2022 Winter Olympics

[ucfgrad93]

Anyone watching? My family has watched a little bit, but not nearly as much as we have done in the past.

The temps are very cold with the Feels Like temp regularly in the negative teens.

So far the US is in 3rd place in the medals race. Biggest surprise is that Michaels Schiffren has been shut out of the alpine medals.

 

[maflynn]

IOC does its best to spin low Olympic ratings

Television ratings for the Beijing Olympics are off by 50 percent from PyeongChang levels in 2018, which themselves were well below the levels of Winter Olympics past. But to hear the International Olympic Committee tell it, there’s no problem, no problem at all.

I tuned into the opening ceremony only to hear about some PRSI type stuff (that we can't talk about here), and I noped out of watching it. If I wanted to hear about what China is doing, I'd read/watch the news, I didn't want to hear that crap when wanting to watch sports.

I've since turned it on, and tried to watch to watch Mikaela Shiffrin and when she missed the gate on her second competition; NBC thought it was wise to just have a camera focus on her for 20 minutes as she sat crying instead of showing the competition, I gave up.

 

[rhett7660]

Nope, I have only seen a few highlights...

 

[decafjava]

Yes wached quite a bit, congrats on the Canadian Women winning hockey gold! Canadian men are out. Nathan Chen winning gold in men's figure skating was awesome, ice dance with Cizeron and Papadakis getting gold was fantastic, looking forwad to pairs.

Women single..... Anyway, congrats to Anna Scherbakova gold, Alexandra Trusova silver and Kaori Sakamoto bronze gold and bronze were classy. I won't get poltical but shame on a lot of people and media, and I am convinced minors should not be in the Olympics.

 

[ucfgrad93]

I tuned into the opening ceremony only to hear about some PRSI type stuff (that we can't talk about here), and I noped out of watching it. If I wanted to hear about what China is doing, I'd read/watch the news, I didn't want to hear that crap when wanting to watch sports.

Unfortunately, this is a trend through all sports. People tune into sports to watch the athletes compete and escape the political BS for a couple of hours. Sadly, networks/commentators don’t seem to get this simple concept.

 

[Mousse]

I'm watching if there's something interesting happening while I'm channel surfing. I saw a 1 person bobsled event (monobob). First time I've ever seen that. 2 and 4 men bobsledding, I've seen lots of times already. Anyhow, as I'm watching the women's monobob event, I'm thinking to myself how much fun that would be if not for the stressful competitive portion. If I could do a leisurely solo bobsled, that would be a blast.
The other sledding events--skeleton and luge--OTOH, is more suicidal than fun, even without the pressure of having to go as fast as possible.

 

[ucfgrad93]

The other sledding events--skeleton and luge--OTOH, is more suicidal than fun, even without the pressure of having to go as fast as possible.

I would love to try skeleton or luge!

 

[44267547]

Every night we watch. (Actually, we watched more of the Olympics on Super Bowl night, then we did actually watch the Super Bowl.) If I had to choose between the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics, definitely the winter Olympics is my personal favorite.

*******************************

Some of the highlights:

* I watched Sean White’s final run on the half pipe, he would’ve placed third, but fell, and went to fourth place. Pretty amazing he’s still competing at 38 years old and retired in Beijing with his last performance.

* The Womens monoBob was interesting to watch. The speeds are incredible at 75 mph navigating through a narrow ice rink.

* The down hill slalom with Mikaela Shiffrin we also watched last night. Something interesting, is the skiers wear a protective vest that actually uses algorithms to determine if they fall at speeds of 70+ miles per hour, and it can entirely inflate from front-to-back within a second based off hundreds of sensors monitoring the skiers movements.

* I’m pretty amazed at some of the figure skating, how strong the males are able to catch & hold females that probably weigh anywhere from ~110 to 125 pounds while skating on ice. That’s a very rigorous three minutes for both the male/female skaters that really need an extreme amount of endurance and very low body fat to be that agile. Lots of talent. The Russian female skaters are an incredible trio that almost all three of them on Tuesday night, placed first, second and third, but a female Korean knocked one of them out for a third place spot.

* Eileen Gu is a pretty phenomenal snowboarder, only at 18. It sounds like she represents China, but it’s actually from California, and splits her life between both countries. She has a really bright future.

 

[decafjava]

Every night we watch. (Actually, we watched more of the Olympics on Super Bowl night, then we did actually watch the Super Bowl.) If I had to choose between the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics, definitely the winter Olympics is my personal favorite.

