- What makes the 2006 Winter Olympics so great is that the underdog becomes the overdog. In most sports, except figure skating, the little know Olympian is just as likely to win (if not more so) than the favorite well-known front runner.
- The men’s luge racer flying down the hill with their giant oval helmets and slick red race suits look like giant suppositories in search of the enormous uber anus.
- Why do they need style points in ski jumping? Wouldn’t it be much simpler and fairer to just give the gold medal to the guy who jumps the furthest?
- It’s official! NBC now has more commercials than Olympics. Didn’t the broadcast network weasels learn anything from FM radio? It wasn’t that long ago that FM radio was all commercials. Now the switch is on and people are listening to satellite radio with very little if any commercials.
When the network weasels bemoan the loss of market share and try to place the blame on the internet, we should put them all in a small room and make them watch that creepy GM truck commercial with frozen USA guy over and over and over and over and over again.
- What is up with all the funky sunglasses and goggles. It used to be that only the ski racers wore goggles, now everybody is wearing them and sunglasses for every winter sport on the menu including the indoor sports like speed skating. How long before we see the figure skaters jump on the bandwagon? That’s all we need now is the Russian pair with matching hideous purple and black Spiderman outfits wearing the latest Revouvexspyaokley sunglass goggles MP3 player. Can’t wait!
- It must be really freeing to compete in the Olympics. Unlike other competitions where you earn points throughout the year or season, in the Olympics only the first three places really count. That means you might as well go for it for who remembers, or even knows, who finished fourth in any given event.
- The only way that most of us over thirty ever have a chance to make the winter Olympics is to either:
a) Take up curling seriously or
b) Move to small African or Central American country, become citizens, and take up curling seriously.
- The coolest Olympic nickname: Shaun White “The flying tomato”
- Who and why combined ski jumping with cross county skiing for the Nordic combined events? Granted the sport of triathlon combines three pretty different sports but they do go together in a somewhat poetic way: all three are common forms of human motion over land and sea. But the Nordic combined events are just wacky. I can just image the first race in Sweden.
“Sven do you see that huge hill over there?”
“Ja”
“Well how about you and Oly ski down and jump over that fjord and race back to town? First one back wins this barrel of lutefisk.”
- Short track skating is the Olympic version of the demolition derby…plus it makes me dizzy.
- I’ve read that high percentage of ski jumpers become alcoholics and or need prolonged psychiatric care…and I’m not surprised.
- Why do the Olympics need a mascot, and why is it always different, and why is it always so painfully cute? Here’s an idea for the next winter Olympic mascot, Herman the hemorrhoid. He can and will be comforted by Linda the Luge.
- The coolest moment in the opening ceremonies was when the F-1 Ferrari did the tire smoking burnout on center stage. This, of course, had little if nothing to do with the actual winter Olympics (and yes I know that Ferrari is from a town nearby Torino) but you got to respect the Italians for pulling this stunt just because it was way cool.
And just image the liability issues if we tried to do something similar here in the USA. You would have a room full of attorneys telling you the potential liability of having a 1000 horsepower racer do a deadly pirouet just feet from several hundred Olympic athletes.
- During the 30-Kilometer pursuit in cross-country skiing the athletes switch from classic style skis to skating style skis in what is termed the pit stop. From now on all transitions in triathlon should be called pit stops. It just sounds so much better than transition, which to me is a cold and really mundane term.
You transition from middle age to old age. You transition from one subject in school to another. In a pit stop you rev your engine while taking on much needed liquids. In a pit stop you burn rubber as you exit quickly. So please from now on make sure that you have two great pit stops during your next race.