Since the world focused on the Men’s Figuring Skating finals last Thursday, it seems like everyone else has gone batsh-t crazy. The US beat Canada in hockey (what?), snowboarders are acting like perverts – with photographic evidence – and the ice dancers decided to release whatever dumb sketchy “we shouldn’t do this because might be considered racist” inhibitions they ever had. Oh, yes. There was blackface (sort of). And Vancouver liquor stores had to close down early to avoid a drunken, maple-soaked riot after Canada lost in hockey. NOOO!!!
First up, Scott Lago (above). Lago won the bronze in men’s snowboarding, and he decided to celebrate at some party with random ladies. During the course of the party, Lago showed the girls his medal… and by that I mean “girls were photographed on their knees with their mouths on Lago’s medal-clad groin” (Photos here). I think he had one girl suck on his medal too. Anyway, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) was not pleased, but they didn’t take away Lago’s medal. Instead, they just made him leave town. It’s like a country-western song.
Now, for the ice dancers. Honestly, there’s so much general weirdness and inappropriateness, it’s hard to choose which of the ice dancers to bash. As Gawker summed up, “last night’s competition saw Russians in loincloths, Germans in grass skirts, and Frenchmen and Scots dressed like cowboys. Though occasionally culturally insensitive, the main offense was to taste.” But there were some over-the-top stand-outs, namely the Russian duo Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin. Apparently, when they first performed at this “Aboriginal” dance at the European competition last month, they actually wore blackface. But I guess someone told them that it was offensive, so they changed that one little thing, and nothing else.
Here’s a photo of Domnina and Shabalin during the European competition in January:
And at the Olympics:
So… yeah. Australian Aboriginal leaders are still pissed.
Meanwhile, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s Bollywood-inspired dance received rave reviews. Although, to my eyes, it looks like Meryl’s in whiteface, right?
And for the icing on the sketchy cake, it seems gold-medal winning figure skater Evan Lysacek and gymnast Nastia Liukin are dating. He’s straight?!?
ah… scotty lago is awesome.
So…uh, where’s the “black face”? I see people with self tanner, I do not see people looking like Al Jolson.
The King of Bronzer and hair product is straight. Mmmmmmm Hmmmmmmm.
Evan and Nastia make a very good looking couple.
Oh and the girl who was sucking on Scotty’s medal should feel like a total ass, as should Scotty for this obvious lack of judgement and good taste (no pun intended, lol). I bet there was alcohol involved.
At least he gets to keep his medal even if he got banished and will miss the closing ceremony.
LMAO@: ‘And Vancouver liquor stores had to close down early to avoid a drunken, maple-soaked riot after Canada lost in hockey. NOOO!!!’
the IOC sent him home for those pics? jesus they really have NO sense of humor. that’s well within the bounds of what winners should be allowed to do with their medal. since when are there rules around treatment/conduct of the medal?
Scotty was an idiot kid having a drunkengood time, but he should not have been banished. Whiteface? No she is just that pale. As far as Evan not being or being gay… Who cares,they look like a cute couple.
Technically, it was the US Olympic authorities who demanded he go home. And I agree that once you’ve won that medal it’s yours. You should be allowed to pose however you like with it. It was still a stupid move, but he kind of earned a night of partying, don’t you think?
Big deal. Look at the rest of our sports figures. Many of them are scummier than this guy.
Finally the Olympics got interesting!
Chastising a snowboarder for juvenile behavior is like beating a puppy for making a puddle.
Why would anyone want to bite/lick/whatever to a bronze medal? I mean it can’t taste good, its not like it has chocolate inside or something! (a la the St. Olaf’s Woman of the Year Award, natch)
While the costumes were silly, Oksana totally rocked the crimped hair middle of the top of the head 80’s ponytail. I tried to do the same, but my hair is too short and my Mom said she probably just did it for the competetion so he could grab onto it and spin her around or something (wasn’t paying much attention to my Mother at that point), but oh no, she is SERIOUS about her ponytail, she fluffed it up and re-secured it while waiting for their score!
black face? they look like every other hollywood wanta be’s – overly orange and barely dressed.
