Well, now, it didn't take long for Jacques Rogge's Solomonesque pairs skating ruling to backfire, did it?
What? Another Cold War?
Making the Russian skaters share their gold medals with the Canadians may have played well on this side of the hemisphere — and the Leno Show and the covers of Time and Newsweek and over at the Roots Store, eh? — but it wasn't exactly make-my-day news in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Over there, they looked at it like another price hike.
Then, Thursday morning at the cross country venue Russian skier Larissa Lazutina, a nine-time medalist poised, was not allowed to compete after a test that officials said showed a high red blood cell count.
That was it.
The Russians held a hastily called tantrum, uh, news conference to announce that all Olympics-long they have been singled out as the bad guys and unless their concerns are satisfactorily addressed within 24 hours by President Rogge and the IOC, they will not play in today's hockey game against the U.S. or ski in the remaining cross country races.
They're about one bottle of vodka from outta here.
And maybe not just here. Maybe Athens in 2004 and Torino in 2006 after that and on and on. Citius, altius, fortius, but not us.
If Russia's demands are not met, Leonid Tyagachev, president of the Russian Olympic Committee, said it just might abandon the Olympics altogether and start its own competition, although with whom wasn't clear. In case Leonid hasn't looked, Kazakhstan and Estonia and Latvia and the rest of the old Soviet lineup aren't exactly toeing the party line anymore. Matter of fact, there is no party line anymore.
Remember the old days, when a Russian defection meant they WEREN'T going back to Moscow?
All of which made for high drama in, where else, the ladies figure skating final in the Salt Lake Ice Center Thursday night barely hours after the Russians' Khrushchev-like fit.
One of the things President Tyagachev said the Russians want is "Clean sports and not subjective judgment."
Enter figure skating, decided entirely by . . . subjective judgment.
The pairs decision a week and a half ago, when the Russians won, then tied, wasn't exactly the first judging controversy in history.
With American Michelle Kwan and Russian Irina Slutskaya ranked one-two coming into the long program, U.S.-Russian intrigue hadn't been this high since Reagan went to Reykjavik.
Who knows whether these two skaters knew of all the undercurrent, but it could explain why both came out and skated as if
this performance was as a matter of fact more important than life and death.
Both were tighter than Leonid's lips in the press conference.
They were so tight that Sarah Hughes, a 16-year-old 11th-grader, skated past both of them.
The podium looked like this: American, Russian, American.
Slutskaya beat Kwan!
In the old Cold War days, that would have been the headline in Tass.
In the new Cold War days, maybe that will do as well.
Lee Benson's column runs daily during the Olympics. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
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