It seems like it was just a year and a half ago that we were watching a beautiful Chinese girl lip sync to the ugly girl back stage, and already the 2010 Winter Olympics is over. Well they’ve been over for like a week now. But I like to stay well behind the trends in life, and I figure that writing should be no different.
The U.S.A. Men’s Ice Hockey team won a silver medal. Because they handed out the medals right after they lost the final game, I’m not sure they would have been much less enthusiastic had nooses been placed around their necks. It was an exciting game with the U.S. scoring a tying goal to force it in to overtime with less than a minute to play, causing Canadians all over to say “@#$%!!!! Eh?”.
The U.S.A. won the gold medal in the four-man bobsled. I kinda like the bobsled, its a little like a race car. I harbor a secret dream that I am a natural born bobsledder. The best ever. But having spent a large part of my life in the South, I’ve never lived anywhere with a public bobsled track… even in the Northern states I think these are a little hard to come by. As long as I don’t have a chance to bobsled, the dream lives, unless somebody with a brain doesn’t come along and say “that doesn’t make any sense at all”. Don’t spoil my dream.
Apolo Ohno won 873 bronze and silver medals in short track speed skating, a sport I don’t remember seeing until the last decade or so, but I enjoy watching.
For the next four years, Curling goes back to being the sport we ridicule as being the dumbest sport ever. Honestly, I have no idea why it gets a reprieve during the Olympics.
The TV coverage the last day of the Olympics seemed to consist largely of cross-country skiing. I hadn’t noticed any cross-country skiing on television before then, and when I turned it on I understood why. Cross country skiing is probably one of the worst things ever covered on television. It has all the appeal of race walking, except with skis. I’m honestly not certain if that makes it better or worse. It should be aired opposite poker, thus making poker seem like an actual sport.
The Russian team did not perform nearly was well as they had hoped, winning only 10 gold medals. This does not, of course, count the Borscht Relay, which is still only an exhibition event. A figure skater named Evgeni Plushenko won a silver medal, but told everybody at home that it was platinum. I’m curious if anybody is buying it.
Speaking of figure skaters, just when you thought that stereotypes about male figure skaters had reached their peak, a man named Johnny Weir dared to raise the bar.
Its an amazing thing. Nations from across the world, nearly every nation in the world, came together and put aside their differences for a couple of weeks, and competed in games that actually make even less sense than the games they compete in during the Summer Olympics. And during this time, we put aside all our petty qualms about economic theories, invading other nations, and blatant human rights violations and just played games. And I just can’t help but be filled with the thought, “Damn, I wanted our boys to win that hockey game”.
