The Pain and the Agony of the Winter Olympics (and those damn tights)
I want to take the candy of propaganda that the Winter Olympics is giving out by the handful and shove it into my patriotic mouth and savor the two weeks in the oblivious contentment of a sport’s sugar high. I want to believe in the power of sports to heal all international wounds, and unite in sportsmanship and athletic prowess to show the ability of humanity to rise above our economic and political squabbles. I really want to just forget the snow and cold weather and hide inside and figure out how people who like and live in this stuff have a good time.
But I can’t. I find no pleasure in the Olympics. There is just no storyline Bob Costas can narrate from the teleprompter to peak my interest or fuel my incessant needs as a sports fanatic. The sports are painful to watch regardless of how many female skiers take off their clothes or Apollo Ohno flips his hair. I can not bear the tights. I can not bear the ice or snow. I can not bear that Canada is placing their whole self esteem on winning a gold medal. Shouldn’t they really use platinum if they are that good? The Chinese Olympics made a total mockery out of using sports as political promotion and now if you don’t wave a flag and chant USA two years later, you are again part of some unpatriotic, pariah who can’t put partisan feelings aside for some athletes who have sacrificed everything. Please. They look healthy enough for me and the only thing they have suffered is numb toes and chapped lips from not using common sense and coming inside to the fire.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter. The Olympics should not have winter sports. For God’s sake, it started in Greece; a place that has some of the most beautiful weather in the world. Mentioning Greece, shouldn’t some of Canada’s financial windfall, after paying for the snow they needed to import, go to the empty coffers of this bankrupt economy that is causing havoc on the European Stock exchange? Here is a good site to understand the Olympic Winter Sports if you are lucky enough not to have a television. As a service to you, just so you do not look like a cheap hermit who gave up their cable television to pay off your credit card or maybe that ticket to Greece for Spring break, I will break down the sports. Don’t worry, there is only seven.
1) Biathlon – This is a hybrid sport that combines the love of cross country skiing with shooting a rifle. Are you serious? When would you use this talent if you were not evading Russia in the middle of winter? How do explain to your child that you think they have the skill to take on this sport? Why would you carry a gun on your back while you are cross country? Aren’t you afraid you will fall and blow a body part off? This is a sport only the NRA can love and I can’t wait until the hicks figure out they can put skis on their pickup truck and that rifle rack in their back window can come in handy once again.
2) Skating – Now here is the tights issue once again. There is nothing masculine about this sport though I do admit that skating, like all the winter sports, are incredible athletes. But the idea of one or two people having a huge ice rink for their three minute dance is economically wasteful and arrogant. They also flip and do jumps on one of the hardest surfaces known to man that could crash a man’s skull or break a limb. They also use razor sharp blades that get within inches of their skin and many times next to someone’s head. It seems like a terrible waste of energy, resources and time to do flips. I would keep this sport but use inline skating and place it in the Summer Olympics. This sport makes as much sense as the Summer Olympic sport of trampoline. Did I mention how much I hate full grown men wearing tights?
3) Skiing – Going downhill as fast as you can on plastic shoes to beat your opponent, soar and do a flip, or bounce against flags stuck in snow. I enjoy skiing but I have never understood why everything needs to turn into a race. This is like the kid in the school yard who has to beat everyone regardless of how sweaty he is after recess. This is another sport where I think everyone is just waiting for someone to crash. How many times does ABC sports still show the skier and comment “the agony of defeat”. Everyone wears tights.
4 and 5) Luge and Bobsleigh – I am going to leave this one alone. But it is the very reason why this post is not tongue in cheek.
6) Curling – I have thought about this sport and can not think from what possible historical activity it evolved from. There is no athletic ability in this sport. From what I can tell, this is the bar sport of shuffle board. I do actually think it has to do with kegs or barrels of beer or liquor being moved down the frozen river. They would have to smooth the ice to keep it going to the next port. If they allow this sport then they should allow nations to get a snow ball throwing team to celebrate how most of us exercise in cold weather.
