The 2010 Winter Olympic Games

[Synergy]

Yay! Local hero Apollo Ohno is doing his amazing thing on his skates again. I just watched him absolutely smoke the rest of the skaters in his first 1500m skating heat, from being in the very back until the last 3 laps or so, to watching him pull past all of them with phenomenal speed and control when he was ready. I hope to see him wind up with the all time record for most gold medals earned in Winter Olympics before it's all over. Ohno learned to skate in Vancouver.

 

I love the Winter Olympics. I think its very cool they are happening just 150 miles north of Seattle. Tourism here is benefitting significantly from the hordes up in Vancouver, B.C., spilling over the border to take a peek at the Emerald City while they have the opportunity. Meanwhile, the weather is oddly warm and spring-like. This may make for some challenging conditions in snow and ice here in the NW.

 

I was horrified to see the death of the 21-year old Georgian luge runner yesterday during a training run. NBC showed the actual accident footage for a while yesterday before they stopped. If you saw it, you knew he could not have survived. Some of these sports are very dangerous. Those skiers doing the aerial acrobats wow and terrify me with every jump. And of course there's the still newish snowboarding events which are so entertaining.

 

The opening ceremonies were touching with the warmth and celebratory inclusion of many Canadian First Nation (native American) peoples. One of the coolest special affects—when the Orcas swam across the floor of the stadium, shooting up real gusts of air from their spouts. Most tense moment—the very last, when one of the four pillars that was supposed to rise up out of the floor and help form the giant torch stand failed to emerge, so eventually, only three went up, and the torch was lit.

 

The world feels smaller, warmer, and more welcoming to me when the Olympic games take place. This time, it really hits close to home for numerous reasons.

 

Share your reflections, memories and predictions for the games here.

 

Here come the moguls. Rain today softened the course. This should be interesting.

 

-S-

 

 

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Typical, animal rights activists and anarchists are attempting to get a moment in the spotlight at the expense of the real focus of the event.

 

...

 

Just thought I would give 'em a hand, here. My way is a lot less destructive.

[Callie]

I usually don't pay attention to the Olympics, though I might tune in because it's in my time zone.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Ohno caught a lucky break in the finals, when the 2 Korean skaters took each other out.

[VCH]

The Olympics are the biggest waste of time and money ever. I guess I can stop paying for the giant propaganda-fest in about thirty years just like Montreal. I'm so proud.

[Monroe]

Lots of people enjoy watching and competing in the Olympics, no one forces you to do either. It's run mostly (completely?) on corporate money and often brings in loads of tourist money to the host city. It is neither a waste of time or money. If your city suffers as a result, I'd blame those in charge of your city, as that is not usually the case with the Olympics.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

I'm certain that VCH has more immediate knowledge of the effects hosting an Olympics can have on a city than, say, you. There is a multi-million dollar price tag for these events which is being born by the taxpayers, mostly by decreased services before and after the events.

[Monroe]

Yeah, that must by why cities fight tooth and nail to host these games. Bring them down here to New Orleans. You might have heard, not even mother nature can keep us down.

[Student of Trinity]

The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby.

 

(Famous words of Montréal mayor Jean Drapeau, in 1976. In fact the 1976 summer Olympics left Montréal in the hole by a billion dollars, which in those days was a fair sum of money; it was only finally paid off a few years ago.)

[Monroe]

Yeah, I heard about that. Sounded like crap management to me. And fairly unique as far as the history of the Olympics goes. What about the great success of the Barcelona Olympics? Or even the recent one in Beijing? All a bunch of Bad News Betties, you guys are.

[Khoth]

I was annoyed when London won the bid for the next Olympics. I'm not looking forward to 2012.

[Monroe]

I know, totally rude of those millions of people from all over the world to add to your commute time just so that they can take part in a beloved, hundred year old tradition. You guys hosted it twice already, you'd think you'd still be reeling from economic disaster the way these guys are painting the effects it has on a city.

[Sarachim]

ITA. Khoth should be willing to make more sacrifices for the good of curling.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

I wish someone would do a good job of trolling this thread. The current effort is hardly worthy of this topic.

[Synergy]

Ohno really didn't deserve the silver last night, due to the aforementioned Koreans right in front of him in second and third place, who took each other out on the final curve before the finish line. I couldn't believe it. It was like one of those surreal, contrived movie moments that would never happen in real life to provide a happy ending for the hero. One of the Koreans tried to make a bad pass in front of his teammate (in a reckless quest for personal glory?) and derailed both their medals. I wonder how that relationship is doing today?

