I have so many musings on the 2026 Winter Olympics, which wrapped-up last weekend, that I had to break them up into two articles. (If you missed Part I earlier this week, here’s the link: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/olympics-winter-olympics-2026-wrap-up-part-i. And you can also check-out my tweets about the proceedings, @MajorCelebrity.)

Riku Miura, on the left, so worried for her partner, Ryuichi Kihara, who had messed-up a bit during the short program. Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the one at the top of this page.

This one is mostly about the pretty awful Opening and Closing Ceremonies, but first, I must share a few more thoughts on some of the athletes I neglected to mention in my earlier column.

Mr. X and I are sooo happy for the Japanese Pairs skaters, Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who went from fifth place after their near-disastrous short program, to win the Gold, as they had been projected to do. I’ve never seen so much relief from anyone in my life!

A weird thing is that the Men’s Champ, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, also went from fifth to first! And nothing big was expected from him, at all! It’s basically unheard of to happen in one skating discipline, in any competition, but for it to have occurred twice, (out of a possible four,) in one Olympics was just insane!

Ioulia Chtchetinina riding into the Closing Ceremony on the shoulders of her partner, Michał Woźniak, still smiling. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I’ve never seen Polish Pairs skater, Ioulia Chtchetinina, (who skates with partner Michał Woźniak,) without a genuine smile on her face! I love that. What a beautiful person she is.

Spanish Snowboard Cross competitor Lucas Eguibar Breton needs to change his middle name…and his pants.

I can’t believe that Men’s USA Hockey player, Jack Hughes, who is very young, didn’t even flinch about totally breaking his front tooth in the Gold Medal game!!! I chipped one of my own front teeth just a tiny bit during my Olympian two weeks, so I really feel for this guy! One of us would rather have a gold medal than a real front tooth, and one of us would not. Can you guess which is which?

Now to the Opening Ceremony:

It was weird and confusing.

The Opening Ceremony. Photo by Karen Salkin.

It turns-out that these Olympics took place not just in Milan, (which is what most people were expecting,) but rather in a quartet of cities or areas all over Northern Italy. So I was thrilled for the athletes that no matter which of the four cities they were competing in, they got to walk in at least a semblance of a Parade of Athletes. (That aspect of the Opening Ceremony is going to be really weird in the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics when a couple of the sports will take place in…Oklahoma!!! I’m not joking. But I’ll wait to fully rant about that idiotic situation closer to that date.) But the TV hosts really needed to let us know in which city each group was! It was a mess trying to follow it all.

Actually, the entirety of it was a mess. It turned-out to be the worst Opening Ceremony ever! Even worse than the United States’ lackluster ones!

Here are just a few of my complaints about it:

They had this odd entertainment, but no Olympic Oath! Photo by Karen Salkin.

Where was the f-ing Olympic Oath??? They showed us a tiny solar system, like all kids make in school, and had incredibly odd entertainment, but no oath??? That’s a highlight of it for the athletes, whom I heard get chills reciting it, but they forewent that most important part of the “ceremony.” That part is actually what makes it a ceremony to begin with! The rest is just a show! (Most of which the athletes miss because they don’t enter the arena until most of it is over!) Mr. X jokingly asked if the results are even official when the Olympians have not swore the oath.

On top of that, they never told us who the former athletes who dealt with the Olympic flame and flag were! That’s usually a highlight of the opening night. We figured-out later that one was skier Alberto Tomba, who is still a national hero!

And why would they feature South African-born, but American now, Charlize Theron and American Mariah Carey??? And Chinese Lang Lang??? In an Italian Olympics Opening Ceremony??? Where were the Italian celebs??? Thank God for Andrea Bocelli!!! (More on him in a minute.)

The only real good news was how few people were using their phones, even for photos. I was totally surprised by that. So good for them!

Now let’s get to the very odd Closing Ceremony:

This was the most boring one I can remember. Or maybe I was just burned-out by then.

The outside of the beautiful arena in Verona. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I hate when the producers of these things try to be profound with the entertainment choices. In this case, it was just annoying.

Many of the empty seats even after the athletes entered the arena! Photo by Karen Salkin.

One thing that really surprised me, (but may have explained the strange choice of venue,) is that there were soooo many empty seats! Perhaps that indicated that no one in Italy cared about the Olympics. Although all the competitions were held in the city of Milan or up in the mountains of Cortina and Livigno, the Closing Ceremony was held in a historic arena in…Verona!  That seemed a tad crazy. Where did the athletes stay that night? Did they have to move hotels for just twenty-four hours or so? I’ve been going a tad bonkers trying to figure out the logistics of it all.

And they need the athletes to come in first, so they can enjoy all of the action. They really need to do that for all of the Opening Ceremonies from here on out, as well.

The biggest mistake they made was not having Andrea Bocelli, (nor anyone, actually,) sing the most known and loved, and incredibly appropriate to the occasion, Italian operatic song, Time To Say Goodbye! This is Italy for goodness sake! It would have been perfect. And the crescendo on the last note would have just punctuated the Games perfectly. Plus, having Bocelli perform in both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies would have been a full-circle situation for them. It would have been a mic drop! (This is why all the Olympics Organizing Committees need yours truly from here on out!)

The athletes walking into the Closing Ceremony. Photo by Karen Salkin.

We’ll get back to my Olympics coverage in another year and a half, for the summer version, which will be right here in LA. And for the record, I finally realized that I enjoy the Winter ones more than the Summer renditions!

Let’s close with a lasting image of the 2026 Winter Olympics: young USA Hockey hero being so happy despite losing that front tooth! Photo by Karen Salkin.

On a side note about my reviews, I apologize for not finishing my Mini Movie Reviews series by today, in time for this weekend’s Actor Awards, (which is the new name for the former SAG Awards.) But I promise to finish them up by next week, in plenty of time for the March 15th Oscars. In the meantime, you can still read the first two parts of the reviews here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/movie-reviews-mini-movie-reviews-2026-part-i, and here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/movie-reviews-mini-movie-reviews-2026-part-ii, so you know what I’ll be thinking during those proceedings. I barely know any of the TV shows that are nominated for the Actors, and I’m sure that my fellow Screen Actors Guild members will once again vote for all the wrong movie choices. The only people whom I’ve seen who deserve to win are Jesse Plemons for the disgusting Bugonia, Paul Mescal for Hamnet, and a major surprise to me—Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue. But I know that none of them will.

I don’t think I’ve ever done as much crying and being choked-up about things that don’t involve me! But that’s what these latest Winter Olympics did to me. I was a blubbering mess for a big chunk of the past two and a half weeks!

The TV coverage took place literally around the clock! And I recorded and watched it all! I never even had to use Peacock to see any of it. I went with mainly USA Network and added in some NBC, (who basically just repeated all the competitions I had already seen live. But they did have some extra features, like interviews with the victorious athletes and stories on Italy.) I also recorded the little bit of CNBC that was broadcast, but I basically just fast-forwarded through their pieces of the action because it was all Hockey and Curling, the two Winter Olympics sports I really don’t care about at all.

A bit of the stunning Italian Dolomite mountains and beautiful surroundings. Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the one at the top of this page. (And all of them, actually.)

As many of you know, (at least I hope you do,) I tweeted over a dozen of my thoughts along the way. I had planned on many more, even as the shows were going on, but I just couldn’t tear myself from watching to tweet. I was also always several hours behind the action, (because Italy is nine hours ahead of Los Angeles, and I couldn’t force myself to stay up overnight and then sleep during the day, to watch live,) so, even with only a few hours sleep a night, I was totally time-constrained the entire time. I don’t like repeating myself, so if you missed any of those tweets, my handle is @MajorCelebrity on X.com, (really still Twitter in my mind.)

First some overall impressions:

I loved seeing all that beauty out there! And I do not mean the cute male athletes, such as Johannes Klaebo and Alex Hall—I’m referring to the Dolomite Mountains and other surrounding scenery. (Though I did sit up a bit straighter every time those dudes showed-up!)

But I’m sort-of disappointed that the TV peeps never gave us a tour of the cities and Olympics facilities, such as the Athlete’s Village. That was strange. I thought we’d at least see that sort of stuff on NBC’s Late Night show, but instead, they did stupid little features, like the full-of-herself host, Maria Taylor, and Adam Rippon, (who was otherwise a highlight of their coverage,) giving citations to people who weren’t smiling! Or Mary Carillo doing a long segment that was unabashedly an ad for a cruise ship company! Shame on them.

