I used to run and wrestle so I always like to see the distance events (1500m, 3000m, 5000m) and wrestling. I wrestled folkstyle (like practically everyone else) but Greco-Roman is still fun to watch. I shoot alot now so I will be closely following the prone and 3-P rifle shooting as well. It amazes me how well they can shoot. The only winter sport that is entertaining to me is biathalon. Skiing is cool enough, but then they added guns. Awesome.
I like the summer olympics more than the winter ones, however, i am enjoying the winter olympics more than i ever had before. Cant really attribute the increased viewership on my part to anything specific. Maybe its because they put a lot of the TV shows i watch on hold till after the olympics are finished.
Despite the fact I hate winter, I like the winter games better. There's much less sob stories about the "heroic athletes" than the summer games, and that is something that has driven me crazy for years. That, and there's just TOO MANY EVENTS in the summer games. Yachting? A Walk-Race? The Triple-Jump? Half of them were pulled out of somebody's ass. I don't hate the summer games in any way and I enjoying watching it MOST of the time, but winter is more fun in my book. It has hockey, insane aerial jumpers, highlight-clip wipeouts, fearless athletes and females curlers (hotter than any summer Olympic athletes). What's NOT to love?
I really enjoy the winter olympics because I love to watch the skiing and ice skating events. The athletes make it look so easy, and to watch that much skill really entertains me. Plus I went through a phase when I was younger where I wanted to be Nancy Kerrigan, so I like to pretend I can ice skate like the athletes. The summer olympics are fun to watch also, but some of the events just take too long to finish and I lose interest.
Definitely winter which is probably due to growing up in a winter-sports centric area. And Gretchen helps. I would like it even more if NBC would cut back on the figure skating coverage by about 100%.
I prefer the Winter Olympics, for one reason: I tune in to watch the best athletes in the world engage in dear-death competition I wouldn't dare to even attempt. The Summer Olympics, to me, seems like the more classic olympics. Run, jump, swim. These are all activities that ordinary humans with an ordinary threshold for risk can partake in. Ever try to throw a ten pound weight? Awesome, now try to throw it sixty feet and you have the shot put. It's a base test of human ability, judged in a forum in which any person can reasonably compete. Any person cannot reasonably compete in the bobsled, ski jump, luge, nor would any reasonable person even dare to try it (though rumor has it they're now talking about making the pole vault a winter olympic event as well). But, that's why I like it watching it. It's absolutely incredible to me that someone would hurl themselves off a perfectly good ski run at speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour. Also, the crashes are fucking incredible:
The summer games need to have more events where a person could realistically train for them while drinking heavily*. Curling is a wonderful example of this. Winter wins. *apparently Canoeing is a summer event, but I never knew it existed and it certainly couldn't be exciting. Curling 1, Canoeing 0.
I don't really like one more than the other, and will watch either whenever I can. In the summer I love watching volleyball/beach volleyball (yes, even the dudes), gymnastics (again, yes, even the dudes), and badminton. Just wish they hadn't gotten rid of baseball... Winter is awesome for hockey, all forms of skiing and snowboarding jumping and tricks. I even watch curling and figure skating with great interest.
10m Air Pistol, 10m Air Rifle, 25m Rifle Prone, 50m Rifle 3 positions, Double Trap, Skeet and Trap. Drinking while training? I think yes.
Winter. What Canadian kid hasn't at least played hockey, curled, skated or skiied at one point in their life? Oh, that, and Canadians (normally) do good at these games. And the Chinese do worse. Win-win.
When Dominique Moceanu stole my heart in the 96 Atlanta games, I was hooked. I always liked the diving, pole vaulting, and womens beach volley ball. I have been more interested in the stuff Ive caught so far this Winter Olympics than in the past. What else is there to say?
I thought Summer would be way further ahead, but I keep forgetting how many Canucks are actually on this board. If it was the old board, I think it would have been a different story. ...but they still hate us. Why do you hate us? 90% of the hate mail I get on here is the usual "Fuck you eskimo you're inferior suck off a bottle of Molson..." e-stud stuff. Was it that "Joe Carter 1993 thingy"? The guy's American, y'know! Still though, I'm happy with Canada these olympics but the Americans have been kicking ass, and rightfully so. They're no longer the cocky assholes with their shirts off posing on the podium after winning the summer 4x100 (real supercool). They're all business, and FAST. European-style fast. Also, Ryan Miller had better be having more sex than anybody else in Vancouver right now. In the end, I think I will remember these olympics for the sight seen below. Laughed for five straight minutes, I did. The evidence no longer needs to pile up.
Before this year, I would have said Summer Olympics hands down. I'm not going to lie, I love me some gymnastics. I enjoy some of the track and field stuff too. But I have been watching the Winter Olympics more than I ever have in years past. Has it always been this awesome or are they coming up with crazier events or are people going faster than ever before?
The no doubt get FASTER every year. I remember well the 1988 games iN Calgary, the fastest lugers MAY have cracked 70 mph. They're going WELL over 80, not to mention the addition of Skeleton, which is even crazier. Downhill skiing is faster and more trecherous and they've also brought into regulation: Aerials (insane), Moguls, The Downhill Cross (fucking awesome), Snowboard: all fast-paced and exciting events. And CRAZY. Hills never look as steep on TV as they are in real life, not by a loooooong shot. With the exception of that horrible crash, more awesome? I'd say so. They get better every time.
And in the most shocking development in these Olympics, this guy is: a) heterosexual b) fucking the hot American gymnast from the Beijing games.(The one that didn't royally fuck things up. No, the one that wouldn't land you in jail) I always find myself getting excited as hell when the Summer Olympics are approaching, but then once they start I realize that the only events that I really like watching are the sprints, swimming and occasionally gymnastics. On the other hand, I can sit down in front of the couch and watch pretty much any event in the winter games and wind up getting into it. I've been complaining all week that the winter games need to add more events to compete with the summer games in terms of attention. Of course at this point, what could you add? Aside from letting women ski jump (does anyone know why this is?), there don't seem like too many other ways you can incorporate snow/ice into athletic events. Still, definitely winter (and I'm not even Canadian!)
One of the requirement of an Olympic sport is that there be a reasonably deep field of competition. I don't think there's enough female ski jumpers to have a decent competition. Same reason that there's no women's doubles luge, 4-woman bobsleigh, why women's hockey was only added in '98, etc. I kind of like that there's not too many events. There are hundreds and hundreds of medals handed out at the summer games for the most insanely obscure sports, more than half of which are never televised unless someone from your country wins a medal. The winter olympics have just enough sports that you can keep abreast of everything, especially with the live streaming of raw feeds on the net.
Zeus Mercury never actually existed, you realize this? And what's the real difference between doing it in a leotard with a prissy "hold your arms up and back and thrust your hips forward" afterwards and on a snowboard?
I'm sure it has a little to do with the fact that the winter games are on right now. Personally, I don't really care for either one. Every once in a while I'll catch an event, but I don't ever sit down and watch the olympics. I don't know how people enjoy watching some of these events like the luge or bobsled. You just see someone whiz by over and over through a couple of different camera angles. And what the fuck, how is fucking ice dancing a sport?