BEIJING. At the Olympic Village here it is a common sight to see athletes conversing with journalists as the media fuels, then satisfies, worldwide demand for sports among fans whose favorite professional football teams have been eliminated from contention. “I ordinarily couldn’t give a rat’s ass about figure skating,” says Andy Brandnewjetski of Cheektowaga, New York, “but now that the Bills are out of it I gotta watch something if I want to avoid exercise.”
But one American competitor–Alison McBride–sits off by herself, an island of solitude in a swarming sea of microphones and cameras. “It’s not that she’s standoffish,” says her mother Julia. “She’s very outgoing and photogenic, so I don’t know what the problem is, the folks back home in Wellesley would love to see and hear more about her.”
Alison’s problem, the international media pool agrees, is that she hasn’t triumphed over adversity, which puts her at a disadvantage compared to, say, figure skater Cheryl Kern who overcame a speech impediment to become a top-ranked downhill skier, or bobsledder Quan Yang, who was raised on a diet that most Americans would expect to see in a pet store, not on the dinner table. “It’s not my fault I grew up in comfortable circumstances, surrounded by a family who loved me,” McBride says. “I guess the worst thing that ever happened to me was a zit on my forehead right before senior prom.”
McBride’s event is the freestyle luge, and she competes on a dormitory cafeteria tray to increase the chances that she’ll be noticed by somebody–anybody–before the games end February 20th. “This is how I learned, with very rudimentary equipment, unlike the expensive equipment everybody else will use,” she says wistfully as looks out at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre where her event will take place. “I think I ought to get a few disadvantage points for that.”