Oksana looks like a cracked-out Pebbles Flintstone. Poor Maxim’s costume looked like a french-tickler condom that was two sizes too big. Most of the routines last night were so over-the-top I can’t wait to see what they pull off next. God I love the Olympics!
They don’t look like they’re in blackface in that first pic so much as they look like Lindsay Lohan. Every other upper-class person in Moscow looks like they’ve been painted with EZ Tan.
Try to do anything “cultural” and you will piss some people off. How about that goofy Italian guy in the Lil’ Abner overalls skating to blues harmonica? I wish I’d been watching that with my friend from Appalachia.
Maybe it’s my fever addled brain with my cold and strep, but they look like gingerbread men to me. Mmmmmmmm-yum.
Blackface would’ve been much, much darker with large painted white or red lips. This isn’t blackface. For some reason, the people who write for this site can never tell the difference between blackface and just painting yourself brown.
Also, it’s strange that their Olympics costume would actually look worse than the other one they wore.
And no way is Evan Lysacek straight. He’s either gay or bi.
Didn’t realize prudes were running the show at the Olympics. Whatev.
As for the kerfluffle over the costumes, gimmie a break, it looks like a parody of Fern Gully and Roller Boogie on ice.
I see a beard. Gay figure skaters never do as well as their “straight identified” counterparts.
I read elsewhere that Lago decided to leave? Who knows. It was stupid, but not the end of the world.
I thought most of the ice dancing was ridiculous, but I really enjoyed the Canadian team and the US team that did the India theme. That aboriginal routine was pretty bad. I much prefer figure skating to the dancing.
gatsbygal: you are exactly right. there is a difference between painting yourself darker, and “doing blackface” and for some reason the distinction doesnt get made here. I also think its a weird context to try and apply it to aboriginals in australia when it has a very specific socio-historic context which is not aboriginal.
It sure looked like Meryl Davis had her bitchface on last night. Or maybe it’s every night. Girl needs to relax.
Lago was not banished, kicked out, told to leave or sent home. He volunteered to go. Which sounds like he thought he had some damage control to do.
Nonetheless, treating an Olympic medal that way was classless. And it has nothing to do with having “sense of humor”.
Not only did those skaters take off their “brown face” but they also changed the top of their costumes. Seems the Aussie Aboriginals were offended by the symbols on the back so the skaters changed to stripes. They still looked ridiculous and should be ashamed of themselves on general principle!! I can’t believe their scores were so high. Doesn’t matter. Ice dancing is so ridiculous.
I wish people would stop calling Evan “gay” just because he’s a figure skaters. Not all male skaters are gay. There are some with wives and children. Leave the guy alone. None of you know him.
When the Russians were first told that their routine and costumes were not accurate to Australian aborigines, they lied and said “Oh, we weren’t trying to be Australian aborigines, just any random culture of aborigine.” Then they were told it is a rule that they had to be specific to a nation, and they changed their story again.
The worst thing about the routine was the ridiculous expressions on their faces. Combining that with the pathetic flailing routine, they appear to be mocking Aborigines. That offended everyone.
Also, the costumes are just some random stuff they pulled out of their a**. They are not in any way representative of Aborigines.
What sealed the obnoxious deal for me was when the guy started pulling the chick around by her ponytail. ‘Cause that’s an Aboriginal thing. Right. Just like tucking fake leaves into their shoes and kneepads.
And their routine sucked compared to everyone else’s. It’s ridiculous what kind of pass the judges seem to always give the Russians.