Spain’s Oriol Cardona Coll and Ana Alonso Rodriguez. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I know this is a tad weird for me, but Ski Mountaineering became my new favorite sport. It’s the strangest! But I got fave athletes in it pretty quickly. I’m soooo happy for all three medal winners, (well, actually six because they competed in duos of each gender,) especially the Spanish guy, Oriol Cardona Coll, and girl, Ana Alonso Rodriguez. He’s the best in the world to begin with, and here’s what Ana is going through: In October, she was riding her bike in a training session, and was hit by a car. She suffered a torn ACL and MCL, separated her shoulder and broke a bone in her ankle!!! She had to forego surgery on any of her injuries because then she could not have competed in the Olympics. So she didn’t even train for one hundred days, and wound-up winning two bronze medals here! What a woman! (However, I suffered a broken nail during her event, and could barely continue watching!!!)

I was scratching my head about why so few stuffed animals got thrown on the ice for each skater. And then I realized—they’re most likely just way too expensive during the Olympics to throw away!!! Am I right or am I right?

I’ve officially turned into my mother—I desperately want to give tissues to all the athletes whose noses are running in the cold! (To the credit of the ice skaters, they blow their noses before they start their routines.)

Now on to the athletes:

Johannes Klaebo and his six, (out of six!,) Gold Medals! Photo by Karen Salkin.

Cross-country skier Johannes Klaebo has become my favorite athlete! I’ve coined the name “JoBo” for him. Good, eh?  He set records at this Olympics and he’s also gorgeous. And more than all of that is that he especially adores his…grandpa! Gramps is his coach! And best bud. I cried for over an hour when I saw a story on those two. I’m not exaggerating.

The pure joy that Alysa Liu always has is even more wonderful than her skating. But her very unattractive animal-striped hair and yellow teeth, the front two of which have silver *“jewelry” on them, have got to go already!!! I used to think that she’ll look back later in life and regret that she looked so awful in her shining moment, (as we all do,) but I now think that Alysa is the most mentally-stable person and will get a kick out of her former bad looks instead of ruing them. *[I just found-out that what looks like teeth jewelry, (which I actually have myself, but would never use,) is really some weird kind of mouth piercing that she did herself! But it never moves when her lips do, so I assumed it was the glued-on pieces.]

Ilia Malinin congratulating Men’s Figure Skater Champion, Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan., right after Ilia himself had just lost the expected by everyone in the world Gold Medal. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I’m still crushed for the best figure skater in the world, Ilia Malinin.  In case you don’t know, with the Gold Medal all but around his neck, he fell all through his final competition skate, and ended-up in…eighth place!!! It was a disaster. He and Alysa could be the new faces of the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” I didn’t see or hear any mentions of this anywhere, but did anyone else notice that the Men’s Free Skate occurred on…Friday the 13th? No fooling that I feel that may have contributed to his situation. And I swear—I knew his catastrophic program was coming. But this young kid was incredibly classy right after his scores came up, even though his head must have been spinning. In the wrong direction! He went right over to the shock winner and embraced him, and then even had the wherewithal to speak with the backstage NBC interviewer. (And, by the way, no sooner had I told Mr. X that this would not have happened to Ilia if the U.S. Figure Skating organization had sent him to compete at the previous Olympics in Beijing, an experience he had truly earned but was cheated out of by that Selection Committee, this wouldn’t have happened here because he would have been used to the Olympics pressure, Ilia was overheard saying the very same thing to his coaches in the Kiss & Cry area! Everyone in sports needs to start listening to me!)

Jutta Leerdam, (and her non-waterproof mascara,) upon winning. Photo by Karen Salkin.

The best post-medal interview I’ve ever seen was by U.S. women’s hockey player Kendall Coyne Schofield.

Danish Speed Skating Champion Jutta Leerdam is beautiful, but I have two important words for her: waterproof mascara!

I really admire Cross Country Skier Jessie Diggins for winning a medal with bruised ribs! It reminded me of when I broke a rib on the edge of my tub when getting out of a bath, but still managed to go to a major restaurant convention the next day! Twins. So, good for both of us. (I did go to the event, of course, but I hope you know I’m kidding about the comparison!)

Jessie Diggins collapsing after her supreme effort to win her Bronze Medal. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I love young American Speed Skating Champion Jordan Stolz. He has a great voice and even better attitude. And he’s intelligent, not full of himself, and talks like a grown-up. I’d love to hear him as a commentator in a dozen years. Lovely fellow, as my mother would say.

How do Su Yiming from China, Gabriel Landeskog from Sweden, and three full Norwegian guys—Marcus Kleveland, Atle Lie McGrath, and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen—have zero accents??? It boggles my mind.

And let’s not forget the commentators:

NBC and USA must read my tweets because shortly after I wrote a few complaining about certain things, they seemed to fix them a bit. The fix I was most happy about was that they started mixing their sound better on the Figure Skating competitions! Before my tweet to them, we viewers couldn’t make-out what the commentators were saying amongst the skaters’ loud music. Even on Mr. X and my great sound system! It got so much better from then on. As a matter of fact, the entire sound system for all those channels became so good after that that I could not tell which broadcasting teams were actually on-site, and which were doing their work from the Connecticut studio! The team that fooled me the most was Short Track’s Ted Robinson and Katherine Reutter-Adamek. So good for them. (I figured-out the others from what they were saying, though. I’m actually a very good detective.)

Just one of Carolyn Manno’s dreadful outfits. Photo by Karen Salkin.

There were waaaay too many mispronunciations from many of the commenters for me to report here, but this was the one that rankled my normal-speaking mind the most: Studio host Carolyn Manno constantly said “KEnnada” for “CAnada!” She’s been doing it for years, and it’s super annoying. It seems like she thinks that mispronunciation is cute. I even tweeted out a picture of a Ken doll and can of Coke to her, for her to practice the words on! But it didn’t seem to work. She must have been absent that day. (The pic is still up there if you’re curious.)

On a side note about her, does Carolyn Manno’s USA Network wardrobe person hate her? And why does she insist on standing like an undertaker?

And, while not a mispronunciation, Tara Lipinski kept saying “foot” for the correct “feet!” As in, “He jumped twelve foot,” instead of the of course correct “twelve feet.” How does she not know that “foot” is “singular” and refers to only one foot, while “feet” is the plural?! Another one who must have been absent that day. (But good for her—the day after I tweeted it, she suddenly changed it in her vocabulary, after still making one mistake at first.)

But while we’re on the TV personnel: I wish that all the hosts and commentators would sound like Mike Tirico and Dan Hicks—they’re the only ones whose voices cuts through all the noise!

And lastly, Parting Thought for Part I:

The Olympics were so nice that I thought I’d write about them twice!!! So this is the first part, with the second being published a bit later on this week, so keep an eye out for it, please. (And in the meantime, you can still check-out my previous tweets, @MajorCelebrity, to get the full Karen’s Olympics experience!)

As many of you know, I adore the Olympics! Both the Winter and Summer renditions. They each have their own attractions for me. But since my favorite sport in either Olympics, for my entire life, is Figure Skating, I’m a tad more partial to the Winter ones.

Let the Games begin!

So I’m excited that the Games are finally starting tonight. So I’m excited that the Games are finally starting tonight. [Note: Technically, some of the actual competitions, such as in Curling and Women’s Hockey, began as early as yesterday morning! But the Opening Ceremony takes place tonight.]

In case you’re not as into them as I am, but still want to be aware of a few facts about the proceedings, there will be ninety-three delegations, consisting of almost three thousand international athletes, who will compete in one hundred sixteen events across sixteen sports! Whew. (Now go impress your friends with your new sports knowledge!)

But I actually wish that they were due to begin on February 20th instead. That’s because there are several scheduling snafus already. And they are all big ones! Here are the issues I’m already worrying about, not just for me, but for everyone:

The first major conflict is…the Super Bowl! That football Championship, which is celebrated by even non-NFL fans everywhere, who are all down to party for the occasion, is this Sunday, during what is also the second day of Olympic competition!!! And the extra-weird thing is that…they’re both on NBC! That means that if you care more about winter sports than you do about two teams you’re more than likely not a fan of, you have to quickly pay for Peacock to see most of the Olympics on Sunday. And the commercials are the big thing on the Super Bowl, so you won’t want to switch away during them! That means you can’t watch anything else for lo those many hours. And let’s not forget that the coverage for this massive yearly football event goes on all day!!! Coverage is broadcast from early in the morning till late at night. So good luck to all of us sports fans with that.

