Monday, February 17, 2014

Olympics: A Few Thoughts

My husband and I have been soaking up the Olympics, and I have a few thoughts to share with you:
  • Ice dancing is my favorite sport to watch, I think. Slopestyle skiing and snowboarding, ski racing, boardercross (see below), and other figure skating events are also on my list of favorites.
  • The 2014 Winter Olympics have significantly expanded my concept of "sport" to include the following:
    • Biathlon - In biathlon, the competitors cross-country ski with rifles on their backs. At specific intervals, they stop to shoot targets. An extra skiing distance is added for every missed target. It's a race; the fastest person wins. By the way, biathlon is a BIG deal in some countries.
    • Boardercross - You may notice the name's similarity to motocross; the sport is similar, but the participants are on snowboards rather than motorcycles. In boardercross, several snowboarders at a time race through a bumpy, curvy course. The races we watched included some serious wipeouts.
    • Skeleton - I had seen luge and bobsledding before, but somehow missed skeleton. In skeleton, athletes basically slide up to 80 miles per hour down an icy chute (like a frozen water slide) on a tiny sled. Oh, did I mention that they go head first? What I would like to know is who decided that was a good idea. We do enjoy watching from the safety of our couch, though.
  • People should stop picking "medal favorites." So far, nearly all of the U.S. "medal favorites" have missed the podium. Some of them have really missed the podium.
  • More than three hours of Olympic coverage per day for eighteen days is simply too much of a good thing. I can't watch it all. We watched all of the "primetime" coverage and some of the extra weekend coverage for the first several days. Whew! Now, we are getting more selective.
  • Nobody should put spoilers on Facebook until the coverage airs. They are called spoilers for a reason: they spoil things.
What Olympic events are you watching?

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