A NATION OF OLD MEN:

Russia's Olympic Choke Job: The Russian Olympic machine broke down in Vancouver, leaving Moscow in a state of despair. Michael Idov on the demise of a sporting superpower. (Michael Idov, 2/26/10, Daily Beast)

I'm writing this from a land defeated, angry, hurt, questioning its very self, and ready to erupt in chaotic unrest; in other words, it's Wednesday in Russia. The current drag on the national mood, however, has nothing to do with the Kremlin's empty promises of liberalization or the cratered economy. It's Russia's performance in Vancouver. I had never seen a country take a lackluster showing at a Winter Olympics so dramatically.

To fully feel the depth of the Russian humiliation, you would have to have witnessed the torque of its rev-up. There were the usual signs, of course: Evgeni Plushenko's face hawked a new perfume from bus stops while McDonalds claimed that "By buying a Big Mac, you help the Olympic cause." (Russian ad copy tends to get right to the point.) But then there was the weirder stuff. The prayers for the athletes, the public blessing from the Patriarch. The government-issue billboards along Moscow's roads, addressing the Olympians on behalf of the nation itself: They read, simply, Rodnye vy nashi, an untranslatable expression of histrionic endearment roughly renderable as "Oh You Our Precious Ones."

Then it all came crashing down. A Russian or Soviet pair failed to win the gold in figure skating for the first time since 1964. Plushenko got silver. Skiers choked. Ice dancers introduced a brownface "aboriginal" routine that drew embarrassed giggles (and couldn't help but bring to mind the Russian media's icky habit of referring to the Winter Games as "the White Olympics"). By the fourth day, the pundit conversation was not about whether heads would roll in the Kremlin, but whose in particular.