2010 Winter Olympics Thread

[HeatherC1212]

My friends were on The Today Show again this morning! They were on before the competition began and they did a little interview and skating segment this morning around 9 AM. It's a cute clip (you can find it at the Today Show website) and I think once you've been on that show twice, you may have finally made it, LOL

Great night for Team USA! I lost track of how many medals they won (I think there were two silvers and a bronze in addition to three golds) but Shaun White won the halfpipe gold, Shani Davis won the gold in the 1000m for speed skating, and Lindsay Vonn won the downhill gold earlier today. Pretty fun to watch this evening and it was the first stress free night I've had since the Games started last week! That will change once figure skating is back tomorrow night, LOL

[SunDeck]

I don't know anything about half pipe, but even being totally uninitiated to it, one can see that Shaun White is just not playing the same game as the other competitors. That kid is amazing.

[Razor Shines]

The other problem with skiing, luge, bobsled, etc is that because they're all going down the hill one at a time, you can't get a feel for who's doing better than the others. Imagine watching the 100 meter dash one at a time.

One thing I've liked is when the TV people put a graphic up for what the lead time's line was down the mountain.

The Luge Cross.

[Roy Tucker]

I don't know anything about half pipe, but even being totally uninitiated to it, one can see that Shaun White is just not playing the same game as the other competitors. That kid is amazing.

That's what I thought too.

At $8M per year, he's at a totally different economic level that all of his competition too. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/i...ticleID=136957

At the 2006 games, he truly seemed joyous and "duuuude" and all that x-game stuff. This time, it all seems a bit more calculated and businesslike.

[bucksfan2]

As a fellow life long skier, I agree. Unfortunately, it is very hard to convey the vertical nature of the downhill on TV, which makes downhill look flat sometimes. It's hard to convey a mile and a half black diamond, solid ice with blind turns, through gates at 80mph.

I miss the days of Wide World of Sports when you could count on alpine events on Saturdays in the Winter.

TV defiantly doesn't do the downhill justice. After skiing the "birds of prey" run after they deemed it ready for the public, there is no way I could even go straight down that run. The alpine skiiers are amazing athletes and that often goes overlooked.

I thought NBC did a pretty good job in the women's downhill, which is somewhat disappointing. The men ski a tougher course, faster, and with more reckless abandon, but I guess they didn't have the "Vonn Story". That said what Vonn and Mancusco did was pretty amazing. They destroyed the field. I thought it was cool when they showed the two skiiers on their lines at the same time.

[SunDeck]

TV defiantly doesn't do the downhill justice. After skiing the "birds of prey" run after they deemed it ready for the public, there is no way I could even go straight down that run. The alpine skiiers are amazing athletes and that often goes overlooked.

I thought NBC did a pretty good job in the women's downhill, which is somewhat disappointing. The men ski a tougher course, faster, and with more reckless abandon, but I guess they didn't have the "Vonn Story". That said what Vonn and Mancusco did was pretty amazing. They destroyed the field. I thought it was cool when they showed the two skiiers on their lines at the same time.

Birds of Prey sounds deadly to me. Here's an article from the NYT before they held the World Championships there in '99:

For the men competing here in the downhill and super-G competitions this week in the world Alpine ski championships, Birds of Prey is a sheet of near-vertical ice sprayed down with hoses before race time.... At Screech Owl Jump, a point two-thirds of the way down the 1.6-mile downhill course, Russi thought the runoff was too short for a decent landing. ''I like to have the possibility of letting people fly at least 180 feet, and still land on a steep hill and not on a flat,'' Russi said.

Racers know that their speed is likely to start building at the Brink, three sharp turns over a natural step in the mountain near its peak. With a 65 percent incline -- 90 percent is straight up and down -- the area is steep.

Near Russi's Ride, a spate of open terrain just below the halfway mark, a racer is likely to reach a speed of 90 miles an hour. Around the bend at Golden Eagle, about three-quarters of the way down, a skier is swept into the air for at least 200 feet. He then heads into the Abyss, a left-hand turn that hurtles him into a final jump before the finish.

Also, I think Vonn is changing Women's skiing. Within a couple of years, there may not be such a thing as a "woman's ski".

[bucksfan2]

Birds of Prey sounds deadly to me. Here's an article from the NYT before they held the World Championships there in '99:

Its steep and icy to say the least. You can't do it justice until you have skiied it. There is nothing like standing down at a flat spot, looking up and saying wow skiiers go straight down that.

