Saber Forum

I "discovered" curling for the first time in the 2002 olympics. I was so psyched about it, I setup to record all the events on VHS tape during the 2004's. It's so easy now with satellite and DVR - I love watching curling; it's the only winter event I really like. What's your favorite event?

Incidentally, curling lends itself to the inclusion of light "sabrooms". I think I will copyright that idea right here so if US comes up with a Curling Sabroom and it takes off, I get a royalty for every one sold. :D

I love speed skating and the snowboard... race where there are 4 athletes in an all-out brawl down the course, can't remember what it's called. Plus the hockey of course.

Curling, only thing I will  sit down and watch.

Ice skating. I would argue that ice skating and gymnastics are the most physically demanding sports in the Olympics, requiring not only intense physical prowess, but also agility and grace to make it all look effortless.

All mine revolve around Skating. Speed skating, figure skating and hockey. And I agree with Jev, they are definitely the most physically demanding.

I've always like the bi-atholon, or any marathon cross country skiing like event.

But then again walking is one of my favorite summer olympic events.

 I remember seeing curling as a kid and thought it was the dumbest sport I ever saw. Now it is my favorite in Winter Olympics!

Everything ... Love Olympic Games ... 6 hours of Jet Lag this year ... should be OK

Now try doing all that while trying to handle a little black rubber disk and being chased by a 200lbs defense-man who has every intent of smashing you into the closest hard surface.

(http://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MATT-HENDRICKS-huge-hit-hockey-hit-body-check-gifs.gif)
(https://media.giphy.com/media/On84DbeqrCt1e/giphy.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/dRz5IxC.gif)
(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2708775/hipcheck.gif)
(http://www.strangevacations.com/images/content/194057.gif)

And then this happens:
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/6194df49e33d610510f3567cad66de7b/tumblr_nmzk5sOIZm1skgd7ao2_500.gif)

I'm a hockey girl, obviously. I also like snowboarding, curling, and Alpine skiing.

Eh, but hockey players don't have to have the level of finesse an ice skater does. Plus, hockey blades are a lot thicker than figure skating blades, which give them more stability at the expense of the maneuverability. Also, hockey skates have a lot more ankle support, as they are more like boots. Figure skates are more like shoes.

Many hockey players would not even be able to skate on figure skating blades, let alone play.

 I bring you Carolina Hurricanes forward Jeff Skinner. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Skinner)
https://www.russianmachineneverbreaks.com/2013/08/16/the-time-jeff-skinner-performed-a-single-axel-during-a-game-gif/

2004 Canadian Junior National Figure Skating Championships Bronze medalist, Juvenile Division.

It's actually not uncommon for players to also train in figure skating. A lot did it as kids too.

Also the differences in construction serve a purpose. The hard boot is actually to protect from stray pucks and slashes. I have a pair, a properly broken in pair is softer and offers less support than one would think. It's for protection not support.

Also I'd love to see most figure skaters try to be that agile and whatnot in a full set of hockey pads....some of them probably wouldn't be able to even skate with the shin pads alone restricting movement.

After 3 days, lots of surprises and spectacular images ;)

Watched a little mixed doubles curling last night. US and Finland but both out of the finals.

Was disappointed by the biathlon sprint and very VERY happy by the female moguls freestyle skiing ... ;)

The women's hockey is shaping up to be a great tournament so far. Also that kid who won the snowboard slopestyle last night...literally petite. 5'5" 117lbs, but can fly. I think he's like 17 too, which is cool.

Can't wait for the women's slopestyle finals tonight, and big air later next week.

Curling has been cool so far, mixed doubles is a neat concept. Last night they were saying the IOC is planning to add more mixed events to the Olympic program for both seasons. Summer we will see a couple of mixed relays in swimming and track, and I'm hearing about some in speed skating, short track, and alpine skiing. I think mixing the genders is good, shows little kids that boys and girls CAN indeed play together, which is a wonderful thing that does a lot for inclusion.

Not gonna lie I've been enjoying figure skating as well. I've always enjoyed ice dancing, but now I find myself enjoying all of it. Those outfits are cute too, maybe I'll have to try this. ;)

Waiting for alpine to start tonight, I've watched some training runs. Looks like a nice downhill course, should be a fun competition to watch. Mikaela Shiffrin tonight! Yay!

