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Johnny Weir: The Lady Gaga of figure skating

Johnny Weir dresses like a swan, fights with PETA and performs to "Poker Face." But can the glitter take the gold? Video
Reuters
Men's figure skater Johnny Weir poses with a fox pelt during the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit in Chicago.

If you crossed Bjork with a disco ball and a hedgehog and put it on skates, you'd get Johnny Weir. How adorably over-the-top is the Olympic hopeful? Let's put it this way – the colorful, occasionally avian skater was the inspiration for Jon Heder's character in "Blades of Glory." He's received threats from animal rights activists for his fondness for fox fur-trimmed costumes -- and claims he responded by sending them back with drawings of dead chipmunks. He reluctantly caved to them just yesterday with a testy public statement.

"I want to publicly acknowledge my knowledge of the fur trade industry and the fact that I am totally understanding of the methods used in this industry. I also understand both sides of the argument of animal activists and fur lovers alike. My knowledge comes from years of torment from several anti-fur groups in America and abroad. ...

"I hope these activists can understand that my decision to change my costume is in no way a victory for them, but a draw. I am not changing in order to appease them, but to protect my integrity and the integrity of the Olympic Games as well as my fellow competitors."

His hilariously entertaining Twitter feed includes updates on his bubble baths. And he recently took ESPN reporter Jim Caple for a manicure/pedicure, vowing, "You're going to love it so much, I think you're going to pee a little bit."In short, Johnny Weir is the most interesting thing to happen to ice since Baileys Irish Cream.

The 25-year-old Pennsylvanian is also a rarity in any sport – a true-blue, late-blooming prodigy. He came to skating at the relatively old age of 12, and first honed his craft on roller skates in his parents' basement.  By age 16, he was the winner of World Junior Figure Skating Championships. Last week, during at exhibition performance at Nationals, he skated to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" -- in a costume he designed himself.

And yet, despite his undeniable flamboyance, Weir's also maidenly coy about his sexuality, telling the New York Times that "There are some things I keep sacred. My middle name. Who I sleep with. And what kind of hand moisturizer I use." It's nobody's business, to be sure, although frankly if you're dressed up in a black-and-pink corset and declaring "I felt very diva tonight," it's a good bet the jig is up.

But while all of the costumes and the PETA-baiting and the apparent eagerness to get people talking about his sexuality may make an intriguing figure, none of those things can make anybody a great figure skater. And that, going into Vancouver, is the big question. Four years ago, he placed fifth at the Torino Olympics, and the last of his three wins at the U.S. Nationals was in 2006. His  recent bronze there was an improvement from recent years past, but the 8th ranked skater in the world frequently seems more comfortable as a self-promoting "Pop Star on Ice" reality TV star than an aspiring gold medalist. And it's that showbizzy, glam-dappled, fame-hungry persona that brought him under fire for being frivolous. Even in a sport that is the world's greatest supporter of the sequin industry, Weir seems too much, especially when viewed in direct oppostion to his dapper, hetero, more appropriately masculine rival Evan Lysacek.

So what does Johnny, a man who's nearly quit skating outright, really want, anyway? To be Gaga on blades or taken seriously as athlete?

That's a trick question.

Because Weir seems to be confident that he can be both – it's the critics who see his path as a battle between "glitter and gold," the ones who snicker at his disco shtick, who have a problem. It's Weir who told the Los Angeles Times last year that "What I am hoping to see come out of the success of the American men in the past several years is that we get the respect we deserve, the respect of a real athlete, [so] we aren't thought of as just the boys that are doing the girls' sport."

Maybe nobody that cheeky really can ultimately triumph within an institution as staid as the Olympics. And maybe, for all his graceful moves, he's not powerful or innovative enough in his technique to be a true champion. But if he doesn’t get a medal in February, it won't be because he doesn't take himself or his sport seriously. And after getting that mani/pedi with him, ESPN's Jim Caple praised Weir by noting, "Figure skating requires a level of strength, balance and agility that few other athletes can match…. It isn't about what he wears on the ice, it's about what he does on the ice." 

In the end, that's all that matters. Nobody ever said you can't have the eye of the tiger even if you're dressed like a swan. And what Weir does on ice is utterly unique, often outrageous, and always compelling. He's an athlete and an entertainer, a serious competitor who leaves a devastating trail of glitter in his wake. Johnny Weir, we love you so much, we're going to pee a little bit.

