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Beijing Winter Olympics 2022

Page 10 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I'm old too, but I grew up jumping motorcycles over barns and snowmobiles off of 100 foot cornices about 20 years before there was an X before everything so I guess I feel some sort of connection (be it very far removed). That being said, I feel like some people discount the amazing skill/ability of these athletes because their main venue is the X-Games ('eh, that's for the younger crowd'). IMO, amazing skill is amazing skill. As I've noted up thread though, I love Nordic skiing and biathlon too (pretty differed to big air events...the big air is in their lungs). I agree that the Olympic model doesn't fit the 'free spirt' of these sports, but does it have to be that way?

Nitro Circus is one of the most entertaining events that I have ever attended in my life of attending a lot of sporting events. I don't really want to compare motorize events to human/gravity powered events, but entertainment = $$.
Well, another problem is that the iconography of those sports, many of which having come from slacker subcultures, doesn't really fit with the whole visual impression of elite sport. It's not that their feats are any less impressive, it's that they don't come across as Olympic competition. The thing I always bring up is the clothing. Most traditional competitions at the Olympics have honed and refined their apparel to meet the demands for performance. Minimising drag, searching for every minuscule benefit that they can, working in wind tunnels, working to keep core temperature down, and so on, selling the story of the quest for eking out that last tiny bit of improvement to be the best.

A lot of these new events by contrast see elite athletes heading out looking like me on my first day on snow, with a competitor bib over a baggy coat and salopettes that any of us could buy at Decathlon, and though it is a minor thing, it is still there. And to use the summer events as an example, in the skateboarding we saw a 13 year old fall over on 2/3 her runs, wearing gear she bought on the high street, and win a medal - which makes it hard to feel like you're genuinely watching elite athletic competition on a par with, say, the athletics or the swimming or so on (even though you could also rightly point out that in some of the field disciplines you could fail 5/6 of your attempts and still win, but obviously there's a much less subjective element to the results in those disciplines). But as she herself said, the great thing about skateboarding was that it afforded total freedom of expression in a way that other sports didn't - and she's right. But the scoring seems way too forgiving to be elite just on the example above - unless they start introducing fixed difficulty points where the athletes have to submit what they're going to do beforehand, along similar lines to more established judging sports like gymnastics, diving and figure skating - but then you're taking the freedom that helps make the sport appealing and removing it, which might help make the sport more established from an Olympic perspective as an elite discipline, but then makes the competition more about fitting through the pigeonholes of what a good routine is rather than being as free or as uninhibited as these sports purport to be, and would run the risk of killing or at least watering down much of their appeal.
 
Well, another problem is that the iconography of those sports, many of which having come from slacker subcultures, doesn't really fit with the whole visual impression of elite sport. It's not that their feats are any less impressive, it's that they don't come across as Olympic competition. The thing I always bring up is the clothing. Most traditional competitions at the Olympics have honed and refined their apparel to meet the demands for performance. Minimising drag, searching for every minuscule benefit that they can, working in wind tunnels, working to keep core temperature down, and so on, selling the story of the quest for eking out that last tiny bit of improvement to be the best.

A lot of these new events by contrast see elite athletes heading out looking like me on my first day on snow, with a competitor bib over a baggy coat and salopettes that any of us could buy at Decathlon, and though it is a minor thing, it is still there. And to use the summer events as an example, in the skateboarding we saw a 13 year old fall over on 2/3 her runs, wearing gear she bought on the high street, and win a medal - which makes it hard to feel like you're genuinely watching elite athletic competition on a par with, say, the athletics or the swimming or so on (even though you could also rightly point out that in some of the field disciplines you could fail 5/6 of your attempts and still win, but obviously there's a much less subjective element to the results in those disciplines). But as she herself said, the great thing about skateboarding was that it afforded total freedom of expression in a way that other sports didn't - and she's right. But the scoring seems way too forgiving to be elite just on the example above - unless they start introducing fixed difficulty points where the athletes have to submit what they're going to do beforehand, along similar lines to more established judging sports like gymnastics, diving and figure skating - but then you're taking the freedom that helps make the sport appealing and removing it, which might help make the sport more established from an Olympic perspective as an elite discipline, but then makes the competition more about fitting through the pigeonholes of what a good routine is rather than being as free or as uninhibited as these sports purport to be, and would run the risk of killing or at least watering down much of their appeal.
I don't agree with your first paragraph. Going to the wind tunnel to perfect your clothing is secondary to the skills IMO. I agree with the scoring aspect, but I've felt that way with figure skating and gymnastics for a long time. Bigger wins.
 
