I don’t really care for the Olympics although I like the Winter Olympics a billion times more than the summer Olympics. In any case, I haven’t turned them on yet or even looked at one moment of news footage. And yet I still can’t avoid being annoyed by them. I’ll probably watch some luge and some curling if I haven’t already missed my chance. Anything you like to watch?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I love the winter Olympics. When I was very young, I read Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates. Since then, I have enjoyed all winter sports–as long as it is not I who is doing the winter sport. I am waiting to see Mikaela Schifferin in her skiing event. I love the figure skating, speed skating, and short track skating. I hate the x games stuff such as snowboarding and moguls. But, all the old traditional sports I love even the biathlon. I admire any one who does what these athletes do in the shivering cold weather. I also live close to Mt. Rainier and skiing is an important winter activity out here. Me, I’m a snow bunny.
I like a lot of the events you mentioned, but my favorites are probably luge, bobsled ad whatever the other one is where people barrel at insane speeds down icy tubes.
Freestyle skiing has been around since Calgary. The snowboard competitions are relatively recent but relatively high international participation rates called for them.
yeah, it’s tough to look at any media and not be reminded.
Ski racing is fun to watch, IMO. but I read they had to cancel today’s races because of too much wind. Curling is weirdly telegenic; I’m pondering whether to find out what the rules are, but not sure that would really increase my appreciation.
I used to love Olympic Game coverage, but it’s difficult to avoid the overwhelming commercialism now. I did just catch the 5000m Men’s speedskating and it was exciting. They took a few minutes to explain the differences among speed skates, figure skates, and hockey skates, which was really interesting.
I will probably watch figure skating, too, but I preferred the old days of that sport, too, when there was more attention paid to the beauty and elegance of the skating as opposed to the more athletic jumps they do now. It’s all about the quads now.
Mainly I watch curling, but not on network TV (not enough curling there). I go to their website and watch vids there.
I did watch the video of the run that the 17 year old put down to win gold, although it has judges.
Normally I avoid any Olympic sport that has judges to determine the winner. The judging, like most everything else when it comes to the Olympics, is corrupt beyond belief. So I mainly stick to the stuff that is timed, measured, or scaled in some way. Most new events that have been included over the last years have been sports that involve judges. I believe that’s because those are the sports the Committee prefers, as it allows them to completely control the winner.
Figure skating would be the classic example. The judging is unbelievably corrupt.
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It’s all about the Benjamin’s
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My TV is for Netflix and games so… probably not.
I did watch some of the ice skating, but the announcers started to sound too much like the people at the Westminster dog show, so I shut the TV off. Instead I watched two interesting movies: LBJ and Marshall. Enjoyed both of them. Those were the days!
LOL.
Marshall is a seriously good movie that was mostly overlooked last year. Read that Marshall’s widow said that the Chadwick Boseman, who played Marshall, is very good looking but not as good looking as Thurgood was.
I watch the Olympics with the sound turned down. I really dislike sports announcers for the most part. They all have that Brent Mussburger quality to their voices that I find really annoying. A few years back it was all, “that’s a personal best” for so and so’s performance. Since I watch the ski jumping which I really enjoy with the sound turned down, I’m not sure what cache’ of cliche’s the announcers are using these days.
No
Not until figure hockey becomes an Olympic sport.
Good stick….errr….schtick!
Shaun White on his snowboard flying. This may be his last Olympics as he is 31 and a fall in Oct. resulted in 62 stitches.
I don’t get any of it at home unless I can stream it over the Intertoobz. But those I’ll occasionally go to a bar to watch and not feel too guilty root-root-rooting for the “home” team, since they’re (at least football is) legitimate national team sports.
So I’m pretty much left out of the winter olympics. Which is fine.
Saw my first Winter Olympics in 1954, the same year I saw my first snow in South Carolina.
I was completely taken by the ski jumping.
Watched most of it every four years until the 1970s.
Now, pretty much discouraged by the overhyped ads. And pretty much overhyped everything. In 1956, it was a much simpler event that did not call so much attention to itself or bankrupt sponsoring cities.
Wouldn’t know about snow in SC, but there were no Olympic Games in 1954. And the first US telecast was 1960 – Squaw Valley.
While my memory may be as flawed as yours, seems to me that there was more coverage of the actual events before NBC took over. NBC switched out showing the top three finishers for first and sometimes second plus the Americans, often far out of medal contention, and also added the fillers of bios on US athletes.
Of course the staggered schedule is much more recent.
As for snow, 1954 was a flake; 1956 was an inch. Geezer memory gets funny on you without warning.
I cannot get into curling at all. Much like watching golf and bowling it is far too passive for me to enjoy. I love the Olympics, warts and all.
My favorite events are alpine, freestyle, ski jumping, and luge/bobsled. I enjoy figure skating like everyone else, and am a sucker for races so speed skating is good, too.
The nordic/endurance events are just too anticlimactic for me to get into.
Our family got rid of our last television (a huge CRT affair that weighed about 80 pounds) in the mid-2000s when we went overseas on a Foreign Service tour. We’ve found it to be one of the best decision we ever made — especially concerning sports and news. It’s amazing how many commercials we haven’t seen, and how much trivial material we haven’t taken in. We’d recommend that approach over any combination of TV watching.
I met a guy a few years back who said he hadn’t owned a TV for 25 years. I thought he was nuts.
Still, he seemed very relaxed and content.
We certainly are. We do subscribe to a few cable things, such as HBO. But we’d rather read or do other things than watch television, which tends to be seductive if you actually have it. We’re not at all a typical family (my wife and I both have Ph.D.’s, for example), and we’re not evangelical about cord-cutting. We’ve just found that it works out best for us.
