Until a skier spins out of control, explodes into flame and sends body parts flying into the crowd.
Yes, minimizing splash seems the opposite of entertainment to me as well. Why isn’t there an Olympic cannonball or bellyflop event?
As Terry Pratchett suggests, under those circumstances, narrative determinism requires that a burning wheel must roll out of the wreckage.
I was excited to see sport climbing, especially the bouldering. Great combination of incredible flexibility and fitness, and mental concentration - figuring out a bouldering problem is like playing chess while hanging upside down by two fingers pressed into a tiny little divot in the wall. Amazing sport, and I hope it becomes a permanent fixture.
I didn’t see bouldering, but the wall events I saw were pretty far up thhe list of worst events to watch: someone tackles the wall for half-dozen times, every time falling off at the same spot, some 1/4 way up. I know I was looking at a top athlete doing a very difficult move, but it felt like watching a beginner fumble, in an unspectacular way.
Sounds like you did watch bouldering, then? For lead climbing, the athletes are on a rope and only climb until they fall once, and speed climbing is over in a few seconds, so the multiple attempts at the same problem that you describe was probably bouldering. It’s kind of fascinating how much YMMV on climbing as I find bouldering easily the most interesting one to watch, but since I climb myself I have an appreciation for how incredibly difficult the problems they are attempting are. Like Slow_Moving_Vehicle I find it one of the best events to watch and am really hoping that they eventually have 3 separate events for climbing (speed/lead/bouldering - I believe in Paris speed will be split off but lead/bouldering will be a combined event).
I also tend to enjoy flashy judged events such as freestyle skiing/aerials, trampoline, diving, and my inner Canadian really comes out during the winter Olympics for curling and hockey.
My least favourite events to watch are definitely long-distance endurance races, of any type - a 30 second recap is good enough for me!
Oh, I hope so. I enjoyed lead, but bouldering is definitely the more interesting discipline. Speed is rather boring.
And this is where we part company. I watched every minute of the women’s marathon, and most of the men’s. Spent last weekend glued to my computer, following the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc ultramarathon in France. But I’m a runner; like climbing for you, I can appreciate just exactly how difficult those events are.
I have a friend who’s an avid boulderer (heh?). He and his climber pals go out into the woods and find large boulders (of which we have plenty, thanks to Ice Age glacial activity) to climb on.
I gather Olympic boulderers don’t head for the hills to compete, but I still assumed they go up boulders of some synthetic sort.
The Olympic event I watched had a vertical wall with a bunch of holds for hands and feet - no 3D shape to speak of etc. If that is Olympic bouldering, so be it.