Countdown to the Olympics: Ladies? What ladies?

If previous coverage is any guide, here's what you won't see at the Vancouver Olympics: Women
istockphoto/Salon

With just a few weeks left until the Winter Olympics, prognostication is already running high on what we'll be seeing from Vancouver this February. One safe bet on what we won't be seeing much of – women.  And when we do, don't expect the conversation to focus on their accomplishments.

A story in yesterday's Washington Free Press revealed some depressing statistics from the book "Olympic Women and the Media: International Perspectives."  In it, researchers covering the 2004 Athens games found that female athletes were represented in just 25.2 percent of the international media coverage, compared with 40.2 percent for males. (The odds were even worse before the games, when men received 87.6 percent of the coverage, compared to women's measly 5 percent.)  And when female athletes did get written about, it was less likely to be for their gold-medal-earning physical prowess as it was for being, like Chinese diver Guo Jingjing,  "the beautiful goddess of the springboard.”

So, as the droolosphere gears up to celebrate the "sexiest women in the 2010 Winter Olympics," and the hot wives and girlfriends of the male competitors, we'd like to put in an early plea to give the Lindsey Jacobellises and Michelle Roarks of the world attention -- and not just the "I'd hit that" variety. In other words, when it comes to sexism, maybe winter in Vancouver is a good place to cool it.

Kerrigan's dad dies; brother accused of assault

Nancy Kerrigan's brother charged with assault after father found dead over weekend

The brother of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan has been charged with assaulting their 70-year-old father, who was found dead over the weekend in the family's Massachusetts home.

Woburn District Court Clerk John Teevan says 45-year-old Mark Kerrigan faces arraignment Monday on a charge of assault and battery on a person over 60 that resulted in injuries. Teevan identified the victim of the assault as Daniel Kerrigan.

The Middlesex district attorney's office says police responded to the home of Daniel and Brenda Kerrigan around 1:30 a.m. Sunday over reports of an unresponsive man. The man was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Brenda Kerrigan told the Boston Herald that her husband died of a heart attack and there was nothing suspicious about the death.

Obama: "I could not be prouder of my hometown"

The president makes a statement about Chicago's failed bid for the Summer Olympics

Shortly after he arrived back in Washington after an unsuccessful trip he made to Copenhagen on behalf of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, President Obama went to the White House Rose Garden to discuss the loss.

"One of the things that I think is most valuable about sports is that you can play a great game and still not win. And so, although I wish that we had come back with better news from Copenhagen, I could not be prouder of my hometown of Chicago, the volunteers who were involved, Mayor Daley, the delegation and the American people for the extraordinary bid that we put forward," the president said. He also offered his congratulations to Brazil, which secured the games for Rio de Janeiro. It's the first time the Olympics will be held in South America, and so Obama termed Rio's win "a truly historic event ... [an] extraordinary sign of progress."

The persident's remarks also contained a message the White House has been working hard to emphasize in the face of derision from the right about Obama's trip and Chicago's defeat. They're emphasizing the patriotism angle, saying it's always good to go out and talk about how great the U.S. is, even if it doesn't result in becoming host of the Summer Olympics.

" I believe it's always a worthwhile endeavor to promote and boost the United States of America and invite the world to come see what we're all about. We obviously would have been eager to host these games, but, as I said, this nation and our athletes are still very much excited to compete in 2016," Obama said. "And we once again want to just say how much we are committed to the Olympic spirit, which I think represents some of the best of humanity."

Obama concluded his remarks by switching to a different topic, the monthly jobs report released Friday, which showed a loss of 263,000 jobs in September.

"My principal focus each and every day, as well as the principal focus of my economic team, is putting our nation back on the path to prosperity," Obama said, continuing:

And since the period last winter when we were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month, we've certainly made some progress on this front.

But today's job report is a sobering reminder that progress comes in fits and starts and that we're going to need to grind out this recovery step by step.

From the moment I took office, I've made the point that employment is often the last thing to come back after a recession, and that's what history shows us. But our task is to do everything we can possibly do to accelerate that process ....

And that's why I'm working closely with my economic advisers to explore any and all additional options and measures that we might take to promote job creation.

