Kildow's courage part of wackiness worth watching

	Lindsey Kildow has no troubles shaking off the effects of a bad spill. Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

I had my first root canal today. I'd say I'm not in any hurry to do that again.

Lindsey Kildow cartwheeled off the side of an Italian mountain last week. She waited, oh, 48 hours before deciding to crawl back up that same slick mountain and strap on those same brakeless skis.

I needed Novocain. She needed a stretcher and an airlift to a trauma center. 

Wikipedia tells us that insanity means a mental unhinging. I'm afraid Kildow qualifies. Heck, these entire Olympic Games may qualify as insane.

Kildow bit it so bad on Feb. 13 that she flipped 15 feet in the air, skidded into a 180-degree turn and blacked out in a crumpled heap. Her boyfriend, a former national team skier, packed his bags before he even went to the hospital because he was so sure they were headed home. Skiing icon Picabo Street started crying before she even saw her little banged-up protégé.

Two days later Kildow was at it again, charging down that mountain at 50 mph in the downhill. Afterward, when Alexandra Meissnitzer had tied Kildow for eighth place, the Austrian looked at the American and said, "She has magic knees." Try a magic head.

Last Friday, on the second slalom run of the Alpine combined, Kildow skied and wiped out -- again. The first time she fell, she bruised her left hip and smashed her left butt cheek into what's now basically a perpetual cramp. The second time she fell, she slid on her right side. A volunteer had to help her off the course. I was trying to figure out how she'll ride a chairlift again this century, and then all of a sudden there Kildow is, calling the fall "a blessing." That's right, a blessing because it gives her an extra rest day.

Now, Kildow is only 21, so maybe she doesn't really get cowed. But her performance last week qualifies to be something simply fearless. And Kildow's not the only one paying proof to that Visa commercial, the one with Bode Miller and Michelle Kwan that calls the Olympic pursuit insanity.

It's insane that any human wakes up and says, "Today I want to skeleton."

It's insane that 52-year-old Anne Abernathy was more peeved that a broken wrist kept her from luging for the Virgin Islands than she was that she actually broke the wrist.

(Important aside: My mother is 52. And, sure, I question her sanity on a very regular basis, but not once because she wants to lie on some tricked-out piece of sheet metal and hurtle down a terrifyingly curvy channel carved out of ice, moving at a speed way faster than I was going when I got my last ticket.)

It's insane that Chinese figure skaters Hao Zhang and Dan Zhang were absolutely, mathematically eliminated from any shot at a gold medal and still decided to try the never-before-done quad salchow. It's insane that when they did, Dan (the girl) went careening across the ice on her knees (Hao winced at the replay while his partner was getting her shredded knees bandaged), and it's insane that 90 seconds later, they got back on the ice -- and won silver.

It's insane that Kildow got back on that damn mountain for the Super G, and it's insane that all the headlines of her seventh-place finish read "fails" (as in to medal) or "drought" (as in extended) or "empty" (as in her neck).

But you know what's really insane? Most Americans are probably not reading that. And most probably haven't watched it.

Nope, we're reading about whether Barry Bonds has the nerve to make a statement and stick with it and we're reading about whether Ricky Williams has the strength to stay clean. We're watching Simon mock overweight singers and make faces at Paula and we're watching Meredith threaten to make a dumb move with O'Malley that every doctor at Seattle Grace would call super-dumb.

I understand why no one wants to sit chair-side and cheer my root canal, or applaud me now that I've survived it. But no one wants watch the Olympics, and celebrate the madness? Well, that's just insanity.