So I was looking back at all the posts I’ve done for this blog ad I’ve realized something, there is absolutely nothing in here about the Winter Olympics. As someone who loves sports and loves the Olympics it was hard for me not to say anything about it and it was sort of a conscious effort. Coming up to the Olympics I was excited to watch the snowboarding and the figure skating. I was sort of following the trials for the US Olympic team and was happy to see 2 very young skaters included on the team, Jason Brown and Polina Edmunds.
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| Polina is only 15!! Her senior debut was what qualified her for the US Olympic team. |
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| Jason is 19 and only started his senior career in 2013! |
So that was what I was excited about. New talent getting a chance to perform on the biggest stage possible. Then I started hearing about the problems with Sochi. The Olympic Village not being completed, the project running over budget, the courses were deemed dangerous and so on and so on. There were just a whole set of problems that could have been avoided. And there was also the political problems about Russia and homosexuals. Sigh, it was like everything was going wrong that could go wrong. It seemed like the only good thing was that Russia got more snow than expected this year.
When the games started I was in the middle of classes and the hysteria that is moving to a new city so I was following it online. When I heard Shaun White pulled out of his second event I was sort of skeptical about it but figured he knew what he was doing, whatevs. Then I watched the qualifying round for a women’s snowboarding event and I didn’t want to watch anymore. It was kind of obvious that the competitors were a bit afraid of the course because it was just so fast. They were playing it extremely safe and not going for the big airs and obviously doing everything they could so slow their speed on the course. To top it off, Shaun White didn’t medal in his event which made me think what would have happened if he didn’t change his schedule to late in the game and I’m sure he was thinking about that too.
After that I simply decided to just wait for the results to see how everything turned out. Then I was hearing about the problems the speed skaters were having with their new suits. I remember speed skating was something the Americans used to dominate with Apolo Ohno and now that he’s done it seems like there’s no one there to take his place which is a bit sad.
Another thing I was excited about was the Jamaican bobsleigh team. I knew that they wouldn’t be in a position to medal or anything but it was something new for the Winter Olympics. That was ruined by the controversy around that course.There was a nasty crash with the Canadian men team and the Brazilian women team and that just added another sign that the complex and Sochi on a whole was not ready for the Olympics. Now there are all these comparisons to The Hunger Games which I’m sure is great publicity for the franchise but not so much for the commentators they’re comparing it to, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski. Sigh, it all seems like the entire games was a joke for everyone except the competitors. Of course they’re taking it seriously, it’s their big chance to perform on such a big platform. I’m not even going to start on the interviews NBC did with Bode Miller where the kept talking about his brother that died.
So yea, this is my take on the Winter Olympics. Yea it’s a bit harsh but isn’t the Olympics supposed to be the biggest platform in these sports? Why is it that the Winter Olympics aren’t taken as seriously as the Summer Olympics? I am so disappointed in the the games this time around after Vancouver did such a good job in my opinion.
Anyways, I feel better now that I got all of that out there. Now I can go cook my Sunday food 🙂
Carla 🙂
Carla Jones 
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