Whenever I see statistics like the one we saw today, my mind turns to the people behind them -- honest, decent Americans who want nothing more than the opportunity to contribute to their country and help build a better future for themselves and their families.

And building a 21st century economy that offers this opportunity, an economy where folks can receive the skills and education they need to compete for the jobs of the future, will not happen overnight. But we will build it. Of that, I am both confident and determined.

Chicago loses Olympics bid; conservatives rejoice

President Obama's trip to Copenhagen didn't secure the games, so his opponents are cheering

War Room

It's not often that conservatives celebrate the U.S. losing out to countries like Brazil and Spain, especially not when the loss involves a prominent event like the Summer Olympics. But when the International Olympic Committee eliminated Chicago as a potential host for the 2016 games in the first round of voting on Friday, the right broke out the champagne.

Chicago's attempt to secure the Olympics had become a partisan fight with the entrance of President Obama into his adopted hometown's efforts. Obama had flown to Copenhagen, where the vote was held, in order to lobby for Chicago, and from the moment of the announcement he'd do so, his opponents had suddenly turned into die-hard foes of the idea of having the U.S. play host to the 2016 Summer Olympics. It had been a crusade for the Drudge Report all week, and people like Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin had happily joined in.

So when news of Chicago's loss came in, the response was swift, and joyful. Drudge's banner headline (screenshot above) read, "World rejects Obama: Chicago out in first round. The ego has landed." On the Weekly Standard's blog, John McCormack wrote of the news, "Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters. " (The sentence was later removed from his post.) RedState's Erick Erickson wrote:

Hahahahaha.

I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone.

I thought if we whored ourselves out to our enemies, great things would happen.

Apparently not.

So Obama’s pimped us to every two bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him.

So much for improving America’s standing in the world, Barry O.

A persistent theme in the taunts has been the suggestion that if Obama can't bring home the Olympics, he won't be able to rein in Iran, either. At the Corner, one of the National Review's blogs, John J. Miller wrote, "If he can't work his personal magic with the Olympians, why does he expect it to work with the Iranians?" Miller's colleague Ramesh Ponnuru quipped, "I'm sure that Obama will be a lot more persuasive with the Iranians."

Miller was on a similar wavelength with another poster at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg. At nearly the same time, the two joked that the IOC must be racist for voting Chicago out, mocking claims that opposition to Obama is motivated in part by race. "Frankly I am stunned that all my colleagues can do is score cheap political points against Obama's failed effort to win the Olympics for the United States. Where is the outrage at the IOC's transparent racism?" Goldberg wrote.

There is at least one veteran Republican operative out there asking his ideological allies not to celebrate a U.S. defeat, though. On Twitter, Scott Stanzel, who served as press secretary on President George W. Bush's reelection campaign and as a deputy press secretary in his White House, said, "Note to GOP officials/consultants -- resist the temptation to pile on about Chicago losing the Olympic bid just because Obama made the pitch."

Why Chicago didn't want the Olympics

The city's 2016 bid would have had more support if it benefited everyone, not just Mayor Daley and his cronies
It is now official that the Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro, not Chicago. Read more here.
AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, Pool
Standing in front of a backdrop of the Chicago skyline, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley speaks at a dinner in support Chicago hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009, in Copenhagen.

Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Mayor Richard M. Daley are in Copenhagen Friday morning, trying to persuade the International Olympic Committee that Chicago -- our stormy, husky, brawling, crooked city by the lake -- is the best place on Earth for its quadrennial track meet. No, your marathon runners won't step in a pothole on Lake Shore Drive, caused by a no-bid asphalt contractor. No, the Olympic Stadium won't sell Polish dogs for $14.95. That only happens at the airport. Yes, it's safe to step into an abandoned garage on Valentine's Day -- gangsters with tommy guns went out 80 years ago. Now we have gangbangers who beat people to death with railroad ties.

For the sake of our national pride, let's hope the O-Team gets a better reception than the bid committee president received in my neighborhood over the summer, as part of a ward-by-ward campaign to sell Chicagoans on the Games. In a crowded conference room at a branch library, Lori Healey stood between two husky Paralympians and cued up a glossy promotional video. We saw a computer-generated Olympic stadium. We heard Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin swear that, after her city's 1996 Games, "Educational institutions got stronger, and people got jobs and they expanded their businesses. There is no lose."

