Winter Olympic Sports (Snow)

by Marko Peric

There's nothing quite like a really nasty winter storm that shuts down pretty much everything in the city. There are things that are better, but there's nothing quite like it. It's especially good when everything is shut down before noon and you weren't scheduled to work until 2 pm. What a perfect opportunity to kick back and watch the Olympics.

Now, although there are only 14 sports at the winter Olympics, I'm pretty sure that I don't want to rate all of them at one time. So I'm splitting the sports up, going first with snow sports. I'll leave the ice sports and track sports to another article or two.

A note here, I'm not rating these sports on difficulty or popularity, I'm going with how they are to watch. If you should happen to compete in any of these sports, and I happen to slam it, well, get over it.

Snowboarding: I've never been terribly interested in snowboarding, but when I watched it today, I was impressed with how cool it was to watch. Boarders zipping down the halfpipe and getting some insane air while doing tricks all the while. Plus, it's fast without being overly repetitive. Some of the tricks are very impressive, and it looks like a lot of fun, unlike some other sports. That's a Good thing.

Alpine Skiing: Yes, I know, this is four different events, and apparently they are all different, but I can't really see that much of a difference between three of them. Slalom looks different, and quite frankly, pretty idiotic. Skiers zipping down a hill knocking down poles left and right isn't all that fun to watch. And to my admittedly untrained eye Downhill, Giant Slalom, and Super G look pretty much the same. It's all people on skis going entirely too fast down a hill, and occasionally crashing, usually in a spectacular fashion. Anything that features such serious injuries yet isn't a bloodsport is rather Bad.

Cross-country Skiing: There are two types of cross country skiing — the classical and the freestyle. The classical is the one where the skis stay in in the tracks, if you're wondering. Both are really, really boring to watch. Races that go as long as 50 kilometers just aren't all that exciting. They really aren't. It's like watching a marathon on snow. I've always found marathons to be dull and Ugly.

Ski Jumping: One has to wonder why anyone would get the idea to ski down a ramp at 90 kph and launch off into the air. Human beings were not meant to fly (at least in nothing less than business class, although first class is preferable). And keep in mind that technically a ski jumper is basically just falling with style. He who falls the farthest and with the best style wins. He who falls not as far loses. He who falls badly ends up with a shattered femur. That's obviously a Bad thing.

Free-Style Skiing: There are two completely different freestyle events, the moguls and the aerials. The aerials are ridiculously cool. It's like ski jumping the way it should have been. Instead of zipping down a ramp and merely trying for distance, an aerial skier zips down the ramp, flies up maybe 50 feet in the air and does tricks before landing. It looks insane, and wildly cool. There's the immediate threat of crashing which makes every jump interesting, but since you never know what tricks the skier will try, every jump is different. Moguls aren't quite as cool, but still pretty funky.
Now, there is another freestyle event that was a demonstration sport in the past, but never achieved full medal status. I speak of course of ski ballet, which looks every bit as idiotic as it sounds. But the fact that it is no longer at the Olympics is very Good.

Biathlon: This sport has an interesting past. It was first an Olympic sport as the accurately named Military Ski Patrol but went away for a stint after World War II to be replaced with Winter Pentathlon, which included downhill racing, fencing, and horseback riding in addition to the shooting and cross-country skiing, hopefully not all together as biathlon is now. It would be really hard to ride a horse while wearing skis (how exactly horseback riding is a winter sport is beyond me). But when biathlon came back for 1960, and when they made it more civilian-friendly by reducing target distance and switching to lighter .22 caliber rifles (although one looks forward to the day when extreme biathlon becomes popular — I'm envisioning snowboarders with rocket launchers) it became more popular, and women started competing. Apparently cross-country skiing with firearms is an equal opportunity winter activity. But it's all Good.