Considering swimming, there are already mixed relays during the World Championship ... hope it will become an Olympic race ;)


Watched again the race of our Perrine Lafont in women moguls ... and she is only 19!!!! ;)

It sounds like it's in the IOC's plans for Tokyo 2020. Should be good. I don't think we have any mixed events in the Summer games right now aside from tennis. http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/40226990

It looks like the mixed team event in alpine skiing is set to debut during these very games! (Yay!)
 
Sadly I missed the moguls final, but I did catch the qualification. It's a fun watch.

As much as I want US to win everything, ;D I've gotta say, the Canadian and OAR figure skating teams are incredible. I would be fine with them beating USA, because they would definitely deserve it.

Also seeing Red Gerard win that Gold was awesome.

Yeah they do seem to have awesome teams. Pretty usual for the Russians, Canada usually has at least one or two good athletes or pairs it seems, so no surprise there either. Not liking this team event though, seems a bit contrived to me, but can't wait to see the regular events!

These winds are really killing these games. Two days in a row it's caused events to be postponed/cancelled or shortened.

Yesterday, the Men's downhill was postponed (will take place on Wednesday).

Then today the Women's Giant Slalom was postponed(also to Wednesday), and Women's Slopestyle started late and was shortened to two runs per rider(as opposed to the usual three runs per). And quite frankly the competition tonight has been meh. None of the ladies are going particularly big and are being conservative due to conditions. Lots of crashing and plenty of girls are being forced to bail and not take jumps, due to the wind. I'm watching girls who I've seen throw down, and throw down BIG, looking like your average park rat at the local resort.

I'm a snowboarder myself, so I understand why, but a lot of lay people tuning in probably DON'T, and are wondering what's going on, what's so special about a lot of these tricks, and why wind matters. Well wind blowing in your face can slow you down, make turning harder. Blowing in behind you can push you and cause you to go faster than you intend. Coming in from your sides is fine, if you're not planning on jumping. If you're just riding the piste at your local hill, it's not too much of an issue from any direction, as long as you're smart. Doing jumps like these girls? Strong gusts of wind are all kinds of NOPE. Speed is key, you need the proper amount, too far outside the window is not good. Too slow, you may not clear the jump and hit the lip. This will either cause you to wipe out(usually) or it can kill your momentum if you're able to save it and stay up, which in turn could mean you're going FAR too slow coming into the next jump and may not be able to take it. Too fast and you'll land too low. Same scenario as hitting too high. Gusts from the side could even throw you completely to the side off the jump trajectory. Hella not good.

In short? Wind is bad when sliding down a mountain.

I still haven't figured out how the Canadian and Russian guys got higher scores than the American, but whatever.

USA has four women snowboarders in the half-pipe finals! ;D

I'm hoping for a sweep! I'm rooting for Ariel Gold, because of the name. She needs the gold medal! ;D

I actually think Chloe Kim wins it though. I'm disappointed no Torah Bright, she's always a favorite of mine, even though she's Australian.

Also GO JAMIE! She's still my favorite, can't wait to see her in big air.

Women Biathlon .... What a race!!!!

Impressive to make a 5/5 on the last shooting after a race like this ...

I'm watching Women's Ski Jumping right now. Always an interesting time, ski jumping. I'm amazed at how far they can go. It's literally the closest (wo)man can get to flying without an aircraft.

Okay, as usual Americans are basically cleaning up the golds in snowboarding. However even I'm a bit perplexed by this judging at times. It's like they took the figure skating judges who didn't make the cut and said "you're judging snowboarding."

"Judging the what and the who now?"

"You know snowboarding? It's basically what you're used to, but on snow and all the elements have weird names. Like 'McTwist,' 'Japan air,' and 'method grab.'"

"Okay... is there, like, a video or something?"

"Not really. I mean we have this video of the Dew Tour... you should watch it. Here I'll put it on."

*Watching video, bewildered.

"So that's it, that's her routine?"

"Um they're called runs in snowboarding. And that's a he."

"Well I saw the long hair and bright neon costume, and figured..."

