Word: olga
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...eight necks from four countries. There was enough grace to satisfy balletomanes and enough difficulty to suggest that the laws of gravity ought to be rewritten. Yet there was little of the heartwarming drama that in Olympics past enabled audiences to lose their hearts to a charismatic Olga, a mysterious Nadia or an exuberant Mary Lou. The gymnasts often seemed more like automatons than human beings. Even on the medal stand, Gutsu and her fellow medalists -- Shannon Miller of the U.S. and Romania's Lavinia Milosovici -- conveyed little joy. They seemed to have not so much won as survived...
...head. When their eyes narrow and their faces scrunch up with concentration, audiences go squishy with the adorableness of it all. Sports commentators cooingly label them pixies and tots, then reach for adjectives like huggable, perky, cute. Sort of like puppies. Always they are described as "the next" Olga or Nadia or Mary Lou, as if anyone so small couldn't possibly have standing in her own right...
...course, they are kids. So go ahead and call them Kim and Shannon. Or Henrietta. Or Tatiana. But when one or more of them join the ranks of Nadia, Olga and Mary Lou next week, just remember: they didn't reach those Herculean heights by being Tinker Bells. That's not fairy dust they sprinkle on their hands...
City dwellers get little sympathy out in the provinces. "Muscovites talk about a crisis because they are finally going hungry," contends Yaroslavl Deputy Pushkar. "But this is the way the rest of the country has always lived." Olga Ivanova supplements her meager monthly pension of 205 rubles ($2.28 at the current tourist rate) by selling eggs on a Yaroslavl street corner. She vaguely recalls buying smoked ham in a state-run shop six or seven years ago, but the only meat available now sells for 40 rubles (44 cents) for 2 lbs., or 20% of her income, at the free...
During the night Olga counted as many as 16 warships moored offshore. I asked her what she had seen on the road. She said the road was closed and heavily patrolled by border guards...