Can't believe there's no winter olympics thread! Am I the only one with half an interest in all things icy and slippery?

36 year old Norwegian legend Ole Einar Bjorndalen aims to add to his 5 Olympic Golds in Biathlon, and will surely be the outstanding performer of the Vancouver games if he can achieve this record.

The official website is excellent, with pen pics of all the athletes, searchable by sport or nationality here.

I'm looking forward to the ski jumping events in particular, a tremendously strong Austrian team will be looking to fend off the improving Norwegians, whilst the individual hills look set for a thrilling battle between the seasons two outstanding jumpers, Simon Ammann of Switzerland and Gregor Schierenzauer of Austria, along with perennial challengers such as Polands Adam Malysz, 4 Hills winner Andy Kofler and the evergreen Janne Ahonen. Add in a smattering of mercurial Norwegians, Japanese and Slovenians and it should be a fascinating tournament.

Anyone else got a favourite event, athlete or something worth ranting about?

Speed Skating, long course. I LOVE it. I know it looks boring, but I just love it. Anni Friesinger to strike again.

The short course 'schaatsen' is just plain mental. Its like you and 5 mates sliding down a hill, and trying to stay upright.

Everything else is a bit 'meh' for me. Quite like the downhill skiing, but it would benefit from multiple person races.

Thanks for the weblink b or g.

Short course speed skating is the only thing that I'm going to plan to watch. It is very much like Keirin on Ice and how can you not like that? I might watch the ski cross as well.

Most of the other events don't really make great viewing as they tend to be done one by one so there is no real sense of competition (downhill sking, bob sleigh) or they are very, very slow (curling)

Seems like I may be alone in enjoying the sports where each competitor takes their turn?

I love the building anticipation in the ski jumping, bobsleigh and some of the ski events, as the second jump/run progresses and those who had a poor first effort seek to climb up the rankings, and each successive competitor needs to hold their (often fractional) lead over the previous one. A good commentator can really transmit this mounting excitement and hold your attention right to the very death.

Maybe my fascination for processional sports comes from following Formula 1......

More sports in this that I like than in the summer games. Here are my top 10

1. hockey, mens
2. hockey, womens (too different to be lumped together)
3. skeleton
4. luge
5. snowboarding pipe (nudge, nudge)
6. speed-skating long track
7. curling
8. the madmuthafucking downhill
9. biathalon
10. moguls skiing

Well done on resurrecting Bewaldeth's thread, which I had missed the first time around.

Men's hockey has the potential to be epic.

I generally don't care for the Winter Olympics. There are a few events that I like, but I wouldn't be crushed if I miss them. But Mrs. Inca has to watch the women's figure skating, so we're watching that. I like speed skating, moreso the big track traditional kind, but since Apolo Ohno is one of the American "superstars," I have a feeling that NBC will really be hyping the short track again. Aside from that, maybe I'll watch the hockey final, and the long jump. Curling too, if that's on at night. No interest in skiing or snowboarding, and god please don't show the biathlon.

Yeah, I'm really stoked about that.

I expect it to go Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, in that order, but there is some slim hope for the USA to pull some surprises if Ryan Miller can get hot. The USA has a tendency to do better in international events where they're expected not to do much (and vice versa).

It's a young team and a complete changing of the guard from the Modano, Chelios, etc. Chris Drury is really the only holdover and it seems he's being brought along in a Crash Davis/Reg Dunlop role. (I saw him play at BU when I was in grad school. I feel old) I hope they can just not be an embarrassment but set the stage for a good ten to twelve years of good national teams.


The biathalon is great. Especially in the olympics when the Scandinavian fans are going apeshit on the infield (or whatever it's called) the fitness of those athletes is amazing - like the Tour de France, perhaps - and the shooting aspect adds an element of tension and surprise. A guy/girl can be way out and then boot the shooting part and bring the rest of the field right back into it. It's wonderfully mad.


figure skatingFigure skating and granite countertops = two of many reasons why I'm ambivalent about relationships or ever getting married.

I don't think I am going to be able to take NBC's coverage, which will no doubt be completely OTT when it comes to "up close and personal" stories and "extreme" sports, not to mention the usual "USA! USA!" jingoism.

I was hoping for the CBC, but see that they have lost the rights to CTV this year, which means commercial coverage north of the border as well.

I may end up watching Eurosport on the internet.

[Edit: to Reed. Finland are my dark horse, because Miikka Kiprusoff is the hottest goalie in the NHL and could easily become this year's Henrik Lundqvist. I also expect the Swedes to do very well, in part because the Sedins will be playing in their home rink and should have crowd support until they match up with Canada. The US needs to be very careful against Switzerland.]

First Alpine Skiing event postponed.

There are also fears that the men's downhill is going to be delayed.

And look for an unusually somber Opening Ceremony if Rogge's press conference about the tragic death at the luge track is any indication (I also would not be surprised if those events are delayed while the organizers see if there is anything they can do to improve safety at the track).

Finland is always in the mix. It's a remarkable tournament. There are eight teams (at least) that could medal so there are five that will be bitterly disappointed. It's just how it goes.

NBC's coverage had gotten a lot better over the past few Olympics because they put so many sports on their cable channels and use real experts in those sports and don't overhype it too much.

