Tooting For Gold

It was just last night I said I wish the Olympics would hurry up and get here. For one reason only, really. You see, it's rather hard coming up with the Betland's Olympic Update when there are no Olympics going on.

By my estimation, the next Olympics will be in 2008. In Beijing. If there's still a Beijing in 2008. And it's shaping up to a be a real nail-biter, competition-wise. Not in track and field, or gymnastics, or swimming. Or even equestrian or volleyball, as far as I know.

The real barn-burner will be the Olympic Clarinet Competition.

I didn't realize how close all the teams had gotten. I mean, sure, in the early days of sanctioned Olympic Clarinet, the British ruled The Games. Then there was a period where those spiky French took over. Lately, though, the undisputed and unbeatable team are the Italians. I thought this was still the case, anyway. Until a conversation a few weeks ago with Mr M. See, Mr M follows Olympic Clarinet Competition with a vengeance. And according to him, the Clarinet World seems to have achieved a sort of parity.

Now for those of you who don't know your Olympic Clarinet, let me give you a little background. Background courtesy of the International Olympic Clarinet Playing Association.

The IOCPA rules are easy to follow.

* Both team and individual medals are awarded.
* Teams may consist of both male and female competitors - there is no gender-specific competition.
* Olympic competition begins with the preliminary round. This round consists of scales, picked at random by judges, and an etude, also randomly picked by judges, that every participant must play. A new piece, written especially for the meet, will also be given to competitors who will play the piece by sightreading. [Imagine the horror of the Brazilians in 1988 when one of their own was disqualified for peeking.]
* After the preliminary round, the clarinetists with the top 12 scores will advance to the competition round. The competition round consists of five disciplines: unaccompanied prepared piece, accompanied prepared piece (by one or more non-clarinet instruments of the competitor's choosing), a modern prepared piece (written after 1900), a traditional prepared piece (written before 1900), and freestyle. Both the modern and traditional pieces may be played accompanied or solo, but the player must rely only on skill and interpretation. The freestyle competition encompasses all a player has to offer, and can include improvisation, original compositions, swaying, footwork, and/or vocal stylings (a hearty, "Yeah!" to end the piece).
* At the end of all five competition disciplines the top three scoring players will be awarded the gold, silver, and bronze medals in the Olympic Clarinet All-Around Competition.
* The top eight scoring players in each individual discipline will also re-compete to be awararded gold, silver, and bronze medals in each of those five disciplines.
* Gold, silver, and bronze medals will also be awarded in the disciplines of clarinet duet and clarinet quartet.
* Scores from each player in each preliminary and competition round will be added to determine the gold, silver, and bronze medals in the Olympic Clarinet Team Competition.
* All clarinets will be inspected before and after every competitor's performance to ensure the horn has not been tampered with. The IOCPA will tolerate no illegal equipment.­°
(° - see, "IOCPA vs. Brymer, 1956," or "The Cork Grease Incident.")

See? Easy.

Now, Mr M has a heatlhy disappointment this year for the United States Clarinet Team. He knows the team quite well, because for a short time he was their equipment manager. He said it got to be too much work, travel, and hassle, and frankly, he didn't like putting up with all the primadonna behavior. I personally, while I can't vouch for their behavior, have a lot of faith in the Home Team. They're coached this time around by Hymie Voxman, and include captain Ricardo Montalban - no, wait, that's Ricardo Morales, I get them mixed up every time - Sean Osborn, Eli Eban (on the "klezmer" team, he does well in freestyle), Mozart specialist Charles Neidich, and Richard Stoltzman. Stoltzman takes the place of recently retired (due to me, no doubt) Larry Combs.

The French usually look pretty good around Olympics time, and this year they are captained by the very Phillipe "Two Door" Cuper, and have Bruno Martinez along for the ride as well. However, unless they do some personnel changing before 2008 they'll sink like a stone, because they also have the disadvantage of player-coach Guy "Oui Oui" DePlus. I've never been a fan of the player-coach system myself, and DePlus is way past his sell-by date. Believe me. I heard him play last year.

