Lost in Translation

I went next door tonight to watch Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis in the 5k long track speedskating event. It was pretty cool. You'd think we were in Holland (Netherlands, whatever) with the sea of orange around the track. In fact, three corners, both 'end zones' and one entire length of ice were filled with orange. I saw an Italian flag here and there, but take my word for it: this place was ORANGE.

So, you're probably wondering why just three corners and one side was orange.

The Olympic Family / bigwigs / sponsors take up most of the space on the finish line side of the oval. The media take up the rest. Media are unbiased observers so they can't wear orange. The members of the bush family in attendance wore dark colors, as did most of the Olympic Family. And the sponsors? They're not big into the rules and regulations of speedskating (Rule No. 1: You Must Wear Orange).

BREAKING NEWS ALERT: News.com mentioned the work we're doing at usolympicteam.com regarding podcasting ... BEFORE NBCOlympics.com or any other site. See? I really AM doing work here!

BACK TO YOUR ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM ...
So these Orange Fans (OFs) made the oval the place to be tonight. In speedskating two athletes skate at the same time, swapping the inner and outer lanes and essentially racing against the clock since their next closest competitor might not be skating at the same time. In one heat there were two Netherlanders. I chose this guy named Sven, since he looked cute and his name was better than his countryman skating alongside him. Turns out Sven is the world record holder in this distance. Every single time Sven and the other guy sweep around the oval you hear loud cheers ring out from the OFs. It's like a loud giant wave, which of course breaks on the sponsors, Olympic Family and media sections...then gets gigantic again two sections beyond where I'm sitting. The amazing thing is that they cheered two heats later when Chad Hedrick was up. He was even going up against a fellow Orange guy, but they STILL cheered him on like madness!

So, we're down to the final heat. There's Chad, safely in the lead .02 of a second off Olympic record time, followed 1.72 seconds later by my boy, Sven, and finally Carl Verheijen (orange, of course) in third place. The final heat features someone from who knows where and an Italian by the name of Enrico Fabris. Enrico doesn't skate very well through his first few laps and doesn't look like he has a medal shot at all. However, with probably 3-4 laps to go he's moved up to 6th place. With one lap to go this cat's in 4th and the Dutch are going NUTS! I'm talking St. Elizabeth-style, certifiably nuts cheering Enrico on. Mind you, if Enrico pulls ahead and onto the podium he'll knock Dutch into 4th. Doesn't matter. Enrico rides the OF wave of emotion to Italy's first medal of the Games -- a bronze -- by a mere .61 of a second ahead of Verjeijen. Wow. And THAT, my friends, is the spirit of the Olympic Games and why I'm a crack-headed junkie of the five-ring circus.

peace out

P.S. As a confused (and extended) post script ... I attended the press conference and we were told that it was going to be held in English. That's the rules. I figured it was just the rules for Sven, who came out first and spoke first. Normally they have translators for international press conference, "but it's Dutch and how many Dutch translators can there be working in Italian Olympic Venues anyway," I think to myself. Sven exits stage right. In comes Enrico. An Italian. Competing in Italy. Winning Italy's first medal at these Games. And he has to attempt to decipher questions in English, translante them to himself, think of his answer, translate that to English and finally give his answer. While Enrico did a phenomenal job of speaking, he's not exceptionally fluent in English (his English is MUCH better than my Italian though). I found it entirely too rude to expect him to speak in a non-native tongue ON HIS HOME SOIL!

It gets worse. One of my scribe friends told me that she attended a presser the day before and the question was asked in Spanish (?) to a Russian. The translator translated the Spanish question to the Russian athlete, who responded in Russian. That, of course, was translated back to the press. Only it was in English. I wonder if anyone bothered to tell the Spanish writer what was said? Perhaps it was better off left lost in translation.