"It's not a costume. It's just pants and a jacket, we don't have a name for it."

"Okay that was a terrible quad..."

"It's not a quad, it's a frontside 1800 stalefish."

"A wha.... can you repeat that in English please?"

"He took off from his front edge, did four rotations, and reached behind to grab his heelside edge immediately to the left of his binding."

"Okaaaayyy.... I don't like this. Isn't their anyone who's done this before and knows what's going on?"

"Nope, sorry, you figure skating judges are too expensive. We had to cut corners so you alternate judges will have to help out judging other sports. Just go along with it, you'll be fine!"

*sigh* "Okay.... what's a.... Double McTwist 1260 again?.... is that what he called the spinning flippy thing?"

Whenever I hear them mention the "McTwist" I think it's some McDonalds product. LOL, I know nothing about the sport so I think I might make it as one of those judges XD

So do I, and I DO the sport(I can't do a McTwist though). lol

It's just baffling. They give really amazing runs the scores they deserve, really amazing ones. However some of the less than stellar(but still very good) runs get head scratching scores. Plenty of times I was like "Um hello, that run was waaay better than that. Should be in the 80's not 74.XX!" Perhaps I'm judging the degree of difficulty wrong. Though to be fair, that's slightly relative(like most judged sports). Women we're getting runs scored in the 90's with tricks that would get the men laughed out of the half pipe or off the slopes, because that's where the field happens to be at progression wise. (Most what the women do are still extremely cool tricks, regardless) The announcers even said during qualifying runs for men's pipe, that run would have WON 4 years ago." (Qualifying runs tend to be simpler, as they "leave something on the table" for the final).

Also, these alpine delays are getting kinda ridiculous. Though I am looking forward to seeing so much ski racing in the next few days!

I've always wondered how they judge that. Are they looking at what we can see on the TV or do the judges see something else? Also, I remember paying close attention to figure skating one year and the explanation that while a move can look really good to the casual observer, it can get a low score because it didn't follow the accepted form for the move. I immediately thought of dog shows!

I can ski, but I can't SB worth a lick. I like SB video games tho - like SSX and Amped - old school now I guess.

It's kind of a bit like that. Most people will be like "OH nice, what huge trick!" and I'm like "It was good, but a bit sketchy, he mssed the grab." They also take height into account. A CLEAN 900 with really good jump height will net more points than a sketchy 1080 with barely enough height to land the trick. Unless you're in the Olympics, apparently. :D

I am proud of the USA Olympic snowboarders this year. ;D

A few more events yet! Can't wait for Big Air and Boarder X!

Ours are not bad too :P

What a race this morning!!!!

Is it bad I was happy that the Russian guy totally spanked Rippon? Rippon came off as cocky to me, the beat everyone's score by 2-3 points only to drop to 2nd by 12 points.

Not really. :D I just wanna know how they did the scoring, because Rippon did do a completely perfect performance. But to me, Figure Skating is just about the only sport/event that I don't necessarily care if USA wins. It is just so cool to watch all the people skate and do incredible tricks.

I don't completely understand it but a lot of it has to do with the complexity of the tricks. Rippon was flawless but he didn't do very much in the way of complexity. I went to sleep before the Japanese skaters blew it out of the water.

I honestly can not bring myself to like figure skating, at least not fully. Watching the Men's Free Skate, and just like...can get to Lindsey Vonn already? I think I'll be sticking to skiing and snowbaording. (And curling and hockey.) I've given it enough chances at this point, it just isn't my thing I suppose. Though Nathan Chen's free skate was pretty awesome....maybe because he's not a campy, flashy skater?

USA Curling is 6-9 in all events so far, which is disappointing but probably on the level compared to the global competition. Mixed doubles is over; we didn't come close to podium going 2-5. I saw the women lose to Switzerland last night 6-5; women are 2-2 and play Canada next. Men are 2-2 and play Japan next. I'm getting lucky watching curling cause I sure can't coordinate the published time with reality where I am.

Yeah we're certainly not a curling powerhouse. But they were saying during today's match vs Sweden that the US is continuing to take steps towards being more competitive. They certainly have come a long way.

