Have you seen the guy? "Angry Johnny" he ain't. He's the kind of person the word "flamboyance" was created for!

Also, Sally Jenkins does a fair job of the whining "but it's a sport, really it is!" in the Post today, if that's what you want.

Ray and I were watching the pairs competition the other night when the announcer produced this gem: "They started out kind of tight, but the way they worked it out, it really opened up." Classic

I haven't seen this new guy yet, but I have a hard time believing that any amount of flamboyance would stop NBC from running with their pre-set narrative.

I remember back in the day there was a lot of pre-Olympic hype pieces for Brian Boitano that showed him doing things like wearing a leather jacket, sitting on the hood of a T-bird (thinking about smoking, no doubt), and subtly implying that he was only allowed to skate as part of a work-release program.

Then the actual Olympics started and all the guy did besides skate was get handed bouquets of roses by his mom. It's just not a very badass sport, I'm afraid (although I'm sure it's a physically demanding one). Any time "pageantry" counts for part of your score...

"It's just not a very badass sport, I'm afraid..."

...hence Johnny's need to use drug analogies when describing the routines and wearing vintage Soviet attire, tryin' to spice it up a bit.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/13824332.htm

Scott, thanks for that link -- I now like this guy a lot:

"Worse, at least from the point of view of American skating officials, he recently told a reporter that he disliked watching his own sport.

'I still think it's boring,' he said. 'I cannot sit down and watch a competition that I'm not in.'"