Adding Insult to Injury

During morning rush hour, I normally listen to the local radio station that plays news, traffic and weather, probably because of my background as a journalist. I like to know what's going on in the world. For example, today the hosts of my favorite news, traffic and weather station were talking about how President Obama has invited Republicans to meet on Thursday, Feb. 25, to discuss the issue of health care live in front of the American public. The Feb. 25 meeting is being called, by many, a "bipartisan health care summit." Bipartisan? Really? We're going to work together? Nah, that feeling we all think we're getting about this upcoming summit is probably just gas; that, or nausea. God, I hope I'm not coming down with something...

Anyway, while I normally listen to news, traffic, and weather in the morning, this morning, after spending more than an hour in the commute from hell--a 15-mile swath of interstate that this morning was so ridiculously jammed with traffic that I actually sat completely motionless in my car for more than a few minutes--I decided to try something different. I gently pressed the preset button on my radio to listen to the station that I normally reserve for my afternoon drive home.

The radio show host and his lackeys were talking about snowboarder Shaun White's $1 million halfpipe in Silverton, Colo., on which he trained for the 2010 Olympics. Frankly, I had almost tuned out the banter until they started discussing whether or not skier Lindsey Vonn had faked her shin injury. This is the same Lindsey Vonn who is the most successful female skier in World Cup History, with 31 World Cup wins under her belt.

"I don’t know Lindsey Vonn and certainly don’t have anything against her," writes Michael Rizzo in Rizzo Sports Weekly. "I’m also not a professional sports writer. "I will say sports writers are hardly known for their ahead of the curve investigative journalism, (see Steroids/HGH in Baseball/Football), however I do work in the PR / marketing world.

"This Lindsey Vonn injury on paper looks like a classic example of down playing out of control hype. As I mentioned in this commentary no American is as appealing or has received half as much pre-Olympic hype as Vonn. She is the Michael Phelps of the Winter Games, and as the hype is only growing."

That's odd. I was thinking White and speed skater Apolo Ohno had more pre-Olympic hype than Vonn.

I guess the long and short of my opinion on whether or not Vonn faked her shin injury is this: 1) Even if she was faking, what difference would it make, with the exception of perhaps lessening the public's expectations of her, thereby lessening the pressure on her to medal in an event? and 2) Who cares?

The radio show host droned on. "A lot of people think she faked it so she could get more attention," he said.

Look, Vonn's won a bronze in super-G and she took the gold in the downhill. Why can't those of us who are cheering on the U.S. just be happy for her and for Team U.S.A.'s overall Olympic achievements and go on about our business?