Good show! The opening and closing ceremonies are supposed to be about spectacle, and I'd say the Russians delivered spectacle in spades. The closing ceremonies were a little subdued compared with the opening, but that's to be expected... kind of a post-coitus let-down, I suppose. And yes, there was a glitch in the special effects at the opening. When did such a big show ever come off without one? Congratulations to the Russians.
Speaking of which, it looked to me as if all those dire predictions about facilities and infrastructure being unready or inadequate were much ado about nothing. So the hotels weren't ***** (5-star), the ice was a bit snowy and one American locked himself in his bathroom. Everything... everything... was up and running on the day, and it was all right. America isn't the only country with the technical knowhow to get things done.
What did you think of all the "new" sports? "Half-pipe"...isn't that what used to be called "hotdogging"? And the moguls and the "cross" [??? Ed.], all new to me. [Where have you been? Ed.] They were all great to watch, but I'm not in favour of adding too many judged competitions, for the simple reason that the judges' decisions are always open to question and criticism, as in the case of the ice dancing. It's hard to fix a timed race, but where points are given for "style" or "technical difficulty", it's all subjective, right?
Some sports weren't so exciting. Speed skating bores the hell out of me. [Agent 9 would say that's a good thing. Ed.] Even if someone falls, they don't exactly crash and burn. All they do is slide into the boards and get a nasty bruise. What fun is that? I think the only reason there are so many speed skating events still on the cards is so the Dutch will have something they can win. Well c'mon, they don't do anything else!
Then there's curling. OK, I see the skill involved in "the roaring game", but still, the rock is moving down the ice so slowly that two people wearing toe rubbers can actually stay ahead of it while sliding sideways. Looks to me like the Canadian equivalent of lawn bowling, which I guess is about all you can do when your country is covered in ice 363 days per year. Congratulations anyway to the Canadians who won both the men's and women's competitions.
Which reminds me... There was a time when curling was played -- at championship level, mind you -- by old guys like Hector Gervais who couldn't even see his toes, and managed to smoke and drink while playing. Times have changed. Did you see the biceps on those Canadian guys? Seriously fit lads! And the Canadian women...seriously hot!
Figure skating... I like watching figure skating, and I'm not gay! Can't say the same about some of the skaters, but that's their business, and you'll notice no-one tried to keep them from competing in spite of all the LGBT propaganda about the Russians being homophobic and hateful. I repeat my comment about judged events but acknowledge that just because your favourite didn't win gold doesn't necessarily mean the result was rigged.
Maybe there shouldn't even be medals, but how can you have a competition with no rankings or prizes? On that point, could the IOC please rationalize the methods of tallying up the medal count? It would seem the top four countries were Russia, the USA, Norway and Canada, but in what order? Do you count the total number of medals, or the number of golds (then silver, then bronze to break ties), or do you assign a certain number of points for the gold, silver and bronze? Which method you use seems to depend on who you want to win -- just like real life.
I think we must be up to at least 1000 words now, so will close with just one picture, for which thanks to Agent 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment