It’s been years since I viewed a women’s Olympic figure skating final as closely as I did last night’s train wreck. And I still wasn’t quite sure I knew what I had seen well after it was all over.
Chris said afterward that it’d be like the JFK assassination, with the NBC Sports coverage examined for years like Zapruder footage.
This Slate piece, “I Hope to Never See a Figure Skating Event Like That Again,” gave me the explanation I needed to parse what exactly happened, and why I felt like I needed a shower after watching all that drama. Chris Schleicher provides words for why I pray for those Russian kids — and that’s what they are: mere kids — that their shattered lives will heal from the despair of this whole dismal experience. And why I hope for justice for the adults who exploit them, who chew them up and spit them out like so much tendered meat in satin and spangles.