The Olympics Begin

I never follow sports very closely.  I love sports, don't get me wrong, but with most like baseball or hockey, there are simply too many games to really care about each individual one.  I keep basic tabs on my favorite teams, checking in for a few games each season, and then as we get close to the end of the season I follow the last games, and hopefully some playoffs.  Football is the exception for me, since there is only one game a week for my team, the Indianapolis Colts, and its easy to manage.  However, the Olympics are a perfect fit for me, especially this year.

First of all, the Olympics have tons of great events you never get to see, and many of the sports have only two or three phases, meaning you can watch for 2 hours, and know who the best is.  Its quick and digestible.  I'm personally looking forward to curling and bobsled (or bobsleigh for you anti-American, freedom hating europeans), my two favorite events.  This year will be especially enjoyable, because I have TiVo.  I've set a Season Pass for the Olympics, so anytime its showing on the main NBC channel, or even CNBC, it will be recorded for my viewing pleasure.  I skipped the opening ceremonies, which is just a bunch of nationalistic pap in my opinion.  Although, I did see some footage of Michelle Kwan and Bode Miller.  Bode is the boozer/stoner of downhill skiing who still kicks everyones ass.  He was with Michelle Kwan in the ceremonies, looking too fucking cool and a with grin telling all of the world that in addition to being an amazing athlete that doesn't give a shit, and he could probably tap that figure-skating ass if he wanted to.  It was great.

Anyhow, I watched the first days events:  some luge, women's hockey, downhill skiing (Bode had to even stand up and slow down at the end of his run so he didn't do too well), a little bit of figure skating (which I really don't care about), but the best part for me was the Nordic Combined event.  It's ski-jumping and a 15k cross-country ski.  Kind of a random combination I thought, but really fun to watch.  They all start out doing the ski-jump.  After two rounds of jumping, you have a leader, and how far back you are after the jump determines how far behind you start in the cross-country.  The leader had a pretty big start, 2:02 over the only American competitor.  15k is a huge distance to ski, and I think it took them around 45 minutes.  What was so exciting was that even after that long a ski, the bronze medal was decided in a photo finish, which showed a difference of literally 3 inches or so.  Very fun event.

Not sure what's in store for tomorrow, but I'm hoping I get to see some curling and any events involving the ski/shooting, whatever that is called.  Anyone that can ski a mile, lay down and hit a target 1000 feet away is a badass in my book.  Or, anyone that can ski over 80mph on little more than ice after doing a few shots of Jose Cuervo.  That's impressive too.