Hats off to thrills of Turin

TURIN, Italy — Shiny on top. Ugly underneath.

Nobody should have been too surprised at that legacy for the Winter Olympics of Turin, a city heretofore known mostly for cranking out cars.

Italy's third Olympic Games, word is, never quite caught on in the States. Don't blame viewers: They couldn't figure out, night to night, which Olympics were on.

Chrome side, dirty side?

One night: Bickering long-track skaters Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis embarrassing themselves in a news conference. Next night: Transcending short-track skater Apolo Anton Ohno lighting up the Olympics with a gold medal, the fifth medal of his career.

The Turin Olympics — which wound up in grand style Sunday night with a fun-loving closing ceremony that included dancing tarot cards, a Paganini dream sequence and Avril Lavigne in Jan Brady go-go boots — were a tale of two Games.

They were the Games of unmitigated selfishness and incredible generosity: While Hedrick and Davis openly feuded about, ironically, team spirit, a lesser-known teammate, closing ceremony flag-bearer Joey Cheek, donated the $40,000 cash prize for his two medals to a children's charity.

They were the Games of open hostility and aw-shucks camaraderie: Italian ice dancer Barbara Fusar Poli's icy glare of death at her partner, who dumped her on the ice in the Palavela, will go down as an all-time Olympic cringe. A week later, on that same spot on the ice, a beaming and grateful Ohno embraced his supposedly hostile South Korean opponents after winning one of his three Turin medals.

For every thermonuclear Olympic bust — Bode Miller's 0-for-5 performance on the slopes and classless boozing off them — there was a heart-warming boom, such as Julia Mancuso's breakthrough victory in the women's slalom, or Redmond racer Scott Macartney's steady results that didn't win medals but will forever live in his memory.

They were the Games of fallen heroes and inspiring newcomers: The face of the Games for America, figure skater Michelle Kwan, never took the ice. Her heir apparent, sprightly Sasha Cohen, salvaged a free-skate fall to cling by fingernails to a silver medal as Shizuka Arakawa skated gracefully to Japan's first women's gold.

When it all ended Sunday night, Italy did just that, putting on its decidedly mixed-verdict Games a decidedly Italian stamp. Turin's closing — at times comical, at times lyrical, constantly entertaining — was a highlight precisely because it felt exactly how the Games themselves really have not: uniquely Italian.

Some of the moments will live long in the Olympic memory:

Italian cross-country skier Giorgio Di Centa, winner of the Games' final event, the 50-kilometer freestyle mass start, was awarded his medal in front of a sea of fans waving the red, white and green colors of Italy. As his flag was raised below the lighted rings at one end of the Olympic Stadium, the chorus of 35,000 souls singing the rousing Italian national anthem, "Inno di Mameli," was magnificent.

A choir of 300 children dressed as angels, singing "Va' pensiero" as the Olympic flag made its exit, created a moment of pure, simple beauty.

But even the happy ceremony had a couple jarring yings to its overall seamless yang.

A naked woman was nabbed by security guards and ushered, slowly and deliberately, out of the stadium after streaking across the infield as the festivities began. And an unidentified rabble-rouser ran all the way onto the stage and added a few impromptu lines to the speech of Valentino Castellani, president of the Turin Organizing Committee, who rambled on, unfazed.

He and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge called the Turin Games "marvelous," as is the custom at these things. And, at times, they were.

They ran smoothly. But for athletes and people on the scene, they never achieved the intimacy or that elusive Olympic "magic" spawned by other Games, even the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

It is a hard thing to quantify. But aside from medal celebrations at Piazza Castello, particularly when an Italian such as luge master Armin Zoeggeler won a gold medal, you never got the feeling that the people of Turin were much more in spirit with the happenings around them than they would have been for, say, a large trade convention.

Ticket sales were strong, but seats often sat empty anyway, robbing some of the intimacy and charm of other Games.

Part of this is an inevitable byproduct of hosting a Winter Games in a sprawling city with far-flung alpine venues. Turin, a city of 900,000 trying to shed its industrial image and foster tourism, is the largest ever to hold a Winter Olympics, until Vancouver, B.C.'s 1.4 million residents host the next Games, in 2010.

Vancouver's mayor, Sam Sullivan, stole a bit of Turin's show himself Sunday night, accepting the Olympic flag from the mayor of Turin and spinning his wheelchair around to make the white flag fly in the cold night air.

But even the eager beavers from Canada fell prey to the Turin Games' nasty-side jinx. They chose an opera singer, Ben Heppner, to march into Italy, the home of Pavarotti, and sing "O, Canada" — which, sorry, is sort of like going to France and bringing your own rude guy.

Expect no shame from Canada, however. Maple Leaf nation, already in full-on medal-hording mode for its Games in Vancouver and Whistler, snared 24 of the ring-shaped medals here — by far their most ever.

The United States fared even better, notching its second-best Winter Games effort. America's 25 medals exceeded every Winter Games except for the 34-medal home-turf performance in Salt Lake City.

Still, high-profile failures by the U.S. alpine team, in particular — and low-class behavior away from competition by athletes such as Miller — left an overall sour taste to many fans in the States.

With the Turin Games in the record books, U.S. Olympic Committee officials find themselves in the odd position: They're flying home from Italy with a medal count that shines — but enough public-image dirt piled on top to require years of shoveling.

It's only fitting. The Turin Games lived up to their slogan: "Passion lives here." But Olympic passion, we now know all too well, cuts both ways.

It might be a case of being careful what you ask for.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com