*******************************

Some of the highlights:

* I watched Sean White’s final run on the half pipe, he would’ve placed third, but fell, and went to fourth place. Pretty amazing he’s still competing at 38 years old and retired in Beijing with his last performance.

* The Womens monoBob was interesting to watch. The speeds are incredible at 75 mph navigating through a narrow ice rink.

* The down hill slalom with Mikaela Shiffrin we also watched last night. Something interesting, is the skiers wear a protective vest that actually uses algorithms to determine if they fall at speeds of 70+ miles per hour, and it can entirely inflate from front-to-back within a second based off hundreds of sensors monitoring the skiers movements.

* I’m pretty amazed at some of the figure skating, how strong the males are able to catch & hold females that probably weigh anywhere from ~110 to 125 pounds while skating on ice. That’s a very rigorous three minutes for both the male/female skaters that really need an extreme amount of endurance and very low body fat to be that agile. Lots of talent. The Russian female skaters are an incredible trio that almost all three of them on Tuesday night, placed first, second and third, but a female Korean knocked one of them out for a third place spot.

* Eileen Gu is a pretty phenomenal snowboarder, only at 18. It sounds like she represents China, but it’s actually from California, and splits her life between both countries. She has a really bright future.

All amazing, slight correction it was a Japanese skater that got bronze Kaori Sakamoto. Looking forward to pairs skating today and seeing who wins hockey men's gold.

 

[44267547]

All amazing, slight correction it was a Japanese skater that got bronze Kaori Sakamoto. Looking forward to pairs skating today and seeing who wins hockey men's gold.

Yeah, I was making the same mistake last night when I was confusing Japan for Korea, and my wife was correcting me too. 😁

Watched figure skating, and the Russians are very dominant with their top three, but lots of drama towards the end.

Watched Eileen GU on the half pipe last night again. She scored at the top twice. She makes it look so easy and effortless, almost like I could do it [Even though I can’t ], but that’s what makes her so good, is that it is so difficult to do.

I haven’t gotten to watch any hockey yet. So I’ll try to tune in to that tonight.

I can’t believe this is the final three days for the winter Olympics.

But then, the Paralympics take place March 4th-13th. I’m curious if that will be televised, as I think that would be really interesting to see the talents with those who have handicaps.

 

[maflynn]

I’m curious if that will be televised,

I don't believe its been televised on network tv in the past but I don't follow it, so I can't say for sure.

I do wonder if having the Paralympics immediately after the Olympics, runs the risk of Olympic overload. I'm not taking anything away from those athletes, but rather whether joe/jane citizen is rather tired of seeing all the Olympic coverage at this point

I've been catching some coverage by way of replays on peacock, one advantage there, is that it seems to be non-us commentators, and things focus on the competition and not stories, about how this athlete over came this or that hardship to make here, and its strictly the race.

I'm happy for Eileen Gu - to succeed and win another gold is amazing and she does make it so easy, all the great athletes seem to execute in a way that seems to show how easy it is (but in reality its incredibly difficult).

I do feel bad for the russian figure skater, I don't believe she was directly involved in the cheating, and the fact that they waited 40 days to notify (well out of the 20 day requirement) was unfair and how the western world basically was coming down on her so hard and negatively, its no surprise she was unable to execute as well as she had in the past.

As for the cheating scandal, if her test was positive, then the lab should not have dropped the ball, and I believe giving her a pass because she was 15 was wrong as well. My point is that they put a little girl, through hell, unfairly. I have two daughters not much older then that and so I guess I see the human toll on this issue.

 

[decafjava]

Eileen Gu is incredible

 

[MBAir2010]

since 2000 i never missed watching the Japanese women's curling team
until this year
they are tied 1-1 vs Switzerland now to advance to the gold medal game.
Either "they" did a great job blocking Olympic coverage online
or no one in their garage wants to post streams.

wow was i wrong about that "no one in the garage" idea
we simply cannot virtually bet online on the sport, or who would bet on Curling?

 

[44267547]

I don't believe its been televised on network tv in the past but I don't follow it, so I can't say for sure.

It appears they will, here’s what I found from some research:

“NBC Universal air more than a 230 hours of winter Paralympic programming of the Beijing games, including a record 120 TV hours. USA network will air the opening/closing ceremonies live, and all events and competitions will also stream on Peacock.”

olympics.nbcsports.com/winterolympics

I do wonder if having the Paralympics immediately after the Olympics, runs the risk of Olympic overload. I'm not taking anything away from those athletes, but rather whether joe/jane citizen is rather tired of seeing all the Olympic coverage at this point.

