Tuesday, February 16, 2010

I Got A Fever! And The Only Cure Is More Olympics

I watched Beijing and I got hooked and bought into the whole Summer Olympic experience. I watched all I could and enjoyed most of it. Sure I am not going to watch the 3m springboard or the 200m backstroke again until the London Olympics but for those 2 weeks I was in. The same looks to be holding true for the Winter Olympic in Vancouver. I knew that they had me when I watched the entire ski jumping completion including the qualifying. After the announcer explained how they generated the speed and power to launch themselves down the hill, I began to try to break it down myself to see if I could tell if it was a good jump or not (I will admit that I am still no further ahead but that isn’t going to stop me). Luge-cool.....alpine-sure why not....speed skating - close so it is compelling...snowboarding- gnarly. The only thing so far that just isn’t holding water is cross country skiing. They don’t even race. There is a staggered start and they race the clock and then just sit back and hope that their cardio brethren doesn’t match their time. Then at the end to drop like they were hit by a sniper. Yeah, your tired, you sold out and left it all on the course...we get it, so does just about every other athlete in their sport. Marathon runners manage to stay on their feet you’d think that these guys could do the same.

The only down side is just what a Cluster F%#@ the first few days of the games have been. When you start off with a tragic storey like the death of a Luger even before the Opening Ceremony that casts a pretty somber shadow over the games. Then you go to the Opening Ceremony itself it was not as big a success as it could have been. All in all the show was great but there were a few exceptions. The singing of O Canada was sung by a girl with a great voice but she butchered the anthem. She tried to over "Pop" it like she was at the Grammy’s or something. Bryan Adams? Really? Where was Rush? The giant falic symbols were interesting and got some snickers from our brothers to the south. Couple that with the hydraulics not working and only 4 of the 5 sides of the Olympic Indoor Flame structure coming out of the floor.
The Electric "Green" Zamboni that kept dropping hot water on the ice at the long track oval causing countless delays (It didn’t help that the racers kept kicking chunks of ice up). Thankfully a gas one is on the way from Calgary.

Then you have to look at all the events out at Whistler where events are being postponed on a daily basis. Practices, qualifying and finals are being put on hold due to rain, fog, warm weather, snow...pretty much whatever happens it is bad for the hills. Some Snowboard competitions have been postponed as well and spectator tickets have had to be refunded.

Yep That is right people, pack your winter jacket and head to Canada’s warmest city!! Good for golf in February maybe not the best for Nordic events.
Either way I will watch the filler material and catch whatever events come up first.

Go Canada Eh! I’m OOOUT!

1 comment:

Eazy said...

That KD Lang fellow who sang at the opening ceremonies had a nice voice, but looked a tiny bit feminine. Weird.

Love the Olympics! Only problem is going through batteries like a German while switching between TSN, CTV and the zillion Sportsnet feeds. Ah well.

Can't wait til the two-man luge begins.