 

-S-

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Synergy

Ohno really didn't deserve the silver last night, due to the aforementioned Koreans right in front of him in second and third place, who took each other out on the final curve before the finish line. I couldn't believe it. It was like one of those surreal, contrived movie moments that would never happen in real life to provide a happy ending for the hero.

If you think that's bad...

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

If you think that's bad...

Man, has he ever considered the lottery?

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Monroe

All a bunch of Bad News Betties, you guys are.

You're forgetting that VCH, Student of Trinity, and myself are Canadians. We can't watch our country host something without being immensely critical of it -- self-loathing is part of our heritage.

Most of the ire is NIMBY, plain and simple. I couldn't care less if I'm watching the Olympics in Vancouver or Turin. I rarely watch television, and I'm in a different province, so the Olympics haven't affected me much (when the torch passed by my university, bus transit in and out completely stopped, so I had to take the train to a different part of the city just to commute home). I imagine it's worse for VCH, and much worse for someone living in Greater Vancouver.

Hmmm, nope, still got a lot of national self-loathing left in my system.

I had a lot of homework to finish that evening, so I missed a lot of the opening ceremonies, including the March and the orcas that everyone is raving about. What I caught was to be expected -- all the usual entertainers were rounded up and performed their hits. I mean, k.d. lang is a great singer, but what does her cover of Hallelujah have to do with the Olympics. I suppose we're lucky Anne Murray was carrying the flag, otherwise she would have performed Snowbird. Again. On the other hand, familiarity breeds contempt. It's likely the Chinese watched the ethnic dances in 2008 with the same bored familiarity as we watch Native ceremonies.

There's not much you can do about the weather (it's overly warm, even for B.C.), but the arm failure was just embarrassing. I also don't appreciate professional athletes like Nash and Gretzky carrying the torch, though the line between Olympic athletes and professionals is getting more and more blurred. I think a lot of people would have preferred Rick Hansen or Betty Fox to be the cauldron lighter, but the former brought the torch inside and the latter carried the flag, so that's fine.

Originally Posted By: Sarachim

ITA. Khoth should be willing to make more sacrifices for the good of curling.

What's ITA?

I really hope Kevin Martin's team faces David Murdoch's team in the final. That would be fantastic. I'll watch hockey if I have the time, but curling's the only sport I'm really looking forward to.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted By: Delicious Salmon

I wish someone would do a good job of trolling this thread. The current effort is hardly worthy of this topic.

I got trolled, did I? I don't know, those guys were pretty convincing in their hatred for a while there. If they weren't, I apologize. I was just standing up for something I believe in, you know? It's one of the few times people of the world get together and behave themselves, for the most part. It's rarely ever a bad thing, even for cities who host it.

[waterplant]

'Doing a Bradbury'. Aussies are so wonderful!! (& creative).

[Lilith]

:3

[Student of Trinity]

I don't think I have any national self-loathing. The subtext of the Canadian tendency to self-criticism is actually an unthinking confidence that we can afford it, and that our chances of attaining perfection are high enough for nitpicking to be worthwhile. The famous Canadian modesty is really an arrogant patrician indulgence, probably inculcated through spending all our early years sitting under the enormous maps on the walls of our elementary school classrooms. I mean, everybody knows that the only really serious issues involved in comparing countries are whether you have enough arable land, enough water, enough resources, enough space. People do matter more, but people are mobile and will come to those things. So Canadians can just look at the map and shrug. Getting all uptight is for other countries.

[Rowen]

The snowboarders need to stop wearing tight pants.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

The famous Canadian modesty is really an arrogant patrician indulgence, probably inculcated through spending all our early years sitting under the enormous maps on the walls of our elementary school classrooms. I mean, everybody knows that the only really serious issues involved in comparing countries are whether you have enough arable land, enough water, enough resources, enough space. People do matter more, but people are mobile and will come to those things. So Canadians can just look at the map and shrug. Getting all uptight is for other countries.

Isn't all this the result of funhouse projection?

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

I also don't appreciate professional athletes like Nash and Gretzky carrying the torch, though the line between Olympic athletes and professionals is getting more and more blurred.