I suspect it’s smarter to keep a separation of the regular Olympics and Paralympics, that way the Paralympics isn’t being overshadowed for those who maybe want to watch your ‘standard’ Olympics with full physical capabilities.

I don’t know if there’s an overload or not, but I do know that there’s probably very specific categories of the differences between both Olympics, that probably attract certain viewers who want to watch the Paralympics, but I’m sure NBC is aware that they won’t obtain the amount of viewer ratings that the standard Olympics will have.

I do feel bad for the russian figure skater, I don't believe she was directly involved in the cheating, and the fact that they waited 40 days to notify (well out of the 20 day requirement) was unfair and how the western world basically was coming down on her so hard and negatively, its no surprise she was unable to execute as well as she had in the past.

As for the cheating scandal, if her test was positive, then the lab should not have dropped the ball, and I believe giving her a pass because she was 15 was wrong as well. My point is that they put a little girl, through hell, unfairly. I have two daughters not much older then that and so I guess I see the human toll on this issue.

I said the same thing you did, I do feel bad for Kamala Valieva. That’s an incredible amount duress to be under when the entire world is watching and judging, all under the pressure of performing for a gold medal in the Olympics. And she’s only 15, probably not knowing how to channel all of these emotions at an age where she is emotionally changing into a young woman.

I watched her final performance on Thursday night, and it was amazing how poorly she did, and that’s obviously due to her lack of concentration on her skill set and all of the other worldly pressures on her. She’s incredibly talented, but so are the other two Russian skaters, and I was actually very impressed with Sasha Trisova (She was the red headed Russian skater) Who was also in my opinion, just as talented as any other skater on that ice.

Whoever was responsible for the incident of whatever prescription(s) she was taking, might want to consider relocating out of Russia, but there’s probably a ‘hit contract’ on that person right now, because I doubt the blame is on a 15 year old female understanding all of the Dynamics of how this affected her positive test/doping.

 

[satcomer]

To me the Olympics lost their luster after Professional Teams started Playing! The magic of the 1980 Hockey team miracle will never happen ever again!

 

[Mousse]

To me the Olympics lost their luster after Professional Teams stated Playing! The magic of the 1980 Hockey team miracle will never happen ever again!

Oh? What about 2004 when Argentina beat the US basketball team, composed of the best NBA players? Argentina went on to win gold.
Or is the miracle underdog exclusive only to Team USA?

 

[satcomer]

Oh? What about 2004 when Argentina beat the US basketball team, composed of the best NBA players? Argentina went on to win gold.
Or is the miracle underdog exclusive only to Team USA?

This tells me your a kid! A SuperPower team that played 15 years of constant wins against fresh faced college age kids and Won during the hight of the Cold War?

 

[44267547]

Closing day today.

This is an ode to the women of the Olympics, but it’s really amazing to see more female athleticism being displayed. And it goes to show you that even though a lot of sports are predominantly male dominated, it’s the equivocal talents that females can execute the same talents as men in some of the most difficult sports in the world being demoed in Beijing.

The competition that I saw that was absolutely grueling and the most challenging was the biathlon, where you’re essentially using your entire body to distribute power from the arms and legs pushing uphill, downhill and long ways, then; the athletes have to take a .22 caliber rifle lying prone and hit five targets when their adrenaline is spiked, they’re out of breath and in frigid temperatures. When the athletes cross the finish line, they literally collapse and just lay there. I’ve never seen anything like it. If that’s not talent to the extreme with ‘cardio conditioning’ in single digit temperatures when you’re supporting 8% body fat, then I don’t know what is.

This has been an awesome three weeks, and I look forward to checking out the Paralympics starting March 4.

 

[maflynn]

So its a wrap, I did watch some sort of team slalom race on the USA network. It was an interesting competition, where each skier competes with another directly, and gets a point if they beat that competitor. It was fun and exciting though it seemed that the course was set up in such a way (I don't think on purpose) that the blue side was markedly faster then the red, this made it more about which side you were on and not how much better/worse you were vs. someone else. Still it was a nice way to finish off the olympics.