We even heard from Obama, who showed up at an Olympic rally during last year's presidential campaign, throwing his arm around a beaming, flushed Mayor Daley.

"Bringing the Olympics to Chicago will be a capstone in the success that we've had in the last couple of decades in transforming Chicago, not only into a great American city, but into a great world city," he promised.

Then we got to ask questions. If a representative from competing city Rio de Janeiro had been in that room, he would have sambaed home with delight.

"I don't find the Atlanta mayor's comments particularly convincing," one young man said. "You would expect that someone who decided to get the Olympics would say it's a good idea. I'm more curious about what community members have to say after the fact."

The room sizzled with applause. A woman who works with the homeless wanted to know how much of the Olympic Village would be converted to affordable housing. Another guy suggested the city could fix the El with the $4.8 billion the Olympics are expected to cost.

"The money being spent is not public money," said a member of the committee.

"We don't believe that," the questioner retorted.

No, we don't. Chicago's Olympic bid has divided the city right down the middle, and brought out the resentment of those who eat at Al's Italian Beef toward those who meet for lunch at Spiaggia. According to a recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll, only 47 percent of Chicagoans favor bringing the Games here, while 45 percent oppose it. On Tuesday, six people were arrested for torching an Olympic banner and hassling workmen trying to hang a giant medal around the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza. A site called Chicagoans for Rio is an Internet hit.

Why are Chicagoans so pissy about an event that will make us the center of world attention for two weeks?

The vote in Copenhagen comes as Daley's popularity is at the lowest point in his 20-year mayoralty. Chicagoans have a remarkable tolerance for public corruption and insider deals, but this year, we finally snapped. The mayor rammed a deal through the City Council to lease the street parking concession to a private firm for $1.1 billion. Parking rates doubled and tripled. The Department of Revenue hired extra meter readers to slap tickets on motorists a minute late in paying. A study by the inspector general showed the city could have earned an extra billion by hanging onto the meters. Chicago also has the highest sales tax of any big city in the nation (10.25 percent), and a network of street-corner cameras is spitting out $100 tickets for rolling right turns on red.

Anti-Olympians are unwilling to bleed even more money for a Games they see as a vanity project to revive Daley's approval ratings, and a boondoggle that will benefit the city's elite, at the expense of ordinary Chicagoans. When the IOC demanded that the city cover all cost overruns, the City Council voted 49-0 to guarantee unlimited public funds. Even though the Council will have oversight over Olympic spending, there's a suspicion that the Olympic Village, the velodrome, the swimming pool, the white-water rafting course, the hurdles and the starting blocks will all be built by the mayor's pals, at inflated prices. That's how Chicago works.

Alderman Richard Mell, best known as Rod Blagojevich's father-in-law, promised that taxpayers would be safe "unless a meteor hits us two days before." Which sounded like Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau's pledge that "the Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby." Montreal spent 30 years paying off $1 billion in Olympic debt.

Obama is risking an international embarrassment in Denmark to help the mayor who backed his presidential campaign. But his friends stand to benefit, too. As Time magazine reported, the 13-member bid committee includes FOBs John Rogers Jr. and Marty Nesbitt, who have supported Obama since he was the long-shot black candidate for the U.S. Senate. And "many of Obama's biggest boosters are heavily invested in the real estate and tourism industry."

Daley is in a Zeus-and-Cronos competition with his father for the title of Chicago's Greatest Mayor. Next year, he'll break the old man's record of 21 1⁄2 years in office. (If Chicago wins the Olympics, he's expected to stay until 2016, at least, so he can wave the Olympic flag and, maybe, light the torch himself.) Richard M. has already made a claim for himself as Boss of All Bosses by putting a Chicagoan in the White House. The Olympics would seal his victory. Richard J. only brought the Pan-American Games here.

To Daley, the Olympics would be Chicago's biggest moment since the Columbian Exposition of 1893, the world's fair that announced Chicago's arrival as a great American city. A Chicago Olympics, opened by a Chicago president, would make us a world-class city, in his mind. Daley could also lay claim to stamping out Chicago's oldest civic complexes: the Second City label (New York didn't get the Olympics), and the specter of Al Capone. Around the U.S., Capone has long ceased being the face of the city. But there are still foreigners who hear the word "Chicago" and think of a pinstriped gangster in a double-breasted suit, carrying a violin case.

Years ago, I met a Latvian sailor in port here. He pointed at the four-star flag on a police car.

"Flag for Illinois?" he asked.

"No. Chicago."

"Chee-cago," he cried. "Gangster movie. Brother 2."

He was referencing a Russian-made gangster flick that is set here and was released just nine years ago yet still includes a character who dresses like Capone. Then he cocked his fingers and made machine-gun noises with his lips, pretending to spray the street. That's international sign language for Chicago.

In the 1990s, Michael Jordan made some headway in changing the city's image. Obama has done even more (foreigners who used to take "gangster tours" now gape at Obama's favorite barber shop), but putting the city on international TV for 16 days would finish the job of showing the world that Chicago has advanced far beyond "The Untouchables" and the St. Valentine's Day massacre.

For that to happen, Obama and Daley will have to do a better sales job on the IOC than they've done on their own hometown. We can't win the Olympics with 47 percent of the vote.

A new swimsuit is ruining swimming! Again!

Michael Phelps lost a major race for the first time in four years. Was his opponent's suit really to blame? Video

Tuesday was not a good day for Michael Phelps. The 2008 U.S. Olympic champion lost a major race for the first time in four years, but he and his coach, Bob Bowman, think they know why: his competitor's suit.

Germany's relatively unknown Paul Biedermann bested Phelps in the 200-meter freestyle, setting a world record of one minute, 42 seconds, that was almost a full second faster than the record Phelps set at last year's Beijing Olympics. Yet, Biedermann's victory has caused a wave of controversy across the swimming world because he was wearing a high-tech, polyurethane, rubber-coated bodysuit called the Arena X-Glide. Phelps, on the other hand, was wearing a Speedo LZR Racer.

Biedermann was quick to acknowledge that his suit played a significant role in his win. "The suits make a difference," he said. "I hope there will be a time when I can beat Michael Phelps without these suits. I hope next year. I hope it's really soon."

But Bowman was irate that FINA, the international body that oversees the sport, allows swimmers to wear a suit that gives them such an unfair advantage over other athletes. Bowman is now considering having Phelps boycott all international races until 2010, when FINA has said the Arena X-Glide and polyurethane suits like it, will be banned. "Probably expect Michael not to swim until they are implemented," Bowman said. "I'm done with this. It has to be implemented immediately. The sport is in shambles right now and they better do something or they're going to lose their guy who fills these seats."

That Bowman and Phelps would react so strongly to a racer using an innovative suit to improve his time is somewhat ironic considering that the full-body Speedo Phelps wears has been said by swimming experts to give swimmers an unfair competitive edge. Swimming records were broken at an unprecedented rate in Beijing and there seems to be a strong correlation between the rapid advances in swimsuit design and faster times.

Swimmers say that suits like the X-Glide and the LZR Racer help an athlete's buoyancy in the water, keeping them higher as they stroke. But a debate about whether new swimsuit technology is ruining competitive swimming has been swirling for over 40 years.

Early Olympic swimmers wore tank-top outfits that resemble today's full-body suits but were not nearly as sleek and aerodynamic. Male swimmers then began to go shirtless when they discovered that shaved skin allowed them to encounter less resistance in the water.

However, the first dramatic swimsuit transformation came in 1974, when tight-fitting Lycra suits were introduced. The same year, female swimmers began to sport suits without skirts in competition.

As records began to fall, swimsuit design continued to progress. At the 1996 Olympics Games in Atlanta, Ga., Speedo put out its "Aquablade" suit, which reduced resistance while covering more of both male and female swimmers' bodies. Seventy-seven percent of the medal winners in Atlanta wore the Aquablade.

Speedo then bettered itself by introducing the Fastskin, which covered even more of a swimmer's body. In 2000, USA Swimming approved the use of full-body suits in races. In 1999 and 2000, Speedo's full-body, sharkskin-like suits caused a stir in the pool as leading coaches warned that it was making it too easy for swimmers to shatter world records. And as evidenced by the X-Glide and LZR Racer, since 2000 suits have only gotten more sleek.

Clearly, the days of Mark Spitz swimming in a simple Speedo without so much as a cap over his hair are long gone.

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