Waiting to watch women vs Russia (already know who won, though), but Canada Czechs hockey just finished overtime going to shootout.

Great Games fo now (ok, some disappointing things from a country point of view but a lot of very interesting things for the future) ...

Three Americans have qualified in Women's Snowboard Big Air, so I suppose a sweep is possible, though not likely. It'll Probably end up being Jamie Anderson(USA), Ana Gasser(Austria), and I'm thinking Silja Norendal(Norway). Not in that order specifically, though I think Ana Gasser ends up on top.

Is it kinda weird that almost all the US medals are from snowboarding? We're not doing so great on the "traditional" sports this time around...

Also I did watch ice dancing last night, and I liked it. Apparently that's the only version of figure skating that appeals to me. I still don't agree with Jev that it's the hardest sport ever, but I digress.

Ice dancing ... maybe the country of "fashion" lost a gold medal because of a dress problem ...  ;D

Beautiful final ... and Canadians were great too ;)

Oh yeah, wonderful performance by all.

Biathlon: Fourcade .... 3 gold medals in these 2018 games .... and still one race to do ...

I didn't watch much because USA vs Slovakia(hockey) was on. The US Men's team lives to see another day! Now to take down the Czechs!

Things don't look good for curling. Both teams are 4-4 with one match left. Only way to get in a playoff to qualify for final is to win final match and have at least one of the current 5-3 teams lose to tie us. Otherwise, it's over. Been some good matches tho.

Other stuff: I don't care for freestyle skiing as an Olympic event. I've watched more hockey in the last week than in my life; I've enjoyed it. Although I didn't enjoy watching the Slovaks get beat down by USA... maybe they don't have big hockey there? Sledding was pretty enjoyable to watch this year. That's all I've looked at.

Czech beat Canada, I'm not sure we have much hope there.

Freestyle skiing is for skiers who wish they could be as cool as snowboarders, but won't switch to snowboarding.

And the Slovaks do have a very good and successful hockey program. There's quite a number of Slovakian NHL players, they're definitely a hockey people. In fact they auto-qualified for this by virtue of IIHF ranking, so definitely not pushovers. Normally the US would have gotten a bye to the next round, but this is not a typical Olympic ice hockey tournament. Most nations are quite hindered by the fact that NHL players are not there(thanks Gary Bettman!), as their best players are out of the tournament. This is particularly true of the US, Slovakia, Finland, and Czech Republic, though it effects just about everyone, except Russia and maybe Canada and Sweden.

The Russians professional league(KHL) is known for being basically the Russian NHL. A lot of their best players don't come over here, or if they do, don't stay very long. So the Russians were able to bring MOST of their best players(Kovalchuk, Datsyuk).

The Canadians are so deep as a nation, a lot of their "second tier players" are still better than a lot of the other nations best players. Sweden is pretty much the same. Asking people from those two countries "Did you play hockey at any point in your life?" is like asking an American "Did you play baseball?" 95% of the time, yes.

Finland has a lot of talent in the KHL, but most of their best are over here in the NHL.

Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, and Norway(who has a grand total of ONE player in the NHL) teams look pretty much the same as what they would otherwise, minus a few key players. South Korea is in as the host nation, though they have some North American players whom were granted citizenship due to playing for some pro teams over there, if you're leaving the US or Canada to go play in the Asian pro league, you aren't all that great.

Nearly all of Team Canada and Sweden has NHL experience(that depth I mentioned), and Russia is all KHL players, many of whom have played in the NHL. Where as Team USA is made up of some ex-NHL guys, some career minor leaguers, plus a few college kids. I think the other teams may have resorted to handing anyone with prior ice skating experience some pads and a stick, and hoping for the best.

So the US Men are eliminated. Good run though, most didn't expect us to advance further.

Still a good day for Team USA overall. Our men's curling team made the medal rounds for the first time in three Olympics. Considering the start they got off to, this is a big victory in itself.

Lindesy Vonn went out(maybe?) with a bronze medal. Good for her.

The "Shib Sibs" won bronze in ice dance, another good result(let's be honest, no one was beating the top two pairs, aside from each other).

