Posts tagged winter
Olympics Recap Part 2: Last Random Thoughts
Mar 5th
The National Anthems
How awesome is it to hear all the different national anthems? While just like hearing a song on the radio, too often some anthems wear down their appeal after awhile, but I admit that after a special event the American national anthem can still send a chill up my spine. I continue to believe the Canada anthem is one of the nicest and most listenable. Several like Austria and Czech Republic and Swiss are nice orchestral pieces. And then Finland and Estonia and Belarus have more ‘power’ orchestral things. Anyway. It makes the medal podium thing a little more interesting particularly when some country you just don’t hear of that often gets there. Oh. And I guess I was surprised by China and South Korea anthems. (I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t what they had. It’s like there is a Chinese Mozart hovering somewhere in the Ming dynasty who wrote some crap for them).
And how would you like the music guy’s job? I am sure nowadays they have everything on computer (but could you imagine when some guy in a booth was scrambling with some plastic LP or even a cassette tape to get it right?).
Bobsled
What’s up with all the crashes? Ok. It is a 4,800 foot track with a 500 foot vertical drop and they get to just above 90 miles per hour but, c’mon dudes, you train all year round for one of the most random events in the world so you won’t crash the only time every 4 years anyone even watches this stupid event. After four-man bobsleds from Croatia and Latvia crashed during training on Monday, officials from the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (I just wanted to type that out because I am awestruck there is a “Bobsleigh & Skeleton” Federation) postponed the remainder of the practice sessions and now they plan to shave an inch or more of ice from that curve and in a few other areas. (on a separate note Gillette Fusion has negotiated the rights to shave the ice). Coaches say the changes are relatively minor and will make the track more navigable. WTF. It is supposed to be the world’s most difficult isn’t it?
And just as I was starting to think these guys were tough because after some crashes and they stood around comparing rug burns (oops. ice burns), where most of them look like they could give The Rock a run for his money (some of these dudes are big slabs of guys), their tough guy image took a huge fucking hit today when The Netherlands’ four-man bobsled team withdrew from the event because pilot Edwin van Calker is not confident driving his sled on the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre. Say what? Not confident? WTF. He is fucking scared. Once again. You train nonstop for this one event and you get scared?
“This is a personal decision on Edwin’s part,” bobsled coach Tom de la Hunty said. “From a buildup of numerous factors, including his crash in two-man bobsleigh, the tragic accident in men’s luge and external family pressures, all of which resulted in Edwin not having confidence in piloting.”
So. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall with the other three guys who just got screwed in participating in the Olympics? (While I assume there were massive amounts of Heineken involved, I am hoping for Edwin’s sake the biathlon guns reside in a different wing of the complex).
Logos & Mascots
Probably because I haven’t figured out what the mascot of the Vancouver Olympics is (which is probably good seeing as I personally had to live through Izzy – the idiot – logo mascot for the Atlanta Olympics so I am scarred) I think I will write something about the Olympic rings (just because I was curious and looked some information up).
It was after the 1912 Stockholm Games (the first Games featuring athletes from all five inhabited parts of the world) a design of five interlocked rings, drawn and colored by hand, appeared at the top of a letter. The ring design was used as the emblem of the IOC’s 20th anniversary celebration in 1914 and a year later, it became the official Olympic symbol.
The rings have been explained as “A white background, with five interlaced rings in the centre: blue, yellow, black, green and red…is symbolic; it represents the five inhabited continents of the world, united by Olympics, while the six colors are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time.” The original designer used a loose interpretation of “continent” that included Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. No specific ring represents a specific continent.
Olympic Update 3
Feb 23rd
This Snowboarding Pipe Smoking Thing
This whole snowboarding thing is very cool but I still haven’t figured out why it’s an Olympic event. I know several past college friends treated their pipes as Olympic athletes…but…well…another post. Anyway. This Shaun White kid is called the “Flying Tomato.” Awesome. Could you imagine someone having that nickname in the NFL?
He won his second men’s Olympic half pipe (and what exactly is a full pipe…oh…that’s for the plumber Olympics) gold medal Wednesday with a “conservative” first run. I watched this conservative thing and I am not sure how he didn’t land on his head several times let alone just get plain dizzy. On the other hand he may have landed on his head but kept snowboarding and they gave him points for that. So. Once again another Olympic sport that has wacky scoring. He could have won the gold medal just on his first run alone. But they make you do the second run, even though it doesn’t matter … in other words he could done a figure skating routine on his second run and they still would have given him a gold. (WTF?). If the rules allowed it, his first run score of 46.8 would have earned him a silver medal, too.
