Like them or not, the Beijing Olympic Games have begun
The Maple Leaf has been proudly marched in, the Olympic cauldron has been inspiringly lit and the Games are on.
Early Friday morning, 13 time zones away, the Beijing Winter Olympics officially opened in a blaze of colour, creativity and convenient amnesia, offering the world, or at least the winter-laden part of it, a chance for a fortnight of forgetful diversion.
These are the deeply conflicted Olympics, splitting our desires and reactions right down the middle. Because of the pandemic, human rights issues, international economics and pressure politics many of us, stripped of all naivety, didn't want these Games.
But, many of us also wanted them, because we need them. Not the Olympics themselves, but the necessary escape they can bring us now that competition is on and the athletes wrench the focus away from politicians and corporations. Athletes always do this, rising to even the ugliest challenges: Sochi in 2014; Rio in 2016; six months ago in Tokyo at the first COVID-19 Games.
Spectator sport has many functions and on the biggest stage, this one, it serves us best as temporary insulation from the harshest global realities engulfing us.
While the Winter Games are much smaller than their summer counterparts, many of the events are more dramatic and increasingly dangerous - check out sledding, all aerials and figure skating - which arguably makes them more watchable. Especially in the north where we understand snow, ice, and the value of winter TV as an alluring respite from everything.
The Games are available on some viewing platform, somewhere, 24-7. CBC has immersed itself, with prime-time coverage every night, usually starting at 7:30 p.m. although most events won't start live until much later. The broadcast schedule is available at cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/tv-schedule. A variety of CBC sites will also stream events in real time and offer scores of specialized analysis, features and interviews. Buffalo's NBC outlet provides a decidedly American approach.
Local interest will focus primarily on hockey. Hamilton's Kia Nurse and Burlington's Renata Fast and Emma Maltais play key roles for Canada's women's team which plays archrival U.S.A. on Monday. And the Hamilton Bulldogs' recently-acquired 19-year-old star Mason McTavish is the youngest player on the men's hastily assembled team which opens Thursday Feb. 10 against Germany.
But, your appointment viewing should also include teenaged Russian figure skaters Kamila Valieva, Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova, who land big quadruple jumps and may sweep the podium when individual competition starts a week from Tuesday. And high-flying American-born X-Games freestyle skiing champion, Eileen Gu personifies these controversial Games. Born and raised in California she competes for China, her mother's homeland. She'll begin competition next weekend.
Legendary Canadian moguls skier Mikael Kingsbury defends his Olympic title in Saturday's (7:30 a.m.) final; American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin has won 70 World Cup titles (her first event is giant slalom Monday); Czech Ester Ludecka tries to repeat her insane 2018 double of gold medals in both alpine skiing (Monday) and snowboarding (Tuesday); the near-mythical half-piper Shaun White is back for his fifth Olympics (Wednesday and Friday); Japan's Yuzura Hanyu, coached by Canadian Brian Orser, will try (starting Tuesday) to win his third straight men's figure skating title against virtually unbeatable American quad king Nathan Chen; Lolo Jones who competed in Beijing in the 2008 Summer Games (hurdles) rides the bobsled (first heat Friday, Feb. 18) with groundbreaker Kaillie Humphries who now flies under the American flag after winning two Olympic golds for Canada.
Oddsmakers predict Canada to battle the U.S. for fourth in the medal standings behind favourites Norway, Germany and Russia, with somewhere in the vicinity of 25 medals. Many elite Canadian athletes have been at a training and competitive disadvantages with tighter pandemic restrictions than in many other countries.
Which brings us back to Friday's hollowed-out Opening Ceremonies which, to be fair, did recognize and reflect how much COVID-19 has altered the world.
As much as we need an escape portal, the Olympics can't provide an airtight one. With daily pandemic reminders of some athletes unable to compete because of positive tests, with many venues either empty or select" audiences, with athletes who've worked all their lives being unable to share the big moment in person with their families, the intrusions of the outside world will not stop.
And we will be reminded daily of global warming: all the snow for outdoor competition is man-made, the vistas artificially created, a sci-fi scenario becoming more commonplace everywhere.
But, with the ceremonies done, the athletes can really take over and tease out the inherent noble notions of an Olympic ideal grown much less idealistic.
We need that nourishing nobility now, more than ever.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com