Friday OT - Skijoring?

[Angie]

What is your favorite winter Olympic sport? What is your favorite summer one? Which ones do you find oddest?

I do not understand the skeleton. I mean, it looks like the basic gist is just to not kill yourself - I don't understand how it's an entire sport, while it's also incredibly interesting to watch. And what sort of crappy old memory foam mattress toppers did they gather for the foam at the end?

For the summer Olympics, I don't really understand race-walking. Where exactly does the line fall between walking and falling, how do you define that? And the steeplechase just looks like someone made a sport out of an old Laurel & Hardy bit?

 

[oldman]

I love watching the speed events, like luge and downhill, but also enjoy curling. Summer, I like watching the track and field stuff -- 100 meter dash, long jump.

 

[Angie]

I love watching the speed events, like luge and downhill, but also enjoy curling. Summer, I like watching the track and field stuff -- 100 meter dash, long jump.

I love curling and the biathalon for winter. I just think that so many winter Olympic sports would be made better if the athletes wore capes.

 

[Bobber]

The Biathlon has always fascinated me.

Summer is tougher. Maybe rowing...

 

[Cyowan008]

For the winter games it is hard for me to pick a favorite. I would say the ski jump is up there as well as hockey. All the downhill events have their own unique aspect to them and then you get all the high flying of slopestyle and halfpipe competitions. Too many to choose from!

The summer games I really enjoy swimming, beach volleyball, and bmx racing. There's sooo many events in the summer but really all that gets focused on is swimming and track so it dulls it down for me a bit.

 

[SCyclone]

In winter, I like the bobsled and luge events.....takes me back to my childhood days of sledding and tobogganing. (We used to get kind of crazy at times.) I just marvel at the speed of the luges, gotta be an awesome rush! Also wonder what speed the downhill skiers attain, it has to be a little scary for them at times too. Pretty fun to watch folks who have achieved such a high level of competition.

 

[carvers4math]

Winter, I like snowboarding and biathlon.

Summer, equestrian events, tennis, and fencing.

Sports I don’t particularly like with all the hype: figure skating and gymnastics. And the Nassar thing will now always be on my mind with gymnastics. Just yuck.

 

[TruClone]

The snowboard cross, downhill for winter games. Track and field, particularly the sprints and hurdles, for the summer games.

 

[drlove]

favorites are: Summer Swimming then Track and Field. Winter - Skiing and snowboard cross.

Strangest: Summer - Trampoline and Rhythmic Gymnastics
Winter - Ski Jumping and Short Track Speed Skating Relays, and obviously the Biathlon

 

[Farnsworth]

I DVR. curling as it's a monthly broadcast on some network, so I'd say curling,

 

[Farnsworth]

Slopestyle and Super G are also fun to watch.

 

[NWICY]

Winter I'll watch about any of it. The speed sports just amaze me, that being said I watched the entire Canada vs. Norway curling match the other morning. Biathlon athletes have just crazy control to be able to ski like that and then shoot.

Sprints, pole vault, biking, both volleyballs and BB in the summer games.

 

[WooBadger18]

Downhill and speedskating in the winter games and swimming in the summer. Really the only events I don't like in either games are rhythmic gymnastics and soccer. I like soccer normally, but it shouldn't be part of the olympics.

 

[CyGuy5]

This is too hard for me to choose my favorite Winter Olympic sports. I'll go with all of them except for figure skating and curling.

Summer is baseball no doubt, since it is returning in 2020

 

[cyclones500]

Winter: Luge, skeleton, ski-jumping, short-track speed skating (secret to success: Stay near the back, then just wait until everyone in front of you wipes out!)

Summer: Track & field (sprints, 4x400, 4x100, long jump, triple jump, 800 and steeplechase are favorites); swimming; water polo; underrated: badminton).

 

[cyclones500]

And the steeplechase just looks like someone made a sport out of an old Laurel & Hardy bit?

I love steeplechase.

 

[oldman]

What amazes me in the downhill is how close the competition is. The course is almost a mile long, and first to last might only be a second or two.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

Winter - I like all except figure skating. My wife watches everything Olympic, so I generally made a little attention to figure skating, but it's by far my least favorite. I appreciate the athleticism, but the commentators are too full of themselves and make me hate it. Unfortunately, since the music is part of the program, muting it really isn't an option for my wife.

Summer - Again, we watch everything. My wife and her sister were heavily into competitive gymnastics and were invited to be coached by the Karolyis so that's on without fail. The scoring of that sport just pisses me off. So subjective IMO. Swimming and track and field have always been fun to watch since the US always seems to do well and the races are so close.

Favorite part of all the Olympic games - For singles events (like downhill) I love when NBC superimposes competing athletes on the same replay so you can see how one competitor fares against the leader. It really gives a great sense of the small details that you otherwise miss.

 

[cyhiphopp]

What amazes me in the downhill is how close the competition is. The course is almost a mile long, and first to last might only be a second or two.

The other night I had to look up how fast they end up going in the downhill. The fastest recorded speed was like 95 mph. Most of these guys in the Olympics aren't going quite that fast, but I was shocked.

I don't even drive my car that fast!

 

[jbindm]

For whatever reason I just can't get into the Winter Games at all. I wonder if it's maybe the fact that so much of it is subjective scoring and timed trials and runs, because I don't usually get too into the gymnastics stuff in the Summer Games for the same reason.

I like a lot of the Summer Games competitions. I might just be biased because I hate cold weather and the sight of snow usually just pisses me off.