4 Sexiest Vancouver Olympic Scandals

The Olympics are, on the face, a biennial festival of the greatest athletes in the world coming together to do completely awesome things. Of course, they are so much more than that: An opportunity for the host country to show off, an excuse for the slothful couch potatoes of the world to pretend they understand the figure-skating scoring system, the only reason Americans pay attention to hockey. And then there's the epic orgy that occurs when you sequester 5,000 insanely hot and beautiful people together. (We won't even count the pregnant Canadian curler—she came to Vancouver that way!) There's always a lot of sex at the Olympics, and with the sex comes sex scandals. Let's take a look at this year's scandals, shall we?

Lindsey Vonn's Hindquarters

Before the Vancouver Games even opened, American skier Lindsey Vonn was the talk of the sporting world. The two-time overall World Cup champion landed herself on the cover of Sports Illustrated in a traditional downhill skier's crouch, but the way she was positioned on the cover—and her pink skinsuit—also called attention to her impressively toned bum, and of course everybody flipped out. "When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action—and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception," the blog Women Talk Sports wrote. Except that Vonn was pictured as she competes in her sport. All a bit of a tempest in a teapot, we think, as was NBC's utter panic over the condition of Vonn's shin. She went home with two medals and next week resumes her pursuit of her third consecutive overall World Cup title.

Scotty Lago's Medal

Snowboarder Scotty Lago won a bronze on Feb. 17 in halfpipe, and the next night celebrated, as you do, around Vancouver with various fans. And because Lago is 22 years old, and let us repeat he is a snowboarder, it got just the slightest bit out of hand, if you believe the sticks-in-the-mud at the U.S. Snowboard Association. Photos of Lago and a female fan biting his medal while it was dangling from his belt loops hit TMZ on Friday, Feb. 19. Lago made the decision to head home to New Hampshire before USOC officials could ask him to, but that didn't stop the recriminations. "Scotty Lago is a great athlete, but with that comes a responsibility of proper conduct, and his involvement in this situation is not acceptable," said Bill Marolt, the president of USSA. Seriously, dude? SNOWBOARDERS. 5 Date Ideas Inspired By The Winter Olympics

Johnny Weir...Being Johnny Weir

If you paid the slightest bit of attention to the men's figure skating competition, you know that Johnny Weir, the 25-year-old American skater with an affection for feathers, flowers, and fantasticness, turned in the performance of his life, which apparently was only good enough for sixth place. C'est la vie, right? Figure skating is a tough world? Yeah, not so much. Listening to the commentators euphemize Johnny's masculinity, or what they perceived as his lack of it, was by turns infuriating, frustrating, and grimly hilarious. No, Johnny doesn't fit into the extremely limited set of characteristics that define traditional, heteronormative masculinity, but has anyone looked at the rest of the field? It's not the offensive line of the Indianapolis Colts out there on the ice. Johnny is a great athlete and an individual, and his sexuality, regardless of how he defines it, shouldn't have any bearing on his scores on the ice. And as a competitor and, more importantly, as a human being, he didn't deserve the slurs and viciousness that were heaped on him simply for being awesome. Team Johnny! The Olympics' 10 Hottest Men

Team Canada Rocks Out

The Canadian women's hockey team captured its fourth consecutive gold medal Thursday night, and after their medal ceremony, once all the spectators had left the arena, the players celebrated in traditional Canadian fashion, smoking cigars and swilling champagne and beer on the ice. It was pretty great, really. And then the IOC got involved. An AP reporter called IOC for comment, and executive director Gilbert Felli said the celebration was "not what we want to see. I don't think it's a good promotion of sport values. If they celebrate in the changing room, that's one thing, but not in public. We will investigate what happened." Team Canada apologized, but we detect more than a whiff of sexism in the criticism of the players' celebration. The root of the IOC's objection seems to be that the players were women acting in a vaguely raucous manner after they won a gold medal at home. That's just ludicrous. Let the girls have some damn fun! We're pretty sure the men's team got up to some antics last night after securing their medals, and we bet the IOC won't say a word about it.

Photo via Bauer-Griffin.