Next up is Valentine’s Day, which is on February 14th, of course, and falls on the Olympics’ middle Saturday. If you have a significant other, I really hope that the two of you are on the same page about sports-watching, as Mr. X and I are! We never care much about Valentine’s Day, anyway, and would especially hate to go out for it on a Saturday night in any year, so staying home with the Olympics is just fine with us. But a word of warning to the guys, especially—most of you will not be that lucky to have your girl want nothing for Valentine’s Day, and to not even have it mentioned when she’s wrapped-up in sports! So I also send good luck to all of you with this dilemma.

And that weekend gets only worse—that day of celebrating love comes right smack dab in the middle of the NBA All-Star Weekend, which takes place over all three nights of that weekend!!! First up is the stupid Celebrity Game on Friday night, (I really can miss that one, as can all of you guys,) and Sunday brings the actual All-Star Game, in which my boy, Luka Doncic, is the top vote-getter. But the most special part of the festivities, to me, is the all-important All-Star Saturday Night. I live for that night! Even more fun than the featured Slam Dunk Contest is the Three-Point Contest. I love it! So, that night will be the biggest problem for me. I have sixteen timers set at once on my DVR, but the overlapping sports specials are still going to be a major conundrum for me because I watch just about every second of the Olympics, so I either need to stick toothpicks in my eyelids to keep them open twenty-four hours a day, or just get very behind in my Olympics-watching schedule!

I hate presenting an ad for the network, but this is a visual of the conundrum facing us major sports fans!

And, oh yeah, all of the basketball stuff is also on NBC! Those peeps are most likely going even more nuts than I am this month!!!

Lastly, for some of us, (mainly me,) there will be several missed show openings and pre-Oscars screenings.

But oh well. The Olympics are the most important to me. (But I will try to also watch the Super Bowl so I can review it for you next week.)

And now you know why you won’t be hearing much from me for the next two and a half weeks, although I will still be publishing a few columns during that time.

I also plan on tweeting a bit, @MajorCelebrity, as we go along. But please be aware that I may often be hours behind the action, since so many of the competitions are on at the same time as each other. Still, someone needs to make the announcers aware of their (I’m sure to be many) mistakes, and, as always, that job falls to me. I won’t shirk that responsibility.

And now I wish us all a wonderful Olympic Games! May the best men and women win! And there be no injuries!

It’s been almost a week since the Paris Summer Olympics ended, but I, along with every talk show host, am not over it yet.

As I mentioned in my article earlier this week, (itsnotaboutme.tv/news/olympics-paris-olympics-2024-wrap-up-part-i,) I was too enthralled by it all, (and having watched the proceedings for literally nineteen hours a day, way too tired,) to take many notes, but here are the rest of the few I managed to jot down in my exhausted stupor.

French hero of the Olympics, Leon Marchand, closing down the Olympic flame to begin the Closing Ceremony. Photo by Karen Salkiin, as is the one at the top of this page.

I started to be a bit embarrassed in front of myself at the number of times I got choked-up for the accomplishments of these complete strangers! But what incredible physical feats those people were displaying. No matter what happened for each athlete in Paris, just making an Olympics team is an amazing achievement.

American distance runner Clayton Young finished the marathon, and immediately turned right around to cheer on the people who were finishing after him! I’ve never seen that before. What incredible kindness. And he actually greeted a lot of them with a warm handshake.

American Clayton Young finishing the Men’s Marathon.

I learned a lot in those sixteen days of competitions, and not just about each sport. For example, I now know that the palms of the hands have thousands of receptors which respond well to cooling. In the past few years, I’ve noticed that when I touch the wall behind my bed or the back of my iPad in the mornings, my mood improves. I thought I was crazy but now I know why! Thanks, Olympic Marathon!

Here’s an eye-opening statistic: Every American male who was in a track final there won a medal, except for the lone guy in the 800 meters, who came in a very respectable fourth place.

I actually became a fan of Norwegian middle-distance running star Jakob Ingebritzen, after starting-out thinking he was just obnoxious. But then I saw one of those little features on him, and realized that he was the way he was because his father/former coach had been abusive his whole life. And Jakob has been trying to do better now that he’s gotten away from him. And I give him mad respect for failing to win even a bronze medal in the much-heralded 1500m, but then coming back in the 5000m to take the gold! That’s a perfect example of extreme mental fortitude.

Jakob Ingebritzen winning the5000m by a big margin. I never even noticed his unfabulous tattoos, but he had the coolest haircut at the entire Olympics!

I’m glad that the television producers did little features on some of the athletes, such as the one I referenced above. Before I learned about each one, I’m sure that the rest of the world joined me in deciding for whom to root based on country, name, and looks. Afterwards, I chose with a more educated approach.

The studio hosts kept saying there were thirty-nine sports in all, but the official list that I have lists it as forty-eight of them! That’s an odd discrepancy.

The Paris Olympics logo. Do you see a flame or a girl’s face with a cute bob haircut?

Before the games began, even when I published my first article heralding the start of the Olympics, in which I featured an image of the official Paris logo at the top, I thought it was a girl’s face with just lips, showing-off a hip French bob haircut!!! No lie. Crazy of me, right? In case you were also a tad confused, the logo is the Olympic flame in the middle of the circle. I see it now, but I also still see that chic girl.

I’ve already discussed that awful Australian so-called breakdancer, RayGun, in my previous article, but I feel the need to follow-up on her a bit more here. The world has discovered how dreadful a supposed dancer she is, but I said it first to Mr. X about thirty seconds into her routine as we were watching it live. I was basically WTF???ing. And he was pooh-poohing me, saying I was being a bit hard on her. Since then, we’ve watched all of her waaaaay sub-par offerings at the Olympics, (we had watched only her first “battle” originally—we couldn’t take any more of her,) and he’s amazed at her inclusion in the competition, as well.

Now her fellow Aussie Olympians and their organizers are sticking-up for her, declaring that we’re all wrong, and that RayGun was deserving of a berth on their country’s team. So I’m asking again—was there not even one better breakdancer in that entire country??? Something about the whole process there is fishy, and it does definitely stink. Just sayin’.

Yet another one of RayGun’s ridiculous moves. Her competitor, on the left, can’t believe what she’s seeing, either!

Lastly, as I stated in my previous Olympics article, neither the opening nor closing ceremony was what it should have been. I was expecting so much from the French and was disappointed on both ends. Now LA28 really needs my help!!!

I just watched the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics for about nineteen hours a day, on every channel, and still couldn’t see it all! I loved having access to sooooo much coverage, but trying to get to every one of my hundreds of recordings of the individual sports made me feel like Lucy trying to get to all the chocolates on the conveyor belt!

I did get to see most of all the major entries, of course, such as track and field and gymnastics, but a lot of the other sports fell by the wayside. I didn’t even have time to watch an entire men’s basketball game until the Gold Medal Match!

Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the one at the top of this page.

Just trying to see the recordings in order, and match them up with which came first and on what channel, (not to mention making sure that neither my DVR nor External Hard drive get totally full before I have time to delete what I don’t want to save,) should be a new Olympics sport in itself! And I deserve the Gold Medal for it!

So suffice it to say that I haven’t had much time to take notes on it all. (I did manage to get a few tweets out, but not nearly enough. Remember, I’m @MajorCelebrity on that platform, so you can still see them there.)

I enjoyed all the proceedings, but some things really annoyed me, of course, so this article is mainly about those. (All the positive thoughts will be here later on in the week.) That means that you most likely haven’t read any of what I have to see elsewhere.

The silly opening parade of athletes on boats down the Seine. In the pouring rain! Photo by Karen Salkin.

I honestly thought the long, drawn-out opening was idiotic. All I could think about while seeing all those athletes getting soaked in the rain, and for so many hours, was if they were going to get sick before their competitions!

So I had high hopes for the Closing Ceremony, figuring it had to be much better. But it was once again a disappointment. I expected soooo much more from the French.

And more from some of the American athletes, who were getting this opportunity of a lifetime, as well. Why did those NBA and WNBA players not go to the Closing Ceremony??? That was so rude of them! And they did a disservice to themselves. Steph Curry kept getting choked-up about finally having an Olympics experience, and understanding what it means, even going so far to say it was the best experience of his career, and then he chose not to attend the big closing night. And that was even though they were all still in Paris, the men having won their gold medals the night before and the women that very morning! Disgraceful.

