posted on February 17, 2002 10:54:40 AM new
Gets more interesting toward the end of their column:
Calvin and Saal at the Olympics: Valentine's Day
and the Olympics
Thr, Feb 14, 2002
By MARK SAAL
Standard-Examiner Big Time Olympic Specialist
Love is in the air.
And through the snow. And on the ice.
What with it being Valentine"s Day and all, we figured this would be as
good a time as any to talk about a subject that, quite frankly, the more
conservative elements of our Olympic host city would rather not think
about: Namely, where in the world are all of these athletes sleeping?
Now by ""sleeping," we don"t mean the dictionary definition of ""a
natural, regularly recurring condition of rest during which the eyes are
usually closed." Rather, by ""sleeping" we mean, well, you know,
sleeping. (Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.)
This year"s Winter Games have brought in something like 2,500 of the
best physical specimens - both male and female - that 77 countries have
to offer. Many are staying in the Olympic Village at the University of
Utah, with the remainder scattered among the hotels, motels and dorm
rooms along the Wasatch Front. And, with the possible exception of a
couple of the more repressive communist countries, most of these
youngsters are woefully under-chaperoned.
Deb Jenson of Ogden is a volunteer chauffeur based at the village. Of
those quarters, Deb says ""it"s no "Animal House," " but she does admit
that she"s been propositioned a number of times. The Romanian luge
team invited her for dinner and champagne in their room. The Swiss
snowboarders tried to get her to run away to Las Vegas with them.
""Oh, I"m quite popular here, apparently," laughed Deb, who is married
and has a young son. ""This is the best thing ever for my self-esteem."
So then, basically what you have here is a bunch of young people, whose
average age places them smack dab in the middle of their sexual prime,
all converging in what many consider the most fertile region in the world.
And we ain"t talking fruited plains here.
If that"s not a recipe for babies, we don"t know what is.
Surely somebody, somewhere, has done a study of these mini baby
booms that take place every four years. (We say every four years
because this isn"t a problem during the Summer Olympics, where
widespread steroid use has left most of those athletes as impotent as the
beer for which our state has become famous.) One would think the
International Olympic Committee kept statistics on such activities, but
alas, no. And an otherwise impressive Olympic computer database at the
Main Media Center is frustratingly spotty in the knowledge it is able to
impart. For example, it can tell you that the Federation Internationale de
Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing was founded in 1923, but not how many
times the Austrian skiers scored in Nagano.
What we do know is that this would all be much worse if not for the free
condoms.
Against the better judgment of the just-say-cold-showers crowd,
Olympic organizers are providing some 12,000 free condoms for the
athletes during the Games. Which, if you ask us, is a lot of water balloons
to throw out dorm windows. What"s more, we spoke with Clayton
Vetter of Planned Parenthood, who said a consortium of health-related
agencies - including the American Red Cross ("Your Disaster-relief
Dollars at Work" - is providing a whopping 250,000 free condoms for
visitors during the Games.
No word yet on whether the Durex Condoms mascot, described as "a
seven-foot walking prophylactic device" named "Richard" (Wanna take a
stab at what his friends call him?), will be spending any amount of time
here in Utah. But on the bright side, Vetter says Valentine"s Day is the
beginning of the annual National Condom Week. This year"s
honest-to-goodness slogan?
"The World is Coming."
Angry Eagle Forum types should contact Calvin - frankly, Saal just
doesn"t want to hear it - at 625-4272 or
[email protected]
- is providing a whopping 250,000 free condoms for