Curling is Housecleaning, Not a Sport, and Other Winter Games Heresies
Once again, Olympic Winter Games fever is upon us. Well, not really. Instead, it’s more of a “Hey, those Scandinavians and Canadians are at it again” curiosity combined with awe at the bitter cold and nervous tension over whether or not South and North Korea can be in the same room with each other and not go to war. Oh, and there was the very cool moment when American skater Mirai Nagasu made history by becoming the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics.
But other than that, I’m not sure I get the winter games. If you think about it, it’s head-scratching to put on a multi-billion-dollar athletic event centered on cold weather sports and then have countries like Tonga and Bermuda there. I associate a lot of things with those island nations, but not giant slalom skiing. Also, Ecuador, Eritrea, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Singapore—not exactly locales that one associates with rolling blankets of snow—are all participating for the first time. I’m all for participation, but it’s…weird.
That’s not all that’s weird about the Winter Olympics, though. Some other oddities that come to mind:
- I know, I know. Everybody writes about how cool curling is. But tell me again why this game, which is like shuffleboard from Frozen’s Arendelle, is in the Olympics? I think there should be a rule that if your sport gets easier the more the participants drink, it doesn’t qualify. That would also end all this talk of bowling in the Summer games, too.
- Cross-country skiing combined with target shooting? Sure, I can see how this made sense back when Norwegians were subsistence hunting on the tundra and feeding your family meant wearing down and then killing a reindeer. But now this just looks like an excuse to combine two things at which Americans suck.
- The whole Russian thing. The IOC went to the extreme of banning Russia from participating in these Olympics due to widespread doping in Sochi in 2014. But then they decided to allow 169 athletes who could prove they were clean to participate under the designation of Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR, not to be confused with the rock band O.A.R.) Well crap, there goes what little chance the U.S. had to medal in ice hockey.
- Doubles luge. This requires no further explanation.
- Climate change. Does anybody else feel like staging Winter Olympics after the latest “warmest year since we’ve been keeping records” is a little like flipping the bird to the planet and daring it to take offense? Although at least it’s not Sochi, where the average high temperature in February is a balmy 50 degrees (again, the Russians…).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some ice dancing to watch.
