God and Gold: The Sport That Believes

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Thus said Jesus Christ himself in Luke 9:23 of the Bible, and if the Good Book is to believed....then figure skating must be the world's holiest sport.

Indeed, nary a sport can boast a similar proliferation of crucifixes proudly displayed by participants. Such dedication to displaying the Christian symbol of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and eternal salvation from the world and its ungodly ways can be found displayed loud and proud:

Pasha Grishuk and Evgeni Platov, 1998 Olympic champions in ice dance

Or small but intimately close to the heart:

Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, 2011 World silver medalists in pair skating

A Tribute to Pasha, or Why I Can't Help But Love Ice Dance

I admit, I have a love-hate relationship with ice dance.

On my grumpier days, I tend to see ice dance as barely a sport, full of skaters who can't jump and worse of all, full of cheating and conniving judging which account for probably more than half of the underhanded deals floating around the back rooms of skating.