Another good one is the slalom course at Deer Valley. I skiied it at the end of the day, caught a patch of ice, and found myself sliding down the entire hill. I stopped at the bottom and was waiting for the rest of my group to come down. I started talking to a ranger and asked him if it would be this icy for the Olympic race. He said even more so. They will ice the run through the race in order for it to run faster. I just shook my head in disbelief.

Also, I think Vonn is changing Women's skiing. Within a couple of years, there may not be such a thing as a "woman's ski".

The only real difference is length isn't it? I am somewhat surprised that more women haven't switched this year after Vonn has won all but 1 WC downhill races this season. I can see were you wouldn't want it on more technical races with more turns, but on a downhill it would make sense. I hope this doesn't offend anyone but Vonn attacked that hill like a mens skiier. There is a reason she is heads and shoulders above the rest of the competition. In a mens downhill where Bode Miller missed gold by <.1 seconds, Vonn won by ~.5. Hopefully now that her gold is out of the way, we will hear less about her shin and see her try to win 3+ more medals.

You may know this but does a racer have to finish the race with both skis on in order to not DNF? I saw one woman fall, stay within the course and slide across the finish line only to see her DNF in the standings.

[SunDeck]

The only real difference is length isn't it?

Men's skis are stiffer too. That's not to say the women's skis are not stiff already- I'll bet I couldn't get those things to turn on a bunny slope.

You may know this but does a racer have to finish the race with both skis on in order to not DNF? I saw one woman fall, stay within the course and slide across the finish line only to see her DNF in the standings.

I wondered the same thing, probably on the same run as you. Whether it's about gates or skis, I'm not sure. I seem to recall a snowboard cross race where one person wiped out at the end but advanced because she made across the line, even though she was on her backside.

[Chip R]

The only real difference is length isn't it? I am somewhat surprised that more women haven't switched this year after Vonn has won all but 1 WC downhill races this season.

They said last night that another gal tried using men's skis but she couldn't handle it.

[bucksfan2]

They said last night that another gal tried using men's skis but she couldn't handle it.

Yea I head them say that. Usually skiers have multiple pairs of skis that they chose from. I thought the reference was that the skier (was it Paerson?) didn't feel comfortable using those skis on that course.

Looks like Vonn is up to no good today, leads after the downhill portion of the Super Combined by a pretty good margin again.

[ochre]

For those who have not seen it, let's review the greatest downhill run of all time. This two minutes did more to endanger adults at ski resorts than anything. For the next two years, I WAS Franz Klammer on every run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMJKIx34SE

That was clutch.

[Yachtzee]

TV defiantly doesn't do the downhill justice. After skiing the "birds of prey" run after they deemed it ready for the public, there is no way I could even go straight down that run. The alpine skiiers are amazing athletes and that often goes overlooked.

I thought NBC did a pretty good job in the women's downhill, which is somewhat disappointing. The men ski a tougher course, faster, and with more reckless abandon, but I guess they didn't have the "Vonn Story". That said what Vonn and Mancusco did was pretty amazing. They destroyed the field. I thought it was cool when they showed the two skiiers on their lines at the same time.

When I was a kid and the Olympics were handled by ABC Sports, there seemed to be a much more balanced showing of the events. I can remember knowing all the skiers for the Austrian, Swiss, German, and American teams. Some of the most compelling athletes of those games were people like Franz Klammer and Leonard Stock of Austria, Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland, Alberto Tomba of Italy, and Marc Girardelli, skiing for Luxembourg. Sometimes you'd have an American jump in like Bill Johnson, the Maher brothers, Tamara McKinney, and later A.J. Kitt. But generally, the coverage focused on showing the athletes competing. The announcers were excited by the performance on the slopes or the rink, no matter which country the competitors came from. Listen to the calls of Klammer's downhill run in 1976 or Stock's run in 1980 and the announcers sound like they're jumping out of their seats. Now, if an American isn't in contention for a medal, the announcers almost sound like the event is a major disappointment.

