I watched as much of the Winter Olympics as I could. I especially enjoyed the bobsledding, skiing, curling, and ice dancing believe it or not. Some thoughts on the games...
- In the speed sports, it often comes down to hundredths of a second and possibly even thousandths of a second to distinguish a "winner" from a "loser". Do we have to split hairs that finely? If they're that close, they're all really great. On the four man bobsled competition, the commentator was complaining that the start took 5.77 seconds instead of 5.72 which would be good. Twenty extra snowflakes on the ice could make that difference.
- I'm convinced that figure skating is just an excuse to do obscene dance moves, (although in a graceful manner). Nobody could get away with moves where the person shows his/her crotch with his/her leg in the air. (And they get to do this while spinning around like Julie Andrews.) Guys get to pick up women and hold them in somewhat sensual places. These are things that can only be done in our society if you're on the ice. Two person luge is also questionable, but I won't get into that one.
- People aren't watching the Winter games as much as they used to. One could attribute it to the lack of American superstars (or their inability to perform in the clutch), but I think it's partially NBC's fault. They cover the games like it's live, show only sports in which the Americans have a chance which aren't always the most exciting ones to watch. Plus they have way too many cheesy human drama stories. I want to watch sports, not interviews!
- Although the USA had the second most medals in Torino, a lot of them were in the newly created subjective X-Games type sports such as moguls skiing and half-pipe snowboarding. If we keep being creative, we can make more sports that we can dominate. To be fair though, we did do well in speed skating, and snowboard racing.
http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/MDL/MDL_NOC_USA.html
Well, here's looking to THE biggest sports spectacular in the world, the soccer World Cup in Germany.
+ Atul
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