Turin 2006 Olympic Winter Games

[Insanity]

(I searched but couldn't find this topic, so I started it! If there is already a thread for this, would a mod please move this one. Thanks.)

So, the Olympic Winter Games of Turin started yesterday with the Opening Ceremony.

Today are the first decisions.

What are your favourite sports and your favourite sportswomen/men?

Insanity

[FineyMcFine]

My wife thinks I'm nuts, but one of my favorite sports is curling. It's the national sport of Canada and my mom used to curl when she was a kid (I'm not a Canadian kitten, alas, my mom moved to the USA when she was 19). I was visiting my cousin several years ago and the national curling championships were on TV and everyone in her dorm, even the sports-eschewing vegan, was crowded around the TV, rapt, focused on the curling with the kind of attention I have never seen, not even Americans during the World Series or the Super Bowl. So I got hooked. I love how the team has to work together and everyone has a different job to do and when they are really in sync, they function like they're one unit. And the strategy, too, I love the strategy.

Otherwise, I really like the skiing because it's exciting - favorites are alpine, Super G, downhill, the really fast ones. I like moguls and slalom okay, but the speed is where it's at for moi. Ski jumping is neat too.

Short track speed skating is WAY fun to watch. I like snowboarding also. Bobsled and the luge. Is that everything? I don't really like figure skating or ice dancing and usually skip right over those. I am psyched to have Tivo so I can fast forward through 'em and the commercials too.

[Candleshoe]

I've only heard of curling 'cos I think it was the only medal we won last time....

I must admit to being somewhat of a philistine when it comes to sport. I know about tennis, and I know about hockey, but pretty much everything else comes under my "why would a person do that to themselves?" category.

Ooh, I know about skating...didn't we have Torvill & Dean at some point in the 80's, (although they now seem to be celebrity gameshow hosts here) and didn't someone hit someone in the knees a few years back? Was that skating or am I confused?

[FineyMcFine]

Yes, the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan drama!

She captured national attention beyond the skating world on January 6, 1994, when she was clubbed in the knee by Shane Stant, who was hired to assault her by Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and friend Shawn Eckhardt. Despite the unprovoked nature of the attack, as a public figure she was mocked in the press for crying "Why me? Why now?" in what was perceived as a whine. Kerrigan was misquoted; her words in the immediate aftermath of the attack were simply "Why? Why?".

But forget figure skating. Speed skating - SHORT TRACK speed skating - is a rush you won't soon forget. (Watching it, I mean - I imagine doing it as well, but I've never done it. (Short track speed skating, that is, not, you know, IT.))

[Smilis]

I have a lot of favorites in these games. I have high hopes for our
Tre Kronor, the Swedish Hockey team. We simply must do
better than last time!!! And of course I have hope for our women in
hockey too. Ok, so we wont win, that is probably reserved for Canada
but maybe bronze like last time.

Othervwise a favorite is Anja Pärsson (alpine), she will take some medals,
hopefully the gold medal in at least two of the five starts she is in.

Sadly that is probably the only chances of some medals we will have.

Curling, skiing and moguls are other favorites but Sara Kjellin (moguls)
sadly missed the Bronze medal.

Do you say ski shooting or what is that really called?

[SySnootles]

I think you may be talking about the Biathalon, which combines cross-country skiing and marksmanship (shooting at stationary targets). It's one of the more "practical" events in the Olympics (and by practical, I mean it does have some real-world purpose... people who have had to hunt for long distances in the snow).

I'm all about the Olympics, be they Summer or Winter. I tend to enjoy more Winter diciplines than I dislike, so I'll share my list of non-preferences instead of preferences (think of it as an opposite list).

I don't really care for...

30 and 50 Km Cross country skiing (not a fan of long-distance races)
Pairs figure skating/ice dancing
Half-pipe snowboarding
Freestyle skiing
3000 and 5000m Speedskating

Everything else I'm very much up for. I'm also a big fan of curling. It's just neat to watch.

