Art and sport

Those of you who are enjoying the Olympics this week were no doubt put out by Christopher Hitchens' invective against the Olympics in particular and sports in general in the current Newsweek magazine.

In his essay, "Fool's Gold," Hitchens theorizes that bad sportsmanship is sportsmanship, that sports breed violence, cheating and other immoral behavior. Say what you what about the iconoclastic Hitchens, who has taken on no less than God and Mother Teresa. (So from that perspective, newly anointed bronze medalist and reforming bad boy Bode Miller would not be that much of a challenge.) But no one does acidic contempt quite so elegantly as he does. (Hitchens, that is.)

Here's a sample of his vituperation:

"I can't count the number of times that I have picked up the newspaper at a time of crisis and found whole swaths of the front page given over either to the already known result of some other dull game or to the moral or criminal depredations of some overpaid steroid swallower."

Hey, when the Yankees win the World Series — a term that Hitchens deems a bloated misnomer — I want whole swaths of the front page trumpeting the news, particularly if the paper is from Boston.

In his Stewie-like hissyfit, Hitchens misses the biathlonic mark: Like art, with which it has much in common, sport is about metaphor. The athlete who plays through her pain or who completes the race in memory of his beloved sister may or may not be the best exemplar of humanity. But he or she offers an example of the very human ability and determination to endure the agon (a Greek word meaning contest). If that example gives me comfort or you courage or someone else a momentary escape from the grind of daily life, well, isn't that something to savor?

Still, I sympathize with Hitchens, who writes with the disenchantment of a nerdy high-school yearbook editor bemoaning the attention paid to the star quarterback and the head cheerleader. When I hear Olympic officials decrying the lack of money for American luge, I say, Where is the money for the arts? When's the last time the "Today" show — which is all over the event like a blanket of fresh snow on Whistler Mountain — interviewed a ballet dancer? How about the American women's hockey player who said there's not much to do at the team's Minnesota training camp except play hockey. Really? Ever heard of picking up a book? What about listening to Mozart? Better yet, what about playing Mozart?

And speaking of Mozart, would it be too much to ask for the figure-skating commentators to announce the piece of classical music the skater is using? (Adam Rippon did a beautiful long program at the U.S. Nationals championship to the Barber Violin Concerto but you wouldn't know it.) More to the point, wouldn't it be better if the jumps were integrated into the choreography the way tours en l'air are in ballet dancing?

Hitchens does have an argument: Too much attention is paid to sports at the expense of subjects that are more serious or at least more important to others.

I wish would could embrace the true spirit of the ancient games, in which the Greeks reveled in art as much as in sport.

And, uh, go Yankees.