Winter Olympics 2006
Published by Toni February 20th, 2006 in Uncategorized.
So… who’s been watching the Winter Olympics?
I have to admit that I never really watched the Olympics (winter or summer) until I met my boyfriend 10 years ago (jeez! Has it been that long already?!?!). He and his family are HUGE fans and have actually attended a few. In fact, his parents were in Torino last week. I guess they left early because they’d already seen the events they wanted to see.
I realize that the Winter games aren’t as popular as the Summer ones, but I wonder if the Olympics in general is still popular. It just doesn’t seem anyone is making a big deal out of it. Yahoo! doesn’t really seem to cover it much, and I haven’t seen a lot of people blogging about it. Even my boyfriend has only watched little snippets at a time, though he does admit that he prefers the Summer Olympics.
When I heard that more people watched American Idol 5 than the Olympics, I kind of felt bad for the athletes, even though hypocritically I myself watched AI 5, then later on switched to the Olympics. This event features the greatest athletes in the world; it only happens once every four years, yet we prefer to watch a bunch of no-name amateurs in what’s essentially a national karaoke contest. Sad.
Most people think that the Olympics is just about sports- people competing for some medals. But it’s more than that. The Olympics tops any movie or TV drama because it’s real. Dreams can be fulfilled or crushed in a split second. You have these people who train all their lives, and all it takes is one small mistake, one small misjudgment and it’s all over for them. Take Michelle Kwan’s heartbreaking story about not being able to compete because of an injury. This should have been her last hurrah, and poof- it was gone. Or skiier Bode Miller’s disqualification in one race when he slammed into a gate and his failure to obtain any medals in 4 other races.
But like I said, the Olympics are also full of stories of triumph. Who could ever forget Kerri Strug’s incredible performance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? In the case of the current Olympics, I witnessed a similar miracle. Figure skaters Dan Zhang and Hao Zhang of China had barely started their routine when disaster struck. When Dan threw Hao, she didn’t land properly and crashed to her knees. She was obviously in a lot of pain and Dan helped her hobble back to their coach and doctor. While the doctor inspected Hao’s knee, she insisted on completing the routine. The doctor gave his ok, and the pair went back on the ice. Dan and Hao ended up getting the silver medal.
How cool is that story?
Anyway, I hope more people watch the Torino Olympics from here on. I know I will.
2006 Olympics, Torino, Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller, Kerri Strug, skiing, figure skating, Dan Zhang, Hao Zhang, silver medal, 1996 Atlanta Olympics
6 Responses to “Winter Olympics 2006”
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Don’t forget, the Olympics can help unknown athletes get on a Wheaties box and be remembered as that athlete on the Wheaties box. However, people may remember the athlete on a Wheaties box, but they will forget what event he or she participated in.
The problem is that NBC’s coverage of the Olympics sucks and always has. They don’t show enough of the competitions, so there’s no suspense. They only show the Americans and the top athletes. Granted we can find out the results on the Internet beforehand, but seeing only the winners and the favorites is like being late to a movie and only catching the end of it. When I lived overseas, i.e., England, they showed complete coverage. I’d watch figure skating for hours straight. Bode Miller is an embarassment to NBC for hyping him up so much. No one knew he was before the Olympics. That’s because winter sports like curling, luge, cross country skiing only gets TV airplay once every four years. I am just now watching Ice Dancing… I can’t believe this couple performing now is skating to Bolero, which was immortalized by Torville and Dean. Anyway, as I was saying… I have one word for Bode Miller… CHOKER. LOL. Honestly, I don’t think Americans have all that much team spirit. We’re really more into cheering our favorite celebrities. I watched American Idol too, because I know NBC isn’t going to show figure skating at exactly 8pm but later on in primetime. Also, NBC re-airs the primetime show after the 11pm news and Jay Leno. MSNBC and USA on cable have picked up some of the competitions, team sports like curling and ice hockey. The women’s figure skating competition is going to be cool even though MK isn’t competing. I want to see how Sasha Cohen does. She’s a bit of a choker too. I hope NBC shows the Japanese skaters too. But if Irina Slutskaya wins, I’ll be happy for her, because she’s gone through a lot and succeeded.
Marvo- Did you know that so far, 15 Olympians have been on Wheaties boxes? I wonder how many from this Olympics will be on the box.
Tinka- Yes, NBC’s coverage does suck since it’s just highlights. Didn’t they use to show almost the whole thing on TV? I could swear years ago that the Olympics were almost on all day. I would even get annoyed as a kid since my favorite shows weren’t on.
At least the American commentators are pretty good. Since most are ex-Olympians, they know what they’re talking about when they remark about someone missing a turn, or jumping too soon. When my boyfriend watched the 2000 Summer Olympics while he was living in Japan, he said that the commentators were awful. All you hear are these witless morons going, “Ehhhhhhhhhhh!” and “Sugoi!” (Wow!) over and over. It was really irritating.
I saw that skate. It was great. That girl got back up and silvered! Sweet story.
I agree with Tinka, the coverage selection is not good because it lacks diversity. Nevertheless, since I heard that ice skating competitors were dropping their partners like flies… I started watching a bit more :).
Yahoo actually has an entire section devoted to Olympics coverage. I think I like the Winter Olympics more than the summer ones…everything is so breakneck and daring, I spend my time watching it wondering, “How did this person get involved in such a crazy, obscure sport?”