And... THE US WOMEN WON GOLD IN THE SPRINT RELAY!!!! We never win cross-country skiing medals. Ever. That's the first since 1976. That's what 42 years? That is the first gold for the US, regardless of gender, and the only women's medal.

Also the women won bronze in the team pursuit. Our first speed skating medal in the past two or three games. Very Nice.

Still some events to come, we should medal in a few(M/W Snowboard Big Air, Women's Combined and Team, , and could in a few others.

Sometimes, this country is ...

.... well, special ;)

Martin Fourcade won 3 gold medals in Biathlon during these games.
One of his personal sponsors is a group of cheese maker from the Alps Mountains.
The main sponsor of the French Team is a group of cheese maker from the Jura Mountains.

So, we have a kind of "War of the Cheeses" in the country ... Ok, it is more "Spaceballs" than "Star Wars"  ;D

Wow. What a job by Team Shuster! Very big win for the gold!

Also Canada....wow. No team curling medals(they did win mixed doubles though), settling for bronze in men's hockey, and the silver in women's after a 20 year streak. Rapine, can you please confirm, is Canada still there?

Maybe the big boss of the NHL will consider another position in 4 years ...

I hope so. It's so much better when the best athletes in the world compete, regardless of sport. Hopefully the Russians behave themselves now.

Some closing thoughts, before this thread goes the way of the Games, and ceases for another couple years until Tokyo:

I'm really going to miss Lindsey Vonn, if this is indeed her last Olympics. I've admired her for years, as both an athlete, and a person. Her teammates seem to have only kind things to say about her, and it shows when she speaks in front of the camera, on her social media, etc. She's done a lot for women's alpine skiing in the US, and had a big hand in advancing alpine skiing in general here. It went from being thought of as a fun activity on weekends, to being taken more seriously as a sport. Though I suppose she COULD decide to come back, she sounded very sincere that this was her last. Luckily she's not planning to retire for another year or two, so I'm excited to follow those next seasons.

My future wife, Mikaela Shiffrin, look out, she's only going to get better in four years. She'll probably win a bunch more medals. I can't wait to follow her as well during the next "off years," should be fun to watch her progression.

Although I'm excited about a few medals that show some improvement in certain sports, as a whole, I think team USA could have done better. This was our worst showing, overall since 1998. Although we did medal in 11 different sports, which is the most overall.

We did very well in snowboarding and freestyle skiing, as was expected. I don't believe that's in any danger of changing anytime soon. If anything, I think we do better next games.

As a curling fan, it was very nice to see that gold, that was a huge improvement and should give the sport a nice boost, perhaps we can continue to be a contender in years to come. The sport is gaining popularity here, in fact I even saw it televised a bit between 2014 and now. It was a hit in Vancouver 2010, but that didn't seem to carry over past the Olympics. After Sochi it kept enough of it's popularity to be televised, at least a bit, during the off years.

That cross-country skiing medal was great for cross-country skiing as a whole, regardless of gender. Maybe the start of something? We'll see.

We won a bronze in speed skating, women's team pursuit, which is a small improvement for a program that has gone down the drain quickly, having won no medals in 2014. Hopefully that's a kick in the right direction to getting back on track.

Short track has also gone down hill. Apollo Ohno was the life blood of that program, and he's proven difficult to replace. I don't see anything that looks like something we can build around, so sadly I think it might be the same in Beijing, unless someone pops up between now and then that could be that person.

Sadly, it seems the bobsleigh program was(rightfully so) hit extremely hard by the sudden passing of Steve Holcomb. I think we may recover, but it will be difficult. Bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton are at a massive disadvantage. It's hard to get involved the danger and expense not withstanding, there's a grand total of two tracks in the entire country, precluding most of the population due to geographics. I see us being what we always are, also rans who sometimes medal.

Figure skating? I don't think it'll get better, unless that program rebuilds. A lot of these countries seem to take it beyond seriously, whereas we just take it seriously. I'm not advocating churning out little figure skaters in "factories" like the Russians and others are, but perhaps we could do something? I don't know, but it'll only get worse if something doesn't change. Perhaps they should look to the USA Gymnastics program for inspiration.