[sadie]

Speed skating. All of it go Dutchies!!

[Smilis]

I think you may be talking about the Biathalon, which combines cross-country skiing and marksmanship (shooting at stationary targets).

Thats it!
Thanks, got to remember that.

[GayNow]

I watched a bit of the 'parade of nations' while I was talking with my mother. Every once-in-a-while, I would say (usually in the middle of a sentence), "Oh! She's cute!" Then I would pick up with the story about my day at work. Surprisingly, once or twice, Mom said, "She is!"

I think this might work well in the "Random Moments" thread...cuz Mom agreeing with me when I say a woman is cute...RANDOM!

[sadie]

So... I'm off to watch the women's speed skating!!


EDIT:

Gold and silver for the Dutchies! I am so proud!

[urnofosiris]

Time to abuse the fonts....






YES
WE
WON

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Insanity]

Well, congratulations to the Dutchies!
That was really amazing! Gold and silver!

But I have hopes for the women Biathlon tomorrow!

Insanity

[Artemis]

Well I'm just happy to be seeing winter sports - the Winter Olympics are pretty much the only time they'll be on free-to-air TV here in Australia. When I was younger I used to loooove watching the team luge, probably because their sled thingies look like spaceships (this was when I was real young, you understand). Now I'm not so hot on it - I know there is a great deal of skill involved, but I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of the sport to see it, so all I can tell about a particular run (unless the competitor accidentally smashes through the side of the pipe and goes flying off over the rooftops) is that, yep, they're going fast down a tube made of ice.

Nowadays I like watching the ski jumps (of the short up-backflip-down and long have-passport-ready-before-jumping varieties) and the slalom, because in those cases I can at least make a layman's guess whether they're doing it right or not while I'm seeing it.

[xita]

Finally getting a chance to watch some of this. Johnny Weir is so gay, you know it because they called him "eccentric."

[urnofosiris]

Eccentric, is that what they are calling it these days? In that case I must say he has the most eccentric wave I have seen in quite a while. I must also say I think he would make a really really pretty transvestite.

[Guppy]

I must also say I think he would make a really really pretty transvestite.

LOL. Quite true,
I liked how they described him as flamboyant today. And then showed him doing something resembling a curtsey.

Watched the women's downhill tonight. I was so impressed by the 2 women who actually raced today even though they were both in accidents this week! They're my new heros![/quote]

[sadie]

The Dutchie men just fell in team pursuit against Italy :( The best team, going for gold, they fell. I'm sad!

[urnofosiris]

I am as chauvinistic as the next Dutch person, but I honestly do not feel like they had the best team nor am I convinced they would have won against the Italians who were gaining fast and proved again in the final how strong they were, especially in the last rounds.

I must say I am getting rather tired by the chest thumping of some of the Dutch men and the commentators and media. I was pissed off at a newspaper headline I saw this morning that said the women failed again, referring to their quarter final loss and the unfortunate disqualification of Marianne Timmer in the 500m and the failure of Monique Kleinsman (who clearly is not skating at her best but not for lack of trying so they should leave her alone already) and that the men were doing *so much* better. I find that odd given that the women have so far ´outmedalled´ the men.
The women deserve far more praise and credit than they are getting so far. Their loss against the German women was no shame, they are extremely worthy champions. It was just bad luck they met in the quarter finals, but if the Dutch coaches had used another tactic and used the strongest team in the first round so they might have met a ´weak´ (no such thing in the Olympics) team in the quarter finals, then the commentators would probably have been bitching that they used up their strong skaters too soon.

Which brings me to another pet peeve of mine, the effing annoying commentators (excluding Ria Visser). Just now one even bitched they lost to the US women and ended in 6th place instead of 5th, but if they had given it their all and won against the US only to proceed to lose in the upcoming individual distances, then I bet he would have whined that they had tired themselves for a 5th place and they should have taken it easy and then naturally they would have won more individual medals.