7) Ice Hockey – It is sport that necessitates ten grown adults using speed to move a frozen saucer around a sheet of ice while controlling their movements with razor sharp single blades. They allow professional athletes to compete that no longer live, for at least a large portion of the year, in their country of origin. For most of us in the States, we watch the players for four months prior to the games and two more months after. The excitement of the games is whether the Swedes or Finland will get the bronze, Canada will implode if they don’t get the gold and the Russians will actually pass the puck to one another. Oh yea, and what cool new design the United States will have on their jersey.
The good part is by the time you are done this post, the Winter Olympics will be almost over. So enjoy the sports and Costas and frozen faces and red noses and crashes. For me, pitchers and catchers report on Wednesday. Now that is what I call American.
2010, Bobsleigh, Canada, Curling, Ice Hockey, Luge, Skating, Vancouver, Winter Olympics 
Reader Comments (4)
Since Americans routinely got trampled in the medal count by the Nordic Countries, we had to start adding the "X-Games" to the olympics so we would get some recognition. It takes a good amount of skill to pull off the snowboarding and jumps, but they just seem rather pointless. At least in the summer olympics it can break down alot simpler: who is the fastest on land or water, who can jump the higest or farthest, who can throw this the longest. Here the events almost seem completely arbitrary...There also seem to be a great deal of events in the winter olympics that rely on judges grades. At that point, it stops being an athletic contest and more of a beauty pagent.
Add that to stranglehold NBC has had on the Olympics for, it seems, 20+ years and subjects us to their heavyhanded approach to covering these games. No athlete is without a sick relative, childhood tragedy, or overcame some ridiculous odds to arrive here. And NBC will be sure to tell you about each one ad nausem for 2 hours before they even show you one minute of tape delayed footage from 8 hours prior. This worked in the days before the internet, now it just seems silly.
I am with you Dugan. I have not turned it on once, nor do I plan to.
Adding to my point, I heard this on the radio that also made sense. The winter olympics are all "Mountains and Money." These sports are not for poor people. All the elite athletes and countries that do well traditionally, for the most part, are from wealthy upper hemisphere nations. You cannot be poor and be an elite skier, snowboarder, figure skater. Hell, even hockey never really takes off in the country amoung youth for the cost that it involves for equipment, ice time etc. Even the cities where the Olympics are held are all wealthy cities.
Basically, the underdog story now does not apply anymore with these games and who we can identify with.
Thank you for this. Aside from curling and the biathlon which are almost too bizarre not to watch, the winter olympics makes me want to punch Bob Costas and every other announcer pretending to know about sports played on snow and ice.
First, off the commentators lack any more than three or five catch phrases to describe the skiing events. These are limited to variations on "wow, huge jump!", "great form", "stuck the landing", and "she's going pretty fast."
Second, the other sports either look too slow or too fast to watch. Speed skating?! Seriously? I know they might be going a lot faster than I'll ever travel on ice, but on TV it looks like a bunch of people going around in circles at the speed of wind up toys. On the other hand, luge is so fast that I can't ever tell if it's a good run or not. Not to mention the fact that every time they say lugers, I hear losers in my head.
Finally, can we just keep Chris Collinsworth off TV when its not football season? During NFL games, all he does is demean the viewers by talking about his how you can't really understand the play unless you've been a wide receiver like he was. And now I have to see him act like he's some kind of authority on sports he's never played in his life. I'd love to see Collinsworth's bird like frame shooting down the mogul ski course in less than 30 seconds, then try to perform a "huge helicopter" stunt and "nail the landing." I wonder if the Russian judges will throw him an extra few tenths of a point for his "textbook form."
I also concur. The winter olympics are an absolute sham of competition. Unlike the intense back and forth competition between summer olympic competitors, viewers have to wait an any where from 30 seconds to 1 minute to determine who actually won the event. I hate watching the skiers, skaters, and bobsleders faces as they wait and watch the screen waiting to see their arguably arbitrary scores. There is nothing like the battle for the lead in a track, swimming, or rowing event or a classic come behind win. The adrenaline, intensity, and excitement of the summer olympics is non-existent in the winter games.
However, as for Bob Costas' commentating, I actually find it quite appropriate because winter olympic sports are the only ones he seems fit to actually have participated in. I can't stand when his midget ass stands next to massive football and basketball players attempting to comment on their athletic prowess.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. I especially appreciate the cry against the wealthy participants of these sports.