The setting for the Closing Ceremony. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Each sport opened their first day of competition with a person walking out and hitting some sort of cane thing on the floor or ground three times. They wore whatever they felt like and didn’t look special, so even though I wondered just who they were each time, when I saw the swim guy in his shorts and tee shirt, I assumed they were most likely contest winners, and let it go. But when an older man came out for track and field, and people cheered, and the man did a prolonged famous person wave, I changed my mind. Someone on any of the broadcasts should have told us who these people are! Couldn’t they have just put their names on the screen if they didn’t want to take thirty seconds to explain it??? [Note: The commentators for the Women’s Marathon finally did on the very last day. So good for them.]

They also never told us what was in those mystery boxes that they gave each medal winner instead of the usual flowers!!! I waited the entire sixteen days for someone, anyone, on TV to mention it, but finally had to look it up for myself. (And for you guys.) [Note: Someone finally did on the last day, as well. And the answer is—they are specially-designed posters of the Paris Olympics! And each one has a further detail to match each color medal.]

The poster in the medalists’ mystery boxes. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Someone needs to give gymnastics commentator Laurie Hernandez a dictionary! Or thesaurus. If there was a drinking game for every time she said “quite” or “however” or “may I say” or “as well,” or giggled, (even when delivering bad news,) we’d all be drunk in a few minutes!

Laurie Hernandez on the right. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Also, on the lesser channels, (meaning the NBC affiliates rather than the main network channel itself,) they rarely let us know who the commentators were! That was just crazy; I sort-of recognized some of their voices, and wasted way too much time wondering just who they were or where I had heard them before. (And yes, I did look up the list of Olympics commentators, but they listed only the main NBC peeps.) By the way, a channel or two had no commentators, and that was mostly a pleasure. During some of the more tense performances, they all needed to shut the frig up and let us enjoy what we were witnessing for ourselves!

It was so rude of the NBA producers and directors to keep showing girls’ crotches, especially close-up and sometimes in slow-mo! And occasionally a guy’s junk, as well. (I took a few pix of what I’m talking about to show you guys, but then I thought better of it because I’d be perpetuating that rudeness! Not to mention potentially publishing porn!)

The worst break-dancer ever, Australia’s RayGun.

The competition for the newly-included fake sport of “Breaking,” which is really break-dancing, (but they wanted viewers to look upon it as a sport rather than a form of dance, and they also didn’t want other dance disciplines to try to get into the Olympics, so they took out the second part of the name,) totally sucked! It was an insult to real sports for it to be in the Olympics. Even the krump-dancing Mr. X said that after watching the beauty and athleticism of rhythmic gymnastics and artistic swimming, breaking seemed somewhat silly. (Or something to that effect.) I, of course, realize that the organizers did that to try to attract a younger audience. But the whole debacle was soooo bad, (and not just that brutal girl from Australia, RayGun, who is now the laughing stock of the internet,) that it’s now out of the next Summer Games in LA. (More on her next week—she may now even be on Australia’s version of Dancing With The Stars!)

Compare the above breakdancing with this amazing Rhythmic Gymnastics routine!

The female Canadian beach volleyball players are uber-obnoxious to use just their first names, as the Brazilians have done for years.

And now let me finish-up with just a few of the ultra-annoying misspeaks of all the commentators, hosts, and analysts:

I beg everyone, (mainly the American athletes in this case,) to stop being low-class by saying “me and him,” instead of the correct “he and I.” People—the rule is: always put yourself last!!! It’s the same with a person’s name or who they are to you, such as “my cousin and I.” And then use “he” or “him,” (or “she” or “her,”) depending on which it would have been if you took yourself out of the equation. Obviously, these people either weren’t taught the right grammar in school, or had illiterate teachers or family members who passed their lack of intelligence down to their children. Come on now—do better!

The Canadian Women’s Volleyball duo who feel they should be known by just their first names, as the Brazilians have always done. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Also very annoying are these waaaay overused statements: “I did not have this on my bingo card” and “I’m not going to lie.” Why would you lie??? And who among the users of that phrase plays bingo ??? One female track commentator, who was good otherwise, kept saying that the main contenders “did not come to play,” when the expression is rather “he came to play!,” meaning he’s serious and ready. She kept saying the opposite, thinking she was meaning they weren’t going to play around. She made her commentary very confusing by using that expression wrongly.

Many of the people involved are still saying “I mean,” but the new verbiage wrinkle seems to be “ya,” meaning “yeah,” and signaling either the end of the interview, or that they just ran out of something to say.

Now on to the many positives of this Paris Olympics, in this same space a bit later on in the week.

In case you’re not aware of my sports obsession, I plan to do nothing for the next two weeks but watch the Summer Olympics. It used to be every second of them for me, but, as the coverage is now about twenty-four hours a day, literally, (because of all the different channels showing the various sports,) I understand that something will have to give.

I love this image!

So, I’ll still be watching during my every waking moment, but, no matter how hard I try, I just won’t be able to watch every second of every sport shown.

I know that I’ll have to give up most of a few of the categories. I assume that dearth will include all of the soccer, golf, rugby, baseball and softball, judo, karate, taekwondo, field hockey, lacrosse, squash, surfing, and cricket, (which I really don’t even know what that one entails!,) along with most of the weightlifting, wrestling, and climbing. And perhaps shockingly for even myself, the tennis and basketball; there’s just not enough time for sports that usually take up all of my day by themselves, when I have literally dozens of others to watch in this way-too-brief time. [Note: I wouldn’t watch the women’s version of basketball, anyway, especially because the Americans screwed Caitlin Clark. But I am curious to see how the US men will mesh as a team, and how they’ll fare against the strong French team. So I guess I’ll just have to make-up time somewhere along the line.]

I’m always happy for any excuse to show you beautiful Matteo Berrettini!

But you know that I will not be missing the Big Three—swimming, gymnastics, and especially track and field, (which is now idiotically referred to as “athletics! How nonsensical! All of these sports are athletics!!!) And you will never guess what other Olympic sports I love—BMX Bike Racing and, even moreso, the obscure Modern Pentathlon! I mean it.

Besides being interested in all the actual sports themselves, there are several athletes for whom I’m rooting. I know for sure that I’ll be cheering for Simone Biles in gymnastics, (along with the rest of the country, I’m pretty sure,) and a pair of absolutely adorbs tennis-playing Italians—Jasmine Paolini Band the most gorgeous player ever, Matteo Berrettini. The rest I’ll have to decide as the Games go along.

As far as the pageantry of the two weeks goes, I’m betting that the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Paris will be stunning. The French, am I right?

One thing about any Olympics, in general, for me is that I’m glad there are three medals involved, (Gold, Silver, and Bronze, of course,) so not winning an event isn’t as bad as it is in their sport for the rest of the four years, actually.

The lovely medals that will be given out in Paris.

We sports lovers should also spare a thought for the Paralympians, whose competitions come up a little over two weeks after the regular Olympics ends. Those athletes are the most amazing to me. Despite whatever their issues are in life, they all persevere and are able to accomplish what most able-bodied people cannot. Major kudos, and best of luck, to all of them.

Of course, I’m wishing the best for everyone concerned. I always worry about worldwide safety these days, and an event of this global magnitude has me staying up nights. I always remember the horror of what happened in Munich from when I was a youngster, and it still freaks me out. And the entire world has gotten so much crazier since then. I just hope that the security measures have also greatly improved, and that we all experience a beautiful Games.

Now on to a bit of business. Even though I’ll be focusing most of my attention on the Olympics for the next two weeks, I’ll still be writing regular columns in this e-zine, perhaps even about the goings-on in France. So please make sure to still check them out.

And, of course, I’ll be tweeting, @MajorCelebrity, many of my more important thoughts on all the proceedings as they go along. So if you don’t already follow me, this will be a great time to begin. I’ll meet you over there as soon as I have something fun, (or snarky,) to say about my favorite quadrennial happening.

I hope the 2024 Games will be this beautiful.

Because Paris is eight hours ahead of Los Angeles, the coverage will really be round-the-clock for me. But I won’t be depriving myself of sleep, (which I barely get enough of, anyway.) That means that I might be behind from the second the competitions begin tomorrow. So I beg of everyone to not mention any results to me—here, in person, in emails, or in phone messages—until the entire Olympics is over. Or until after I’ve written or tweeted about some of them. Then it’s all fair game.

Besides everything that the world will experience for the next two+ weeks, the other thing this Games signifies for us Angelenos is that…in just four short years, we will be hosting them! So get ready for that! I’m already planning my outfits!!!

And, speaking of LA, tomorrow is my anniversary with this fair city…again! So, this year I’ll be celebrating by just staying all comfy on my couch, and worrying about all the athletes I admire. But I do wish a very Happy Anniversary to LA and me! Next year it will be back to my crazy ritual, which, of course, I’ll share with all of you.

