Curling is god in winter olympics. BUt thats because winter olympics is mostly garbage. I like snowboarding, ski jumping, skelton/luge/whatever spinoff of this, and maybe ill watch some alpine but som eof the main winter attractions are dumb. I mean come on.... figure skating? What the hell is that? It's like ballroom dancing on ice... Speed skating is dumb too because its so unpredictable and people get disqualified/slip-and-fall so much that the man who wins the first round is dq'ed by second and the man who wins the second falls in the final. Too random for me.
ya those womens hockey game scores were ridonculous! i think canada beat poland or russia 12-0 or something?? so having watched the events every night (haha) i think my fav so far for this olympics are the speed skating and alpine skiing. though that one cross country skiing one was crazy! did anyone catch that? this norwegian dude fell at the very beginning of the race but recovered to win the silver. good stuff.
How about Ice stock car racing? or skidoo races?
Why is baseball out of the olympics and the halfpipe is in?
Politics.
You need 50 countries to practice a sport in order to be elegible for the olympics.
This is mere paperwork.
Do you know how many American officially practice luge? 150.
But if a NOC (National Olympic Comittee) doesn't care about a sport, for whatever reasons, they say nobody in the country practices it.
In the case of baseball, the main reason has been the reluctance of MLB to lend their players to national teams, since the Olympics are held on summer. Hence, the Olympic tournament level is about AAA. This is not good for the "Olympic movement" (which is a business of Olympian proportions).
In fact, some years ago there was talk of expelling football (soccer) out of the Olympics. And footie is THE most popular sport in the world.
In the good ol' iron curtain times, the footie problem was solved through "amateurism". Pro players were not allowed (and all medals went to Eastern European countries).
Then came the professionalization of Olympic sports, and negotiations were made with FIFA, so that no player who had played in World Cup finals would be elegible for the Olympics. This left room for pros, but not the best, and punished soccer powerhouses.
Later, an amendment was made, and the Olympics became a U-23 tournament. A junior championship.
Then there was talk of leaving football out of the Games.
A middle solution was found. U-23 (U-21 in the case of UEFA) for classifiers, and U-23 with 3 reinforcement over that age for the Olympics proper.
As for my favorite winter sports: cross-country, then alpine skiing, then speed skating and finally figure skating (which I do like, but gets too much attention on TV).
I believe moguls and, specially, snowboarding belong to the X-Games and are in the Olympics so that the US doesn't lose face.
fbaezer, That's the weirdest decision I've seen them make in a while.
Which one? There are plenty of weird decisions in the Olympic movement.
Oh, I meant to add - I watched the Men's Combined the other night, what a rush. Made me want to grab my skis and head for the mountains.
Quote:Oh, I meant to add - I watched the Men's Combined the other night, what a rush. Made me want to grab my skis and head for the mountains.
Unfortuantely I watched sportscenter earlier and they mentioned who won/lost etc so it didnt have any interest to me. I like moguls/ski jumping better anyway.
Whats the name of that event where they shoot guns? I rememer that from Salt Lake and it was pretty cool.
El-Diablo wrote:Quote:Oh, I meant to add - I watched the Men's Combined the other night, what a rush. Made me want to grab my skis and head for the mountains.
Unfortuantely I watched sportscenter earlier and they mentioned who won/lost etc so it didnt have any interest to me. I like moguls/ski jumping better anyway.
Whats the name of that event where they shoot guns? I rememer that from Salt Lake and it was pretty cool.
I think that is the biatholon.
i quite like the bobsleigh. but i dont really watch it.
Last night's snowboard cross was amzing to watch!
Tonight, the womens snowboard cross was pretty interesting...especially when about 5 seconds before the American girl crossed the finish line in first place, she made a "mistake" and ended up winning the silver instead.
I like watching women's speedskating. Their big thighs and asses are a turn-on.
Did y'all see the women's combined? The German girl, Evi Sachenbacher's pull on the third leg, the way she attacked, and pulled away from the rest. I can't believe they didn't get the gold with that awsome effort. She's a cutie.
Oh frabjus day. The US is in the medal hunt for curling. The boys from Bemidgi Minn have shown great skill and determination. We tried getting our curling team together to play Quarryville over at the manure catchment pond. Seems the ice wsnt real sound this year and weve lost a few stones . We will have to wait till spring when we can lower Abner Stolzfus on a rope to retrieve them. Well be ready for Vancouver in 2010.
sad it's all over - went so quickly!! thanks for y'alls enthusiasm and insights.
can't wait til vancouver 2010!!
