Olympic Thoughts
by KevinFebruary 13th, 2006
Some random thoughts on the Olympics.
- NBCs coverage of the Summer Olympics was much better. In the Summer, they showed more events live on more of their affiliated channels. Perhaps this is just a function of the number of events and perhaps the schedules will become more crowded as we get deeper into the events, but as of right now, I am kinda under whelmed by the coverage.
- Please, please, please stop with the sob stories. Apparently it is not enough to just be good at an event. No, you have to also have a heart wrenching story to go along with it. NBCs coverage has been so maudlin and so inundated with “X overcame such a horrible event” that I would not be surprised to find out that NBC had taken out a contract on the loved one of a medal contender in order to boost ratings. I appreciate a good story of overcoming horrible odds, but there is such a thing as too much. And NBC has hit too much two days into these Olympics.
- The Olympics can survive without Michelle Kwan. NBC has treated her departure like it would the death of a head of state. Kwan has never lived up to her billing in the Olympics, and she did not deserve to be on the team. She was obviously still too injured to compete, and if she hadn’t had the self-awareness to quit, the alternate would have been denied her rightful place on the squad. Kwan’s tale is not a sad one, it is a pathetic. And besides, it is not as if figure skating is a real sport.
- Figure skating is not a sport. Neither is ski jumping or ay of the made up sports that rich ski bums from Colorado have somehow wedged into the Olympics, like moguls or half-pipe. Anything that depends upon a score for a subjective judge is not a sport, it is an artistic competition.
- Italy is gorgeous. The mountain shots NBC uses to open their coverage each night are breathtaking.
- The hockey rules need to change. Right now, goal differential is a tie breaker. That leads to ugly situations like the Canadian women running up scores of 15-0 against the clearly inferior Italian team. Teams are forced to be poor sports, and that runs counter to the spirit of the Olympics. The rules should be changed.
- Norway should be an easy conquest. In the biathlon — a gloriously bizarre event in which people cross country ski around a track, stopping periodically to shoot at targets — the Norwegians as a group skated very, very fast but also shot so poorly that they negated the advantage their speed gave them.
- There have already been great moments in these Olympics. I have seen the first female Estonian to win a medal for her country — and it was a gold. I have seen a 52 year old compete in the luge. I have seen Italy win its first cross country medals and win them in front of their home crowds. I have seen races tens of kilometers long come down to the width of a toe. I love the Olympics.
- Finnish names are cool. Apparently they spend the interminable winters thinking up really, really neat names.
- German Nicknames are not. The Flying White Sausage?
#3 and #4, hear hear.
#6, I agree. But Olympic hockey is still cool. And after watching two games, I think the WNHL is an idea whose time has come. The only problem is finding women brutish enough to play in Philadelphia.
#7 Wasn’t winter Biathlon based on the activities of Norwegean resistance fighters during World War II? If so think about the Irony of the Germans getting the gold.
#10 I think Flying White Sausage is pronounced “Flugen Veiss Vurst” (Phonetically the Vs and Ws are reversed from their english counterparts in German) Sounds a tad better in the native tongue.
Tim:
Biathlon dates back to ancient hunters. There are cave paintings showing skiers with bows and arrows.
And historically, the masters of shooting Germans (and Russians) from skis are the Finns.
I’ve skied in a few biathlon races, and you come into the range all befuddled because of the physical effort preceeding. You go through the motions of getting your rifle off and aiming with no concious thought. At that point, shooting at the wrong set of targets is WAY too easy to do. What’s worse is when the guy in the next bay realises what you’re doing, so he times his shots to come at the same time and same target as you, so you don’t even clue in by a target other than the one you’re shooting at falling. You get up thinking you’ve shot clean, only to be told you missed all 5. (We used to use penalty minutes, rather than laps, so if you didn’t have a coach you wouldn’t know until you finished.)
#2 I’ve been amazed at how little of that is going in, at least compared to previous years and events. I remember watching a one hour show about the Tour de France some years ago where there was literally more cycling shown in the adverts than in the program (really; I timed it).
Not being as bad isn’t the same as being worse, of course. These are the finest practitioners of their respective sports (or arts) in the world, competing at the highest level, in the most pressured environment possible - a 30 second voice-over explaining who the key contenders are gives you all the background you need for a fantastic story.
Oh, and amen to #4 - these things can be hugely impressive, but that doesn’t make them sports.
I forgot to add that if there was something wrong with the whole Kwan endeavor, it was allowing her on the team in the first place. She appealed to get onto the team despite missing qualifiers with the same injury that got her to withdraw. That at minimum cost someone else a trip to Torino, even if that “someone else” would have wound up just being an unused alternate.
Paul: Thanks! Good to know when my half remembered factoids are incorrect.
tg: “That at minimum cost someone else a trip to Torino, even if that “someone else” would have wound up just being an unused alternate.”
Fred: No it didn’t. The alternate, last name Hughes, was in the US when she was told she could go to Turino. The alternates don’t go unless they are needed. The success that Kwan had had earned her consideration for joining the team. It was all done within the rules.
Kevin: Anything that depends upon a score for a subjective judge is not a sport, it is an artistic competition.”
Fred: LOL First time I’ve ever heard boxing called an “artistic competition.”
Fred:
On the skating alternate thing, I stand corrected (although I still think letting Kwan go was a mistake).
On boxing, it may not be an artistic competition, but it isn’t really a sport, either.
Boxing is not a sport? I guess that if you can make up your own definition of “marriage” that you can have your own definition of “sport.” Have you ever considered investing in a dictionary?
As George Carlin pointed out: “Boxing is not a sport, it’s just a way of beating people up. When police brutality becomes an Olympic event, then boxing can be a sport.”
They call me The Flying White Sausage at the local sorority house.