Now, I hate to say this, but Go, USA! (Mostly.)

For the people who read just the headlines, I’m here to tell you that every aspect of what happened with the ladies’ Figure Skating competition at the recent Olympics is heartbreaking. And strange.

I’ve had extra time to ponder it since the beginning of that debacle because just as I started writing this article, Russia invaded Ukraine, and my heart went out of writing anything at all. And now that I’m back working, my opinion of what happened at the Olympics has not changed in all this time.

So here’s the quick story, and all its ramifications:

How Kamila Valieva’s Long Programs usually go…

Fifteen-year-old Russian, Kamila Valieva, the best and loveliest female skater I’ve ever seen, (John Curry is the greatest, period,) had won every competition she entered this season, so therefore, she was more than expected to win the Olympics, as well. Her beautiful quadruple jumps paired with her stunning artistry is a combination no one else comes close to. (Her two seventeen-year-old countrywomen, more aptly country-girls, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova, come the closest, but always fall many points short of Kamila.)

So at the Olympics, the new-ish Team Event was up first. Kamila skated beautiful short and long programs to help Team ROC (Russian Olympics Committee*) take the gold. No surprise there. *[Note.: The Russian athletes have to be known as the “Russian Olympic Committee,” as opposed to “Russia,” due to a ban on the country for their shameful state-sponsored doping program that was discovered about five years ago.]

…and how it went at the 2022 Winter Olympics. My heart goes out to that poor young lady.

Then, a few days before the ladies’ competition was due to begin, it was announced that on Christmas Day, right after the Russian Nationals, Kamila had tested positive for a banned heart medication. The testing results had been delayed because of a backlog, so it was just discovered at that late date, in February.

The debate about whether or not she should be banned from competing at the Olympics went on for days, with different governing bodies going back and forth on how to handle the situation. But in the end, since there was no time for the young girl to mount a defense for an official hearing, it was decided to let her go on and compete.

Despite being only fifteen, with the weight of the world, (and her evil country,) on her young shoulders, she was somehow able to perform perfectly, and she won the Short Program. That only made some people’s outrage increase.

The boneheads at the Olympics, not really knowing how to handle this un-precedented dilemma, announced there would be no medal ceremony if Kamila came in first, second, or third, thinking this stupid decision would help anything or anyone, when, in actuality, it would only hurt everyone involved.

Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir trying to make sure we all know how disapproving of Kamila Valieva they are.

Meanwhile, the horrific commentators, former skaters Johnny Weir, (of whom I had always been a fan up until then,) and Tara Lipinski, (who had competed on the senior level for only three years before she retired from competition at just age fifteen!, so she was barely ever in this particular rat race to be able to comment on it,) were absolutely repugnant. They went on every Olympics broadcast, with holier-than-thou attitudes and faces that were trying very hard to show disappointment, to register their disgust. With a fifteen-year-old girl who most likely had no idea what “supplements” she was taking!!!

Johnny Weir commenting on the Olympics. Should this person really be allowed to give his opinion on other people doing anything??? (And it’s not even his worst look!)

Johnny deemed it “a tragedy” that Kamila was allowed to compete. I hope that he never finds out what a tragedy really is, but this was not even close. (He loves to tout his close ties to everything Russian, so I wonder what he has to say now!) I really wanted to tweet at him, “No, a tragedy is your unfortunate outfits and fake hair-dos, that’s what a tragedy is,” but I held back because, especially with the impending Russian evil against Ukraine, I didn’t want to use the word “tragedy” in vain.

But the worst part of their odious words was their answer when NBC host Mike Tirico asked them if a fifteen-year-old girl would really even be aware of the exact substances she was ingesting. And they both very stupidly answered with words to this effect: “Of course! Whenever I was sick, my mother would call my coaches or a hotline to find-out what I could take.” So the answer is not yes, it’s a definite no! They said it themselves—they had their mothers call someone else to get the okay on medications!!! That makes the responsibility fall at least twice removed from themselves!!! They asked their moms who asked the coaches or an obscure someone at a hotline, and who knows where any of those grown-ups got the final word from!!! Johnny and Tara basically admitted that they themselves as skaters had to trust the adults in the room! All the while blaming young Kamila Valieva for doing exactly what they did when they were competing!!!

So their entire premise was wrong! Idiots. They should have stuck up for her, and explained how it is for adolescent skaters, instead of getting on their high horses against her personally.

They must have gotten a lot of flak for their high-handedness because, after multiple interviews with them acting like that, a few days later, all of a sudden, and with absolutely zero apologies, they started saying the fault may have lain with her coaches or sports federation or some other Russian entity. They had to state that because…her coaches were being investigated for the offense!!!

Also all of a sudden, Johnny, who had been proudly, and often, broadcasting his friendship with Kamila’s coach, Eteri Tutberidze, (who coaches just about all the Russian young ladies,) began ragging on her. That’s what he should have done to begin with!!!

Kamila Valieva at the end of her Short Program, which went perfectly, but her emotions from the entire week came pouring out.

My feeling on the entire situation is that Kamila Valieva was a pawn, of the coaches and Russia, where everyone’s very lives seem incumbent on succeeding. (By the way—the meds may have aided her stamina, but not her grace nor athletic ability.) And everyone should have been sympathetic to her, rather than vilifying a teen-age star, and a very young teen at that! It did turn-out to be a tragedy of sorts, but for only her!

That’s because, after nary a bobble in her skating for at least six months, she fell all over the place in her Long Program, which is what almost always decides the medalists. She stumbled or fell outright around four times! (My hands were over my face after the first one, so I didn’t count. And I can’t bear to watch it again.) I can just about guarantee that that never would have happened if she had not had all that pressure on her. (And, by the way, I don’t know what the right thing for the Olympics to do was in this case. I tend to agree that yes, she should have been allowed to skate, and decide the issue later, but for once, I don’t feel strongly one way or the other. But I do think that every statement about the possible ban should have included that Kamila is a minor, in Russia, too boot, so she should not be the one blamed for the drug(s) in her system.)

Kamila Valieva the second she finished her disastrous Olympics Long Program. Notice how even her pain is elegant. She actually looks like an aggrieved character in a ballet!

Because of that calamitous skate, she went from first place to fourth, and came away with no medal. And creepy Johnny Weir actually said “thank God” that now there would be a medal ceremony because Kamila didn’t make the top three, with nitwit Tara echoing “thank goodness.” Morons.

But there are at least two more super-sad things that happened after her skate. One would think that after such a shocking and devastating performance, her coaches would immediately take their skater in their arms and comfort her, correct?

Well, we’d all be absolutely wrong! Eteri Tutberidze not only did not hug her, but she berated Kamila and demanded to know why she “didn’t keep fighting!” I’m sickened by that woman. Maybe if she felt better about herself, by fixing her dreadful over-dried straw-like tresses, she would be nicer to others. Her behavior was sooo shameful that even International Olympics Committee President Thomas Bach made a rare statement about it, saying that he was “very, very disturbed” by the “chilling atmosphere” of Kamila’s coaches when she came off the ice. I promise, in all my years of watching every second of every Olympics since I was a kid, I’ve never, ever heard a higher-up say anything like that about a coach!

Eteri Tutberidze, (and her dreadful hair,) on the left, finally putting an arm around Kamila Valieva after the most traumatic experience of the young girl’s life. Photo by Karen Salkin.

And, for the record, Bach also intimated that her coaches are probably the ones responsible, at least in part, for the banned substances in Kamila’s system. He said that “doping is very rarely done alone with the athletes” and that the “ones who have administered this drug in her body, these are the ones who are guilty.”

Perhaps even sadder was that absolutely no one—I repeat, no one!–was celebrating the seventeen-year-old girl who won the competition, fair and square, current World Champion Anna Shcherbakova! That poor girl stood in the backstage room, where the current top three sit during the competition, by herself, for at least ten minutes after winning! No one said a word to her. She just first sat there and then stood there, clutching a teddy bear tissue box, (so not even a real stuffed animal!,) looking confused. She never even smiled. After winning the Olympics! The team of the bronze medal winner, Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, were all over their girl, hugging and celebrating her, but not one person was there for Anna. I was really sick to my stomach over it. I kept screaming at the TV, “Hug her, somebody!!!”

Olympic Champion Anna Shcherbakova, all by herself, right after she had won, which should have been a jubilant time for her! Photo by Karen Salkin.

