I have always been a big fan of sports and especially the Olympics. Obviously, the Summer games attract more people but the Winter Games are interesting as well.

But, my rant is the amount of Political Bullshit.


POINTS:


1.) Opening Ceremonies with 1-athlete nations:

I thought this was the world's best athletes?? What is the point of sending a representative when they are not world-ranked athletes? For example, Mexico sends a 51-year old skiier
who may have been born in Mexico but lives in Austria. The country of Georgia sent a handful of representatives. The kid who got killed was 21 yo and ranked #44 in the world.
I suppose the argument could be made for the Jamaican bob-sledding team. That is slightly different in that a fast-start is really important and most teams have sprinting athletes.

2.) Changing the course because of danger:

WTF? Again, these are the world's best and it is a sport. They shortened the luge course because of the kid dying. They took out a bump in women's alpine skiing because 4-5 skiiers wrecked on that
bump towards the end of the course on the next events. What happened to the "Thrill of victory and the agony of defeat". Dale Earnhart died at the Daytona 500. Riders crash all the time at the Tour De France.
Those are the courses -- that is the risk of the sport.

3.) "Political/Corporate" favorites:

I like the idea of "sport" in general. Take the 100M sprint. Any kid in the world with a pair sneakers can run. Someone like Usain Bolt won the 100 meter and a fast mo-fo. No doubt he is the best in the world
and participated on the world's biggest stage. But Snowboarding Half-Pipe.....WTF? Unless you go to maybe a dozen places in the world, where the fuck do you find 550 foot ice-carved half-pipe?
Red Bull built Shaun White his own fucking personal half-pipe. The kid is pretty amazing....but, keep that event in the X-Games. No other person in the world had access to what he had. Completely unfair.
Red-Bull corporate sponsorship.

4.) "Buying" athletes/coaches:

Russian and Chinese coaches in the U.S. It happens all the time in professional sports, coaches and players switch teams all the time. When a baseball player gets great, an organization pays them tons of money.
Coaches and athletes shouldn't be able to switch countries. I can see training in a country, like US athletes going to Chile in June because there is snow there. If you making your residence/living year round
in a country then when it is time for the big event, you go to the country that is paying you.

5.) "Visit British Colombia":

I can understand it is a major financial investment for a city to finance the Olympic games. Historically, the city never recoups the money invested. But damn, every other commercial break is about
coming to the fabulous British Colombia. There was tons of pressue on the Canadian athletes to bring home a gold medal. They had never done it before.


6.) Politically motivated for 2016 (Lula statement):

Silva also said at the Mangueira slum that he expects Brazilian athletes to start preparation for the games as soon as possible to avoid disappointing performances in 2016.
“Brazil won’t host the Olympics (and allow) the gringos to come here and win our medals,” he (President Lula) said.

Brazil won only 3 Gold Medals even though they sent 277 participants to the '08 Games. China had 51 Golds.

what fuck up,the female down hill skiers was only allowed one training and was stopped after 3/4 of the course,then after that they was allowed to go the last 1/4.

the curling teams couldt practice because they had to wait for nonolympics canadians playing

in the biathlon the huntstart some competioners from canad was started before rivals with lower start numbers
and on ,on
i think this is the worst carried through olympic ever. the spell check dint work

I live in Mexico and would LOVE to be able to watch the Winter Olympics. Except they AIN'T FRICKIN' ON TV HERE. And I can't access NBC's website to watch any online stuff because A) NBC stopped providing online live coverage and B) NBC.COM is blacked out for non-U.S. IP addresses.

I can watch some coverage in Spanish on terra.com, but sling box would be nice right about now so I could also complain about TV coverage of the Olympics!

Porker.

If you have a computer and internet access, I am going to make some suggestions:

FUCK NBC and their Pro-Corporate Advertising!!! Seriously, I am so sick of their coverage of the games. It is full of fucking AT&T commercials, stupid interviews, 99% focused on the American athletes and they tape-delay events to show them in primetime. Bob Costas is a little prick and I used to like Al Michaels, but he has made some dumbass comments.

There is what I have been doing:

1.) Go get your a VPN account at:

http://www.purevpn.com/

For just $6.00 you can get an IP address to the U.S.A AND Canada (more importantly they have 2 Canadian servers).

2.) Again, if you want you can get an US-based IP address and access NBC (but their coverage sucks ass!). Instead, I would recommend:

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/

They are showing the events LIVE...wow,imagine that actually showing events as they happen. Sure, there is obvious biasness for Canada but then you won't have see Bob Cock-ass and his stupid interviews.

