Personally, I have a
love/hate relationship with the Winter Olympics, for one focal reason; curling.
I have the utmost respect for the curlers, no matter which country they
represent, as I realise they spend a large portion of their lives working to be
the best curling team, and to make it to such prestigious events like the
Olympics. The actual sport, however, is by far one of the most boring
disciplines I’ve come across. That is, of course, my opinion, and I am amazed
by people who can sit through the entire 10 ends without changing channel at
some point.
I’m sitting here
typing, taking sips from my mug of tea, watching the USA vs Canada Ice Hockey
Semi-final. There’s less than 2 minutes to go until the end of the match and
Canada are one up on USA, which makes me happy. Not because I am prejudiced
against America in any way shape or form, but because I have decided I am going
to support Canada in the Winter Games a) because they always do way better than
Britain and b) because I have Canadian family so it’s not entirely unwarranted.
(Canada just won the
match, yay.)
I think my favourite
winter sports are the Ski and Border cross, and the sliding events; bobsleigh,
luge and skeleton.
The ski and border
cross events are two of the few events involving actual races; many of them
events rely on time trials or a score board to appoint rankings and positions,
which I don’t think is as exciting and suspenseful. With the cross races, there’s
struggles and danger and the occasional concussion. Canada also took gold and
silver in the women’s ski cross this morning; added bonus. The ski races go
quicker, but I think I prefer watching the board races. The skiers seem to get
into more accidents, because they often get their ski’s tangled up in one
another, or land badly on the tail ends. The board races are cleaner, but there’s
still the danger of taking a turn wrong, or getting in the way of one of your
opponents. In this morning, several of the races had casualties that had to stretchered
off the course. The commentators had named the orange cushion thing The Blood Wagon, but I refuse to call it
that. It sounds way too sinister for a luminous orange inflatable cushion.
The sliding events I
like just because of the talent and fearlessness involved. With the luge and
skeleton, the athletes go down the chute at 100km/h on little more than a tea
tray, fractionally shifting their body weights to steer. In the bobsleigh, one
ill steer and they tip onto their sides and scrape their helmets on the ice.
All the winter games
are incredible to watch (bar curling, but we all have our own opinion), be it
freestyle skiing, going up a vertical wall of snow and somersaulting in the
air, to cross country, skiing for upwards of 1 hour, to short track speed
skating. I wish I was brave enough or motivated enough to try one of the many
admirable sports, but unfortunately, I’m too comfortable sat here with Internet
and television.
