I spent some significant TV time last night watching some of the Winter Olympics, and I must say that it was an entertaining evening. Of course, you must suspend the idea that NBC is looking at this as "sports." This is an entertainment event for NBC; sports is secondary.
The highlight of the night, of course, was watching Lindsey Vonn win the gold medal in the Women's Downhill event. Even knowing the results in advance did not spoil the excitement of the event, especially given the back story of her recent injury. I must also say that it was exciting watching those ladies speeding down that mountain. Not a sport for the faint of heart.
I have included a photo of Ms. Vonn in this post, but more interesting photos of her can be seen at www.si.com in the section highlighting SI's annual excursion into softcore porn, the Swimsuit Issue.
I also caught Sean "The Flying Tomato" White's gold medal performance on the half pipe. I suppose that this is a sport. It is most definitely an athletic skill.
Perhaps most interesting of all was watching a curling match between the USA and Switzerland that aired on CNBC prior to prime time. Now what I know about curling can be fit on the head of a pin, but you can quickly pick up the gist of it, even of some if the basic strategies - "inside curling", if you will - remain elusive. Anyway, the Swiss jumped out to a 4-0 lead, only to see the USA score six straight points. The Swiss, however, tied the match at 6-6 and sent it into extra "ends", and "end" being the equivalent of a baseball inning. The USA had a chance to clinch in regulation but a guy named John Schuster failed to make the necessary throw that would have sealed the deal. In the overtime end, Shuster had the same opportunity to win the match for the USA, only to spit the bit again, and the Swiss won the match. To make matters even worse, it seems that the night before, Shuster did the same thing in the last end of a match with Norway. Looks like John Schuster is rapidly becoming the Ralph Branca of American curling.
Not that I'm ready to out and buy curling season tickets, but watching the match was entertaining and certainly compelling viewing.
Grandstander makes history - first ever instance of the words "curling" and "compelling" in the same sentence.
ReplyDeleteI watched US Women-Japan in their ice bocce match.
I don’t mind the Curling event. Of course I was a kid who grew up with a 12 foot shuffleboard table in my parent’s basement / game room.
ReplyDeleteThis morning on 93.7 “The Fan”, Paul Alexander tried to comment about the half pipe event like he knew what he was talking about. He referred to “The Flying Tomato” as Sean White’s signature move. Jim Colony then abruptly corrected him to tell Alexander that is White’s nickname, NOT the name of one of his moves. Classic Paul Alexander!
Vonn’s run was exciting as is the entire downhill event. Anja Paerson’s wipe-out was pretty scary stuff, but the French chick crashing 10 feet after she left the starting gate was high comedy.
And…… If John Schuster is the Ralph Branca of American Curling, we need to know……….. Is there a Bobby Thomson of Curling out there?? THE CURL HEARD ROUND THE WORLD!