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I don't agree with your first paragraph. Going to the wind tunnel to perfect your clothing is secondary to the skills IMO. I agree with the scoring aspect, but I've felt that way with figure skating and gymnastics for a long time. Bigger wins.
The appearance thing is subjective, and it's more about it feeling elite and Olympic than anything else. I mean, Cirque du Soleil performers have the acrobatic skills, but that doesn't make it an Olympic sport. If we switched on a bike race and people were wearing cargo pants and baggy T-shirts with their race numbers pinned to their T-shirts, then to me at least, it wouldn't feel as high level a competition. It doesn't make anything they do any less impressive, and for some it may even improve the spectacle in that they can more readily identify what they do as casual participants in a sport with the elite performers at it and compare what they can achieve with that same equipment against the very best; but for me, although I'm of the generation of skate shops and punk rock videos of skate and BMX tricks and flips, I'm also an adherent of the 'faster, further, stronger' kind of attitude to the Olympics, and think that trying to incorporate this type of sport (the big air, slopestyle and half-pipe types, rather than snowboard cross and to a lesser extent moguls at least, and for the summer Games the skateboarding, freestyle BMX and similar) into the Olympics is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, as I don't think you can make them fit as something that truly belongs as an Olympic discipline, without robbing those sports of a lot of what it is about them that makes them impressive and breathtaking in the first place.
 
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The clothing thing is very much opinion. I mean the US men's Olympic curling team literally looks like a group of guys who were at the local bar hanging out playing that specific game and somehow found themselves in the Olympics. Those in that sport certainly don't "look" like elite athletes nor does the game have the feel of elite, yet it's in the Olympics.
 
Italy won the mixed (Norway silver, Sweden bronze)

Great Britain won the womens (Japan silver, Sweden bronze)

Sweden won the mens (Great Britain silver, Canada bronze)

There are more than 500,000 curlers in Canada, the depth and quality is above any other nation but lately they have had trouble at international competitions. Much ridiculed as a sport in other countries, curling is one of the most watched sports on TV in Canada.
 
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Similar to Dirt I too dabbled in stunt life,trying to flip,jump and race a variety of devices,including skiing and bicycles,most if not all my over the top behavior ended in minimum road rash maximum hospital stays..
Watching snow boarding,skiing,sledding and a bunch of other events give me chills to watch..overall I liked the games..
I did not enjoy the skating art display at the close of the games were ice skaters do a routine just for the fun of it..don't see where it belongs in competition
 
The clothing thing is very much opinion. I mean the US men's Olympic curling team literally looks like a group of guys who were at the local bar hanging out playing that specific game and somehow found themselves in the Olympics. Those in that sport certainly don't "look" like elite athletes nor does the game have the feel of elite, yet it's in the Olympics.
Curling reminds me a bit of bowling (I used to play in a bowling league), while I'm sure curlers take the competition at the Olympics very seriously it still has a very accessible feel to it and any Joe who lives close to a patch of ice could play. I don't mind it being included in the Olympics, the broom sweeping looks kind of comical and it's not a tourney that's being shoved down our throats in NBC's primetime. (Unlike the X Games sports.)

Is there such a thing as a professional curling league? I know there is money to be made in bowling if you're good enough but know very little about curling.
 
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I'm old too, but I grew up jumping motorcycles over barns and snowmobiles off of 100 foot cornices about 20 years before there was an X before everything so I guess I feel some sort of connection (be it very far removed). That being said, I feel like some people discount the amazing skill/ability of these athletes because their main venue is the X-Games ('eh, that's for the younger crowd'). IMO, amazing skill is amazing skill. As I've noted up thread though, I love Nordic skiing and biathlon too (pretty differed to big air events...the big air is in their lungs). I agree that the Olympic model doesn't fit the 'free spirt' of these sports, but does it have to be that way?