Given that in the last few years almost all major men´s titles have gone to skaters from other countries, meaning mostly the US, I think the Dutch men need to start whistling another tune and be happy and proud when they win silver or bronze medals, like the Canadian and Russian women were today. They need to stop blaming broken skates, stupid little red blocks on the ice for their losses and accept that just maybe the other guys just were stronger, better and faster and give them their credit due.

End rant. Damn, that felt good.

[Leafsdude]

Well...

If you look at my nickname, it's pretty clear I'm a hockey nut. Plus, there's the fact I'm from Canada, so yeah. GO CANADA GO!

I love speedskating. The strides and stuff are soooo, I dunno...Sexy? Meh, that's the closest word I can come up with.

I don't really watch figure skating, but I do like listening to the music. A lot of it is nice.

Curling is cool, but I must note, it's not the "Official" national sport (though it is among the sports that were started in Canada). I watch it mostly only during the Olympics, though, and then only when we're playing. Some of the rules are a little confusing, but the announcers help me out with that.

Lastly, I love watching Mogel skiing, very cool, though it looks painful. And those jumps are tres cool!

PS. As I speak, Canada has 1 gold, 3 silvers and 4 bronze for 8 metals. Plus, we all but have a metal secured in Woman's hockey. Go us!

[sadie]

DrG: I agree with your post. You're totally right, but I think we should just not care too much about the media and the lame commentators. They're always the same, with everything, everywhere. If I take it too much to heart, I'd get angry and eventually crazy I still absolutely agree that they talk too much bullshit, esp. now about the skaters. Things get blown out of proportion too much... but it comes with the territory of a big event like this, I suppose.

[Artemis]

Regarding the complaining the media does: it's often the case here too, but fortunately the winter Olympics are a respite from it all. Given that, as a nation, we have so little snow that we have to send out search parties to find it each winter before anyone can train, and if someone's already made a snowman out of it out winter athletes just have to wait until next year, our media is grateful just to have an Australian doing anything at the winter Olympics. An Australian could accidentally fall onto the ski jump slope, go hurtling off head-first, and land in a pine tree, and the commentators would praise their courage and effort in making it that far. During the summer Olympics our media will eviscerate any swimmer who doesn't win seventeen gold medals, even if they had to fight off a rogue great white shark that had mysteriously gotten into the pool to do it; in winter though, the press corps will practically offer oral sex to any Australian who just shows up.

The only media embarrassment so far has been around the former Canadian guy who won a gold in the moguls, or something - the one where your knees are rally-car-grade shock absorbers for 90% of the course, and the rest is spent in mid-air with your skis crossed over wondering where the ground went. I understand the rest of the world's media bombarded the guy with rather intense questions about how he made a bazillion dollars out of the internet, inferring he's got something to do with spam, or pop-up ads, or something equally annoying. Not our press - every Aussie reporter who got near the guy asked nothing but "So, how do you like living in Australia?" Or to translate for subtext, "You like Australia, right? Please say you do, you're a medallist, it'd mean so much if you like us. You do like us? Could you say it again? Please?" I never realised we, as a nation, had that much of an inferiority complex. It's like that old Warner Bros. cartoon, with the little yappy dog bouncing around the bulldog pleading to be his friend.

I don't understand the snowboarding half-pipe at all. The people who do spectacular jumpy stuff seem just as likely to score low as the people who do ho-hum up-and-down jumps, the commentators say things like "T-boning some major frontal air," which is no help, and in any case, half the time they don't seem to know if a run was any good or not - they start going on about how brilliant one was (I think that's what they're saying, at any rate), and have to change tack half-way when the scores come in and it turns out it was mediocre at best.

I was rather confused at seeing 'Women's Skeleton' on the program for today. Even after discovering that it means luge head-first, I'm still not sure where 'skeleton' came from.

That guy who used James Bond for his figure skating routine was pretty awesome, though.

[Insanity]

Well let me just say:

YAY!!!!

What an amazing day!