I'm honestly amazed we suck at biathlon. There's guns, we love guns here. Seems like it would be a match made in heaven, as far as winter sports go, but apparently not. Weird isn't it? I'd expect rednecks to see that on TV and go "Oh, they shoot rifles in biathlon! I love this, I'mma go buy me some skis and one of them there rifles and try to make the Olympics!!!!"

It's nice to be on top again in women's hockey! Twenty years of playing second fiddle to Canada was disappointing. The program didn't suffer, and it might get a boost now, though I'd argue it doesn't really NEED it, but more girls playing sports and more people(period) playing hockey is a good thing. As far as the men go, no one expected us to go anywhere, after all our best weren't allowed to come. The program won't suffer. Most boys aren't really dreaming of playing hockey in the Olympics, they dream of being NHL players with the Olympics a nice bonus.

That brings me to alpine skiing....sigh. I'm mixed here. Very proud of Mikaela Shiffrin, she did well. Lindsey Vonn too. She's older and not quite the skier she once was, but still one of the best in her disciplines. Beyond those two, what the hell happened? A lot.  Part of it is growing pains, as we go through this transitional phase. Bode Miller is retired to the announce booth, Ted Liggity and Vonn are bowing out now as well, Julia Mancuso is also retired now. That leaves Mikaela alone at the top, for now. But we do have some promising skiers of both genders waiting to step up. I think Beijing will be better, I don't expect USA Skiing to go the way of the speed skating program. They'll be just fine in four years. I'm disappointed in the showing, but as a fan I look forward to the future.

NBC's coverage as a whole was a bit disappointing. Some of these announcers truly know nothing about the sports they're commenting on, and it shows. And some know a lot, but aren't great at commentary. Bode Miller is knowledgeable and really knows what he's talking about, but his speech skills need some work, I was practically put to sleep by his commentary at times. Johnny Weir needs to just disappear. I'm fairly certain most of my inability to truly get into figure skating is due to his grating on my nerves. Tara Lipinski is only marginally less annoying. Those two together...ugh.
NBC at least committed to focusing on airing as much live coverage as possible this time, despite the 14 hour time difference meaning events were often shown at wee hours of the morning. It seems like they're learning slowly how to compete with things like event results getting out on social media, and spoilers in general. Though there's still a very American bias. I understand the Americans being the focus of the American media coverage, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the event itself. For instance, the alpine skiing coverage often consisted of "show Shiffrin and Vonn, and whoever is on the podium, then cut to something else." I hated the constant jumping back and forth between events. One night was literally "show Lindsey Vonn and maybe a couple other runs, cut to snowboarding, back to alpine quickly, then show an hour of figure skating until they break for local news, then come back with some more snowboarding, alpine, and even more figure skating. Showing whole events, but only if you're willing to flip channels three times to see the next part. And I get that figure skating is popular, but why am I getting notifications of all these great events, while figure skating is on both channels? I don't really need to see some Hungarian guy, whose name I, nor the announcers can pronounce and has no chance of medalling, prancing around in a sparkly, see-thru, sequined top with a routine that even I, as a non fan who knows nothing, can tell is terrible. Especially not when there's snowboarding going on. I understand this is a big event, there's a lot going on, and it's hard to cover everything. However NBC has a multitude of channels, that I don't feel they properly used to their full potential. Like the scenario above, figure skating on 2 of 6 channels showing Olympic coverage, meanwhile other events are getting cut, but those two are the only ones currently showing Olympic programming? Really NBC? I hope they do better next time, but then I don't hold up hope. It just seems to be getting a bit worse every time.

The opening and closing ceremonies are always very beautiful, visually. I love the opening because it fills me with anticipation of the events to come, as I take in the beauty of the visuals, I also get the beauty of that feeling.

