Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games

[Brolan]

Getting fired up for the Olympics. Just a little depressed NBC will ruin the coverage again with too much packaging. Hopefully it will not be too bad.

 

[SmoothieX]

No surprise the guy in Minnesota would be fired up for the Winter Olympics. Or at least so says the guy in North Dakota who is also pretty psyched.

Do you have Midcontinent for cable? They're hawking a pretty big on demand package for the Games, so I'm hoping that will just be sports and not human interest fluff.

 

[Sophronisba]

I've always liked the Winter Olympics better than the Summer. (And I live in Michigan now, but I grew up in Arkansas.)

If you can get Canadian TV, their coverage is usually better than NBC's. I think NBC is getting worse with each Olympics.

 

[B.J.]

Seriously. I can do without all the backstory, just show me the games!

 

[Pegaritaville]

I'd rather see more of the "orphan sports" (i.e. the ones that NBC doesn't think are popular enough to cover) than all the fluff pieces they bombard us with, but I'm still looking forward to the games.

Mostly looking forward to downhill skiing, hockey and curling (gotta root for those Minnesotans), but I enjoy all of it.

Happy to see that there's going to be women's ski jumping this year.

The U.S. team's opening ceremony uniforms are once again hideous looking. At least the Norwegian curling team does it tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think that's what Ralph Loren had in mind when he designed those.

 

[MacLeod]

I'm sure on my side of the pond the BBC will do a good job of presenting the games.

 

[Roger Wilco]

For Europeans there should be legal, good quality live streams of all events here again, with commentary in various languages or without commentary.

 

[Brolan]

I do have Midcontinent for cable but too cheap to have one of their on-demand boxes. Likely I'll use a VPN to watch the streams I want to watch.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The opening ceremonies are funny compared to the Summer Games, just a bunch of people walking around in winter coats.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I'm more of a fan of the Summer Olympics, but I suppose it's fun to watch people fall flat on their asses in the snow.

Now why did the Brits march as Great Britain and not as the United Kingdom? Did Northern Ireland secede?

EDIT: Still watching the opening ceremonies on NBC. I liked the presentations/performances illustrating Russia's history, with a blend of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

 

[FreezeC77]

The most irritating thing for me from the Opening Ceremony was keep hearing from the announcers how Russia was glossing over the bloodied history/stalags/whatever else they wanted to bring up.

I don't recall the Atlanta opening ceremony haivng a long segment talking about the horrors of slavery, but I do remember some dance numbers about the south rising up again after the civil war (which while not fought to end slavery like the throwaway answer some history books give, was fought in large part because of it).

 

[MacLeod]

I'm more of a fan of the Summer Olympics, but I suppose it's fun to watch people fall flat on their asses in the snow.

Now why did the Brits march as Great Britain and not as the United Kingdom? Did Northern Ireland secede?

EDIT: Still watching the opening ceremonies on NBC. I liked the presentations/performances illustrating Russia's history, with a blend of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

Who knows why the UK uses GBR, but that's the IOC code for the UK at the moment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IOC_country_codes

 

[eastman23]

And the inevitable figure skating fixing allegations have already started:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olymp...en-american-and-russian-judges-154539960.html

US Figure Skating denies French report of collusion between US and Russian judges

What would a Winter Games be without charges of corruption in figure skating?

A report from French sports magazine L'Equipe alleged on Saturday that judges from the United States and Russia would conspire to help each other out during the Sochi Games. According to the magazine's unidentified Russian source, American judges would help Russians win the gold in the pairs and team event. In return, Russian judges would help Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White win the ice dancing event.

U.S. Figure Skating officials quickly moved to squelch the rumor.

"Comments made in a L’Equipe story are categorically false," U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement via the Chicago Tribune. "There is no 'help’ between countries. We have no further response to rumors, anonymous sources or conjecture."

Davis and White are the reigning world champions in ice dancing, so they arguably won't need any help to secure gold. Then again, reigning Olympic champions Tess Virtue and Scott Moir — who share coaches and a Michigan practice rink with Davis and White — remain big hurdles. The Russians, meanwhile, obviously want to turn in a good showing on home ice.

Canadian skating officials said they were not concerned about L'Equipe's report.

"We were made aware of the article from L'Equipe today and we feel it is best not to comment on it," Skate Canada director Michael Slipchuk in the Toronto Sun. "Canada is confident that the results of competition will be determined where they should be — on the ice."

...

 

[Rincewiend]

Not a bad start for Holland...
All 3 medals on the 5,000 meter Speedskating with a new Olympic record...

 

[Danny99]

The paternal side of my family came from the small county of Malta, which is competing in it's first Winter Olympics, with a French-born female skier, so I'm psyched for that.

Of course, I'll be cheering for Canada during the ice hockey, but that was without doubt.

 

[Brolan]

Awesome opening ceremonies and the men's snowboarding slopestyle was really quite exciting. One of the few sports where it didn't seem anyone cared who won, they just got excited over the tricks.

 

[Use of Time]

Awesome opening ceremonies and the men's snowboarding slopestyle was really quite exciting. One of the few sports where it didn't seem anyone cared who won, they just got excited over the tricks.

Yeah, I get the vibe that those guys on the slopestyle event see a lot of each other during the year and probably have somewhat of a camaraderie with each other due to the way the snowboarding competitors are viewed by the rest of the olympians. I know that the Canadian guy Parrot got all pissy because White pulled out but karma bit him in the ass.

The American guy that won it was pretty easy going and it showed him laughing and socializing with the other competitors with a pretty relaxed attitude for someone waiting to see if he won a gold medal. He seemed more excited about having pulled off that rare jump than winning the gold.

 

[Roger Wilco]

So, Austrian Matthias Mayer wins the gold in Men's Downhill, by far the most important discipline for Austria, like hockey for Canada or Russia; media will be triumphantly happy now.

 

[Shaytan]

Meanwhile French TV reminded us the origin of the word bérézina. A word that entered the French vocabulary and seemed appropriate for those first 2 days

I find those games very esthetic so far.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Awesome opening ceremonies and the men's snowboarding slopestyle was really quite exciting. One of the few sports where it didn't seem anyone cared who won, they just got excited over the tricks.

I haven't really watched this year but that seemed to be the case at the last games. The snowboarders all laughing and goofing around while the figure skaters are all crying and emotional.