Anyway. His second run the announcer was so flabbergasted (I love typing that word) with all his Tasmanian Devil whirling dervish tricks they couldn’t keep up with identifying them. Afterwards they told us it was a “super-sized Double McTwist 1260, two back flips with 3.5 rotations of his board and a double cork”. Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Right. He’s 23 and owns a Lamborghini. I would walk over to my closest McDonalds and order a dozen double McTwists if I could have a Lamborghini.
Olympic Crying
After American skater Evan Lysacek(above, far right) finished his moving short program on Tuesday night, he was overcome by emotion. In the area where they sit and stare while the scores come up (what other sport do you sit there and watch while the judges make up the scores?), he wiped away tears. And you wonder why they call this area the “Kiss and Cry” area (what a manly place for all the male skaters).
The USA figure skating coach (who supports Greco-Roman wrestling in the Summer Olympics where they never cry but do rub up against other men) was embarrassed by Lysacek’s behavior “I kept wanting to say, ‘Stop it. Stop it. I’m very stoic, very disciplined. I think of the ski jumpers: when they do well they don’t start to cry. Let’s put it this way: I don’t like figure skaters to cry, but it was an emotional moment. I’m not saying crying is horrible, but I would rather him stop.”
Unfortunately for the coach one of his other skaters, Mirai Nagasu, is also considered a champion crier.
In the end, after several sob sessions following competitions, the USA coach put his foot down and instituted a “no crying rule.” (good luck dude).
What makes me cry? When I read things like this about men’s ice skating … “You have about 10 brilliant boys in the world who are looking at each other wondering …” said the USA coach Frank Carroll.
Olympic Condoms
The Olympic condom count at the Athlete’s Village at the Olympics is 100,000. For comparison during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, organizers ordered 70,000 and had to order an additional 20,000 (uh. That’s 90,000 total if you don’t have your abacus). Beijing ordered 100,000 in 2008 with the Olympic motto, “faster, higher, stronger” on them.
(oh my)
So. With the 100,000 condom count in Vancouver it translates to slightly more than 14 for each player, trainer, official and coach. But I believe teammates are allowing unused ‘ones’ to be ‘used’ by more active teammates. (therefore active athletes are totaling 19+ condoms for the Village sports)
In addition the USA Curling team is co-sponsored by the “Hurry Hard’ condoms so they didn’t order any getting all their’s for free.
In a follow up story, Playboy is awarding bronze, silver and gold medals to the athletes who have used the most condoms.
Uniforms
I have already taken a look at some of the curling “uniforms” in my curling Olympic post (they would have to guarantee me a medal to wear some of them). But figure skating is taking it to a completely new level. I believe it is the Russian skaters who brought out their formal “aboriginal” costumes (which drew rebuke from Australian Aboriginal leaders as well as the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy team – although I did hear Britney Spears has asked if she could use the costumes on her next tour stop in Fond du Lac).
The skaters, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin (I don’t buy that those are their real names …) skated in brown toned body suits augmented by red loin cloths, white striping and artificial leaves. It has been noted that Aboriginal leaders in Australia criticized the costumes as inauthentic and offensive. (I will admit I was slightly surprised that the aborigines were high viewers of figure skating).
“I’d like to say it’s not possible to do a 100% authentic folk dance on the skates. It has required elements … and we have some restrictions in our costumes. I can’t skate without pants like some aboriginal people.” says either Domnina or Shabalin I cannot tell them apart. Awesome stuff.
Another Olympics Update: This Curling Thing
Feb 22nd
First. No curling irons are involved. They use something called “stones’ (not testicles so don’t worry).
Second. C’mon. This is shuffleboard on ice. That’s it. Why don’t they just call it that? Oh. Because it’s the Olympics and we need to call it something cooler. Ok. It’s Curling. And last week Curling sprinted into the forefront of the Olympics – “Canada tops Norway in curling crowd-pleaser at Winter Olympics.”
As you can see below this is a serious sport (but the humongous green circles on the ice are a little disconcerting). In this match “there were some dicey moments en route to the victory.” (not my words .. I believe it was the Vancouver Times). In a fascinating match the Canadians raced (I use that term quite loosely … think snails at their fastest) to a 5-1 lead through four ends (ends are simply when they have all their rocks together at one end … ok … stop laughing). I believe they have 10 ends in a match.
Oh. Please let this post end … why did I start this?
They use terms like ‘skip’ (I have no clue what it means) and there are two sweepers with brooms on each side of the smooth granite stone as it slides, vibrating the ice as it slides down the lane. The strategy is to knock the opponent’s stone out of the scoring area. The goal is to get the stone closest to the center of the target called the house.
Only fans with stones show up to cheer.
Oh.
Let me take that back.
Some of the contestants have to have stones to wear uniforms like this:
