That's true, if you want to look into it that deep. I'm just cheering for the Dutch athletes. I'm not cheering for the western world to defeat the communist Chinese or anything. That way, I'm not cheering for a political entity. We don't life in Korea. I think that a lot of us can see sports as a seperate thing, without the political conflicts.

I asume that that stuff lost a lot of momentum over there, as well, after the Cold War ended.

Of course there's a little natiolist pride involved. I can't deny that I'm somewhat proud when my guy is receiving the gold medal and "Het Wilhelmus" is playing. But what exactly is wrong with that?

Don't you kind of hate it that these Olympic athletes are sort of on welfare or something? They train and train and that's all they do. Then we pay for their nice hotel rooms and for them to travel all over the world. Not to mention the family gets to come along. When they lose. they just train for more years, while everything is still payed for. We don't need the Olympics anymore. It's just a bunch of BS.

/rant

At least for the US olympic team, they don't get payed by the government. Travel is payed for, but not directly. Instead, it come through a variety of private and coorperate donors.

However, the U.S. pays American medal winners $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze medals.

The vast majority of atheletes get nothing but room and board and their own endorsement deals.

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You economic teaching vagina. :thumbright:

I never have nor will I ever apologize for my US of A pride.. In the Olympics or otherwise.

And to the OP.. I like the winter Olympics more so than the summer games.. And hockey is the BIG one for me. That must be the Minnesoooootan in me. 😃

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Cross country skiing, then the one where they jump from the thingy (you know the one with Janne Ahonen, Schilerenzauer and Ammann etc...) and nordic combined are my favorite events, after hockey of course. I'm following these pretty closely.

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I enjoy the Olympics. There is not a particular sport that I am drawn to.
My wife enjoys the figure skating so I sit through it with her. Hockey is a little more interesting to me but only if Team USA does well. (Yes I cheer for my fellow countrymen and women. There is no crime in that. There is no agenda in wanting someone that I don't even know who was born in Ohio or Colorado to succeed.) I won't apologize for wanting to see the US do well in the overall medal count. In my book it has nothing to do with political or global dominance. It is a sport. Governments may try and politicize the Olympics but they are wrong to do so. No matter which nation. I ignore that part.

One of my favorite Olympic moments was in the summer games (I don't remember which one- Munich or Montreal. Men's gymnastics. Japan was battling the Soviets for the overall men's title. It came down to the last Japanese man on the rings. He had a broken foot that was heavily taped. He hobbled up got a lift to get up on the rings. Did his routine and then had to dismount. He had to be near perfect for the Japanese to win. He stuck his landing broken foot and all. He just about passed out from the pain. You could see it in his face. He received high marks and Japan won. It was quite a thrilling moment and it had nothing to do with the USA.

I like the storylines behind the events as much or more than the events themselves. These athletes endure so much for the sake of their sport, it is amazing. The kids getting up at 4 am to go to the skating rink at 6 am then to school and they do this year after year. It takes real discipline and desire on their part and their parents part as well.

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Hehe...I'm not sure what I'd do if people started seeing my opinions as reasonable, anyway.

If I had a clue, I'd have to get a real job. 🙂

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I very much enjoyed the German coaches attempting to motivate their athletes up the hills in the nordic combined during the cross-country segment.

I couldn't discern what was being said, but it had the tone of a fascist blitzkrieg commander on the eastern front driving his troops forward against the hated communists. The guttural nature of the language lends itself to a sometimes humorous preferred interpretation.

It's for this reason that I always root against US teams in the Olympics, and then find myself feeling guilty for doing so.

As for what I watch, I love ice dancing, and when I was in Germany, I found myself oddly preoccupied by ski jumping.

When I was in Iraq, I watched Olympic curling.

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I grew up speed skating in Milwaukee and around Wisconsin and Minnesota. The short track stuff is suicide on ice....first person across the finish line wins. Doesn't matter if it took 3 days to go 1000 meters, or how many competitors bones you broke.

I was in long track skating. It's just you against the clock. You'd finish and think back to every mistake you made that cost you 1/1000 of a second. Speed Skating is the only Olympic winter sport timed to the 1000th of a second. Wish I'd have had clap skates then.

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