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tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4103
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 2:13 pm: |     |
And the official loser of the 2006 Olympics is...Bode Miller.
I like events where every competitor delivers his/her personal best. If they win a medal, that is great, but in sports like the Olympics, when you do your best you are a winner.
Bode Miller apparently came to Turin to party. He should have let somebody else come in his place. |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 3530
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, February 25, 2006 - 7:08 pm: | |
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Michael Turner
Citizen
Username: Resident_lune
Post Number: 5
Registered: 2-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 4:53 am: | |
Bode Miller and the media are ruining the average American's perspective of the Torino Olympics.
Well ... that and Salt Lake City. All that hype about doing as good as -- if not better -- than 2002 certainly didn't help.
But frankly, almost every hyped US Olympian has faltered one way or another (with the exception of the halfpipers, and Ohno near the end of the Olympics) ... Bode more than most. And because of all the sensationalizing, people are going to remember "Bode Miller didn't win a single medal", instead of "Team USA had their 2nd best medal count ever, and best in a non-US Olympic venue!" |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4104
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 8:33 am: | |
I think Bode Miller will be remembered for his behavior off of the slopes. I can filter out the media hype of certain competitors, but I would like to see people like Miller sent home to their mothers. Contrast his behavior with that of Ohno who dedicated the year leading up to the Olympics to training. |
hch
Citizen
Username: Hch
Post Number: 210
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 12:25 pm: | |
The media created the Bode Miller hype, and then they tore him down when he didn't live up to it.
It's a shame that the media will not let events unfold as they should.
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Elaine Harris
Citizen
Username: Elaineharris
Post Number: 106
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, February 26, 2006 - 1:28 pm: | |
I am no fan of Bode Miller, but I think the athlete that troubled me the most was the Jacobellis woman who was snowboarding her way to a gold medal, then decided to be a crowd pleaser. She did a stupid jump/flip, stumbled, fell, then scrambled to come in second in the race. She then said it was "all in fun." Ask the people who sacrificed to put you there. Apparently she was asleep during the lesson on competition. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 5788
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 9:18 am: | |
Guess it all depends on crowd pleaser...she admits it was "a trick" but she has a history of doing them for the reason cited by her coach.
Quote:"All of a sudden, Lindsey had this humongous lead," said U.S. coach Peter Foley. "She got through all of the hardest stuff and just landed that jump a little bit off balance. She grabs her board on lots of the jumps, because that's a stable position for her. I dont know if she held the grab just a little bit too long on that jump and that's what set her off on the weird edge."
Again, I think she was made something of a scapegoat.
The Americans medalled almost entirely in events that last less than 10 minutes. Talk about our short attention span. Gotta love the ending of the mens 50K X country ski yesterday...Now that takes athleticism. |
Eats Shoots & Leaves
Citizen
Username: Mfpark
Post Number: 3068
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 9:41 am: | |
Americans won more medals than any other Winter Olympics in history (except for the home field advantage in Salt Lake City).
We won big medals in most of the sports that mean anything to the US market, except alpine skiing, and mainly in sports that were recently added to the Olympics and which have great marketability in the US (especially the X-Games style "sports").
In that sense, I think they were a success for the US--for marketing and supporting sports that matter here.
As kids growing up watching weekly ski jumping and nordic ski races and luge runs on Wide World of Sports (the pre-ESPN equivalent of tractor pulls and strongman competitions to fill air time), perhaps some of my generation get misty-eyed that the US can't compete in these sports. But, really, few in the US care a whit about these anymore, except for those who have a peculiar rooting interest in a particular event and the chronically bored.
NBC had fine ratings for the sports that sell here, and not so much for the other sports--big surprise. I am certain that speed skating had huge ratings in the Netherlands, and short track skating rang up big numbers in Korea--while snow board parallel racing likely did not even show in many markets.
I actually like watching the nordic combined sometimes, or bobsledding, but I certainly don't think NBC should be running them in prime time. Far better to use a podcast format where you can view specific sports when you want to, even in real time. My guess is that this is where the next Olympics is going--with exceptional counterprogramming by Fox and CBS, NBC has to realize that the format they used is far more a failure than the US participation was this time around. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2394
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 10:13 am: | |
Elaine, snowboarding is all about hotdogging. Any snowboarder who tells you different is lying. To many, competing includes the tricks. You saw it has her losing the race. She saw it as messing up her trick (what she says to the press notwithstanding). |
tjohn
Supporter
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 4107
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 11:42 am: | |
I see it as a new admonition to competitors - "Don't do a Lindsey." She isn't the first competitor to start celebrating on the wrong side of the finish line, and she won't be the last, but I think she will be remembered longer than some of the others. |
Rastro
Citizen
Username: Rastro
Post Number: 2398
Registered: 5-2004
| | Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006 - 12:49 pm: | |
True... |
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