Olympic Talk

[Rudy]

Anyone else a fan? I'm DVR'ing the hell out of everything possible. I caught the Women's 4x5km cross country ski relay today. 4 legs of each skier completing 5 kilometers. It wasn't much of a race...until the last leg. Germany and Finland were competing for the gold with a 30 second lead over the rest of the field as the last leg started. Sweden used up the whole last leg to catch the two leaders, slowly cutting the lead down at each time check. Not only did she catch them at the last curve,she blew past them on the final stretch to win gold. That may be the most incredible single performance by a single athlete I've ever seen.

[CMJ]

I have been watching an obscene amount of coverage. Growing up, my folks basically shut their lives down to watch them - and I learned from them. I remember in 2004 I was unemployed during the Athens Games, and I must have watched at least 14 hours a day.

BTW - that cross country relay was damn impressive. My girlfriend and I were screaming at the TV the last minute or so, urging her on.

Edited February 16, 2014 by CMJ

[UNT90]

Been a fan of the winter games ever since I happened to tune into the first USA hockey game of the 1980 Olympics. I was 16 years old. Lucky enough to Follow that team all the way to the gold medal, and got to see a lot of other cool sports along the way.

Been a fan ever since

[FirefightnRick]

Great finish by our Hockey team yesterday and seeing Putin have to swallow it in person.

Rick

[Rudy]

I swear I don't know half of our hockey team. Finland has a good team and maybe the best goaltending in Tukka Rask and Kari Lehtonen. Sweden has a solid team, although their Captain Henrik Zetterberg is out. Canda is, well, Canada. The Stars' Jamie Benn is playing for them. The Stars' Valerie Nichushkin is on Team Russia. He had a sweet breakaway goal in their first game. The uniform Czar here still loves the Finnish and Swedish sweaters. Classic.

[Green P1]

Give me a pack of cigarettes, some Miller Lite, and a weekend off work. I promise I could learn to curl better than any of the lousy bums representing this great country.

[UNTFan23]

Listening to Mike Emrick call the hockey games is greatness. He adds so much energy to the game with how he calls the games, IMO.

[Rudy]

Yeah, he is great at it.

[ChristopherRyanWilkes]

I follow Hockey,Bobsleighing,Luge.. Not a big fan of all the events that are left up to judges.

[ChristopherRyanWilkes]

Been a fan of the winter games ever since I happened to tune into the first USA hockey game of the 1980 Olympics. I was 16 years old. Lucky enough to Follow that team all the way to the gold medal, and got to see a lot of other cool sports along the way.

Been a fan ever since

That is cool, love that story. Beating the Ruskies yesterday was awesome.

[CMJ]

I follow Hockey,Bobsleighing,Luge.. Not a big fan of all the events that are left up to judges.

There's a ton of other sports that aren't either? Speedskating? Skiing? Biathlon? Etc?

[oldguystudent]

I can't pinpoint at what point I lost interest in the olympics. It might've been when I lived overseas. It might've been my students parading around pictures of Park SI-Hun and his tainted gold medal that was awarded to him for getting the snot kicked out of him via one Roy Jones Jr. The whole olympic experience in some places is the world rooting against the united states.

It also might have been when the already laughable amateur status of the athletes was finally done away with.

I honestly don't know what it was, but I haven't watched the olympics for a good long time. Absolutely don't care.

[FirefightnRick]

Listening to Mike Emrick call the hockey games is greatness. He adds so much energy to the game with how he calls the games, IMO.

So true!

And I don't care for the judging events either, although I tolerate the moguls... because, well I can hit them like that also for a short time, or at least I used to.

I think my favorite has become the Snowboard/Ski Cross,.. it's NASCAR on snow.

Rick

[Rudy]

So true!

And I don't care for the judging events either, although I tolerate the moguls... because, well I can hit them like that also for a short time, or at least I used to.

I think my favorite has become the Snowboard/Ski Cross,.. it's NASCAR on snow.

Rick

I felt sorry for the two ladies who wreaked during snowboard cross qualifying. The Norwegian blew out her knee and she knew it. She sat there and was telling the track worker. Even though she was in pants, you could tell the knee was gone. Then the American boarder slammed her head on that hard snow and you could tell she was out cold.

Don't forget about short track speed skating. NASCAR on ice.

[Cerebus]

The Ruskies are cheating, a lot. At least there are a ton of accusations flying around:

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/02/skeleton-preview-russia-being-accused-cheating-again/358083/

http://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/1y4s9d/how_russians_cheated_their_way_to_gold_in_sochi/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/sochi/2014/02/13/accusations-of-cheating-bobsled-skeleton-luge/5457947/

http://www.espn.co.uk/olympic-sports/sport/story/283301.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/canadian-coach-suspicious-of-russian-trickery-at-luge-track-235347861.html

The camera work has been suspicious on more than one occasion.