And then Anna’s terrible sportswoman Russian training mate, Alexandra Trusova, (who was carrying on because she erroneously thought that she should have won because she did more quadruple jumps, even though she has barely any artistry at all,) finally went back to that room, (where she was supposed to be sitting all along,) to congratulate Kaori, while totally snubbing Anna! So Anna had to go looking for someone with whom to celebrate the biggest win of her young life! It was all so incredibly sad. My heart broke for both Anna and Kamila. The only one who appeared happy at all was Kaori, (though from her pained “crying face,” we at first had no idea what she was feeling.)

Siver Medalist, (and awful sport,) Alexandra Trusova, crying and carrying-on after the results, and being talked into going out to accept her medal because she felt she deserved the gold. Photo by Karen Salkin.

One final note about Russian coach Eteri Tutberidze: It’s interesting that she made her only child, daughter Diana Davis, compete in Ice Dance rather than in singles skating, in which she was originally coaching the girl. Either Eteri knew Diana would never have that crazy level of athletic ability she forces her charges into, or she didn’t have the heart to torture her own flesh and blood, or she wanted her offspring to be away from the crooked, scandalous system she was using on her students. We’ll never know the answer, but it’s an intriguing little sidebar on the whole Russian problem.

Now it’s on to the upcoming World Championships, which take place in France during the week of March 21, 2022. As I had a feeling would happen, none of the skaters from Russia and Belarus will be allowed to compete there because most sports right now seem to think that cutting that country’s athletes out of competition will somehow negatively affect their country, forcing them to stop the heinous attacks on Ukraine.

But does anyone really think that Putin will care? He cares about only his insane, tyrannical, evil self!!! I feel terrible for all those poor kids who have trained their whole lives, and had to deal with Covid for two years of their young lives, and now this, all through no fault of their own. Every aspect of this situation is sickening to me.

By the way, in an interview in 2021, Kamila Valieva said that she hopes to become a psychologist after retiring from figure skating. Perhaps she should get a jump on that right now. She, and all of us, are in some need of the help at this terrible moment in time.

Well, another Olympics has come and (finally) gone, and once again I watched every second of the Games.

Nathan Chen with his very deserved Gold Medal. (This is weird–he looks at least ten years older on the Medal Stand here than he does in every other instance!) Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the one at the top of this page.

First of all, I apologize for not tweeting for the entire two and a half weeks, (except once, to correct full-of-herself NBC late-night host Maria Taylor for constantly incorrectly referring to Olympic Champion Nathan Chen and Nathan Chin.) I was just way too engrossed in the proceedings to do normal things, like sleep! I didn’t even check emails, phone messages, the news, or social media the whole time—I didn’t want to see any results because I was usually behind in my watching.

The television coverage was around the clock, on two different channels. Most of the sports on USA were shown live, while most of NBC’s were snippets of what we had already seen on USA. But Beijing is sixteen hours ahead of Los Angeles, so I usually didn’t get caught-up, even if I stayed awake until 5AM!

But I did manage to see it all. And so much of it had me in tears—happy ones.

Tara and Johnny, along with host Terry Gannon, demonstrating the stupid NBC stance, in triplet, that I mention below. Photo by Karen Salkin.

Except for the Figure Skating debacle, which I have so much to say about that I’m giving that tale its own article next week. So stay tuned for that. (Unless you’re creepy Tara Lipinski or so-much-less-fabulous-than-he-thinks-he-is Johnny Weir. Those two might want to look away.) [Note: I used to love Johnny back in the day, so that I don’t now makes me sad. He even called me right after I first met him, and I was downright giddy about it. But next week you’ll read why I’m not a fan right now.]

Unlike I’ve done in previous Olympics Wrap-ups, I didn’t take notes during the presentations. So I’m winging it here, a few days after it was all done.

Actually, I had planned on not reporting on this one at all, which freed me up to just watch and not worry about writing about what I was seeing. But then, on the penultimate night of the games, I looked-up David Wise, one of the athletes, in this e-zine, because I remembered writing something good about him four years ago, and I was happy to discover that I loved him back then, as well.

And then, as I perused that entire article, the warm feelings those remembrances gave me also made me feel somewhat bad that I had not done any of that for this Olympics. So I realized right then and there that as hard as it would be for me to try to remember every single thing that happened for the past two and a half weeks, I would have to make my best effort to do so. So here I am.

Fascinating Biathalon. The athletes have to get their shots in those tiny far-away targets…in the wind…and brutal cold…in-between cross-country skiing! Photo by Karen Salkin.

And now, here are some of my thoughts on the 2022 Winter Olympics, in absolutely no particular order:

~ Let me begin with the aforementioned Freestyle Skiing multiple Half-pipe medalist, David Wise. He said, “Set high hopes and expectations low.” That’s a great motto for all of us.

~ The two women I’d most like to be friends with are multiple bobsled medalist Elana Meyers Taylor and speed-skating medalist Brittany Bowe.  I guess everyone feels the same way because they were voted flag bearers!  Lovely ladies. Elana is always upbeat, no matter what life throws at her, and Brittany is one of the absolute most unselfish people I’ve ever heard of! In case you missed my January tweet about her incredible kindness, she gave her own spot in one of her only two Olympics races to Erin Jackson, who had a mishap in the US Olympic trials. That’s unheard of. (And Erin won the Gold!!! I feel she should have thanked Brittany in all of her post-skate interviews, though. She would not have had that opportunity without Brittany’s unique kindness.)

~ The ISU needs to stop allowing females to do quadruple jumps. Period! Doing them hurts these young girls’ bodies for the rest of their lives. (Some people think they should just make the minimum age to compete higher, but I think mine is a much better decision.)

Another instance of that stupid (I’m sure) mandated stance, this time by one of the studio hosts, Lindsay Czarniak. I actually took this pic to show her dreadful wardrobe, so it’s doing double-duty here. Who dressed these people???Photo by Karen Salkin.

~ The stupid stance that all the studio reporters used, with their hands folded in front of their belly buttons, was soooo annoying. Obviously, the NBC powers mandated that to their on-air employees, but it all just looked wrong. And a tad cult-ish.

~ There is usually at least one athlete with a big fun personality at the Olympics, like skater Adam Rippon last go-round, but I didn’t really see any this time.  Norwegian biathlete JT Boe gave the most amusing interview after winning one of his many medals, in not even his native language, but he was about it.

~ Why did the Cross-Country Skiing commentators never once mention Marit Bjorgen??? She’s not only a five-time Olympian, but her total number of medals is a record fifteen, the most by any athlete in Winter Olympics history!!! They kept harking back to everyone else they could possibly think of, but nary a word about this amazing champion! I seriously don’t get the glaring omission. (I should have tweeted to ask them about it, but again, I had no time to tweet.)

~ It was offensive that not once did they give us the entire results from a competition. They told us the top three, but sometimes not even further down than that! Not even for the American athletes involved.

~ And some sports, specifically Biathlon and Cross-Country Skiing, hardly or never mentioned the lower-down American competitors!!! Yes, most viewers care about only the medal contenders, but these athletes’ families and friends and team members would have wanted to at least hear their loved ones’ names during the Olympics they were sure to be watching. Shameful of the NBC peeps.

~ But they sure did give tons of coverage to the US traitor, Eileen Gu! If you don’t know the story, she’s an eighteen-year-old champion Freestyle skier. (Which means she does tricks, not goes down a hill.) She grew up, and still lives, in San Francisco, and competed for the United States until a couple of years ago. Her mother is Chinese so now she chose to compete for that country at the Olympics. I totally understand when someone who wouldn’t make the US team competes on behalf of a different country, because they wouldn’t get a crack at international competitions otherwise, but Eileen would have been the number one choice in America, so she just shunned us. I wonder how she’ll be treated by her fellow students at Stanford next year.

Snowboard Cross two-time Gold Medalist Lindsey Jacobellis. (Do you think the initial “K” on her board is a message to me?)

~ I’m soooo happy for Snowboard Cross two-time Gold Medalist Lindsey Jacobellis. She had done something silly when she was about to win the Gold in 2006, so she wound-up with the silver medal back then. Then she didn’t even make the Final in the next two Olympics, and wound-up in a sad fourth place last time. So that she not only prevailed to win the individual Gold but also the Mixed Doubles Gold in Beijing was a joy to witness. Talk about determination!!! She’s been at the top of her sport all these years, and has stayed at it.

