Winter Olympics 2010.01

The Winter Olympics have begun and the first set of medals have been awarded. The very first gold medal going to Switzerland's Simon Ammann. After the tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashivili while practicing on the luge track, the innocent exuberance of Simon Ammann at winning his 3rd gold medal in this sport was the kind of anecdote for tragedy that this Olympics desperately needed.

The silver medal in the Men's 5,000 Speed Skating for Korea's Lee Seung-Hoon demonstrated that there are wonderful surprises yet to occur, even as the Netherland's Sven Kramer's gold medal in the same event thrilled a nation long diminished of any global influence, but never short on nationalist pride and identity. In the first 3 events to medal, nine medals where awarded and citizens of nine different nations received them.

This is a really exciting thing. The winter olympics tends to interest me more than the summer just because it seems like a more intimate affair. And yet winter is not something that most of the world experiences.

There are, as anyone who watched the decidedly lack luster opening ceremonies knows, 82 nations participating. However, there is absolutely no chance that an old man from Mexico or a kid from Ghana is going to win anything. And that's still the part that makes me sad: the tokenism. Of 82 nations, 38 of them have 5 or fewer athletes...go to 7 or less and you eliminate over half of the participants.

Sham or Inspiration? I don't know. I'm bi-polar on it. It is, either way, a helluva expensive party!