I don't understand the continued disdain for "extreme sports." A) nobody calls them that anymore and hasn't for 10 years and B) how can anyone not enjoy watching these kids do their 1080-mctwist-switch-to-fakey-nose-grab-invert-to-stalefish or whatever. Everyone involved seems to have such a great attitude and despite the commercialism it still retains much of the DIY ethic of skateboarding. That's great.

I guess it's still not accepted because the USA dominates the sport, and yet we're not hearing nearly as much hype about our snowboarders as Anton Ohno or Lindsay Vonn. A month ago, hardly anyone in the US had heard of Lindsay Vonn, now her knee leads sportscenter.

The US has Shaun "the Flying Tomato" White and the awesome female trio of Hanah "Maple Blondie" Teter, Gretchen "Oh, God, she's so hot" Bleiler and Kelly "Jesus Lover" Clark. There's a Russian/Swiss guy named iPodiPod and all kinds of crazy Japanese .

These sports shouldn't all be run by uptight Swiss aristocracy in their posh chalets or whatever (pick yer stereotype.)

So I go to the NBC Olympics website, and the first video that comes up is "Torino Games: Crashes Mash-up".

Pass.

Ouch.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:
I don't understand the continued disdain for "extreme sports." A) nobody calls them that anymore and hasn't for 10 years and B) how can anyone not enjoy watching these kids do their 1080-mctwist-switch-to-fakey-nose-grab-invert-to-stalefish or whatever. Everyone involved seems to have such a great attitude and despite the commercialism it still retains much of the DIY ethic of skateboarding. That's great.

Maybe a lot of people don't think of it as a real Olympic sport and see it as a ploy to get younger viewers and more medals for the US. I don't know the terminology--and as you allude to, what you hear sounds pretty ridiculous. To my unfamiliar eyes, everyone seems to be doing the same thing, and after a while, any excitement you felt seeing it at first turns to boredom. I'd probably rather watch biathlon, which as I said above I don't care for much at all, than snowboarding.

What is or isn't a sport is the dumbest most tedious topic of conversation in all of sports. It requires incredible skill, athleticism and work. Why should it be regarded as any less of a sport than any of the others just because the culture surrounding it isn't so uptight and patrician as skiing or figure skating?

The terminology doesn't make much sense to outsiders. Some announcers are better than others at explaining it - usually the NBC crews explain it more than the ESPN people. I've picked up some of the lingo playing the video games, but but I don't really get it either, but after watching it just a bit, it's not hard to tell the difference between an outstanding run and one that is merely very good (and of course, if somebody falls on their ass, that's not good).

Well I'm leaving the country for two weeks Monday, ironic really, got a bunch of tickets too. I've had bad vibes about this show for quite awhile, even before today's tragedy, but that's not why I'm off. Don't know exactly why I feel like this, the weather has been unseasonably warm all winter which doesn't bode well but that's not it. The cost, financial and figurative, of having the IOC run roughshod over the city I live in is starting to sink in, that's a factor for sure. A billion dollarsworth of security isn't pretty. I'm also just sick of living with the hype for the past four years, it should have happened two years back, now I'm past caring.

I can understand.
Still, I'd love to be able to go to a winter games someday.


Opening ceremony on now. Queen failed to post, so the Governor General is sitting in as Head of State.

Bob Costas and Matt Lauer reading off various factoids about Canada and its symbols - the flag, the mounties, etc.

Some Canadian teenage singing sensation that I've never heard of is singing a slow jam bilingual version of Oh Canada.

Now some really spectacular First Nation's stuff. Four groups from around Vancouver were represented - wearing the traditional regalia. Awesome. Holy Shit that one old lady is straight of Central Casting, as they say. I'll bet she can talk to the animals - and now they're giving shout outs to all the other First Nations in Canada - Inuit, Matee(sp?), the midwesterners and the easterners. They're all doing traditional dance and drumming. Outstanding.

No doubt, the nortwestern indians (as we'd call them) have the coolest art.

Onto the fashion show. As I understand it, the USA is wearing Polo gear - thick white wool sweater, puffy jacket, wool hat with a moose motif, hiking boots and what look like white sweat pants. WTF?

They picked the most telegenic and caucasian looking First Nation reps they could find. I saw a guy giving the speech of welcome for one of the local first nations in a rather good play a couple of weeks ago: The Edward Curtis Project. It was probably more interesting than the next two weeks worth of events put together.

Don't mind me, I've got cynicism poisoning.

I noticed that. But don't most North American indigenous people look Caucasian? Or maybe not most, but a lot. I know that they don't in Canada as much as they do in the US, which is why most of the actors who usually play Indians in films are Canadian, but still.

Good God, Germany's kits are terrible.

I understand the cynicism, but I've found that no matter how ridiculous whatever is happening around the games is, there are always some really great sporting moments. Th




FYI, Iceland has never won a medal in the winter olympics and Denmark has won almost none. Thanks Matt Laurer.

India only has three competitors. I know it's hot there, but 3 out of 1 billion? Iran has more.

Sweet Jesus, Bryan Adams is on the stage with Nelly Furtado. Bryan. Adams.