~ I’m also happy for three crazy-determined extreme sports dudes who all came back from horrible situations—I have no idea how any of them were able to do it! Canadian Max Parrot came back from cancer to professionally snowboard again! His countryman Mark McMorris did the same from a very debilitating accident while doing the sport, and American Big Air Free-skier Colby Stevenson came back from the same-intensity car crash. And they were all so pleasant and grateful, (as they should be.) I loved them all. And now all three are Olympic medalists!

~ Luge is a sort-of stupid sport, in my opinion. But hey—whatever floats your boat. Or sled.

How could her coaches have let her perform with this stubble??? Photo by Karen Salkin.

~ Mr. X and I were shocked to see dark stubble on the armpits of one girl skater from Canada. (She was the only one from there, so you can look her up, if you’re curious. I don’t want to name her because she’s young.) I honestly thought shaving well was Figure Skating 101.

~ We’re absolutely thrilled that Nathan Chen won his much-deserved Gold medal!!! His performances were brilliant, and a joy to behold, especially his Elton John Long Program. Wow.

~ But I was crushed for Brown student Vincent Zhou to have missed his entire competition because he tested positive for Covid after his participation in the team skating event. I hope he shows the world what he’s got in the upcoming World Championships next month!

~ Once again, NBC showed us just a handful of skaters in their final-day Gala. It should have been at least twenty performers!!! What a shame.

~ And they had former US Champ Ashley Wagner commentate on those skaters. I’m sure she was trying hard, but she just kept saying she was so proud of each of them. Their careers have nothing to do with her, so it’s not for her to be proud of them! She needs to come up with other things to say, if she ever even gets hired again.

~ Those Norwegians sure are wonderful in Nordic events. The Cross-Country and Biathlon competitions were among my favorite of the Games!

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong.

~ I love that the winners of the very last Figure Skating competition this time, (and one of the last of the entire Olympics,) were the Chinese pair, Sui Wenjing and Han Cong. The pressure on them, in their home country, especially China, was beyond enormous. So for them to come with that glorious program, and right after three perfect Russian pairs, to boot, was amazing. Truly. (But God forbid NBC would have shown them getting on the ersatz stand right after the competition, with the entire assemblage cheering for them! I hate that network for that omission!)

~You guys will never guess my favorite Olympics sport to watch. Ready? It’s the “crosses”–Snowboard Cross and Ski Cross. I could watch those all day!

~ It was heartwarming to witness thirty-five-year-old Shaun White end his Olympic career. And the dude still came in fourth! I know he wanted to medal—again—but just competing and coming in so high up was amazing. And we got to see him pass the proverbial torch to the young guys.

And now, the sun has set on the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I really have so much more to say on the subject, but when I arrived at this point in writing this article, insane Putin invaded Ukraine, and the situation is so horrific that my mind just can’t concentrate on anything else right now.

If I’m up for writing the rest of my thoughts in the next few days, I’ll either do a second Olympics Wrap-up, or put them in the Comments below. I hope you’ll all share your own thoughts there, as well. I really personally know only a handful of other people who watch the Olympics, (which is a shame,) so I’d love to see what everyone else has to say on the subject.

Now on to France for the Summer Olympics in 2024!

That heading is actually the answer to why I won’t be posting much for the next two and a half weeks! Or answering emails nor my phones. As many of you know, my sport-obsessed self watches just about every second of Olympics coverage.

I love this creative image.

If you’re wondering why the Winter Olympics are starting today, Wednesday, as opposed to the usual Friday, it’s because of several factors, the most prominent one being the time difference with China —for example, that country is sixteen hours ahead of Los Angeles.

So the actually Opening Ceremony will be telecast live to America at the crack of dawn on Friday morning, and then rerun that night in primetime. Confusing, I know. But the actual competitions will begin today, at 3PM west coast time. Those events are curling, women’s hockey, and skiing training, none of which I watch, so I’m catching a tad of a break today. And most of tomorrow, as well—I won’t begin watching until the Figure Skating Team Event tomorrow evening. Whew.

I’m actually happy to get the small head start on the proceedings; I’m always somewhat behind because I try to watch every second of the televised sports, outside of hockey, at the Olympics. Or hockey anytime, actually. That is one of the few sports I just can’t get into, even though I used to be an always-invited guest at the LA Kings games back in the day.

But let’s not get off topic here. The few things that I want to say about the 2022 Winter Olympics before it all begins are:

~ Firstly, it’s been reported that the participants will be sequestered in the strictest “bubble” ever, which is good for everyone’s health, but bad for broadening one’s horizons by exploring another country and having some fun.

Nathan Chen.

~ I love watching the Figure Skating more than any other sport, but I’m always sooooo nervous for the competitors, especially the deserving ones. Unfortunately, the best skater does not always win; it depends on keeping your nerves in check. So when American Nathan Chen, the best by far, takes the ice, you know my stomach will be in knots.

~ If you love beauty, do not miss seeing the Russian ice skating girls. It’s almost a shame that each country can send only up to three skaters because there are at least a dozen ladies in that country, most just young girls, who could knock your socks off!!!

~ I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Olympics Committee gave the Winter Games to China!!! Foremost among the reasons why they should not be hosting them is all the human rights violations and downright atrocities in that country, which is why the U.S. is boycotting diplomatically.

~ But on top of the above, that exact city, Beijing, just held the Summer Olympics in 2008!!! Mix the locations up a bit, people!!!

~ And the latest Summer Olympics, just a few months ago, was in Tokyo, so same neck of the woods. And the one before that, the 2016 Winter Olympics, was in Pyeongchang, Korea! Choose another continent already.

~ And China doesn’t even have enough real snow!!!

~ All that being said, I’m thrilled that the U.S. is not pulling our athletes out of the Games, as they did in the summer of 1980 when it was held in Moscow! That was sooooo unfair to the poor kids who had trained their entire lives for that Olympic opportunity. Boycott a country some other way, powers-that-be!

~ Since the Winter Olympics features fewer sports than the Summer ones, the coverage will be shown on just three channels this time, as opposed to the five of the Summer Games. (Part of that is because, inexplicably, NBC got rid of their specific sports channel a few weeks ago! Crazy!) There’s also streaming of them, if that’s your bent.

~ As of now, there will be no fans or spectators allowed, due to Covid. That’s so sad for the athletes, but still better than having no competitions at all.

This simple image says it all.

Okay, that’s it for now. I’ll try to tweet my thoughts along the way, if I can tear my eyes away from the television screen long enough to type, but my laptop has been on the fritz for awhile now, so I’ll be playing it all by ear. So, just in case, if you don’t already follow me, this is a great time to do that. My Twitter moniker is @MajorCelebrity. Of course.

May the best men and women win.

There’s been sooo much to say about the recent Summer Olympics in Tokyo that I had to split my article about it all into two parts. Last week I discussed some of the technical aspects of the sporting extravaganza (which you can still read here if you missed it: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/olympics-olympics-2021-wrap-up-part-i.)

Now let’s get into the fun of discovering some of the athletes you may not know about—mainly yay–and some shocking/interesting moments that happened at the Games.

Tamyra Mensah-Stock. And, of course, I adore her flag earrings, too! Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ Gold medal wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock emerged as my new favorite Olympic athlete. Every single interview she gave after her win was a delight. Of course, I’d love to be friends with so many of the Olympians, (even for just a day, so that they can answer my many questions,) but none moreso than Tamyra. I will be rooting her on in everything she does in life.

~ Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy produced my favorite moment of not just the games, but of the entire summer! If you missed the end of their High Jump competition, you really should look for it on-line because even I cannot do it justice in writing. But I’ll try:

Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy learning they would be sharing the Gold Medal.

The two guys were tied in the height they cleared at the end, and when the officials asked them if they wanted to do a “jump-off,” Mutaz asked, “Can we have two golds?” When the man said it was possible, Mutaz told Gianmarco, who immediately leapt into his competitor and friend’s arms and stated crying. Yes, “friend” is correct because those two are basically best friends!!! The uber-thin men hail from very different countries, but because of worldwide track and field meets, they spend soooo much time together. Of the double golds being awarded, Gianmarco said afterwards, (when he was able to finally pull himself together, and paused from hugging everyone in sight,) “I still can’t believe it happened. Sharing with a friend is even more beautiful. It was just magical.”

On a sidebar to this story, I had just seen handsome Italian Lamont Marcell Jacobs shock the world by beating-out all the favorites to win the 100-meter dash, thus becoming the “fastest man in the world,” when I noticed some guy come out of nowhere and jump all over him in the most celebratory way. Since I knew that no fans were around, and no other men’s races were about to take place, and the celebrant had an Italian flag around him, I deduced that he was one of Marcell’s countrymen who had just won something. By going through other coverage of the Olympics, I discovered that the “attacker” was indeed Gianmarco Tamberi, who had just won his own gold medal in that most unusual and happy way!

