A New Olympic Order
Geopolitical upheaval is mellowing the mood of the Albertville games
It was the best of times (1:50.37 won the men's downhill). It was the worst of times (1:53.40 finished a distant 31st). But what time is the bus coming?
At the Winter Olympics, a tale of 13 remote villages and 6,000 lost sportswriters, the French Alps began humming last week (mostly to the Austrian anthem) and ought to be singing by now if this frozen celebration of human excellence runs as close to form as Bonnie Blair.
The world has changed so much since its sporting children (not a few of them 30 years old) last convened four years ago. Only because anything else would have sent an embarrassing message, the former Soviets continue to wear CCCP on their playsuits. But they have been clumsily reclassified "the Unified Team of the National Olympic Committees of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan," and their beautiful theme song, so familiar at Olympics past, has given way to a neutral melody. The old lyric just didn't work anymore: "Unbreakable union of freeborn republics, great Russia has welded forever to stand. . . ."
The new candor. Could the withering of old geopolitical rivalries have loosened Olympic inhibitions? From the opening ceremonies' first note, candor seemed to be the leading qualifier down every Olympic mountain. Throbbing with human mobiles and stilt walkers portraying spermatozoa, the overture owed much to Cirque de Soleil. It was mildly wonderful, stupendously weird and--how you say?--unrelievedly French. The kids of the Savoie were left out entirely except for Francois-Cyrille Grange, 8, who took the hand of French soccer god Michel Platini and jogged to the peak of Albertville's stadium to fire the Olympic wick. "Platini is more impressive on television," the boy said, setting off an avalanche of deflating honesty.
Normally, the winners schuss and the losers sheesh, but downhill ski champion Patrick Ortlieb of Austria yawned after his success and announced: "I hope I don't have to race anymore on this track. It's not spectacular enough. Too slow."
La Face de Bellevarde at Val-d'Isere, the molehill under discussion, was technically designed for Frenchman Franck Piccard, who finished second and seemed disappointed only in Ortlieb's mood. "Live this moment to the fullest," Piccard advised him aside. Thereafter, at least, Ortlieb smiled.
Noting the winner was born in Alsace, and perhaps mindful of the current fluidity of national borders, both the French and the Germans thought about claiming him. But Ortlieb cut them all off at the pass. "I consider myself 100 percent Austrian," he said, adding in a gentle tone the interpreter relayed just as softly: "I hope my life will not change much. I hope I keep my old friends. The new friends who spontaneously surface will be the first to disappear from the scene."
When American Cammy Myler took fifth in the women's luge, the best mark a U.S. sledder had ever achieved in the Olympic Games, two television interviewers proposed in swift succession: "You must be ecstatic!" She replied to both with a sigh: "Not really."
Then there was Bonnie Blair, an Illinois speed skater with a work ethic that impresses even the Japanese. She said: "I didn't skate as well as I would have liked. But it was good enough. I'll take it." The 500-meter gold medal was spinning about her neck, and gold for the 1,000 was yet to come.
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