[FirefightnRick]

I often wonder if we are finding our best athletes in some of these events?

For instance, do we even field a ski jumping team because I've never recalled seeing the U.S. ever do a thing in that event. And just now a Japanese team just medaled, are you kidding me? We have football players consistently jumping over 10 feet and as far as 11 1/2 feet in the standing broad jump, and as high as 46 inches in the vertical at the NFL combine. And who knows what the highest NBA player vertical jump is? But you can't convince me we don't have some people who can get us to being more competitive than we are in ski jumping.

I understand in places like Norway where the standing broad jump is still a national competition. In fact it was an Olympic event in the early 1900's. Still, surely we can do much better that what we got now?

Rick

[UNTFan23]

I often wonder if we are finding our best athletes in some of these events?

For instance, do we even field a ski jumping team because I've never recalled seeing the U.S. ever do a thing in that event. And just now a Japanese team just medaled, are you kidding me? We have football players consistently jumping over 10 feet and as far as 11 1/2 feet in the standing broad jump, and as high as 46 inches in the vertical at the NFL combine. And who knows what the highest NBA player vertical jump is? But you can't convince me we don't have some people who can get us to being more competitive than we are in ski jumping.

I understand in places like Norway where the standing broad jump is still a national competition. In fact it was an Olympic event in the early 1900's. Still, surely we can do much better that what we got now?

Rick

http://www.usaskijumping.org/team

[Mean Green Matt]

I often wonder if we are finding our best athletes in some of these events?

For instance, do we even field a ski jumping team because I've never recalled seeing the U.S. ever do a thing in that event. And just now a Japanese team just medaled, are you kidding me? We have football players consistently jumping over 10 feet and as far as 11 1/2 feet in the standing broad jump, and as high as 46 inches in the vertical at the NFL combine. And who knows what the highest NBA player vertical jump is? But you can't convince me we don't have some people who can get us to being more competitive than we are in ski jumping.

I understand in places like Norway where the standing broad jump is still a national competition. In fact it was an Olympic event in the early 1900's. Still, surely we can do much better that what we got now?

Rick

Our cross country skiing is pretty terrible as well.

[greenminer]

I often wonder if we are finding our best athletes in some of these events?

For instance, do we even field a ski jumping team because I've never recalled seeing the U.S. ever do a thing in that event. And just now a Japanese team just medaled, are you kidding me? We have football players consistently jumping over 10 feet and as far as 11 1/2 feet in the standing broad jump, and as high as 46 inches in the vertical at the NFL combine. And who knows what the highest NBA player vertical jump is? But you can't convince me we don't have some people who can get us to being more competitive than we are in ski jumping.

I understand in places like Norway where the standing broad jump is still a national competition. In fact it was an Olympic event in the early 1900's. Still, surely we can do much better that what we got now?

Rick

Some initial thoughts come to mind.

The highest paying sports draw the best athletes.

After that, it becomes a matter of how much interest is in the sport. How many football players are interested in skiing?

Or how happy would an NBA or NHL team owner be, seeing his multi-million dollar athlete putting their body at risk in a different sport?

[Green P1]

Olympians are our 3rd and 4th tier athletes.

[ChristopherRyanWilkes]

[CMJ]

Olympians are our 3rd and 4th tier athletes.

I am not sure that's fair at all. You can't convince me that NFL/NBA/MLB players could do some of that stuff.

Take Rick's ski jumping example. It takes a different body type entirely to do that sport. Rick is wrong, in that ski jumping isn't about jumping at all. You need slight frame (as to be aerodynamic). The average size for a ski jumper is about 5'11, 140lbs.

Edited February 18, 2014 by CMJ

[MeanGreenTexan]

I am not sure that's fair at all. You can't convince me that NFL/NBA/MLB players could do some of that stuff.

Take Rick's ski jumping example. It takes a different body type entirely to do that sport. Rick is wrong, in that ski jumping isn't about jumping at all. You need slight frame (as to be aerodynamic). The average size for a ski jumper is about 5'11, 140lbs.

Oh please. If they chose to do it, LeBron, Clayton Kershaw & Peyton would have swept the medals for the US.

[CMJ]

Oh please. If they chose to do it, LeBron, Clayton Kershaw & Peyton would have swept the medals for the US.

[Army of Dad]

Ok , but how many great jumpers who are too short for the NBA or just not good enough might be able make the switch to a new sport like football and track athletes switch to bobsled?