Nitro Circus is one of the most entertaining events that I have ever attended in my life of attending a lot of sporting events. I don't really want to compare motorize events to human/gravity powered events, but entertainment = $$.
I may haver dated a skater or two decades ago when baggy pants, tattoos, and piercings were considered grungy and counter-culture, the impression I get from the snowboarders specifically nowadays is that it's something only the wealthy suburban kids can afford to do. Skateboarding is at least accessible in that many cities have public skateboard parks where all you need is a skateboard and just really any clothes, snowboarding (or even skiing) can get pretty pricey pretty quickly, especially when you have to drive a long ways to the mountains. So that's neither grunge nor counter-culture.
 
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Now that the games are over, my only hope is that the Russian athletes not only cannot compete under a Russian flag, but no banner with the word "Russia" or "Russian" in it for the foreseeable future. To many people the difference between Russia and ROC is non-existent. The ROC is Russia. This supposed punishment they are dealing with after Sochi has been laughable, and tantamount to little if any punishment at all.

Considering the level the Russian coaches and athletic organization will go to win, until the rest of the world can be assured that their athletes will be competing in an honorable, clean manner, participating athletes should not be representing Russia as a country in any way, regardless of their heritage, country of birth, or country of residence.
EDIT: Moved to another thread...
 
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Curling reminds me a bit of bowling (I used to play in a bowling league), while I'm sure curlers take the competition at the Olympics very seriously it still has a very accessible feel to it and any Joe who lives close to a patch of ice could play. I don't mind it being included in the Olympics, the broom sweeping looks kind of comical and it's not a tourney that's being shoved down our throats in NBC's primetime. (Unlike the X Games sports.)

Is there such a thing as a professional curling league? I know there is money to be made in bowling if you're good enough but know very little about curling.

The "X-Games" stuff was being shown because for the most part it was the only sports competitions that were live at that time of day/morning. NBC wants to show what they can live on the primetime show. Other than what is live, everything else has been being shown all day either on NBC or USA. It's not that bad in Europe due to the 6 hour time difference instead of a 13 hour time difference. Although everything will be over when primetime starts, it won't have been being played on TV all day and they'll have more options to pick and choose from. Still an issue since many will have watched most of what they wanted to see when it was on live during the day.
One other note, as the Summer games have like 4 times the number of sports as the Winter games, maybe they could move an indoor sport like handball to the Winter games?
 
at the moment the norm is, that the sport needs to take place on snow or ice. Even XC Cycling wasn't winterly enough.

Was it that it wasn't winterly enough? Isn't the reason more that it is restricted to very few countries and in numbers it's super dominated by one country?

Personally I think the snow and ice atmosphere is totally what people draws to watching winter sports (well, for me it's the case, and I think for many others as well from what I've heard), so I guess introducing indoor sports would actually be difficult.
 
Was it that it wasn't winterly enough? Isn't the reason more that it is restricted to very few countries and in numbers it's super dominated by one country?

maybe both, but recently there was an article that the Val di Sole World Cup was raced on snow to showcase Olympic potential, so it seems like it was a major factor at least. The current IOC definition says "‘only those sports which are practised on snow or ice are considered as winter sports" - so unless they plan to change that completely, sth like handball is definitely not possible.
 
Now that the games are over, my only hope is that the Russian athletes not only cannot compete under a Russian flag, but no banner with the word "Russia" or "Russian" in it for the foreseeable future. To many people the difference between Russia and ROC is non-existent. The ROC is Russia. This supposed punishment they are dealing with after Sochi has been laughable, and tantamount to little if any punishment at all.

Considering the level the Russian coaches and athletic organization will go to win, until the rest of the world can be assured that their athletes will be competing in an honorable, clean manner, participating athletes should not be representing Russia as a country in any way, regardless of their heritage, country of birth, or country of residence.

Ridiculous comment.