Up close and personal, the Northern Lowlights included, let’s see, the Tonya Accreditation Stakeout, the Tonya Ovarian Cyst Question and the First Practice Together (known to the 875,000 reporters and photographers squirmingly present as the “Mongolian Pig Stampede”). “This is better than the Olympics. Follow them around,” an editor in London ordered correspondent Michael Coleman of The Times. “I can’t go into their bedrooms,” Coleman told the boss. “I just cannot do that.”
Bully for Coleman. But another Brit did offer a United States Olympic Committee official a half ton of smoked herring for some inside dope on Nancy and Tonya-preferably that they both were doing dope-and an American attempted to bribe an official at the Olympic Village with 1,100 pounds of lutefisk, that Norwegian delicacy served with bacon fat and mushy peas. Not that the media weren’t staying lean and hungry for the chase.
The question was, Where was the context of this story? Was it the same as if Charles Barkley’s walkaround bozos had knee-capped Michael Jordan in last year’s NBA playoffs? Was it the most horrid scandal, dwarfing the Black Sox, in sports history? Or, because nobody got badly hurt, was it simply the most awesome career moves by a couple of unbelievably shallow semi-celebs since Elvis died? And how should it be handled? Sexism ran rampant with skate ignorance. “The biggest story in the history of civilization and I’ve got no clue,” said Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I do much better with people called Cornhuskers.” “I’ve had as many laughs on this story as anyone,” said Christine Brennan of The Washington Post. “But there’s a fine line between funny and condescending chauvinism. Too many male reporters treat this as silly. It’s not silly.”
In the mind’s eye of pop culture, of course, Nancy and Tonya had long ago Salchowed smack into those terrible toe-to-toe stereotypes of what most men think most women to be: pure, virginal goddess versus nasty, treacherous bitch-vixen. in truth, however, many of the regular Olympic-beat writers don’t much like either one of them, calling Nancy aloof and disdainful and Tonya self-aggrandizing and dishonest.
At least when Tonya was asked about her “exploding ovarian cyst,” she gave a semi-intelligent response. Which was: “It’s still there. I’m not worried about it.” When Nancy was asked about her support group, she sashayed into her tiny giggle and actually said: “My family has been with me since the beginning … since I was born.”
“Hey, she usually acts like she can’t hear,” said The Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser. “Like Reagan pretending the helicopter noise drowned it out.”
So this was actually Nixon-Reagan, not-as the Boston Herald headlined-NANCY AND SLUGGO. But if anybody thinks the saga was over in Norway, no way. Nancy’s endorsements and commercials will be linked forever with Tonya’s legal maneuverings and cavalcade of traveling buffoons. “The story marches onward, like the Lindbergh kidnapping,” said Jeansonne. And, until that tot is discovered in the Clackamas Town Center, possibly along with Tonya’s torn skate lace, we shall all stay tuned as the ice floes on and on.