The ice dancers sucked, regardless of the controversy and Lago hasn’t done anything any other drunken dude hasn’t done before (just with an olympic medal in this case), give him a break. His problem is he got caught doing that AT the olympics instead of waiting until afterwards like Michael Phelps and the bong. At least Lago was just stupid where Phelps lost some of my respect with the whole drug issue.
they look like gingerbread cookies
I live in Australia and spoke to the Aborigionals I know and am friends with and most of them couldn’t give a toss if these people dress up because those ceremony’s, etc mean nothing to them; they’re just normal people who happen to be Aborigional. I hate it when people make out like a group is uniformly in agreement on a matter. I’m sure some, maybe even many Aborigionals are offended but to try and paint a group as having a hive mind is stupid and annoyingly the media always does it.
the Indian ice dancers are a huge youtube hit-in India. the routine uses authentic choreography and the costume looks like it’s made from real sari.
the Russians were caricatures. the Aussies were offended by the performance of the Russian team and asked them to get rid of the costume.
doesn’t seem like the same thing at all
Vancouver (specifically VANOC) has been absolutely ridiculous about the Olympics. Closing down the liquor stores is just the most recent bout of b.s. They’ve closed down businesses / made them change their names because they are Olympic-related (one pizza joint had been there since the 60s).
From what I understand it’s because people (GASP) had open liquor downtown. I understand it’s against the law, but when you’re invited the world to come play, you need to consider the fact that many of those countries allow drinking in public. Not to mention who is going to compensate the businesses that were closed? And what about the people who live in downtown Van and now have to travel through the insane crowds to get their wine / beer.
It pisses me off! In case you hadn’t noticed, haha.
All of this is just too funny, but “Nastia”? Seriously, who would name their kid that.
Why on earth would they take his medal away? He EARNED THAT. Fair and square. What he does in his off time is his business and not the committees. And for the people who say it makes the olympics look bad by doing that, the committee and judges and people WORKING for the olympics have done much worse than this guy. Bribing scandal of 2002, anyone?
To take away or want to take away someones medal after they earned it just shows what idiots they are.
And blackface? Please. That’s not blackface in the least.
People are just stupid, and it sure as hell arent the athletes here.
They might not be in blackface, but that shit is offensive. They look absolutely ridiculous. Either they did no research on Aborigines, or… yeah, that’s all I’ve got. If I hadn’t been told they were supposed to be Aboriginal, I wouldn’t have picked it.
I very much like that chick’s Indian costume though.
MsTriste – A Russian would, obviously. They speak Russian. If the word “nasty” means anything to them in that language, it doesn’t mean the same thing it does over here. Jeez, be a little more worldly, will ya.
Truth be told, Domnina and Shabalin, the Russians, just turned that Bronze into Copper. They didn’t deserve the win. They were laughable. They were stupid. They showed immensely poor judgement. They are not sophisticated. They’re juvenile. They weren’t as good as at least THREE other hugely SUPERIOR contenders for bronze, and they owe this–I won’t say “their”– medal to a few lying, cheating and stealing bums, who finagled their way to the panel of judges. We’re all cheated from what should be an exhilarating moment on the podium, when dishonest judges push through their own agenda, despite TRUE MERIT. Wanna know who those cheap sluts are? Read on:
Alla Shekhovtsova, the wife of Valentin Piseev, who is President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation!!!!!!!; Irina Nechkina, a Russian who judges for Azerbaijan. (There is no Azerbiajan team competing at the Olympics. Nechkina was dropped off the Olympic dance panel at the Turin Olympics and demoted after her fourth negative assessment in four years!!) Nechkina lives in St. Petersburg and was a judge for the former Soviet Union. A Ukrainian official, Ludmila Mikhailovskaya, used to be a member of the ISU’s ice dancing technical committee, but was voted off at a Congress because of inadequate contributions and poor ability to speak English.
What a calamity. Who’s in charge of this fiasco? The Russian Mafia???? Joe Public would be a better judge than these bitches!!!! We should demand a formal Olympic committee be set up for a recount!!!!! Let a few good experts count the technical merits of all contestants including group 1!!! I think a nineteen year old would steal the bronze, and RIGHTEOUSLY.
Minimally we should disallow this unprofessionalism to foul the Olympics in the future, or turn off our sets during figure skating. I am so sick of this corruption and foul play.
Drown in your hate, guys!