During this time of uncertainty, turmoil and waiting for the next sex scandal to break, many people will be focusing their attention to Nagano, Japan, where athletes have gathered for the Winter Olympics. Since most of us have Southern backgrounds, the Winter Olympics are entertaining to us because we get to see people in extremely cold settings move at lightning speed. The closest some of us come to that is trying to take a shower in university housing before the hot water runs out.
Americans traditionally don't do well in the Winter Olympics. That's because Americans don't like to get out in the cold. Which would you rather do: Go out and practice speed skating in subfreezing temperatures until your thighs got as big as a trailer park hairdo or sit in front of your TV in a daze watching yet another Andy Griffith rerun.
Still, there are a couple of things at the Nagano games that will grab our attention. Crazy individuals racing down a mountain on pieces of wood the size of Kate Moss. Burly guys with no teeth and sticks knocking the crap out of people. Even though Knoxville lost its hockey team last season, we do have a couple of similar organizations in the area. One is the UT hockey club.
The one thing that seems to attract the attention of most Americans during the Winter Olympics is figure skating. Maybe it's because of the combination of artistry and athleticism. Maybe it's because people who enjoy figure skating have no life.
You see, my friends, figure skating is not a sport.
To be a sport, the competition must have an objective and, to put it in Southern lingo, "skatin purty" is not an objective. An objective must be something like getting from one place to another before everyone else, putting a ball in a basket or wearing ugly clothes and hitting a little white ball across a huge cow pasture with various sticks until it goes into a hole.
Figure skating has none of this. It's people dressed up in costumes you normally see at school dance recitals gliding across ice.