I've never understood why everyone involved in the Olympics should be allowed to make money off of them except the athletes. Ditto for college sports.

Quote:

What's ITA?

I totally agree.

[Student of Trinity]

Actually I think it's not even projection. I once toured some kind of Canadian cartographic institute, and they had an exhibit about how they made the schoolroom wall maps. The available space was about 3 feet high, between the ceiling and the top of the chalkboard, and about 30 feet wide. Canada does not have a 10:1 aspect ratio, and no systematic projection scheme to stretch it that much would leave anything looking recognizable. But they just kind of artistically made a sort of 're-imagining' of Canadian geography, that kept things looking familiar, but fit the space.

 

The result was certainly expansive, and conveyed a vivid impression that the country was enormous. It covered the whole wall, and went right up to the ceiling! It did leave me shocked, though, when I lived in New Mexico, to be able to drive for eight hours straight north or south. I was used to long distances, but only east-west. Canada may be bigger than the US geographically, but its inhabited area is actually a whole lot smaller, because it's all squished down near the border. There is hardly ever much reason to travel more than a few hours on a north-south axis in Canada, though you can drive for days and days east or west.

[Khoth]

Originally Posted By: Monroe

I know, totally rude of those millions of people from all over the world to add to your commute time just so that they can take part in a beloved, hundred year old tradition. You guys hosted it twice already, you'd think you'd still be reeling from economic disaster the way these guys are painting the effects it has on a city.

You're imagining me having better motives than my actual ones. I don't live in London so it won't affect my commuting. It's just that I don't care about sporting events and they're easier to ignore if the millions of people from all over the world are in some other country.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

I have a cottage near Sault Ste Marie, and having driven there both from Boston and Oregon, I can attest to the incredible size of the country. It was (here is the topical tie-in, for those scoring at home) fun watching the opening ceremonies because of the elements in the show which portrayed the many different landscapes, from the maritimes to the ice pack, from the deep forests to the rugged plains.

One reason I prefer the first maps of this country to those now sterilely produced is the poetic license employed by the cartographers. It certainly revealed something of them, and their times. I imagine that it was somewhat the same for those responsible for filling that 90 square feet.

[Alorael at Large]

Deserving is a funny thing in the Olympics. It doesn't determine who's the world's best. (The World Championships do that, right?) It just shows who happens to win on the most prominent world stage.

 

Ohno is really good. He wasn't doing as well as three other skaters. Maybe on another night he would have done better; maybe they were only ahead because they were pushing past their abilities. Maybe he pulled a medal through dumb luck. It's all part of the drama of the Olympic Games!

 

—Alorael, who assumes that Canada has actually been wearing constraining garments and taking advantage of creative projections to hide its unseemly bulk. No one wants to be the country laughed at for being oversized, but Canada is too stubborn to follow the example set by the Soviet Union to lose some landmass. (Not that it got Russia down to an acceptable square kilometrage, mind you!)

[Ephesos]

I'm surprised to say that I watched the pairs figure skating finals tonight. I'm even more surprised to say that I enjoyed it, and found the final results equally satisfying. It's good to see a couple have 18 years of work pay off with a very impressive showing, and a gold medal to boot.

 

Of course, what I really want to know is when curling will be shown. If NBC doesn't show it, I will be sorely disappointed.

 

EDIT: ...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! This is the worst time possible to be house-sitting for someone who doesn't have cable. No curling for me.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

EDIT: ...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! This is the worst time possible to be house-sitting for someone who doesn't have cable. No curling for me.

well, there's always curling up into a ball and weeping

[RCCCL]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

EDIT: ...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! This is the worst time possible to be house-sitting for someone who doesn't have cable. No curling for me.

well, there's always curling up into a ball and weeping

Zing!

I got to watch a little of the opening ceremony, I missed the last of it though, as I had to go to work.

I've tuned into very little of the rest of the Olympics though, been a little to busy.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

EDIT: ...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! This is the worst time possible to be house-sitting for someone who doesn't have cable. No curling for me.

well, there's always curling up into a ball and weeping

Or waiting until they rerun last Sunday's The Simpsons where mixed curling was a demonstration sport.

[Student of Trinity]

Curling is actually a great game, because even if you have no skill at all you have a fair chance of making the occasional lucky shot. It's a little weird as an Olympic sport, but if you ever get a chance to try a game, do it. You know how a lot of sports facilities have locker rooms? Curling rinks generally have a bar instead.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

EDIT: ...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! This is the worst time possible to be house-sitting for someone who doesn't have cable. No curling for me.

