Jaunted

Olympics

The Cold Shoulder

February 20, 2006 at 11:35 AM | 0 Comments

What if the citizens of a host city of the Olympics ignored the games entirely? In what may be a preview of Paris 2012 (or New York 2016), the Turinese (described as reticent so many times you'd think their mouths were glued shut) don't seem all that happy about hosting the Games.

Olympic Games are meant to be a window into the character of a host nation, and homemade flags and municipal pride rumored to be in relatively short supply in Turin. The mascots are an ice cube and a snowball, after all.

But it's not that the Turinese don't care. It's that no one will be able to do nationalism quite like the Americans in Salt Lake 2002 Other nations don't always show their pride with synchronized dancing and flag-waving. Maybe the understatement in Turin is exactly the kind of national pride the Olympics needs.

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