Special Report - Winter Is Better

Special Assignment: Winter Is Better
February 22, 2002
by John Bloom

NEW YORK, February 22 (UPI) -- Winter athletes are better than summer athletes. They just are.

When Sarah Hughes dedicated her encore performance to her fallen fellow New Yorkers on Friday night, skating elegantly and movingly to "When You Walk Through the Storm" from the forties musical "Carousel," she showed more class at age 16 than all the American medalists at Sydney combined.

But this Olympics was already shaping up as a brave and sportsmanlike games. During the 2000 games in Sydney, a friend turned to me at the end of the 4-by-100 sprint relay and said, "They run for themselves, don't they? They don't really run for us." The idea of competing for your nation instead of yourself seemed to have vanished as the American athletes constantly won ugly, even going so far as to taunt their opponents during the races.

Not all of them, of course, but who can forget the clowning around and making weird faces while Henry Kissinger was trying to present our sprinters with their medals, and then their continuing to share private jokes during the national anthem? Who can forget the American 400-meter hurdler who was so far ahead that he put his hand behind him and waved at the second-place runner in a "come on, try to catch up" motion? Who can forget the American swimmer who spit into her competitor's lane?

Who can forget the "Dream Team" being booed over and over again by the international crowd as they argued with officials and racked up technical fouls? They verbally taunted the Lithuanian players who almost upset them in the 85-83 semifinal, only to be defended by NBA Commissioner David Stern--what's he doing at the Olympics?--for not being used to the international rules that specifically prohibit trash-talking. (Hey, it's the Olympics--get a rulebook!) How about Gary Hall Jr. announcing that the Aussies would be "smashed like guitars" in the freestyle-swimming relay--followed by the Aussies' victory dance in which they played air guitar? When Maurice Greene won the 100- meter dash--in some ways the ultimate Olympic event--the Sydney Morning Herald announced "The biggest mouth wins."

It's ironic that Marion Jones, the American star of those Olympics and a true class act, was overshadowed by her husband C.J. Hunter's steroid violation.

For some reason everything about the American team seemed "off" in Sydney. From the very first gold medalist, Nancy Johnson, who said winning was "pretty cool," there was just a sort of slacker attitude about the whole thing. It wasn't so much the actual incidents of bad sportsmanship as the post-event interviews in which athletes praised their coaches, their families, or their own hard work when they weren't acting too cool to care. They often seemed to be competing for their small coterie of friends rather than for a nation.

And then came the winter games. They waved the flag. They embraced their opponents, even in defeat. Todd Eldredge finished sixth in the figure skating--the latest in a succession of bad skates and bad health that would deny him the medal he's been trying to get for years--and yet he made a gracious retirement speech about the importance of the Olympics. Lea Ann Parsley, an Ohio firefighter, finished second in the skeleton but was beaming as she said, "It's a great day, not just as individuals but for the USA."

And then there was Jim Shea Jr. and his gold medal in the men's skeleton event. He's the one whose 91-year-old grandfather, Jack Shea, had died a month earlier in a car accident. Jack Shea had been the nation's oldest Olympian, having given the athletes' oath at the 1932 games in Lake Placid and then winning two golds for speed skating. His son, Jim Shea Sr., represented the U.S. at the Nordic Combined in 1964. And then Jim Jr. showed up, his grief still fresh, to compete in a sport that had been absent from the Olympics for decades.

Jim Jr. put a picture of his grandfather in his helmet before setting off on his gold-medal run, and then held it up to the crowd when he finished. But most people missed the meaning of the gesture. All week people had been coming up to him, saying, "You have to win the gold now, for your grandfather." Jim Jr. thanked them politely, but he said later, "That's not something my grandfather would ever say. He wouldn't say I should win it for him."

Jim Sr. went on to explain, "My dad preached the true Olympic gospel, which is friendly competition for the honor and glory of sports. He ingrained that in Jimmy's mind, and Jimmy has become that, along with becoming a great spokesman for his own sport."

In fact, Jim Jr. wasn't the only skeleton competitor who had a picture of Jack Shea in his helmet. Several of the others took it on their run as well. And when Jim Jr. won, there was an orgy of mutual embracing, the result of friends who had known each other from the time skeleton was an obscure European sport so poor that they had to sleep in barns together while competing on the circuit.

"I can honestly say that the friendships are more important than the medals," said Jim Shea Jr.

We've got two years to find some summer Olympians like that.

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