The Princess Sweepstakes

A reader writes:

In watching tonight's figure skating competition, you may want to pay some attention to Shizuka Arakawa, who just may steal the gold. Arakawa, Cohen and Slutskaya are in a virtual tie after the short program. Slutskaya is about the jumps and ignores presentation... Arakawa has wonderful grace and a Ina Bauer to die for not to mention a triple/triple/triple combination that will be unveiled tonight. The only thing that may work against Arakawa, despite her "dark horse" spot is the pressure of the Japanese media, who have medaled at all during these games and now these Japanese ladies are the last hope for a medal.

The pressure the Japanese media put on the country's athletes when they compete on the world stage is overwhelming. Japan is an extremely homogenous, conformist, group-oriented and media-drenched country, so everybody gets excited at once about the same things. All the athletes feel the honor of Japan rests on their shoulders -- no Shanni Davises there! -- so they repeatedly collapse under it.

The Japanese finally had a good Summer Olympics in 2004, after a couple of decades of flame-outs, but this winter Olympics has been awful.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer