The recent Winter Olympics was a big event in the Shercliff household. Having discovered that the NBC online coverage did not permit us to watch any of the events live, we finally made the momentous decision to upgrade our analogue TV and bought a digital converter box - a mere 8 months after the rest of the US had made the transition. I freely admit to being a fair-weather sports watcher; I am the type of TV viewer that gets completely engrossed in sports which I had previously not even heard of (ski cross, anyone?). I became particularly obsessed with the ice skating during the Olympics. This is the discipline that has it all: strength, skill, athleticism and grace. Add outlandish costumes, stirring music, theatrical make-up, gallons of glitter spray and the possibility that the skaters could take a tumble and crash out of the competition at any moment and you have the ultimate Olympic viewing experience. And the Vancouver Games had all the story lines of a soap opera: the Chinese newly-weds who had come out of retirement to train for Olympic gold; the battle between quad-tastic Pluchenko & lyrical Lysacek; the breathtaking long programme of Canada's favourite couple Virtue & Moir (I still can't understand why they are not an item); and the bravery of Joannie Rochette, who took the bronze medal in the women's event despite losing her mother two days before the competition began.
So imagine my delight when I heard that a selection of the top Olympic figure skaters were coming to Washington. Luckily, I had a couple of friends who were similarly excited about the prospect of seeing the skaters in the flesh (well, one was similarly excited and the other humoured me) and so we tagged along with a few thousand teenage girls to watch 'Smucker's Stars on Ice'. The line-up this evening included Evan Lysacek, Sasha Cohen, Meryl Davis & Charlie White, Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto, Todd Eldredge, Michael Weiss and Jeremy Abbott. It was every bit as cheesy as we'd anticipated - with several routines being performed to schmaltzy love songs and the rest to roller-disco pop. There was one excruciating moment when Ben Agosto produced a guitar and started twanging (cringe-inducing video here) on the ice. It became immediately apparent why this man is a skater and not a rock star.
The undoubted highlight of the evening was Olympic Champion Evan Lysacek - the real reason we had all bought tickets (and endured the Agosto guitar torture). From the moment Lysacek took to the ice, it was apparent that he was in a completely different class to his peers. He was absolutely mesmerising - his limbs seemed twice the length of everyone else's and I literally couldn't take my eyes off him. He performed an electrifying Michael Jackson tribute, of which a dodgy amateur video (not taken by me, I hasten to add) is available online here. The only slight disappointment was that Lysacek only skated one routine. But then I got home and read this, and felt quite lucky to have seen him at all. This is a man who certainly makes the most of every hour in the day. I know how he feels trying to pack it all in - Evan with his US skating tour, interviews, reality TV performances and dance practice; me with the feeding, nappy-changing, washing and cooking. And now I have just wasted an hour catching up on Evan's most recent performance on 'Dancing With the Stars', a programme I have hitherto avoided at all costs in both the UK and the USA as I knew I would become addicted. And I have. I'm definitely voting next week. This sort of ridiculous reality programme is the very reason that we were so happy to do without TV for so long. I may have just found the very thing to fill the Olympic viewing void...but will have to take a leaf out of Lysacek's rule book: lights out by 2.30am.
(N.B. Photo of Evan's bum courtesy of my friend Sarah. Just as well I had a photographer on hand as most of my snaps look like this:
Ah it was a truly great evening! I too now watch dancing with the stars, he is every bit as mesmerizing! I think you could do a blog entry purely about that program, the presenters, the judges, the behind the scenes wrangling - pure soap opera!!!
Posted by: Sarah | April 24, 2010 at 08:59 AM