February is a pretty lousy month for sports, I think. The Super
Bowl is over, while the NBA and NHL have their self-promoting
all-star games (where gimmicks such as the 3-point shootout and
dunk contest far outclass the actual game). Plus, spring training
has yet to start, and college basketball, while amusing,
hasn’t hit a March Madness peak. I usually spend most of
February trying to think of a name for my fantasy baseball
team.
With this attitude, you’d think that I’d be excited
that the Winter Olympics are back. Instead, I’ve been
dreading the inevitable onslaught of Olympic coverage ever since
commercials started popping up.
I’ve gotten grief from friends for not caring about the
Winter Olympics, their reasons ranging from the idea that I
don’t appreciate how hard the athletes work and how difficult
their feats are to the fact that I’m a grouch (probably true)
to my personal favorite, “It’s the Olympics!”
After so much argument and discussion, I decided to see what the
big deal is about the Winter Olympics. I usually watch some of the
Summer Olympics, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to give the
Summer Games’ homely sister a shot.
What follows are thoughts on what I’ve seen so far.
“¢bull; The U.S. Olympic team isn’t that bad: You’d
think that the United States has only won medals in snowboarding, a
sport which it essentially invented. All we’ve heard about
are Bode Miller’s struggles, Michelle Kwan’s injury,
and the rift between Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick. The reality is
that the U.S. has 18 medals as of Tuesday, seven gold, good enough
to be tied for second. So why does it seem like the team is so much
worse? Likely because the most visible Olympians (Miller, Kwan and
Apolo Ohno) either are injured or haven’t lived up to
expectations. Of course, it’s hard to when NBC runs
commercials boldly declaring this group “The Best U.S.
Olympic Team ““ EVER.”
“¢bull; The biathlon is the most disappointing event ever:
Initially, I was fairly bored by many of the Olympic events, until
one of my roommates informed me of the women’s biathlon. She
explained that the event involved skiing and firing a rifle, and
naturally I got excited. So excited, in fact, that I stayed up
until 4 a.m. to watch. I expected women to ski downhill with
rifles, and that as they skied through curves, clay would be shot
out of cannons for them to fire their rifles at. Awesome, right?
Well the actual event turned out to be 15 kilometers of
cross-country (yawn) that ended with the women picking up rifles
and shooting them at standing targets. I didn’t go to bed
very happy.
“¢bull; Curling is the most exciting event: Curling has gone
from the most-maligned to one of the most talked-about events in
the Olympics since its introduction in 1998. (It sold out 95
percent of its games!) It’s the one event that my friends and
I can agree is simultaneously the most quirky yet also most
exciting sport the Winter Olympics have to offer. I don’t
know what was more shocking ““ finding out that you can call
time-outs, or discovering that the U.S. women’s curlers are
beautiful. Also, has there ever been a sport more tailored for the
rich? Curling is surpassed only by polo in terms of specialization.
Ice with a pebble-like surface? Polished 35-pound stones? Something
tells me there aren’t many rags-to-riches stories involving
poor kids playing the game on frozen ponds in Minnesota. At least
you can ride on a tormented sibling’s back and pretend to
play polo.
“¢bull; The Internet has ruined the Olympics: You could say that
the Olympics are even more accessible and easy to follow thanks to
the Internet. And this is true, to a degree. However, the Internet
also makes them far less exciting. Torino is on the other side of
the world, and when we see events on TV, they’ve already
happened at least eight hours beforehand. This leads to the utterly
ridiculous quandary of being able to “spoil the
Olympics.” What is this, a “Lost” spoiler message
board? This isn’t the first time the Olympics have been held
in a radically different time zone, obviously. But before the
Internet, it was far easier to avoid the Olympic results if you
didn’t want to see them. Now, if you go on ESPN.com or even a
site such as Yahoo!, the results jump out at you. It’s to the
point where it’s ridiculous to even try to avoid knowing the
results.
So I’ve given the Olympics a chance. Have my opinions
changed?
Yes and no.
On the one hand, I did discover that curling and the downhill
events are pretty cool. On the other, I was bored to tears by
events such as the biathlon, cross-country and even speed skating.
Most of these events are things that people would pay zero
attention to if they were aired on their own on ESPN2, but when
they’re all put together every four years people go
ballistic. That’s like a red-blooded male who hates
“Sex and the City” suddenly shrieking with ecstasy when
HBO decides to run a marathon of about 40 episodes. Does that make
any sense?
That’s not to say I could ever even dream of doing what
any of these athletes have worked their whole lives to accomplish,
or that I don’t respect them.
Then again, I also respect people who risk horrible free-falling
death to wash the windows on the Empire State Building, but
I’m not going to watch them on TV. Impressive doesn’t
always equal entertaining.
Humphrey is more excited by the upcoming World Baseball
Classic.
E-mail him at mhumphrey@media.ucla.edu.