The Winter Olympics have never been the same since CBS carried the 1994 games in Lillehammer. I remember that as the year the games really changed from focusing on the athletic events to focusing on the back stories. Alpine events were pushed to the side in favor of showing locker room shots of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Then there were the constant canned segments giving us the back stories of various American athletes. When they did show events, they tended to just show the Americans. Alberto Tomba was featured, but mainly for his partying. David Letterman's mom and Mujibur and Sirajul got more air time than most of the athletes at the games. Since then, it's never been the same.

[bucksfan2]

When I was a kid and the Olympics were handled by ABC Sports, there seemed to be a much more balanced showing of the events. I can remember knowing all the skiers for the Austrian, Swiss, German, and American teams. Some of the most compelling athletes of those games were people like Franz Klammer and Leonard Stock of Austria, Pirmin Zurbriggen of Switzerland, Alberto Tomba of Italy, and Marc Girardelli, skiing for Luxembourg. Sometimes you'd have an American jump in like Bill Johnson, the Maher brothers, Tamara McKinney, and later A.J. Kitt. But generally, the coverage focused on showing the athletes competing. The announcers were excited by the performance on the slopes or the rink, no matter which country the competitors came from. Listen to the calls of Klammer's downhill run in 1976 or Stock's run in 1980 and the announcers sound like they're jumping out of their seats. Now, if an American isn't in contention for a medal, the announcers almost sound like the event is a major disappointment.

The Winter Olympics have never been the same since CBS carried the 1994 games in Lillehammer. I remember that as the year the games really changed from focusing on the athletic events to focusing on the back stories. Alpine events were pushed to the side in favor of showing locker room shots of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Then there were the constant canned segments giving us the back stories of various American athletes. When they did show events, they tended to just show the Americans. Alberto Tomba was featured, but mainly for his partying. David Letterman's mom and Mujibur and Sirajul got more air time than most of the athletes at the games. Since then, it's never been the same.

You have a legitimate point here. And I really don't know how old you are Yachtzee but I am 27. The only thing I remember for Lillehammer is Tommy Moe and his Olympics. I think NBC does a decent job in their broadcast and I do agree that it takes stories to see the thing anymore. With today's 24 media it is very difficult to hold onto the information too long.

<spoiler alert>

Lindsay Vonn crashed out on the slalom part of the super combined. She held the lead after the downhill portion but didn't finish. espn.com, si.com, wsj.com are the 3 sights that I have noticed already broke that story. NBC is in a tough position because they want to show that race, but a large portion of their audience already knows who won. They have to gear themselves moreso to sell the story than anything else in today's Olympic broadcast.

I do think the weekend telecast are exactly as you described the older Olympic broadcast. But I have to admit, while I do find the international stories neat and all, I want the Americans to win. NBC did a nice story on the Chinese figure skaters and their road to the Olympics, even after watching that I wanted the Americans to win.

[Yachtzee]

My friends were on The Today Show again this morning! They were on before the competition began and they did a little interview and skating segment this morning around 9 AM. It's a cute clip (you can find it at the Today Show website) and I think once you've been on that show twice, you may have finally made it, LOL

I'm happy for your friends. It sounds like you've been enjoying the figure skating. I personally miss the days when they still had compulsory figures. I think it put more emphasis on the skill of figure skating and required the skaters who specialized in the free skate to skate clean. I know they changed it to benefit little flippy skaters like Midori Ito, but it's just crazy that someone can fall on their behind and still medal because they can throw in a couple triple jumps.

The other thing that bugs me, at least with the men, is all this focus on their outfits. I've heard more about Johnny Weir's outfits than I've heard about most of the other sports at the games. If skaters want non-figure skaters to take the sport seriously, they need to get rid of all the silly ice capades costumes and just wear a national team uniform so that people can focus on their skating. It's the Olympics, not a fashion show.

[Yachtzee]

I do think the weekend telecast are exactly as you described the older Olympic broadcast. But I have to admit, while I do find the international stories neat and all, I want the Americans to win. NBC did a nice story on the Chinese figure skaters and their road to the Olympics, even after watching that I wanted the Americans to win.

I want the Americans to win too, but I also enjoy some of the drama that comes with amazing competition where Americans are not involved. And I don't care so much about the back stories. That information is fine for the announcers to throw in as color to calling the events, but it's ridiculous to show a 10 minute canned segment on some athlete, then show 3 or 4 minutes of an actual competition, especially when the people they are pimping fail to medal. Then it all seems like a waste of time. Let the events provide the drama and hire some announcers who can get excited by the competition.