Beijing Blech

This Winter Olympiad sucks.

I've had the TV tuned to the Winter Olympics while involving myself in online activities.   My mother has never been able to comprehend how I can possibly go online and watch television at the same time and give both my full attention.  Well, maybe I can't, but it's still a good way to economize my time.  Anyway, I was watching the Olympics while working on my laptop a couple of nights ago, but when it became apparent that the opposite was true, I turned off the TV.  And for good reason.  The competition is dull, the most interesting events don't get decent coverage - would you believe that I've only seen one long-track speed skating race, and it wasn't the one Erin Jackson won? - and there always seems to be one of the following events on when I do tune in . . .  figure skating, freestyle skiing, and curling.

Definitely lots of curling. 

And I don't think I want to see another curling match unless one of those stones blows up.

Another reason not to tune in is because, thanks to the thirteen-hour time difference between New York and Beijing (or the sixteen-hour time difference between Los Angeles, where Mike Tirico is hosting the Winter Games from thanks to COVID, and Beijing),  you know the results of the competition before you see in on TV no matter how hard you may try to avoid hearing what happened.  Oh, sure, I was glad to hear that Kamila Valieva ended up out of medal contention before I saw any figure skating Thursday night, but I also heard who won and, as I expected, there were no Americans who won medals.  By the time the gold-medal game in women's hockey was broadcast late at night, and I lost complete interest in men's hockey once I saw online - again, before seeing it for myself - that Americans were out of medal contention. (Oh great, now Christine Brennan is going to talk again about how well the women have done at the Winter Games and made no attempt to hide her smugness - you can almost hear her thinking, "The women keep winning all of the events the men lose.  Nyahh!")  

And I completely lost interest in skiing - both sexes - when Mikaela Shiffrin got disqualified in a third race. 😢

Do I miss the travelogue features that NBC obviously couldn't do this time due to the COVID outbreak?  No.  I see stories about Chinese culture on the evening news!  And unlike NBC's puff pieces, these stories tell the truth!

Would you believe that the motto of the Beijing Winter Olympics is "Together for a Shared Future?" 

Ha ha, charade you are!

I'm definitely not tuning in to watch the closing ceremony tomorrow night - there are to many other programs on TV tomorrow that I want to watch anyway.  Besides, if the Winter Olympics are so damn terrific, how come NBC, which aired the Super Bowl this past Sunday, devoted so much air time to Super Bowl coverage before the game even started?

What, they don't like curling? 😛

Beijing Blahs

I was happy to see American Nathan Chen (below) win the gold medal in men's figure skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics.  I think the Elton John medley he skated to helped him with the judges. 😃 Ditto for Chloe Kim in women's halfpipe snowboarding.  And I just have to give a shout-out to Lindsey Jacobellis, the Dan Jansen of snowboarding, who finally won a gold medal in the women's snowboard cross and followed it up in the mixed-team snowboard event with another gold medal.

But these Winter Games have mostly been a bummer.  Shaun White finished his Olympic career with a disappointing fourth-place showing in the men's halfpipe snowboarding competition. (Even Jackie Joyner-Kersee managed to finish her Olympic career with  a bronze medal.)  Mikaela Shiffrin could do no better than place ninth in the women's Super G ski race.  And reminders of China's repression and zero-COVID policy are everywhere - not just with the absence of fans in the stands but also with a face-covering mandate so strict that people have to mask up outside - and so we get pictures like this! 

That's Mikaela Shiffrin - you only know that because I just told you - checking her Apple tablet while looking like she's about to fly a jet fighter or audition for a role in a Star Wars movie.

Well, maybe she can still win a medal in the downhill. 

Even without COVID, these Winter Games don't feel right.  You sense that even by watching them on TV, the way NBC covers it.  Everything is rigidly controlled by the Chinese, and the vibe among the competitors mostly reflects that.  The good cheer is more fake than the the snow.  And the commentary is more pat than usual.  What would you rather do - listen to Dan Hicks or pull your own teeth? Me, I'd rather pull Dan Hicks' teeth.

