Alright, let me tell you about my morning wrestle with the NYT crossword. Coffee in hand, ready to go, and then I hit this clue: Olympic powerhouse. Seemed easy enough at first glance, right?
My brain immediately jumped to the usual suspects. You know the ones:
- USA
- China
- Maybe Russia? Or the old USSR, depending on the puzzle’s vibe.
So, I looked at the grid. It was a three-letter answer. Okay, that narrows it down. USA felt like the obvious choice. It fits, it’s a classic powerhouse. I penciled it in lightly. Always lightly at first, that’s the key. Learned that the hard way plenty of times.
But then I started working on the crossing words. The first down clue needed an ‘S’ in the middle position. Okay, USA works. Good start. But the last letter, the ‘A’, crossed with a word that needed a ‘T’ there. Uh oh. So, USA wasn’t it. See? Told you about penciling lightly.
Back to the drawing board. What else is three letters and screams Olympics? Not much, really. China is CHN sometimes, but that’s usually for the country code, not really the name. Russia is RUS, same deal. This felt weird. Maybe it wasn’t a country?
I sipped my coffee, staring at those three empty boxes again. _ _ T. That ‘T’ at the end was confirmed by another crosser. What powerhouse ends in T? This felt like one of those trick clues the NYT loves.
Thinking Outside the Box (or Country)
Okay, maybe it wasn’t a country name. What else? Could it be an acronym? IOC? No, that’s the committee. Maybe a specific team? Like… Dream Team? Nah, too long. What about a historical one? GDR for East Germany? That used to be a powerhouse, especially in swimming and athletics. GDR… G-D-R. Nope, doesn’t end in T.
This is the part of the crossword I actually enjoy, believe it or not. When the obvious answer fails, you gotta dig deeper. I started thinking about specific sports. Who dominates? Jamaica in sprinting? JPN for Japan in judo? KEN for Kenya in distance running?
Wait a second. KENYA. K-E-N… No ‘T’. This was getting frustrating. I almost gave up and hit the ‘check word’ button, but my pride wouldn’t let me. There had to be something simple I was missing.
I went back to the big countries. USA… CHINA… RUSSIA… What if the clue wasn’t asking for the country itself, but something related? Like… “team”? No. “Host”? No.
Then I looked at the clue again. Olympic powerhouse. Three letters. Ends in T. The second letter had to be something fitting U_T or maybe _ _T based on other potential crosses I hadn’t solved yet. It wasn’t USA. What else could fit U_T?
Okay, this is embarrassing. I’d gotten one of the crossers wrong. The last letter wasn’t a ‘T’. It was an ‘A’. My messy handwriting made the ‘T’ from another clue look like it crossed there. Double-checking the grid number… yep, I messed that up. Happens to the best of us, right? Especially before the second coffee.
So, three letters, ending in ‘A’. Middle letter ‘S’. First letter ‘U’. It was USA all along. My initial gut feeling was right. I just got tangled up by misreading my own grid.
Penciled it in firmly this time. USA. Felt good. Moved on to the next clue. Just another day battling wits with Will Shortz, I guess. Always keeps you humble, the crossword does.