4 medals today! One gold (in Biathlon) two silver (one in Biathlon and one in cross country skiing (Is that the proper name??) ) and one bronze (also Biathlon).

My favourite medal is the silver from Martina Glagow. She already has one silvermedal (15 km Individual), but she couldn't be happy about it, because she became it due to the doping of the former second Olga Pyleva. I'm sure she will be more happy about this medal!

Well that and she really is a cutie *gggg*

So it's really a toe to toe between USA and Germany in the medal standings. Okay, aaand Russia...

Insanity

P.S.: I really love Biathlon. It's my all time favourite sport.

[urnofosiris]

Congrats Insanity, that has been quite a day for Germany and I am sure that among others a few more will be added by Anni Friesinger in the days to come, she is the Steffi of speed skating to me.

Sadie, I shall try and heed your advice and not care about the media too much, but it can be damned hard at times and we have not even gotten around to the world soccer championship yet. Oy.

Artemis, thanks for that insight into the Aussie media , that made me feel somewhat better about the Dutch.

[russ]

It's been a real education reading this thread. Who knew that the media is equally disgusting wherever you go in the world? I'd have thought it was just our Canadian media that acted that way, but Dr.G & Chris could have been writing from here. The inferiority complex is something we see all the time. It's humiliating to see some reporter bouncing around a foreign celebrity, begging, "Like us, please like us."

Here, though, mucho medals are expected. Indeed, the media and the Canadian Olympic Committee decide beforehand how many we're going to get. This Olympics they were saying 25. Of course, as contender after contender goes down to defeat, the national inferiority complex kicks in and the athlete-bashing begins.

A lot of winter sports involve hurtling down steep slopes at insane rates of speed. Thrilling to watch, but you couldn't pay me enough to do it. I get dizzy from those camera shots from the top of the ski hill.

According to Wikipedia, skeleton takes its name from the stripped-down sled, originally a bare frame.

I love watching the Olympics, especially figure skating, which I've been a dedicated fan of since 1988. There's just one problem with the Olympics, winter or summer: for two weeks I turn into a total couch potato, skip exercising, and miss a lot of sleep.

Russ

[urnofosiris]

Again the Dutch women outdo the men. Woo Hoo. Marianne Timmer just won the 1000m gold medal, 8 years after she did so in Nagano. What an exciting race it was and such a close call, but she did it. Like last week when Irene Wust won the 3000m it was an unbearable wait, but well worth it.

[Smilis]

Wow, these games have really been good for the Swedish teams. So far 6 medals and one more to come tomorrow night (Women's Hockey). Most likely the Silver medal but then again I never thought we would get this far so who knows

Today, for the first time in 18 years we took the Bronze medal in 4X10km Men's relay.
Its been a really really long time ago since we actually had so many medals or so many chances. I mean, we actually have a lot of chances left what with the skiing going so well, and hopefully the men's hockey team will take a medal even though right now they are playing like crap.

So, who knows we might finish these games with 10 medals, I mean, that is only three more medals, how hard can it be...

/ Smilis

[sadie]

Yep yep, go Marianne! It's awesome for her, after the disappointment that was the 500m And I didn't think she'd win - I thought at least Anni Friesinger would beat her time.

[BreatheNoMore]

Well...

If you look at my nickname, it's pretty clear I'm a hockey nut. Plus, there's the fact I'm from Canada, so yeah. GO CANADA GO!

Ha! Finland just kicked your ass 2-0! GO NIITTYMÄKI!!

[Artemis]

Apparently of the four hours or so coverage per night we're getting of the winter Olympics, at least one hour must now consist of replays of that guy having his skis fly off in mid-ski-jump.

[sadie]

Congrats Insanity, that has been quite a day for Germany and I am sure that among others a few more will be added by Anni Friesinger in the days to come, she is the Steffi of speed skating to me.

Sadie, I shall try and heed your advice and not care about the media too much, but it can be damned hard at times and we have not even gotten around to the world soccer championship yet. Oy.

.

Yikes, world soccer championship!
And I adore Anni :')