 183.36 1 2
3 SLUTSKAYA Irina RUS 181.44 2 3
4 SUGURI Fumie JPN 175.23 4 4
5 ROCHETTE Joannie CAN 167.27 9 5
6 MEISSNER Kimmie USA 165.71 5 6
7 HUGHES Emily USA 160.87 7 7
8 MEIER Sarah SUI 156.13 10 8
9 KOSTNER Carolina ITA 153.50 11 9
10 GEDEVANISHVILI Elene GEO 151.46 6 13
11 LIU Yan CHN 145.30 15 11
12 LEUNG Mira CAN 145.16 14 12
13 POYKIO Susanna FIN 143.22 12 15
14 SOKOLOVA Elena RUS 142.35 18 10
15 ANDO Miki JPN 140.20 8 16
16 KORPI Kiira FIN 137.20 20 14
17 LIASHENKO Elena UKR 134.08 13 18
18 SEBESTYEN Julia HUN 129.26 16 20
19 HEGEL Idora CRO 127.07 17 19
20 EFREMENKO Galina UKR 125.37 24 17
21 KARADEMIR Tugba TUR 123.64 22 21
22 FONTANA Silvia ITA 120.37 23 22
23 PAVUK Viktoria HUN 119.85 19 23
24 MAXWELL Fleur LUX 109.57 21 24
Final not reached
CARTER Joanne AUS 40.86 25
LUCA Roxana ROM 39.37 26
KIM Yong Suk PRK 39.16 27
GLEBOVA Elena EST 38.40 28
GIMAZETDINOVA Anastasia UZB 38.44 29
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