I think that not being able to watch the winter Olympics is one of the BONUSES of living in Mexico. Of course, if my on-again, off-again insomnia reappears it would be quite useful to be watch the Olympics to help me go to sleep. Living here will make my goal of not watching a single second of the Olympics MUCH easier!

But I digress, I'm responding to a guy who thinks that HOCKEY is an interesting sport!

EA

RT here.

I agree 100% that NBC's coverage is lacking, as far as I'm concerned.

However, they have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to broadcast the games. If -- in their wisdom (these are the guys who fucked up their #1 rated late-night show) -- they think that they will get more viewers and make more money showing ice dancing than the Women's Super-G, for example, then they can do whatever they want.

Me, once I saw the results for the day's events, I didn't want to watch it on tape at night, but they've decided that I'm in the minority. So they do what they think is best for them.

And truthfully, if it wasn't the Olympics, I wouldn't give a flying fuck what happens in the Men's team luge or biathlon, much less a more 'accessible' sport, like Hockey. I went to a Panthers game two weeks ago, and the arena was half-empty. So I'm not even sure how many people would be watching hockey, even if they showed it on NBC proper.

Bottom line for me is that they're trying to get a return on their investment, and they should be allowed to do it any way that they see fit. The Olympics on TV are a privilege, not an entitlement.

12 million of 30 million Canadians tuned-in to watch their team win in a shootout against Switzerland. This is their world cup event and there is apparently a lot of interest.

You can't compare an american pro league to a Worldwide event. I have never attended a single MLS soccer game, but attended several in Brasil and will watch the soccer world cup.

My point is that if you like sports, there is a better way to watch these games. NBC is choosing to go after a broader "family" audience and as mentioned make as much money as possible. They spent quite a few 15-20 minutes clips of primetime talking about "polar bears in Manitoba", "missionary work in Kenya" and even "Tiger Woods". I watched 1 hour of the televised Olympics by NBC -- it showed no sporting action at all even though it was the middle of the da. It was 30 minutes of advertising, 15 minutes of interviews, discussing Vancouver weather and showing some newsbroadcaster sliding down some wired cable.

(Message edited by cincoleche on February 20, 2010)

Anyone who would have watched the Team-USA/Team-Canada game could not say the last 5 minutes of the game wasn't exciting.

Team USA beats Canada 5-3 in a stadium filled with 99% screaming Canadians with their red/white flags. USA goalie Ryan Miller stopped 42 shots and probably 10-12 coming in the last 5 minutes in the game. Some were amazing saves.

Awesome game for anyone who enjoys sports.

Indeed. One of the best hockey games I've seen in recent history!

20 out of 30 million Canadians tuned in to watch Sunday's loss to the US.
There is an even better game on now - Canada / Russia. The first period was extremely intense - no way can they keep up the pace for the rest of the game (and pass a dope test). Best hockey I've seen in a long time.
Russia is Canada's main rivalry since the summit series in 72. A rivalry built on respect - not trash talk.

I think this sums up Canada pretty well.

Looks like they are just relaxing and waiting for their turn to use the team strap-on back in the locker room.

Do those "girls" get gene testing ??

Tickets for the mens gold medal hockey final between Canada and the US are going for $6,000. One woman sold three tickets for $18k and took her family on a southern vacation - oddly many people think she is nuts.

6 grand? For a ticket to a hawkey game? Is our own "Dr. J" a hockey fan?

Hockey is life and death in Canada. (Its not quite soccer-in-Brazil insane, but close).
Canada wins mens hockey gold against a very good and tough US team. A US team that on any other day is capable of beating Canada. The frustrating part is that the average american can't even spell "hawkey".

Believe me, you would never pay those prices in Brasil for any soccer match. I saw the Copa Libertadores final between SP and AT Paranaense in 2005, and a midfield seat cost R$150 (or about US$60) and the scalpers were getting double that. Brazilians are fanatics about soccer but far more sensible with their money than North Americans.

The hockey in the Vancouver games was awesome, and it seemed right that the game went into overtime.

16.6 million out of 30 million Canadians watched that game yesterday, that is insane.

I found it quite interesting that NBC even admitted it was great closing day for the Olympics with hockey game going into OT and 50K cross-country event separating the gold from bronze by 1 second. They had a whole US audience captivated to see interviews/highlights, BUT instead they break away to show some stupid reality show.