Sexiness Is a Warm Gun

Like George.

George is the one who put me up to the biathlon. George is a CIA counterterrorism analyst who infiltrated The Washington Post last fall while posing as my running partner. His job is so intensely secretive and covert I am not allowed to mention his last name. (Okay, it's Schroeder. He has a weakness for fast, lethal women; case in point, his 5-year-old daughter, Claire).

Anyhow, in his travels overseas, George developed a fondness for obscure European sports, which certain Americans cannot relate to because they are addicted to genuine spectator sports. Like bowling and poker.

(George got up at 4:30 a.m. in his suburban Virginia home to watch the women's 15-kilometer individual pursuit and, before that, curling. We're not too sure about George.)

On Monday, only one of his favorite German athletes medaled. Martina Glagow took bronze behind Russian deadeyes Svetlana Ishmouratova and Olga Pyleva.

Twenty times Svetlana pulled the trigger while sore and tired from skiing; 20 times she did not miss.

Imagine being caught cheating by her.

Biathlon is amazingly boffo box office in Europe, one of the most watched sports on television between December and March. The stands were packed with Norwegian and German flags on Monday, the press area an elbow-to-elbow affair between the German Press Agency and some Bulgarian news service.

"It's like a soap opera, families get up and watch for breakfast," said Ulrike Krieger, a journalist with the German newspaper BZ (Berliner Zeitung). "I don't understand why America don't like this sport. You love guns."

Look, we need to catch up to Norway, Russia and Germany fast. The whole afternoon I felt like I was in the opening sequence of a Bond movie, where all the beautiful snow bunnies happened to double as lethal, fast women in tights. They are all I have this Valentine's Day in my office hovel.