with chipmunk cheeks, and they were all just a teeny bit
interchangeable, like those Hilary/Lindsay/Amanda teen starlets.
But why were they all wearing a thousand clunky barrettes,
gallons of blue eye shadow, and disco glitter in their hair? Did
someone open a big purse and shake it over their heads? Or
before each event, did they just spray themselves with glue and
roll on the floor of a subway?
"The gymnasts also faced a great, villainous rival worthy of a
silent film: the towering, starved Russian, 25-year-old Svetlana
Khorkina. Khorkina always blamed her failures on international
prejudice or deliberate sabotage: She was like Isabella
Rossellini or Charlotte Rampling scoffing at the bouncy cast of a
Disney flick about suburban cheerleaders. Khorkina dared to be a
grandly sore loser, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or 101
Dalmatians, and I kept waiting for her to light up a cigarette
while she was on the parallel bars."
- Libby Gelman-Waxner, discussing the Olympics in "Premiere"
magazine, November 2004
Submitted by: joel k. thomas
Dec. 16, 2004
