Posted on 02/20/2010 7:37:58 AM PST by tellw
'Oh, Say, Can You See, by the...Um...Help!'
They can ski down steep slopes at lightning speeds, perform quad spins on ice and do backflips on halfpipes, so how's this for a new, novel Olympic challenge: Singing your country's national anthem on the medal stand.
A scant 21.2% of gold-medal winners in these Games actually sang their entire national anthem, with an additional 18.2% mustering bits and pieces while mumbling or entirely missing other parts, according to a Wall Street Journal study of 33 winners through Thursday's events.
Six Americans were part of this assessment and only one, snowboarder Seth Wescott, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at all (though he stumbled over the lyrics a couple times). Another American snowboarder, Shaun White, didn't sing at allhe was busy pointing to the crowd, pumping his fists and playing the air guitar. This shouldn't be surprising: A 2004 Harris Poll survey of 2,200 Americans showed 61% didn't know all the words to the national anthem.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Alex Bilodeau is French (Quebec) and the anthem playing was in English. I watched some of his interviews, he has some trouble speaking english, I don’t think you can prosecute him for that. I watched and I saw his lips moving.
I’m Canadian and I don’t know the French version of the anthem :)
“Copying Obama?”
.......you read my mind...lol.
I don’t mind if they don’t sign but one I saw yesterday stood their with his hands covering his crotch instead of over his heart. I do not like the Obama salute being used!
LOL. That’s great. Obama should have been at that table.
At least nobody has put on a black glove, bowed their head and raised their fist.
I guess the Commie teachers that we entrust to indoctrinate our children aren’t teaching them the national anthem.
I am speaking of custom, not official regulations.
Do you recall the picture of Hitlery, Richardson, an unidentified woman, and Obamao on the stage. When the national anthem is played everyone has their hand on their heart but the maoist.
Did you applaud O for not putting his hand on his heart?
I could carry that tune perfectly, every line of all four complete verses, if I printed it out and put it in a bucket.
I totally agree with you. Cut these athletes some slack.
As for Shaun White, I’ve met the kid, a few times. We used to watch him ride in Big Bear, just stunned and impressed with this kid who was so much better than we were. I can’t explain what he was thinking while he was on the podium but he’s a good guy. He’s so driven, fun-loving, and positive...and a perfectionist. He was immensely proud and humbled to represent the US in Torino in 2006 and I can only imagine he’s equally as proud and humbled to be in Vancouver. He had an incredible amount of pressure on him this time around to win it all. The national identity of snowboarding rests on the shoulders of this 23 year old, a responsibility he’s had for a few years now. Maybe we can cut him a little tiny bit of slack for enjoying himself and just being Shaun on the podium.
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