The coverage got so pat that, on Friday night, I was watching the mixed-team snowboard cross race . . . and I actually fell asleep. 😮

Enough.  I want my classic Winter Olympics back.  I want the Winter Games held in a small ski town up in the mountains in a remote area.  Preferably in a country whose government doesn't monitor its citizens with their own smartphones. I want the atmosphere to be so cozy that you can imagine the athletes and the fans hanging out together and having cocoa in a homey ski lodge - and you feel like you're there with them.  I want a twelve-day Winter Olympiad, not a sixteen-day one - sixteen-day Winter Olympiads are just an excuse to make more money.  I want fewer athletes - except for the Jamaican bobsled team, no more athletes from tropical climates! I want Mike Tirico to host the Winter Games from a studio with a fireplace - a real fireplace, not a fake one like the one Stephen Colbert sat in while a "fire" was going!  And unless climate change is really bad, I want . . . real snow!

In 2026, when the pandemic should be over, the Winter Olympics will be held in Italy - the outdoor events in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the indoor skating events in  Milan.   There won't be any restrictions, but the grandiosity of holding the Winter Games in two separate places a hundred miles apart doesn't give me much hope.  It may be too late for 2026 to have a classic Winter Olympiad.  But then, there's always 2030 . . .

Downhill

The Beijing Winter Olympics are quickly becoming a wet blanket.

Not only are these Games turning out to be incredibly boring, Team USA's performance is underwhelming, the team being so far down in the medal count it's comparable to our country's place in quality-of-life rankings.

And what I just said may be the wittiest comment I can make about these Winter Games. 

I tried watching last night but I found myself restless and easily distracted.  The women's cross-country skiing barely held my attention, though the women's snowboarding half-pipe competition was slightly more engaging.  Then came the women's slalom . . . and the return of Mikaela Shiffrin, ready to redeem herself after  skiing out of the giant slalom.

Then she skied out a second time.

On live television.  Even when NBC went to a commercial break, a sidebar screen continued to show Shiffrin just sitting there in the snow contemplating her terrible loss.

I couldn't watch after that.  Ahh, there are too many commercials anyway. 

As for what happened to Shiffrin - twice now -  I blame the fake snow. 😠  

Maybe the Winter Games will get better . . . 

More 2018 Miscellaneous Winter Olympic Musings

Updates!

The U.S. women's hockey team beat its arch rival Canada in the gold-medal game at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics . . . just after their male counterparts were eliminated by the Czech Republic.

Before you start talking about girls ruling and boys drooling, let me remind you that the National Hockey League's refusal to let its best players compete in the Olympics hindered the U.S. men's team, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) men's hockey team - medal favorites - should never have been allowed to play.  Since the Russians are such obvious cheats - and the women's OAR team prove that cheaters never prosper - I'd rather see the American men lose to the Czechs than to the Russians.  (Funny how the U.S. men's team beat the Slovaks and not the Czechs - if Czechoslovakia were still one country, I wonder what the dynamic would have been in these Games.)

Lindsey Vonn was first in the downhill run of the woman'e super combined . . .but made a mistake in the slalom run when sh missed a gate and did not finish.  (I saw the former run but missed the latter.) Vonn still gets credit for being one of the toughest and most durable skiers in the history of the sport, having come back from so many injuries.  Mikeala Shiffrin win the silver in this event, behind gold medalist Michelle Gisin of Switzerland.  Breitbart News couldn't be happier; now Vonn can't refuse a White House invitation she obviously isn't going to get, because she's not a gold medalist this time (and we all know how much Trump loves gold).   It's now up to the women's hockey team to refuse an invitation to the White House.

And, while all of that was going on, American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor and her partner Lauren Gibbs won the two-woman bobsledding silver medal, edged out for gold by Mariama Jamanka and Lisa Buckwitz.  Too bad Meyers Taylor, a star at these Games, and Gibbs didn't win gold; they could have refused Trump's invitation too!

