No offense to Winter Olympic athletes, but your events are boring. I'm not a big Olympics fan in general, considering that the host country generally wastes a lot more tax dollars than the event is worth, but at least the Summer Olympics has interesting sports like swimming, shooting, lifting, fighting, and so forth. Sure, it's got about 897 different kinds of running, but most of the sports are at least a little different from each other.
On the other hand, the Winter Olympics has two sports: moving around on snow, and moving around on ice. Newsflash: snow and ice are the same thing. Let's take a look at the events involved in the 2006 Winter Olympics: Alpine skiing, Biathlon, Bobsled, Cross country skiing, Curling, Figure skating, Freestyle skiing, Ice hockey, Luge, Nordic combined, Short track speed skating, Skeleton, Ski jumping, Snowboarding, Speed skating. Here's a handy equation to help you keep track:
Winter Olympics = (skiing * 7) + (skating * 5) + (sliding * 3)
The only Winter Olympic sport worth beans is the Biathlon because of this other well-known mathematical law:
∀x, guns + x = awesome
I've got some ideas for new Winter Olympic sports that would bring the event back to its roots in Ancient Greece and also help improve the ratings:
- Polar bear fighting
- Whale riding
- Penguin relay
- Ice floe sailing
- Snow man army
- Write your name in the snow
- Frostbite challenge
- Synchronized Swimming
If you ever hope to beat the pathetic losers on American Idol then you'll have to change things up, get rid of all the skis and skates, and have some real winter fun! I suppose the Snowboard Cross is a good start, but don't forget to add guns!
All you're missing is the statement, "Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the games look like a GOP convention." Because you know if there aren't a lot of balcks playing it can't be a sport and those participating can't be atheletes.
And don't be knocking ice hockey boy!
That was funny, Michael. I think that the key to enjoying any kind of performance event is whether the audience can imagine themselves doing it. Everyone can run and jump, which is why track and field is so popular. How many people know how to ski or ice skate? Some, but not many.
The other creepy thing about the Winter Olympics is that many of the events emphasize risk tolerance over skill. I'm sure that there's some measure of skill involved in luge, bobsledding, or ski jumping. But mostly you need someone who is nuts enough to actually do it on a regular basis.
You should really make fun of curling more. I think if it weren't for the little brooms bustling back and forth, I might be able to hold in my laughter, but with the brooms I just can't help it. Here is a site with some appropriately entertaining depictions of curling, and here is the more informative wiki.
You're right...snowboard cross is a good start....but even that is just a lame version of roller derby.