I won't be watching the closing ceremonies, I don't see too much reason. I did enjoy watching the various cross country competitions (I used to cross country ski back in the day). Overall though it looks like Norway and Russia dominated the Olympics this year.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Watched the 30 km womens race and the weather was just brutal. Low temps, below 0 feels like temp, wind, and snow being blown in faces. The athletes had to face harsh conditions throughout the games.

 

[Mousse]

This tells me your a kid! A SuperPower team that played 15 years of constant wins against fresh faced college age kids and Won during the hight of the Cold War?

Don't let my immature nature fool ya.? I'm an older Gen Xer. Lucky missed the Boomer cut off by 2 or 3 years.? I would have been part of today's most hated generation and that wouldn't sit well with me.?

Anyhow, the Miracle on Ice smacks of 'Muerican propaganda. Back then I believed the propaganda machine and thought all Russian women looked like babushkas and East German women built like Hans and Franz. Back then I thought it was the greatest thing ever that the Soviet lost. Back then I only saw through the lenses of the US propaganda machine. Today, while I still consider it an amazing feat, I doesn't live up to the hype.

 

[44267547]

Watched the 30 km womens race and the weather was just brutal.

What you were referring to actually was the ‘biathlon’. And the temperatures were so cold, athletes had to use medical tape over their nose and under their eyes to prevent frostbite on sensitive layers of skin that could set in under two minutes or less. That’s how extreme it was.

 

[icanhazmac]

Anyone watching?

Nope, didn't watch 1 second, cannot discuss the why here so it's self explanatory. I cannot cut that country out of my life completely but I can choose not to hand them any more money than I need to.

I tuned into the opening ceremony only to hear about some PRSI type stuff (that we can't talk about here), and I noped out of watching it. If I wanted to hear about what China is doing, I'd read/watch the news, I didn't want to hear that crap when wanting to watch sports.

Unfortunately, this is a trend through all sports. People tune into sports to watch the athletes compete and escape the political BS for a couple of hours. Sadly, networks/commentators don’t seem to get this simple concept.

Couldn't agree more, I am watching way less professional sports than I used too but when I do watch I want to hear about sports, sports and sports.

To me the Olympics lost their luster after Professional Teams stated Playing!

Agreed, the amateur aspect of the games is something we won't get back.

Oh? What about 2004 when Argentina beat the US basketball team, composed of the best NBA players? Argentina went on to win gold.
Or is the miracle underdog exclusive only to Team USA?

Anyhow, the Miracle on Ice smacks of 'Muerican propaganda.

Really? The 2004 Argentinian team pulled off an incredible upset but that team had professional players on it. @satcomer was clearly making reference to the amateur athlete aspect of that win and that era.

 

[Gregg2]

I haven't watched any of the Olympics this year. When I watched in the past, I found most of it boring. Each time has come around, I've watched less and less. Back in the day, ABC's Wide World of Sports covered some of the events in off-Olympic years. I was just a kid, but maybe that made the Olympics more interesting. These days, the airwaves are saturated with sports, so many Olympic events have gotten crowded out.

 

[Mousse]

Really? The 2004 Argentinian team pulled off an incredible upset but that team had professional players on it. @satcomer was clearly making reference to the amateur athlete aspect of that win and that era.

I don't get the ingrained bias some folks have thinking that amateur automatically means less skilled/talented than professional. Look at some rookies fresh outta college outperforming pros who've been in the league for years? Hakeem Olajuwon tore opponents a new one his rookie season averaging 20+ points, nearly 12 rebounds and 2-3 blocks a game. Micheal Jordan averaged 28+ points a game his rookie season. Both players were already dominant as amateurs. Tiger Woods kicked all manner of butts as an amateur. When he went pro, he shot to the top immediately. Amateur doens't mean less talented, less skilled than professionals. Amateur means they don't get paid.

The talent level between the best of the best NBA players (including some future hall of famers) and regular NBA players is huge. The gap between starters in the NBA and bench warmers is significant as well. Former bench warmers from the NBA who have joined basketball leagues outside the NBA dominate their opponents. That is a tremendous rift in talent/skill level from NBA. Chucky Brown from the Rockets' 1995 championship was the star of the Canadian league. But was just a role player in the NBA.

Anyhow, the US team lost in 2004 because the players thought they only had to show up and the gold was theirs. They didn't even try. This team lost to Puerto Rico in preliminaries, y'all...by 19 points no less. That's a bigger upset than losing to Argentina in the semi. The team had 2 HOFers and the current best player in the world, possibly of all time, King James.