Curling. It apparently matters a huge amount that you don’t touch the stone part of the stone. OK, whatever, but then how is it acceptable for players to touch and tap the opponents played stones with their brushes when indicating directions to other members of their own team? “It doesn’t cause the stones to move, and if it does, they can just move them back” is apparently the answer, but it seems strange to me. Rules are arbitrary I guess.
Alpine Skiing. I feel like having a howling camera drone pursuing the competitor down the slope is an unnecessary distraction to the competitors and it’s unfair too - since the drone will not be flown the exact same way every time and thus the noise that it makes, and its proximity to the competitor will not be uniform. I get that it’s a thing we can do so apparently it’s also a thing we must do, but it feels wrong to me.
For curling, is the rule don’t “touch” the stone, or don’t “disturb” the stone? The latter seems consistent with the rules you describe.
Downhill skiing is so fast that the competitor is going to have a ton of wind noise in their ears. Do we know if they can even hear a drone? I agree if it gets in front of them and is relatively close then that could be an issue, but maybe they already expect/train for this?
Drones are extremely loud, with a penetrating buzzing like a robot vuvuzela. Especially the ones big enough to carry a camera pack. I was at a destination wedding in Morocco and we had one maneuvering over the ceremony. Not quite deafening but close.
I don’t know if Olympic-level downhill skiing is itself loud enough (wind, skis on snow, etc) to drown out that sound.
Huh, we had a drone buzzing around to videotape blasting away ledge at my neighbor’s house. I was standing right there, watching, and i honestly don’t remember hearing it. The contractor had to point it out to me, and i found it but seeing motion in the sky.
I’m hearing it zooming past as we see and hear the contestants passing the static cameras. The audio feed from the drone itself is probably not used at all.
It’s reported that they can’t hear them once they are well underway, but they do hear them at the start.
I’d imagine it might be different for different events - downhill skiiing is pretty much flat out with the drone always trailing; snowboarding on the half pipe has the hang time thing where there’s no noise from the board on the snow.
I’m not sure it’s more useful than the previous solution where they had cameras travelling on wires - we seem to be seeing less of the drone footage in each run than we did for wire camera footage - I suspect that might mean that the drone footage has less utility.
Both are better than the old solution of having cameras hung from a few good spots. I remember visiting lake placid after the Olympics, and taking the ski lift, and suddenly realizing, “the camera was right here!”
I didn’t realize they used wires for a while. That sounds fussy and hard to set up.
If the drone noise is a problem, i bet quieter drones will be developed over time.
This is my assumption as well. I have skied about half as fast at these racers’ top speed, and I can report that you hear nothing but wind above about 30mph. Not even the clatter of your skis hitting an ice patch. The slower events like moguls and slalom it may be more of a concern, but in the moguls the drone seems pretty far behind and there is loud cheering from the crowd. I haven’t seen any slalom yet to observe drone activity there. I will say the drone footage has been really great for watching these games, IMHO.
I’ve noticed that the men’s and women’s downhills always seem to be the first alpine skiing races at each Winter Olympics. Why is that? Just tradition, or are there other reasons?
Why is there a women’s mono-bob, but no men’s. And why is there a men’s 4-person bobsled, but no women’s?
Related: why do the men and women always ski on different slopes? The downhill and super g slopes were completely different, and the women’s looked more interesting. But if they are different distances, i would have expected the women to just start a little lower or end a little higher.
There are two thick, green lines across the ice, called “hog lines”. When you’re sliding and releasing the stone, you have to let go before the stone reaches the hog line; players at this level get pretty close. The handles used to just be solid plastic. At high-level competitions, officials use to be placed at the hog line to look for violations. I imagine that was a pretty sucky job, but kind of a way of paying your dues when starting out as an official.
Now they have handles with sensors in them. The metal portion of the handle can sense skin contact, and there’s a metal strip embedded under the ice, so the handle can detect exactly when it reaches the hog line. The handles also have little LED lights on them. If it detects that you’re still touching the handle when the stone reaches the hog line, red lights come on and the sweepers take the stone out of play. I think it’s happened once in these Games, so far.
So that may be part of the reason not to touch the granite part of the stone; it’s a way of defeating the sensor-equipped handles. Or, the rule may predate the modern handles. I’ve also seen different interpretations of whether you’re allowed to release the stone and touch it a second time, even if you’re touching the handle before the hog line.
As for touching the stone with the broom when you’re pointing out shot, that’s fine. Even if a player is walking around and accidentally kicks a stone, the teams just put it back as close as possible. I suppose it could be an issue if there are two stones that are likely to need a measurement. Generally, the team that doesn’t make the mistake is entrusted to place the stone, but they are expected to do so honestly.
As for the downhills as first events, I think it’s the same reason why the 100m dashes of men and women are always held in the first days of the summer Olympics. Both are regarded generally as the supreme disciplines of their respective categories.
And why women’s mono bob and only 4 men’s bobsled? That has been a controversial matter since bobsled became a female discipline. It started out with only double bobsled for women, but soon there were claims for a second female discipline. But instead of adding a 4 women’s bobsled competition, the association added the mono-bob, I think for two reasons: they felt that the 4 women bobsled would be too fast and dangerous for women (which is a sexist argument IMHO), and that the costs for the bigger sleds would be too much of a burden on the teams. The current situation is still much disputed, and most female bob pilots would rather have a 4 women competition than the mono-bob.
Actually, the 100 meter dash is not held on the first days of the summer Olympics. In fact, the track and field doesn’t really start until almost the second week (swimming dominates the first week). Since there are multiple heats, it takes place over several days but as a big viewer sport they usually have the finals on the Saturday in the middle of the Olympics.
At the last Olympics,for example, the games were held from July 26-August 11 and the 100 meter men’s final was on Saturday August 3.
(The reason I know this is because I actually had the opportunity to get track and field tickets for the 1984 LA Olympics but we couldn’t get Saturday tickets so we missed the 100 meter finals. BTW, recommend highly going to track and field at an Olympics because you will see so much variety. There is always somebody running, somebody jumping and somebody throwing something. Also because there are so many events you will get to hear all the national anthems which is cool).
You’re right, what I meant was that the finals of the 100m dashes are among the first finals of the track and field competitions at the Olympics. The same applies to the World Championships in t&f.
I never understand why men’s and women’s courses are different. The Olympic cycling road race also has different courses for each. Makes no sense. What, are the women dainty little flowers that can’t handle the “man’s” course? /s
In think the downhill skiing competitions are marquee-type events, so if you want to draw-in viewers, you put those out there early.
Another random question: what trash-talk do the women hockey players say to one another? With the guys it’s usually talking shit about others (and sexual in nature), but I suspect the women aim insults somewhere else. Any ideas?
Yeah, I just think it’s weird that it’s fine. In other notionally-similar sports (I’m thinking snooker, not bowls), there are penalties for touching/moving balls.