A New Olympic Order
Geopolitical upheaval is mellowing the mood of the Albertville games
At 27, Blair looks as girlish as ever either in skating skin or snowsuit, but the bedsheet banners of her private cheering section had to be updated from Calgary. "Dear Aunt Bonnie," one read. "Go fast. Love, Brittany."
Four years ago, Blair's single gold medal represented half the American yield. Considering that nothing weighs more than nationalism, she was asked how her diminutive shoulders were holding up. "I skate for myself to begin with," Blair answered with no edge in her voice. "I have to please and satisfy myself before I can do anything else." After doubling in the 1,000, she said: "I guess I'm glad that I was able to bring some more gold medals back to the United States."
Flags are still flapping in the grandstands, but jingoism on the playing fields is down. When American goalie Ray LeBlanc, 27, of Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Flint and Saginaw, deflected 46 shots while shutting out Germany, 2-0, it was Vladislav Tretiak who exclaimed, "That's my boy." A lamppost and a spaniel have been drinking tea.
The great Soviet goalie Tretiak was yanked by a panicky coach in Lake Placid, or the Americans may never have danced in the streets 12 years ago. Now a consultant to the Chicago Black Hawks, LeBlanc's ultimate employers, Tretiak has actually tutored the American goalie.
Communist confession. If Tretiak is king of the new order and new frankness, retired East German figure skater Katarina Witt is the queen. She is a television commentator now and a favorite of Madison Avenue. Her country has also retired, and she is free to confess that every possession and privilege she won eight years ago in Sarajevo was riding on a second-straight gold medal in Calgary. "It was gold or nothing," she said. "Win or I don't know what."
The contests themselves and possibly some of the playground directors are losing their rigidity. Mogul skiing, which doesn't like to be called "hot-dog skiing"--or thought of as rhythmic gymnastics--debuted as a medal sport on a corrugated course that resembled the bottom of an egg carton. Favorite and admitted ski bum Donna Weinbrecht of the United States took the first women's gold by "banging the bumps," "shredding the narl" and generally impersonating a loco helicopter.
Even figure skating, the Winter Olympics' marquee event, is loosening up. The classical school figures that sedated viewers in the past have been discontinued. And judges are turning away from stylists toward jumpers--a shift that may be significant in one of the few events remaining with political stakes. While interest in the women's figure skating is perennially high, special attention has been focused this time on Japanese-American stylist Kristi Yamaguchi of California and Japanese-Japanese leaper Midori Ito of Nagoya. Ah, a grudge match.
Sociologists in woolly caps have been making quite a lot--though nobody can say exactly what--of the fact Yamaguchi's mother was born in a World War II detention camp. But that misery, like so much trouble, seems quite far away.
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