Winter Olympics

This post is a crosspost from Jayeless, and has been backdated to the date on which I posted it. It can be found in its original location at Jayeless » Winter Olympics.

As I'm sure pretty much every single person who could possibly read this is aware, Vancouver is currently hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. This means that for the past few weeks I've been enduring endless ads on Channel Nine when I've been trying to watch the cricket. A few weeks ago they ran a particularly interesting ad in which they described themselves as "bringing Australia to Vancouver", and showed a CGI picture of Vancouver with the domineering form of Uluru right in the centre.

Sometimes, Channel Nine even broadcasts ads which attempt to entice the viewer to WATCH THE OLYMPIC GAMES, rather than just attempting to make us think, "Wow, Channel Nine is so awesome, with the way they somehow managed to haul Uluru across the Pacific Ocean and put it in Vancouver!"

For instance, in the middle of a Twenty20 cricket match, there's supposed to be a musical performance (because Twenty20 is "the rock and roll form of the game", lololol u so funny cricket commentators). However, at a recent one, Channel Nine went, "SCRATCH THAT - we need to inspire people to watch the Olympics!"

So they told us the ~inspirational~ story of Steven Bradbury, an Australian speed skater who was coming dead last in the final, only for every single other competitor to fall over, allowing him to win the gold medal.

I feel that this says a lot about Australia's talent at the Winter Olympics. Keep trying and trying, and one day, everyone else will sabotage their own chances, allowing you to step forward and win.

Okay, that is not the tale of every single medal Australia has won. But the fact is, the "sunburnt country" doesn't exactly give rise to the world's greatest skiers. In the last decade, one of our medal-winning skiers was a Canadian posing as an Australian, and the other one... uh, defied the trend for Australia not to produce good skiers. It has to happen sometimes.

I don't know why I'm really writing this; I don't watch the Winter Olympics because they don't look very interesting and I have better things to do. I mean, this is what usually happens when I watch winter sports:

Me: Ooooooooh that sport looks fun
Presenter: Athletes in this event will face forces up to 5G!
Me: WHAT NO THAT DOESN'T SOUND FUN AT ALL

(Please note, this was actually the Top Gear Winter Olympics. Probably many times more entertaining than the real thing. Ice hockey played by cars...!)

It also doesn't help that I'm extremely sceptical of any sport which is based on judges awarding points. Sports like ice hockey, or speed races, or anything that is clearly objective and impossible¹ to rig is fine, but wishy-washy stuff like figure skating?? They call to mind contests like Eurovision, where points are seemingly awarded based on the closeness between the two governments of the judge and the contestant. Not that Olympic sports are as blatant as that, but particularly when things are close, the biases of the judges seem like they could play a greater role than they should (the amount they should being NOT AT ALL).

My dad pointed this out when Dale Begg-Smith (the Canadian who competes for us for unknown reasons²) came second in his event; apparently newspapers have speculated that the judges gave Begg-Smith fewer points than were warranted for his effort, because they were influenced by the Canadian crowd to let the Canadian win.

To which I say, well, you chose to compete in a sport based on subjective judgements, and you can live with it. Not that I know whether Begg-Smith was the one whining or if it was Australian sports journalists, but I don't know if that really matters. Whoever was feeling hard done by should learn to live with it.

Now, this year's Commonwealth Games... that's something Australia stands a chance at.

1. Well, mostly impossible. I guess you could still bribe teams/people to throw the event or something, but I hope you get what I mean. The rigging part isn't intrinsic to the event.
2. This footnote is mostly here for me because I am not going to remember who Dale Begg-Smith even is in two weeks' time, and I want my own entries to be understandable to myself in the future.