Colbert gets his rocks off

I do, too, for all those reasons, plus my personal favorite — skeleton, the head-first luge. Nothing like seeing somebody barrell down a mountain at 75 mph or so head-first.

And I'm with you. Figure skating is one event I make it a point NOT to watch. Like gymnastics in the summer games, I'm not crazy about any sport you need a panel of "judges" to use subjective criteria to determine who wins. For that matter, I'm a little disappointed they're using "style" points in addition to distances in ski jumping these days.

 

if i remember right, american idol crushed the torino olympics....

 

I'm sure somebody will go and do the math, but I have a gut feeling that the Winter Olympics have more "sports" that fall outside my definition of sports [a) have a defense, b) have a definitive measurement for winning like time, distance, accuracy] than the Summer Games. If a "sport" is judged (judged, not officiated), like figure skating, gymnastics and even ski jumping, I'm less a fan of it. And that's what hurts most of the "pothead" X Games sports, not what the athletes wear or listen to.

 

I'm going to watch every moment I can.

 

The only problem I have with the Winter Olympics is that there are 15 variations on every event and it's too easy for an athlete to compete in all of them.

 

Ever heard of Michael Phelps?

 

Yes. The ratio of repeated events is still much higher in the Winter Olympics.

 

I hear ya...Like in Lake Placid when Mike Eruzione scored vs. Russia, and the next day he fell in the pairs ice dancing...it sucked.

 

Examples?

I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Last time I checked not too many hockey players were on the curling team or any curlers on the bobsled, luge, figure skating or ski jumping teams.

As a matter of fact, here's a complete schedule of all the events. I can't find one where any athlete would participate in more than one discipline

http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-schedule-results/

You might want to rethink that statement.

 

I think this graphic makes it a little easier to see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics#Calendar

Out of 86 gold medals up for grabs:

10 are in Alpine skiing
10 are in the biathalon
12 are in cross-country skiing
20 are in speed skating (short track and regular)

That's one short of half the medals taken up by four disciplines.

Contrast with the summer olympics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics#Calendar

Swimming and the vague "athletics" are the only two categories to take up more than 10% of the available golds, and they combine for less than 1/4th.


I find the swimming a bit boring (outside of rare moments like Phelps) for the same reason in the summers. You tune into the Olympics to see an athlete compete as the culmination of a lifetime of work, often with just one shot to shine. It takes a lot of the drama out of it when you know the guy gets six more chances in the next week.

 

Good point. That's why I don't watch Usain Bolt.

I wish they just had the events of "run" "swim" and "throw" to go along with "ski" and "skate" (skate-skiing will be allowed, too)

 

fine, but it's the WINTER. The season is short, and there are only so many sports you can do. They could just as easily move the swimming events to the winter games because they're indoors.