I'm in the midst of a friendly debate with Cor about the Olympics. This year are the Winter Olympics. We were discussing the opening ceremonies and Cor mentioned that the Winter Olympics just make her miss the Summer Olympics. I disagree as the Winter games are in fact my favorite. Disclaimer: I do love the Summer games, Winter is just my favorite. She thinks they're boring. So I thought I'd lay out her argument and then give mine since texting this to her was fairly tedious and annoying.
Why Cor thinks Summer is better:
* Cory is a summer person.
* There's too much snow in the winter games.
* Summer has swimming, running, water polo, and volleyball to offer.
* Snow activities get boring to watch whereas swimming is more interesting.
My Reasons:
* I am a winter person.
* There's a broader range of activities in winter. I sometimes feel that the summer games is only swimming and running and I get tired of that.
* People seem a little happier in the winter games, I mean take any interview with the snowboarders and you come away thinking they've done drugs at least once, and they'd just be fun to hang out with.
* Watching curling in the middle of the night while writing a paper is better than watching gigantic hideous looking men weight lift.
Points we will concede:
Cor - Ribbon dancing is not a damn sport. There are more ridiculous sports in summer.
H - Ski jumping is so boring. All the people look the same and the weird announcer telling me about the minute change between an open hand and a closed hand doesn't help. It makes me miss diving.
So we'll never agree on this because fundamentally Cor likes heat and I like cold. And we're okay with that. I still love her. But it got me thinking about whether or not other people have such strong opinions about this or if it's just us. It could be us because we're pretty opinionated people, but I still wonder.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Olympic Feva
Posted by Heidi at 4:52 PM
Labels: Observations
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6 comments:
Gymnastics just might tip the scale in Cory's direction. But, ribbon dancing is absolutely foolish, as is steeplechase (people acting as horses). But, snowboarding is awesome to watch as is skiing (freestyle and all that, minus cross country which looks so hard I am forced to change the channel so my legs don't start burning). So I call it a draw.
For me the media hype helps... Before moving to Sweden I hardly knew the winter Olympics existed. The sports that are interesting are then those in which there is a chance of winning a Gold medal. An argument perhaps that doesn't work when your country has so many medal chances that you have trouble getting personal with the athletes. With no vested interest I can think most sports are boring to watch.
The danger factor makes the winter games so much better in my opinion. Ski jumping is fabulous! I don't care about them in the air-it's when they do that highlight reel "agony of defeat" impersonation and totally wipe out that makes it all so interesting!
The threat of danger was made all the more real this year with the unfortunate death of the luger in qualifying. But, it's gotta grab your attention, right?
Personally, I don't like the cold. But I also prefer the Winter Olympics. My main reason is skating. How could you not love skating?
As for the same thing over and over again, if you look at what their doing, and not just glancing at the screen, then you can see the difference and what the judges are talking about.
I actually like both the summer & winter games, but during the summer I get stinkin' tired of gymnastics. I seriously do not enjoy watching teenagers with the bodies of pre-pubescent girls performing death-defying stunts. Although I do enjoy seeing how much China thinks it can lie about the ages of its girls, sheesh!
But I've concluded this year that people in "winter countries" are just absolutely desperate to get outside or do something so they invent the weirdest sports. The biathlon? Everything involving cross country skiing? Curling? I am determined to understand the game of curling, if only I could figure out when its actually on . . .
It is completely entertaining how many different sports you can have that involve cross country skiing. But my history professor :) we should look at the biathlon from that perspective, maybe in the winter wilds you're like, hey I need to go hunting, so you cross country ski then shoot your animal and ski it back home?! Haha I don't know.
Curling is always on in the middle of the night. I discovered this four years ago. It's pretty fascinating actually.
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