Olympic Ice Dancing: Outback & Out•Front
“At the Olympics,” the New York Times observes, “figure skating is more exposed to the world than ever in all its tacky, hi-def glory…it’s easy to make fun.” Don’t mind if we do…
In perhaps sport’s worst self-inflicted wound since football’s Plaxico Burress, basketball’s Gilbert Arenas and baseball’s Mark McGwire shot themselves in the foot, wallet and buttocks, respectively, Russian Ice Dance world champions OKSANA DOMNINA and partner Maxim Shabalin “went way over the top” with “a controversial Aboriginal dance,” wrote The Australian newspaper, “that featured red loin cloths, white body paint and leaves around their necks, arms and legs. And the pair still don’t understand what the fuss is about!” After winning Worlds with the routine, protests led the couple to tone down their costumes for the recent Olympics: “I don’t know why it’s offensive,” Maxim maintained, “but we changed it”—though not by much.
Oksana was actually pleased with “all the attention. It showed that we touched something.” Mostly each other…as the live-in lovers performed a Kama Skatra to the Aboriginal music with a series of “erotic lifts” involving positions that looked to all the world that Max was “in the bush“!
“What do you consider erotic?” Oksana purred. “The ISU {International Skating Union} pushed us to do erotic lifts by introducing these new rules. Take the splits for example {make that X•sample}. How can you look ‘decent’ when you’re upside down, with your skirt rolled up?” And your head climbing your man’s Ayers ‘Rock’!
Yet in the previous Olympics, Oksana was more Out•Front than Outback…earning extra points in 2006 with a winning nip slip that showed this year’s bronze medalists should next consider going for the gold in Pairs when the Games convene in their country in 2012 …