Final Olympic Thoughts

NBC did a better job of making more events available live, not just on the internet but on the NBC Sports Network as well. There are some people who just want to watch one 3-hour show per night and see everything important. There are other people who are junkies and want to see everything live, now. It's a fine line, but there is a way to appease all those people.

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I only streamed one event live (Shaun White in the halfpipe) but I recorded almost everything I could find on the other networks and really enjoyed seeing events like the bobsled broadcast live and unedited.

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Thankfully there were no security problems. And though the stray dog extermination really distresses me, it's hard to know how widespread it really was. Same with the hotel problems, which were either isolated or temporary or the product of the whiny media's imagination. Maybe all 3. But before everyone pronounces the Sochi games a huge overwhelming success I should remind you that it was way too warm. All I heard all week during cross-country and alpine skiing as well as the sliding sports, was that warm weather was deteriorating the tracks and preventing athletes from performing at their best. I hope the IOC learns from this and picks colder cities.

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I hate people who claim something they don't like or understand (say skeleton) doesn't deserve to be an Olympic sport. But, the announcers at almost every sport spent so much time talking about all the ways the equipment (ski wax, luges, speed skating suits) make such a difference in time, that you get the impression that the athletes aren't competing, the equipment makers are.

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Yuna Kim is still the Queen. Take those same performances and have them occur anywhere else in the world (neutral ice), and she wins gold. I hope she sticks around 4 more years to win gold in her home country.

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Skier Tina Maze (mah-zay) is my choice for hottest successful Olympian. She has two gold medals and a nice rack to hang them between.

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I liked Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski but think he went a little too far with this outfits. I know this is who he wants to be and tries to be, but he was literally cross-dressing. I don't even mind that as much as the fact that he was doing it for attention, when he is there to comments on the events, not overshadow them with his pink blazer.

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I really enjoyed the Meryl and Charlie Show, even though they went to Michigan. But I get the impression she pines for him and has since they were 9 (when she was too shy to talk to him), but he's dating someone much hotter.

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NBC totally crossed the line with the death interviews. Skeletoner Katie Uhlaender was already in tears because she missed a bronze medal by four-hundreths of a second, and then Lewis Johnson asked her about her dead father whose baseball card she keeps with her. And when she apologized for not winning, instead of being sympathetic like any normal human being would have, Johnson coldly asked about her father.

And I know you have all seen the Bode Miller interview when he was pestered into tears about his dead brother.



But to me the worst was Noelle Pikus-Pace. She finished 4th in skeleton in Vancouver, retired from the sport and got pregnant. But when she lost the baby at 18 weeks she decided to get back into skeleton, which eventually led to her winning a silver medal. The interviewers basically implied that if she'd had the baby she wouldn't have the silver medal. Almost implying it was a good thing. And of course, Pikus-Pace cried, as did everyone else watching, except the NBC producers who were too busy cheering and high giving each other.

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The United States stinks at curling. 3-15 combined record for the men's and women's teams. I think next cycle the Curling Association needs to pick the players individually instead of sending the pre-formed team that does best at the trials. It also might help if our guys were in a little better shape. Look at the Canadian men who won the gold. They are ripped.

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Which reminds me of what the announcer said during the bobsled competition: "In the U.S. the biggest, strongest, fastest athletes are in the NFL. The biggest strongest athletes in Latvia are in this sled.

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Lindsey Jacobellis lost again, I feel horrible for her.

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Lolo Jones lost again. I don't feel badly at all.

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Peter Northug had a bad Olympics, a 17th, a failure to qualify for the sprint, two 4ths in the team events and then an 18th in the 50k race on the Olympics final day. He was also yanked (jerked?) from a race from coaches who doubted his fitness and focus. We know Northug plays poker, reportedly he was playing frequently during the Olympics, another contributing factor to the coaches' decision.

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All in all, it was a great, fun, successful games, and I am very sad they're over.