So the Winter Olympics are finally over. That went by insanely quick didn't it? It seems like they weren't even on?! They were really only on for like 4 hours each night and only one ONE channel. That doesn't make sense in this modern world, damnit! You'd be lucky if you turned on coverage and actually saw an event. Most of the time it was Bob Costas interviewing somebody, or recapping some earlier event. Fuck, I even saw Jimmy Fallon doing comedy skits one night! The value of the Winter Olympics is limited, but there they are every four years. They exist only to kill time until the next Summer Olympics. And to let us catch snowboarders doing some pretty crazy shit. It seemed to fly right by, with nary a chance to really get into it.
I think it went by due to the lack of coverage, which is only because of a lack of events. While there are some events that really shine and get all the coverage, some slip right under the radar and are missed entirely. Sadly this even happens at the Summer Olympics which gets much, much more coverage. Anyway this time around I would've loved to have seen some skeleton or the snowboard race but it was just too damn hard to catch. You could've watched the entire nightly broadcast but only catch a minute or two of those events. NBC has a huge umbrella of networks where in depth coverage could have been shown. This was not to be the case. Instead we were treated to limited coverage of the actual sports, and increased coverage of the happenings around the sports. Death of the luger from Georgia, tragic. Death of some random figure skaters mother, sad. But let's gloss that over for the ACTION! It's the damn Olympics!
So here is where I get to the point. They wanted drama. They wanted to cover the superficial drama because that's what the fucking ratings demand. Let's show only the medal rounds for sports instead of the entire event. Let's talk about this one person who had some drama in their life like they're a goddamn hero, like they're the greatest thing in the world. Oh they only got bronze? Well let's keep on talking about it for six more days while not showing the events going on at the time. I'm very disappointed. This happens during the Summer Olympics as well. Last time, in Beijing, NBC did a much better job with coverage than at these Olympics. It was broadcast on a range of networks from NBC to MSNBC to
I realize that there are only a limited amount of sports that can truly be represented at the Winter Olympics, but I think IOC officials should be more open to adding as many as possible in the future. There just aren't enough events to draw my attention (though I know they don't play to me, I've heard this as a common criticism). Winter sports attract only a fraction of the world's population anyway, might as well try and broaden the appeal and reach out to new audiences with new events. Only 20 something countries won medals at the 2010 games, while 86 countries had medal winners in 2008. That's a HUGE disparity between the winter and summer games. I'm just saying that IOC officials should look at the X Games and draw some more inspiration from there (adding snowboard was a step in the right direction).
What are some events I think should be added? How about dogsled racing? The Iditarod is a classic winter tradition. I say fuck PETA and bring dogs to the Olympics! How about Ice Sculpture? If you can give a medal to a fucking "ICE DANCER" you should give one to a dude with a chainsaw. Competitive Snowball Fight? YES!
Maybe with the snowball fight I'd finally have a chance to medal after my dreams of winning the Pole Vault in 1996 were dashed when I tore my quad.
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