Gianmarco Tamberi with his 2016 cast.

And there’s one more fun part to Gianmarco’s journey; he very sadly missed the Rio Olympics five years ago because he broke his ankle right before it. And he brought his cast to this Olympics! And had it on the field with him!

I love everything about this story!!! I’ve cried every time I’ve seen the clips of this whole happy happenstance. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Oksana Chusovitina blowing a faewill kiss to her many Olympics. And you know I adore her nails, which matched her outfit, as well! Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ On another wildly emotional note, the oldest gymnast in history, forty-six-year-old Oksana Chusovitina from Uzbekistan, just competed in her eighth Olympic Games. That is beyond mind-boggling! Most female gymnasts are deemed over-the-hill at twenty-four! This woman has stayed in shape almost twice as long! And in not the most supportive, technologically-advanced country! While being a mother! (Oksana is one of only seven gymnasts in history to compete internationally after becoming a mom.)

When she was done with her vault in Tokyo, (vault is the only apparatus she competed on this go-round,) she received a standing ovation from all the (much younger) competitors on the floor. She announced that this would, finally, be her last Olympics. I know she deserves to rest now, but we’ll see, won’t we?

~ Since I try to watch as many sports as possible in all Olympics, I was lucky enough to see this next drama unfold live. Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer won the gold in the Women’s Cycling Road Race in dramatic fashion. Even the commentators were amazed; the main guy kept repeating how surprising Anna’s race was, and different from the norm in road races. She got out in front early, riding first with a few others, then all by her lonesome. That is never how these races go; many cyclists usually stick together over the more than eighty-five miles, until the three medalists break away right near the end. No one has ever led from start to finish before, that I’m aware of, anyway.

Anna Kiesenhofer after she had won her bike race. You can’t tell by her face whether she had won or lost! Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

On top of the major accomplishment of winning an Olympics Gold Medal, she’s a professional research mathematician, who earned her PhD with a thesis on “integrable systems on b-symplectic manifolds.” (No worries—I don’t understand it, either!)

And here’s another point of interest from that race. I had noted that Annemiek van Vleuten from the Netherlands seemed absolutely ecstatic to win the silver medal when she crossed the finish line in second place. I’ve rarely seen such a happy runner-up at the Olympics! She had suffered an absolutely horrific crash in the Rio 2016 Olympics, so I assumed she was just thrilled to finish here, with a medal, to boot! (Especially because she had also had a little collision much earlier in this race, too!) But it turned-out that Annemiek thought she had won!!! Anna Kiesenhofer was so far ahead of everyone that no one else saw her cross the finish line! And in Olympics road races, no communication with coaches is allowed, so since they couldn’t see her so far ahead, almost no one else in the race had realized she had gotten away from them all.

But no worries for poor Annemiek van Vleuten—she went on to win the Gold Medal in the Individual Time Trial just three days later. So everyone came away from Tokyo happy.

Gold Medal swimmer Lydia Jacoby standing in front of a screen showing the crazy celebration in her hometown of Seward, Alaska. Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ Speaking of being happy, the absolute happiest “hometown” celebration was for teen-age swimming gold medalist Lydia Jacoby. The television coverage featured many watch parties for the athletes; since no spectators were allowed in the venues, all the families and friends had to stay home this time. The watch party for Lydia’s little hometown of Seward, Alaska was at, of all places, a railroad terminal! Perfect. Every single person there went absolutely berserk when seventeen-year-old Lydia was the surprise winner of the 100-meter breaststroke race. Mr. X and I must have watched the craziness about fifty times, concentrating on a different celebrant each time. If you haven’t seen the video yet, do yourselves a favor and seek it out. I promise—it will uplift your day. (Unless you’re one of her competitors, of course!)

British diver Tom Daley, plying his other passion in the stands. Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ I don’t know which was better—seeing the still-cute young Brit, Tom Daley, finally win a Gold Medal after appearing in three Olympics, or watching him sitting in the stands, cheering for his fellow divers while…knitting!!! (Yes, you read that right—the champion diver is also a prolific knitter and crocheter!)

~ I have to always remind others, (and myself!,) that I do not dislike Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic. I’ve always found him intelligent and amusing, especially way back in the day when he did his spot-on imitations of some of the other top players. (His take on Rafa Nadal picking his butt before every point is a riot!) I always root against him solely because I never want him to go ahead of Roger Federer in amassing records, which he’s close to doing.

Novak Djokovic hugging the man who had just defeated him for the tennis bronze medal, Pablo Carreno Busta. What are Novak’s eyes saying? Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

So I was absolutely thrilled that he came away from these Olympics medal-less. He entered the Men’s Singles competition, of course, and also, because of the occasion, the Mixed Doubles. He was expecting to at least medal in the latter, and win the Gold in the former. But what he experienced instead was an exquisite fall from grace.

I’ll have more on Novak when I preview the US Open next week, but I must say that witnessing the emotions of Pablo Carreno Busta, the Spaniard who beat him out for the Bronze, was wonderful. I was crying right along with him.

That middle part of the image, with all the pink, is the medical personnel attending to Connor Fields after his crash. Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ This is a horrific one, but the guy is on the mend, so I feel okay telling you about it. (And I hope it deters parents from letting their children participate in this sport!) American BMX Racing star, and Gold Medalist in the Rio Olympics in 2016, Connor Fields, had a life-threatening crash in a semi-final race. He suffered a brain-bleed, brain-shearing, a collapsed lung, and a broken rib. The crash appeared to be more serious than others I’ve seen, and when the coverage pulled the camera waaaay out from the action, I knew it could not be good. But, when I saw his name on the starting list for the Final, my heart sang. Turns-out, they were just letting us know he made the final, (due to two earlier races of his,) but, of course, he wasn’t there. It felt like a horror movie to me to be so happy for Connor one moment and then learn the sad truth the next.

This is the drop at the start of the BMX races. Can you see why it’s sooo dangerous?! Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

Instead of competing in the Final, he was in the hospital instead. In the ICU! He’s home now, recuperating, thank goodness. No one knows if he’ll ever race again. I just hope he recovers completely and does what’s best for himself in the future. And I pray that no other BMX riders ever suffer the same fate.

Mariya Lasitskene’s little somach roll, only because of the way she’s sitting. Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ This one is silly, but it just might help some of you, (as it did me.) If any of you gals want to feel better about yourselves, look at these not-great stomachs on such amazing athletes. And…they’re both Olympic Champions!!! Mariya Lasitskene is the High Jump Gold Medalist who proved that even the skinniest girls can make a stomach roll when sitting down. (On a side note, she and I have the same January 14th birthday! But, as we can all see, that’s where the similarity ends.) And Mariya and my fellow Capricorn, January 10th-born Faith Kipyegon, is the 1500-meter Champion at both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, and had a baby in-between them. (Hence the wrinkly belly, which she does not seem to mind letting hang out. Good for her!)

Faith Kipyegon’s stomach, after having a baby. But it didn’t stop her from winning back-to-back Olympic Gold Medals! Photo by Karen Salkin, off the TV.

~ Dutch runner Sifan Hassan, yet another one of my fellow Capricorns, (born on January 1st this time,) provided one of the most jaw-dropping moments of the entire Olympics. Not only did she win gold in both the 5,000-meters and 10,000-meters, and a bronze in the 1,500-meters there, (making her the only athlete in history to medal at these events in the same Olympic Games,) but she did it all in spectacular fashion. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes. Just eleven hours before she won the 5,000, something unheard of happened in her heat for the 1,500. She fell!!! Over another competitor. Which made her run in last place with less than a lap to go! But Sifan just picked herself up and…won that race! When she didn’t even need to because, since it was just a heat, the top six would advance. It was an absolutely remarkable athletic performance.

Those are just the few of the athletes and Olympic moments that have stood out to me as I’ve been working on this article. There were a ton more worthwhile stories in the sixteen days, but these are the ones that left the most lasting impressions on my soul.

The trip and fall of Sifan Hassan, in orange, in a race she got up and won!!!

If there’s something from these Summer Olympics that you’re curious about, which maybe I can answer for you, or you have a thought you’d like the rest of us to know about, please share them in the Comments section below. I promise to give you the benefit of my insane Olympics-watching obsession when possible.

Now on to Beijing for the Winter Olympics in February! I better rest up for a bit!