THE LAST STRAW: Checking a story this week about swimmers from Moldova being refused visas to compete here, Frank McNally came across a helpful website from the former Soviet republic. Written in English, more or less, the site records major moments in the country's sporting history. These range from the successes of the 1970s, when Moldovan cyclists "get victorious" in the world championships, to an unfortunate incident in 1996, when two canoeists "are silver-meddled" in Atlanta.
No further details are given about the latter event - who did the meddling, or whether charges were ever pressed. But, on the face of it, there are sinister comparisons with the controversy at the Winter Olympics on Monday, when the Canadian pairs skating team were badly meddled by the judges.
In case you missed it, the nine-member panel - which, like the US Supreme Court, has an inbuilt conservative majority - voted 5-4 to award the gold to a Russian pair, rather than the Canadians, whose exuberantly romantic performance wowed everyone else. The Russians' programme was classical, whereas the Canadians' was based on the film Love Story (apart from a surprise twist in which the female lead is still alive at the end). While the Canadians got better technical marks, the Russians scored higher on artistic merit, which, apparently, counts extra in a tie.
The result should have been no surprise - Russia has held the Olympic pairs skating title almost as long as it held Moldova. But the decision scandalised the skating world in a way not seen since 1994, when America's sweetheart Nancy Kerrigan was the victim of an attack with an iron bar (known in skating as a "double axle"), planned by her rival Tonya Harding. The incident ended in court, where Harding got low marks from the US judge, but escaped with a fine and community service.
It is possible that the Canadians' romantic programme was undermined by the country's image. When you think Canada and romance, you think Leonard Cohen's tortured soul (why doesn't Amnesty International get involved?). Or, on a lighter note, you think of the film Titanic, which features another Canadian romantic, Celine Dion, on the soundtrack. Few people will forget that movie's tragic climax when passengers, knowing the theme song is now inevitable, throw themselves off the ship.
By contrast, Russia wrote the book on romance (Dr Zhivago), and it could write another about the pair who won gold. The female half survived an incident in 1996 during which, "practising side-by-side camel spins" with her then partner, she was struck on the head by his blade, which pierced her skull. Her current partner rushed to her hospital bedside, one thing led to another, and soon they were doing camel spins back at her place.
Then the build-up to this Olympics was marred when her blade sliced his forearm during training. But, as the Canadians could tell them, love means never having to say you're sorry, even (in this case) for 12 stitches. So while one sympathises with the Canadians, nobody would begrudge the Russians the win. Pairs skaters go through a lot together, which is why it's the only sport other than rugby in which it's acceptable to grab a team-mate by the crotch.
IT'S just unfortunate that it takes controversies to attract TV audiences to skating. And yet there are obvious ways that the competitions could be spiced up. Pairs skating already trades on the idea of romance between the partners; I believe they should go a step further and introduce a threesomes event. You'd still have a couple, as now, but there'd also be a third person who keeps getting between them. The first man would throw the woman 15 feet in the air, for example, and the second man would push him out of the way and (hopefully) catch her. It'd be dangerous, but I know I'd want to watch.
The fact is, they're already tampering with the games' format to attract young audiences. Take snowboarding, which was granted Olympic status only four years ago, and is contested by a group of people known as "morons" . This week's halfpipe competition was a Pepsi ad gone mad, as competitors - using soundtracks closer to Spinal Tap than Love Story - outdid each other in aerial manoeuvres, the best of which are described by admirers as "sick".
Snowboarding has a language all its own. The bronze medal winner (aged 20) said afterwards it was "one of the funnest days of my life"; while the silver medallist (19) described his achievement as "downright radical". Both were from the US, as was their friend, 23-year-old veteran Ross Powers, whose performance was judged sickest of all, and who said that, while he wasn't "dissing on" the other countries, the Americans' clean sweep was "huge".
No doubt he'd agree with the Moldovans on one thing, though. It's not the winning that matters, it's the getting victorious that counts.