If the weather's cold enough, you could set up a curling rink in their back yard. Or yours when you get back home, for that matter.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

House sitting?

 

Turn the thermostat way down, break a water pipe, and get ready to curl!

[waterplant]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Curling is actually a great game, because even if you have no skill at all you have a fair chance of making the occasional lucky shot.

Sounds a bit like lawn bowls.


Sounds like quite a lot of sports really.

[Dintiradan]

So the latest brouhaha is that French language and culture has been underrepresented in the Games, especially at the opening ceremonies. I'm curious -- what do unbiased non-Canadians think?

[A less presumptuous name.]

The latest brouhaha that I've heard is that the Olympic committee decided Ohno should have been DQ'd either in the semifinals or the finals. Then again, this is from my Korean friend. Yeah.

[Ephesos]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

So the latest brouhaha is that French language and culture has been underrepresented in the Games, especially at the opening ceremonies. I'm curious -- what do unbiased non-Canadians think?

Depends on who is raising the issue, but it sounds pretty silly to me. Vancouver != Paris

...also, apparently I should not have been panicking about curling. It's just been round robin play this week, and both the men's and women's US teams have gone winless. The later rounds should be more exciting.

[VCH]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Actually I think it's not even projection. I once toured some kind of Canadian cartographic institute, and they had an exhibit about how they made the schoolroom wall maps. The available space was about 3 feet high, between the ceiling and the top of the chalkboard, and about 30 feet wide. Canada does not have a 10:1 aspect ratio, and no systematic projection scheme to stretch it that much would leave anything looking recognizable. But they just kind of artistically made a sort of 're-imagining' of Canadian geography, that kept things looking familiar, but fit the space.

The result was certainly expansive, and conveyed a vivid impression that the country was enormous. It covered the whole wall, and went right up to the ceiling! It did leave me shocked, though, when I lived in New Mexico, to be able to drive for eight hours straight north or south. I was used to long distances, but only east-west. Canada may be bigger than the US geographically, but its inhabited area is actually a whole lot smaller, because it's all squished down near the border. There is hardly ever much reason to travel more than a few hours on a north-south axis in Canada, though you can drive for days and days east or west.

Speak for yourself I do plenty more North-South than West-East. It's not that much fun driving through the Rocky Mountains. But you're right you can travel for days West-East. Yet strangely most of the Provinces and territories are aligned North-South.

[Ephesos]

Fantastic curling match tonight. The Canadian women's team won the match against Denmark in overtime on the final rock, and they landed it square in the middle of the house. Right on top of the Vancouver logo.

 

I have never been so excited about inanimate objects sliding around on ice in my life.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

It was neat seeing Vonn's face when she saw that her best shot at a medal was the bronze in the GS. With a simple curl of the lip, she lost favor in these eyes.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Ephesos

Fantastic curling match tonight. The Canadian women's team won the match against Denmark in overtime on the final rock, and they landed it square in the middle of the house. Right on top of the Vancouver logo.

I have never been so excited about inanimate objects sliding around on ice in my life.

AAAAAHHHH!!!! I MISSED CURLING??? DAMN YOU LOCAL TELEVISION!!!!

In related news, I am agitated by the "let's show the Canada-USA game on MSNBC where nobody can see it and then show figure skating in primetime" attitude.

[Ephesos]

For the record, each match of curling takes about 2 hours, and they're still playing round-robin matches. You haven't missed it all yet.

[Dintiradan]

Huh. After watching the replay about a dozen times, I still don't know why the South Korean relay team was disqualified. As far as I can tell, it was just great positioning on their part. It's pretty clear that they were the best team in the final.

[VCH]

On another note: let's hope Ryan Miller sprains his ankle, so Finland can beat the USA hockey team. He's put on an amazing goaltending show so far.

[Ephesos]

You want goaltending? The women's gold medal match tonight was fantastic... at any given point, no less than three Canadian defenders were always present in front of the goal, in front of the goalie. The Americans never stood a chance, but played well anyway.

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Bleagh. We had only women's forgone conclusion figure skating to watch.

[VCH]

Women's hockey needs some legitimate competition for Canada and the USA. It's sad watching Canada destroy countries 18-0.