The closing ceremony is always bitter sweet. I'm an Olympics junkie, especially Winter Olympics, so I watch literally everything I can. Two plus weeks of being glued to the TV, computer, etc. as I watch the events unfold, suddenly comes to an end. It's funny, the past couple days, I was feeling a bit burned out, ready for it to end and anticipating having more options for my free time. The late nights, early mornings, and sleep deprivation caused by a 14 hour time difference took it's toll. "Olympics fatigue" I've heard it called, but then it ends and I immediately want it back. Then today came and there wasn't much going on. The skiathon and men's hockey final in the morning were the only events on tap, then some documentaries from NBC, all leading up to the closing ceremony in prime time. This is when it starts setting in, that it's coming to an end. Then I watch the closing ceremony, and it really hits me, this is it. Tomorrow I will wake up, and there will be no Olympics. No flipping through the same few channels, seeing what's on and deciding what's more important to me. It's back to life as normal. It's always weird for the first day or two, not knowing what to do with myself, what to watch. You know that feeling you get when you finish a show on Netflix, and after a few days or weeks or months you watch the last episode, then you kinda don't know what to do with yourself? That's the feeling I get after the Olympics. Ah well, it's good to have time to do things I've put off until the games were over, like start working out again. Which I was motivated to do even more so by seeing these athletes in their prime and great shape.

PS: Really sorry for the long wall of text, I didn't intend to write a novel. :D

Gary will have no choice as he wants the Chinese market ... and he is a businessman ...


And from a national point of view, these games are strange.

15 Medals is really good for us but many of our athletes make bad races considering their level ...


And biathlon: Fourcade won 3 gold medals but should have won 5   ::)

 ;D

Yeah NBC pissed me off with that event hoping. Especially since only they could air the Olympics here. Prior to the Olympics the wife and I were watching the Olympic channel. They had great coverage of events and compitetions leading up to the Olympics. They started and nothing. Regulated to only talk shows. Not a single bit of footage.
Hoping they are allowed to rerun the events now that it’s over.

I think his trying to grab the Chinese market will definitely mean we'll see NHL players again. You can't not send them if you're serious about expanding to that market.

That's another thing I find a bit strange. 15 is good to you guys, but 23 is disappointing to us? I think Lindsey Vonn is right, we make it too much about the medals, when really it's about so much more. I think that focus is a bit inappropriate and devalues the experience a bit. I think we can improve in certain areas, and I don't think we performed to our full potential, but I am not disappointed.

Biathlon and cross-country are two areas I think NBC did well. They covered the event, not how the Americans did at the event, likely because Americans didn't do well at those, mostly. They focused on Forcade and the other top competitors, rather than all the focus being on Americans who come in 20th with no medal hopes. And of course, shirtless Tonga guy got his share of coverage. :D


Yeah exactly! I can understand the Olympic Channel, since it's more of a "premium" channel, but a majority of people get CNBC, MSNBC, and USA. I suppose Modern Family reruns and talk shows/news were more important. Can't Rachel Maddow take a week off? USA Network is primarily syndicated programming, and it was frustrating seeing so little coverage on there. Especially when I get the note that a great event is just starting, figure skating on both main channels, and USA is showing a nearly ten year old episode of NCIS they no doubt have already run 10 times the past three months.  ::)

Sport are not considered the same way in every countries ;)

Here, there are too few professional ... considering winter sports, almost no one can live from his or her sport ... Fourcade has 5 gold medals (including Stochi) but most people in this country do not know him ...

The worst thing is that we have the biggest skiing domain in Europe  ;D

So, 15 is very good for us :P

I think our outlooks on sport are definitely different. ;)

As already said, here, sport is not considered like a normal potential career ... Sport is considered like a hobby. We do not practice high level sport in university for exemple ...

Yeah, it's the same here with certain events. I highly doubt Jessie Diggins is getting paid to cross-country ski for the most part if you aren't in hockey, basketball, swimming, gymnastics, snowboarding, or Alpine skiing, you probably are lucky to get any support, and don't make much if anything from your sport.

Vic Wild is a great example. He switched to his wife's country, because US alpine snowboarding program is just awful. No support, little opportunity.

I thought that sport was considered almost as a normal job in the US ... i understand now that it seems to depend on the sport :)

It definitely depends upon sport. Ping pong is not considered an actual sport, despite it's popularity. It's basically just popular as a bar game. Same with badminton, it's a thing we play at barbecues.

Most athletes outside sports I mentioned either hold down a job, or make money at their sport playing in other countries.

Paralympic games begin today ... impressive too :)

I caught some Paralympics last night and this morning. Really neat to see how people with disabilities can adapt to excel at their sports. Can't wait to see some sled hockey!