Four-man bobsled coming up.  Go Latvia! Praise Janis Kipurs! :-D

Lindsey Bronze

The women's downhill ski race at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics is over, and Lindsey Vonn has won . . . the bronze medal. 

She finished behind her friend Sofia Goggia of Italy, who became the first woman from her country to win this event, and to win the downhill, and she was expected to take silver until Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway - Norway again! - came in second.

Lindsey Vonn was very emotional about it, and she knows she'd done the best she could, but she also knows that this will be her last Winter Olympiad.

She's not done yet.  She and Mikaela Shiffrin will both be competing in the women's super combined slalom/downhill.  I managed to see the downhill race, but I might have to miss the super combined.  Other commitments, you understand . . .

Downs and Ups

Slovenia, Slovakia . . . 

Tomato, tomahto.

Ha ha!  At the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the U.S. men's ice hockey team had a rotten tomato of a game against Slovenia, but the guys redeemed themselves in a game against another small country once part of a Communist federation, Slovakia. The U.S. beat the Slovaks 2-1, putting themselves back in the hunt for a medal.  Now they have to face the Olympic Athletes from Russia team.

This could be tough . . .

But not as tough as the break that Mikaela Shiffrin got when she skied the women's slalom, her specialty event.  Though this is the event that she is must famous and was most favored for, she finished a disappointing fourth.

Well, even Crosby, Stills and Nash sang a flat harmony every now and then.

And then there was figure skater Nathan Chen . . . 

Oh dear . . . 

At least he was able to advance.  

Down, Down, Down

I'm watching Winter Olympic team luge as I type this, but I want to talk about skiing.

The high winds in the Korean mountains subsided enough yesterday to allow skiing competition , and while the women's regular slalom is still yet to be held, the giant slalom went without a hitch.  Mikaela Shiffrin (below) won the gold.

Unfortunately. I missed it.  I tuned in too late for her first run, and her second run didn't take place until after I went to bed.  But I did see the men's downhill (Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway won), and I saw it live.  NBC has had the luck of being able to broadcast early-afternoon events live during evening prime time in North America, the time difference between the U.S. East Coast and Korea being fourteen hours.  I've found myself not rooting for any one skier or any one country in any particular ski event.  Because ultimately, you see one skier go down the hill, then another . . . then another . . . then another . . . down . . . down . . . down.

And in the slalom, it's down, curve, down, curve, down, curve . . . but then you have the super giant slalom, or Super G, which is down, curve. down, curve . . . Good Lord MAMA! - Jesus Christ and General Jackson!  - Uncle Albert and Admiral Halsey! - down, curve, down. :-D

Ha ha, you get the idea.   

On the Slopes

Shaun White proved why he is the Michael Phelps of snowboarding, having come back from a shaky second run in the men's halfpipe at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics to nail it in the third.  It was touch and go there, and the snow on the course proved to be as hard as ice - it was too much for some of the competitors - but White came through like the champion he is, winning his third career gold medal.

Meanwhile, in skiing . . . Will the women's slalom ever be held?  Will any of the skiing competitions that have already started even finish?  Bad weather on the course has prevented Mikaela Shiffrin, the young skier with the stellar ability and the spell-checker-unfriendly name, has just had her PyeongChang on the women's slalom debut delayed for the second time because of it.  I haven't seen Winter Olympic skiing be delayed by bad weather this much since Sarajevo in 1984.  At least NBC can shift to figure skating; back in 1984, ABC had to settle for commentary and music from John Denver to fill the time.

And Bosnian turnip carts.

Wow - a country-folk-pop singer who hadn't had a hit in three years . . . and adventures in pushcart vending on the streets of Sarajevo!  Oh, the drama! 

And people wonder why ABC lost coverage of the Olympics . . ..

Though it's been a long time since I've seen a Bosnian turnip cart.

With the weather in the mountains of South Korea being what it is, the Winter Olympic organizers might have to give up the ski competition for Lent.

There are in fact a lot of Catholics in South Korea . . ..