Sun, February 12, 2006
Girly Olympics—10:49 AM
I watched a few minutes of Olympics coverage last night – because, who can avoid it, really? – and I remain mystified as to why this is such a big TV event every couple of years. NBC repeatedly mentions that figure skating is the most popular Olympics event to watch, which baffles me. (But, honestly, baffles me no more than the popularity of Dancing with the Stars or that goddamn SNL sketch where they rap about the Narnia movie.) I guess the secret is the NBC coverage. I can't stand to watch figure skating on TV and even I watched fifteen minutes of it last night. For one thing, NBC interweaves its coverage of all the events, so if you just want to watch one event you have to sit still for four hours. I watched the American pair do their little routine (How could I not? He threw her in the air, and then she spun around more than anyone else in the history of the Olympics!), then I watched an episode of Criminal Minds and two hours of Veronica Mars, had dinner, fed the dog, climbed into bed, and they were just coming back for the final Russian pair to do their routine! I know NBC hates its viewers, but this is insane. Also, there's the NBC hype. Every moment of Olympics coverage is the most important, the most historic, the most compelling. They went on and on about how many times that girl was going to spin in the air, and she hadn't even managed to land it in practice. (Then she actually did spin, and still failed to medal.) Later, Scott Hamilton delivered a three-minute report on whether or not Michelle Kwan was in a good mood – I shit you not.
Figure skating is king of the girl sports. (And before you claw my eyes out about being anti-girl, I'm not. Follow the link – Arksie expertly defines what a "girl sport" is. Don't email me.) It's a girl sport because it has judges, and it's less fun to watch for the same reason. Take, for example, the five-minute NBC report on the judging scandal in Salt Lake City. The IOC has instituted an entirely new scoring scheme to try to make the judging more fair – but no matter how many rules you change, rules won't make the judging fair as long as there are judges. Unless the judges are robots. This sort of controversy would never happen in a "guy sport," like, say, football. (I keed. Keep up the good work, Bill Leavy.)
But of course the Olympics aren't pointless just because of the girl sports. The guy sports are just as dull. They had speed skating on last night. Who cares? Why is this an Olympic sport? Nobody throws a deep frier and a Coors party box into the back of the pickup to go tailgate outside a speed skating match. (And, judging from the attendance at last night's match, not that many people show up to watch it at the Olympics either.) We should do away with sports that only continue to exist because of the Olympics in the first place. Get rid of your speed skating and your bobsledding. (As Norm MacDonald said, "There's no professional luge.") Replace them with sports people actually like. Sports people like to play or like to watch. Football, golf, poker, stock car racing. And I don't mean just sports that are popular in America – I respect the global reach of the Olympics, the coming together of myriad far-flung cultures to compete on the world stage in the international language of sports. Keep soccer. That's fine.
(Don't get me wrong. I can't wait for curling coverage starting tomorrow.)
"boopa" — Thu, 2/18/10 2:20pm
WhoTF selected this group to play their silly games dressed like fags and crims? What a sad day for the USA! Witnessing a group of trolls carrying on begs the question: who follows such buffoonery? What is the elimination process to be chosen to represent our Country? The corporate whores (IOC) must be ecstatic.