Britian's fielding a strong team lately, with Colin "Lungs" Bradbury coming out of retirement to captain the team. Emma Johnson, Roger "The Heat" Heaton, and David "Large Bore" Campbell round out the team. They generally do quite well in the traditional category (Grainger and Vaughan Williams), but I'm not sure they have what it takes to finish strongly, especially in the freestyle.

And you can never count out Spain, with Sr Pedro Rubio and Oskar Espina Ruiz, or those pesky Czechs, led by Milko "Pee Wee" Pravdic and with the weight of the mighty Prague Clarinet Quartet behind them. It should be interesting to see how the Spaniards do as the months progress - rumor has it Sr Rubio has been testing out a ligature that borders on illegal equipment. Something about the number of screws, but it's all very hush-hush, so I'm only hearing bits and pieces on the grapevine.

Mr M is putting all his money on Chile come 2008, and I hope you'll all offer him a place to live afterwards, when he's penniless. Chile has only one team member cemented, and that's his hero, Luis "Something Came Off My Horn" Rossi. See, Mr M thinks that just because Rossi makes the best horn in the business that he plays the best. Well, that may or may not be, but unless some humble Chileans step up to the plate soon, a Chile Team Gold Medal is just not in the offing. And I'm not so sure about Sr Rossi's chances in the All-Around Competition either, because for the past few months he's been playing hurt. He pulled a muscle in his upper lip. Mr M assures me he's well on the mend now and back in practice, but, I mean really. The upper lip. That's the rotator cuff of clarinet players. I'm scratching Chile right off my list of favorites, although my newest border (and former Rossi employee) Che Guellama has been waving his "¡Team Chile!" pennant a lot lately.

For my money, the Team to beat is of course the Italians. I personally feel they've still got it. I mean, they're captained by Alessandro Carbonare, for cryin' out loud! Only the premiere clarinetist in the free fucking world, come on. And as if that weren't enough, they've also got expert reedsman Sergio "Rudolf Valentino" Bosi as co-captain, and Paolo Ravaglia in there as well. At the time of this writing, the Italians are unbeaten in competition this year. Yes, a whopping 12-0 record, which would not only give them a BCS Bowl in College Football and possibly a national championship, but it's also a formidable record in Olympic Clarinetting as well. There's no doubt in my mind of Alessandro winning the All-Around Competition. He'll be the one all the others shall set their sites upon. And it certainly won't hurt if there's a large female contingent in the Olympic Audience. All that screaming and swooning is going to help sway the judges Alessandro's way, and he'll be atop the podium, gold medal around his (very luscious) neck.

I feel the only team with a real chance, albeit an outside one, to beat the Italians are the Venezuelans. They've only lost twice this year, both times to the Italians. That may give them an edge in motivation, but motivation has to be paired with sheer clarinetular muscle. I'm not so much worried about their individual performers, though Alcides Rodriquez and Jorge "The Monster" Montilla are quite good, but they have a very special card up their Venezuelan sleeves. The Caracas Clarinet Quartet. They're a virtual lock to win the quartet competition, and if they take it by a wide enough margin, they could just sneak in there. However, word on The Vine again is that Alessandro and Sergio Bosi might pull a fast one and team up in the duet competition for a performance of "Il Convegno" for Italy. If that happens, the Venezuelans will be going home wearing the silver for sure.

So at this point, I'd call it as such: Italians take the gold, Venezuelans the silver, and just sneaking in there for a surprise bronze, I'm picking the Brits. Possibly the Americans could take a bronze, but only if they have a very, very good competition. And Stoltzman doesn't pull out some of his diva behavior. I think Bradbury gives the British a slight edge.

And look for Alessandro Carbonare to be on your Wheaties box sometime around the beginning of September.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! So, what are you taking along to the "Antiques Roadshow?"
- Honorable Mention goes to Duke, with his nod to our own personal hero, "Found stupendous Dickinson auction overrun."
- Runner-Up goes to the DeepFatFriar, with his brilliant, "Flatware Saint Dominic ate off."
- But the winner is the one that made me laugh for the longest amount of time, and that is LilyG and her, "Frito sack diorama, aged overnight."
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well!