Well, the Winter Olympics are almost over — with closing ceremonies to air tonight featuring Vladimir Putin’s epic high-tech multimillion-ruble salute to Vladimir Putin.
But first, it will be fascinating to see if host country Russia can prevail in the first-ever Olympic vodkathlon.
I don’t always get super-revved for the Winter Games, but I must confess I am going to miss seeing human beings spin and soar across the ice and snow, their dazzling mid-air maneuvers frozen in slo-mo.
(Additional confessions: I still can’t tell a triple Salchow from a quadruple Gorbachev. And, I secretly want to try that event where you hop on a baby sled and whistle down an ice chute at 1,255 mph. What could go wrong, right? Nothing to luge.)
I’ll also miss those inspiring stories about unlikely Olympians overcoming great obstacles and odds.
You know the ones:
Born with webbed feet, a beak and a flipper for a right arm, this Olympic hopeful refused to let crude taunts about his resemblance to a penguin crush his dream of making the Antarctic curling team.
Born with a club foot, punctured lung and fetal alcohol syndrome, doctors said this one-time Norwegian test-tube baby would never be able to shovel a sidewalk, let alone go for Olympic gold in the men’s skeleton.
Looking back, in my capacity as an amateur Sochi-ologist, these post-Olympic observations come to mind.
Favorite event: The ski jump. You know, back when I used to ski jump … yeah, right. Not a chance, comrade. I’d be too scared to even peek over the edge of the ramp.
Favorite moment: New Hampshire old-timer Bode Miller blazing his way to bronze.
Favorite image: That U.S. bobsledder busting through the bathroom door and sharing it with millions of sports fans on Twitter.
Favorite Photoshop moment: Noticing that funky Grammy winners Daft Punk and world-class Winter Olympians both wore cool helmets, for laughs I created three frames featuring Daft Olympians rocking the halfpipe, the ice rink and the bobsled.
The Moscow Times found my Daft Bobsledders on Twitter and featured them in a post called “Sochi Social: 7 Times Photoshop Made the Olympics Better.”
Now, it is probably a little soon to start thinking about the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Thailand. I mean Brazil.
And there is no such thing as the Spring Olympics (mud long jump, mud javelin, best of luck to the U.S. women’s mud beach volleyball team).
So for now I’ll fall back on one of my favorite Olympic pastimes — dreaming up imaginary new events for future Olympians to test their mettle gunning for gold, silver and bronze.
With a little help from the IOC, I can have these events ready for Rio:
Trampoline Taekwondo — Competitors pummel each other with an acrobatic array of kicks and punches, while springing nearly 30 feet in the air and working in such compulsory and optional moves as the double front somersault with a triple-twisting haymaker.
Synchronized Shot Put — Nimble behemoths heave a 16-pound lead ball identical distances after a precisely choreographed routine of momentum-building gyrations.
Equestrian Pommel Horse — Athletes fling themselves through a whirling series of helicopter-like moves while touching the horse with only their hands. But unlike the stationary pommel horse in men’s gymnastics, this event requires competitors to guide an actual horse through an obstacle course of high fences and water hazards.
Also, potentially on tap for the 2020 Summer Olympics in South Berwick: extreme fencing, the quadruple jump and bareknuckle Greco-Roman taekwondo.
— John Breneman