Anyone Watching the Winter Olympics?
To be prefectly honest, I'm not a big fan of the Winter Olympics. I will watch the women's figure skating, if under compulsion, and I'm not philosophically opposed to ice hockey, men's and women's. But skiing, luge, bobsled . . . if I didn't have anything else to do, I might watch.
The Summer Olympics (do we actually call it the Summer Olympics?), on the other hand, has track and field, the marathon, and other events that I like.
Any thoughts?
posted by Number Three @ 7:55 AM
4 Comments:
Nothing's better in the Olympics - summer or winter - than hockey!
Hey Emery,
I watched it last night. When NBC finally broke away from their coverage of Ronald McDonald skiing, they managed to show some of the opening ceremony, which was great. It began with this Vulcan-like (as in Hephaistos, not Spock) charachter smashing his huge hammer upon an anvil that shot forth flames -- pretty cool. And then the 'scintille di fuoco' with their flame-breathing backpacks kept skating through the arena now and then, adding a nice punctuation to the rest of the spectacle that was unfolding. The choregraphed image of a long ski-jumper was incredible, as was these dangling artists who formed the shape of a dove. The the little girl who sang the Italian national anthem was positively angelic. Il presidente della Republica Italiana, Ciampi, was the perfect grandfatherly figure to open the games, and it was great to see Stefania Bel Mondo, an Italian cross-country skier who has won 10 Olympic medals including the first gold of the games 4 years ago, light the torch. The Italians are great hosts.
As for the NBC coverage, I thought it stank. Bob Kostas, Brian Williams and Mary Carillo were quite the odd ménage-à-trois. I found it particularly annoying that as each country was introduced, Williams had to give a little history lesson full of obequious banter, always from an American point of view: "And here comes Iran. Right now they have an ultra-conservative leader who has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and their nuclear program has been referred to the UN Security Council. But tonight the nations of the world have come together..." My only piece of advice for the Olympic committee next time: less Yoko Ono and more Peter Gabriel.
Sam and I watched one event tonight, and having now read paul's post it makes me realize (once again) how happy I am that the BBC exists, that I live in the UK, and that my television fee (£125/year) is well spent.
No commercials.
No color guy.
No human interest stories.
Just women hurtling down a mountain, doing backflips, and waiting for the results.
the fun of it for me is not familiarity with any given sport but with trying to learn, over the course of whatever competition I'm watching, what makes, for example, a good freestyle mogul skiier and what makes a great one. and with marveling at the 35 year old who still somehow has her knees intact after all of this. and with trying to figure out how we can still have this nation-based sporting event when, for example, in the small bit we watched, the French competitor was born in Algeria, the Austrian was born in Russia, the Italian has an Italian and a Swiss passport, and the announcer referred to folks from the US and Canada (correctly) as "Americans."
Gotta love the Brits.
Curling! As a compulsive sweeper and a Roomba owner, I was captured by this headline: "High-tech broom helped Britain prep for Games." What could be better than that?
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