I didn’t have TV for a couple years after I finished college. We have one now, but I don’t watch it. After a couple years of little video exposure I find any kind of video irritating because I don’t like lacking control over the speed with which I experience something. With TV in particular the pacing to match up with a half-hour or hour show, plus breaks for commercials, gets eye-rollingly ridiculous if you’re not used to it.
Jettisoned my TV in 2002. Don’t miss it at all.
I really enjoy the Bobsled and the Downhill…predictable, I know…
“Anything you like to watch?”
Yeah, Pawn Stars. Seriously, I just treat this as time that NBC is off the air. Though I don’t really watch network TV anymore, just the news channels. Which is probably not a good thing, now I think of it…
Like some things more than others, but I could really, really do without the little heartwarming vignettes of adversity overcome that the networks keep insisting on airing about the athletes. They’re amazing, dedicated people who have excelled at what they do, but the truth is that to afford the type of coaching and training (and lack of job) that are required, most of them are children of privilege.
I happened to be watching last night because my wife, who’s a bit ill, wanted to lie on the couch in front of the TV and I was keeping her company. A men’s figure skating event was on and we watched a young Italian skater do some amazing things to some Beatle songs. It was mildly entertaining.
Next an American skater, Adam Rippon, skated onto the ice in a ridiculously spangled top. He struck a flamboyantly gay pose and I rolled my eyes. Then the music – a lush, orchestral number – began. His skating was a completely different order of performance: graceful, fluid, expressive, emotionally powerful.
It was a stunningly beautiful event. It had nothing to do with sport. It was art.
No.
I do watch sports on TV. Professional sports. It’s about the only thing besides an occasionally really well produced and acted movie or series that shows some people actually trying to excel at their art and craft in the midst of the gluttonous monetization in place throughout U.S. culture today.
I particularly like to watch basketball…the team sport that most resembles the “improvisation within a given structure” of great jazz artists. It is no coincidence that it is a black-dominated game, as has been jazz since its inception. “Improvisation within a given structure” is what was imposed on human slaves here from the 1600s right on up to today. We don’t call them “slaves,” today, they are just “economically challenged.” Institute a skin color prejudice at line level consciousness for 400 years or so and you can call untouchables any damned thing you like. Only the strongest and most talented amongst them on every level survive and prosper. I admire the survivors, and I am particularly proud of the way that professonal basketball players..I would guess an 80% black league, more like 90% before European players got good enough to compete… have fought ownership tooth and nail for 40+ years to get to a point where they are basically in command of their own fates. i admire LeBron James first and foremost because…because he has inordinate talents on all levels of human achievement; he hasn’t walked away from his cultural upbringing and allies, and he doesn’t appear to give credit to anyone…black, brown or beige…who doesn’t walk the walk and talk the talk. In many respects hi consider him the Muhammad li of our time. Only…smarter in ay respects and more in control of himself.
But I will not watch the Olympics.
Why?
Because…just like college sports…billions of dollars are being made on the honest, heatfelt efforts of young men and women, young men and women who are mostly totally unaware at that age of how badly they are being ripped off. Sure, one or two out of a thousand might break through the media barrier to some deree and make some bread, but most of them? Just advertising fodder. 8, 9, 10 years of backbreaking work and then…
No way I’ll add to to their ratings.
No way.
AG
In many respects hi consider [LeBron James] the MuhammadA li of our time. Only…smarter in many respects and more in control of himself.
AG
In many respects I consider [LeBron James] the Muhammad Ali of our time. Only…smarter in many respects and more in control of himself.
Excellent take. LeBron is the GOAT.
Le Bron has certainly been willing to speak out forcefully for equality. If there’s ever been an example of someone overcoming hardship to attain success, he’s it.
The entire Golden State Warriors team has also been willing to stand strong for their values, with the full support of their committed and articulate coach, Steve Kerr. The team refused to go to the White House and some players have spoken out individually.
Apparently it’s OK for the VP of the US to refuse to stand at the Olympics but it’s traitorous for NFL players to take a knee during the national anthem to protest racial prejudice and inequality.
You write:
Well…of course it is, Heart!!!
Pence represents the bipartisan, UniParty Empire and its economic imperialist skullduggery while the NFL players…despite their relative riches…mostly represent a segment of the U.S. society that has been conveniently isolated by its skin color to do the shit work of said Empire at shit wages.
Nuthin’ new here…
Unfortunately…we remain a slow study.
AG
When our children were young used to watch all of it we could, especially the winter Olympics. We learned a lot about the host country and followed an event from beginning to end and felt the tension and excitement of it.
We quit watching both summer and winter Olympics many years ago when they became overwhelmed with commercials and seemed to hop from one highlight to another. Reduced attention span is a scourge and seems to be true of so many things. And not just a problem for young people. We also observe it with oldsters like us.
I thank TV for this with other electronic gadgets now taking it even further. At least book reading seems to be rebounding a bit.
The Legend of Hans Brinker On Skates
The winter of 1956-57 was pretty solid and as a boy we did a lot of ice skating. We had tours on the canals and lakes in the green heart of Holland with distances starting at 20 km up to 90 km. Even de winter of 1963 was worse with quite extreme weather and the “Elfstedentocht” became one of survival. Some impressions of Dutch painters of the Middle Ages linger on on the minds of many … so also with Katie Curic …
Olympic Games – Katie Curic on the talent of Dutch people on ice skates … the response on twitter: