Gold Medal Choices NEw 2012

Roughly 20 percent of the U.S. men’s ice. We’re guessing the inspiration might have been the hockey-playing heartthrob played by Ryan O’Neal in Love Story. When I was in second grade, I had figured out two things that the Rubik’s Cube could be easily solved by simply peeling off the colored stickers and reaffixing them onto the correct squares, and that I was destined to roller skate in the Olympics. Granted, there was no artistic roller skating event, but I was confident that if just one member of the International Olympic Committee could see me doing my best Xanadu routine while wearing my new unicorn-embossed roller skates with fuzzy pink pom-poms, he or she would recognize the need to include it in future Olympiads. Being firmly grounded in reality, however, I soon realized that my gold medal dreams would more likely be realized by transferring my exemplary roller skating skills (I could skate backwards and forwards, and when I needed to stop, I’d gracefully dive into the grass) onto the ice. I would become a figure skater–the next Dorothy Hamill–and after a brief stop at the Olympics, I’d join her in the Ice Capades, or better yet, become a cast member of Disney on Ice With my new ice skating obsession, I was naturally fixated on the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, rooting for Rosalynn Sumners as she skated her way to the women’s silver medal, and cheering on Scott Hamilton as he won the men’s figure skating gold. I even stayed glued to the TV long enough to watch other events such as skiing, speed skating, curling (which I affectionately call “shuffleboard on ice”) and bobsledding, which of course inspired me to ride a greased cookie sheet down the hill in front our house and into oncoming traffic. And even though my ice skating dreams quickly melted after I crashed into a wall at my friend Monica’s fourth grade skating party (I never quite grasped the concept of braking), I’ve continued to faithfully view the Winter Olympics on television every four years. But it’s not only the sporting events that I enjoy; I also love to hear the athletes’name Rating the names has actually become a sport in and of itself to me, and if someone from the U.S. isn’t competing in a given event, I, like any reasonable name nerd, simply cheer for the participant with the best name. Likewise, if I notice an athlete with a particularly unfortunate name, I’ll lend my support to him or her. (This year, the dubious honor goes to Lilia Vaygina, a biathlete from the Ukraine.) Thankfully, for the viewing pleasure of name fans in the U.S. and beyond, the field of athletes from the 2010 Winter Olympics contains an impressive assortment of many gold, silver, and bronze medal-worthy