I used to enjoy the Olympic, both winter and summer. Then they split them, so it’s always either an Olympic year, or everyone is getting ready for an Olympic year.
Also, figure skating once got attention only during Olympic years. Now, you can’t get away from the damned stuff.
Finally, the coverage on American network TV sucks, plain and simple. Too much focus on the warm and fuzzy personal stories, not enough coverage of non-American athletes or sports. Fortunately, I live close enough to Canada to watch it on the CBC.
Never had much interest in the summer or winter. If nothing is on and something like ski jumping or bobsledding comes on, I might watch for five minutes.
Maybe if they introduced the drunken slalom I could get into it more.
I forgot about hockey. And figure skating has been all over TV for years. They even show the “Scott Hamilton’s Stars on Ice tribute to the Wizard of Oz, featuring Aerosmith” type stuff.
To be somewhat fair, I think fencing used to be incredibly hard to cover on TV. When I have seen it, it’s “nothing happening, nothing happening, something happening, point,” and the thrusts and parries are so fast, yet subtle, that it’s impossible to get an appreciation for what the fencers are trying to do. It’s been years, though, so I’m wondering if technical advances, like high-speed cameras, have made things better.
Yeah, I was sweeping and the skip called us off. I think I stood up a little too fast and went over backwards. I didn’t feel too bad at first, but when I woke up the room was spinning. Couldn’t get up and get to a doctor for more than a week.
Which is a shame, 'cause I liked it and was kinda good at it, for a beginner. The first rock I ever slid stopped in the house. I’d love to join the curling club, but I don’t ever want to feel like that week again.
Fencing got quite a bit of US TV coverage in the last Olympics, just not on the main broadcast channel. There was a ton of Equestrian, I think the Bravo broadcasts were 75% equestrian. Archery didn’t get much more than a summary, but in fairness, a person standing absolutely still, with only an occasional releasing motion isn’t the most exciting TV–if it’s a choice, I’d rather see a handball match between two countries I can’t pronounce the name of.
And to answer the original question, people know that during the Olympics, I am not to be bothered. My DVR tuners are pretty much always going full blast, with 2 TVs running so that I can be watching two events at once.
Dude, you seriously need to get cable. Or if you have it, start watching it. I watched maybe 45 minutes of basketball in 2008, and yet I was watching the Olympics something like three hours a day for three weeks. (Wow, that sounds pathetic.) I watched a ton of Equestrian, several rounds of women’s fencing, various martial arts, and more handball and water polo than I can comfortably admit. Plus, I saw that guy from Togo break the oar over his knee in celebration when he won his country’s first medal. That was fucking great television.
Flatt is slow and boring without any musicality. Nigasu is okay but she’s nothing special and cheats her jumps. This may be the first Olympics since 1964 that American ladies are shut off the podium.
Then again after Hughes and Arakawa the last two golds won anything’s possible. Hughes was only third in the US nationals that year.
Americans probably have the best shot for a medal in ice dancing or the men’s. Belbin and Agosto are the silver medalists from the last olympics. Davis and White (who just beat them) won the Grand Prix final last December.
On the men’s side Lysachek is the reigning world champion, Abbott has a smooth style and lots of great technique and Weir has medaled at the worlds twice. So a medal and even possibly the gold is possible from at least one of them.
This was obvious before the Nationals decided who was going to be on the ladies Olympic team. The rest of the world in that field is just too good; none of them can compete with Yu-Na Kim, Mao Asada, Joannie Rochette, or Miki Ando, to name just a few.
I’ll be getting up at 3 am to watch the speedskating (and yes, they wear underwear underneath*) ior at least some of the events. Pretty much all of the mens titles are already kind of certain (Shani Davis for 1000, 1500 and Sven Kramer for 5k and 10k) but the team pursuit can become a tight race between the dutch and the USA. The women’s side seems more open.
Also looking forward to the skiing, especially downhill men (go Andrejs) and technical disciplines for the women (go Tina)**.
I should probably also mention that games that ar e obscure to soem are quite mainstream to others. As a dutchman I watch quite a lot of speedskating every winter; olympics or not. I guess a norwegian might say the same about cross country skiing; or an Austrian about ski jumping.
After a race is finished most ridiers unzip their suits and it usually shows some kind of thermal t-shirt underneath, I assume what goes for the top goes for the bottom)
** Bonus points for which country I’m supporting here
Ladies figure skating does look to be a bit of a bust this year for the US. How long has it been since the US failed to qualify 3 slots for ladies figure skating, anyway?
I remember Kerrigan/Harding in 1994 was a 2-slot year, and a damn shame, too - Michelle Kwan was waiting in the wings in the #3 spot. (technically, she was #2, but her spot was surrendered to Kerrigan.) Those games might have been very different, since we now know what kind of skater SHE grew up to be.
Ugh, that performance of Tonya Harding - awful! “I broke my skate lace!!” (with the most unpleasantly whiny sneer on her face imaginable) Triple Axle? Uh, no.
The real shame with Kwan was that she didn’t get the gold. To heck with Lipinski. That should have been Kwan’s year. Her performance at nationals in 1998 is pretty much my favorite program ever.
Here. Judge for yourself. Just exquisite. A perfect meshing of movement, music and a sense of flight. I especially love that last move of hers when she throws her arms into the air.
One of the most amazing moments in figure skating of all time.
She was the triple axel and that was it. No taste in music and barely any musicality at all.
Pure embarrassement.
I really thought the Americans might be in better shape after Kimmie Meisner won the worlds in 2006. But the Americans have not stepped up to it at all. The little girls skate like little girls. And the older women like last year’s champion Alissa Cizny just can’t pull it off technically or leave it in the practices.
Personally, I watched it mostly for Xue Chen 
