Olympic Medal Count or GO Canada GO!

[Kevin]

On the other hand, this is the place where many sports get a "world cup" where they otherwise wouldn't get seen at all (which maybe is telling).

Just because something isn't super entertaining to watch, doesn't mean it isn't very entertaining to participate in or that it doesn't take tremendous skill or endurance to compete in. Personally I find golf horrendously boring to watch, but I understand the skill involved in it and can appreciate that.

But for many minor sports (even things like swimming and track and field that have a world championship) the Olympics is still the big stage. I haven't checked the number of swimmers at this years Olympics, but there were more swimmers at the 2003 World Championships than there were at the 2004 Olympics. So even for something like that due to regulations at the Olympics it may not be the biggest pool of competitors even in that sport, but I don't think you will find a swimmer in the world who would claim that anything is bigger than the Olympics for them. It is still the grand stage. Many still value an Olympic gold medal more than a world record.

Why do I talk about swimming directly so much? Because from the age of 5 till the age of 20 I swam competitively. I suffered an injury when I was 19 that I couldn't recover from, though I tried, so I have more personal experience with it than any other sport. I swam against Neil Walker in High School 4 or 5 times a year (I'm a year older than him) and while he isn't in this years games (he's 32 now) he was there in Atlanta, Sydney and Athens, and yeah it was very cool for me to be able to see him on that stage. Of course I got to see him at the world championships and a few other meets that get some air time. I played american football, baseball, track and field, tennis, racquetball, and cycling at the same level of skill (or near too) as my swimming was and none of those sports were as taxing on my body as swimming was. Well OK Swimming was the only sport I continued to participate in on high level in college, but high school football (and we went to state and I played both ways) was not as taxing on my as swimming was, etc. So I appreciate the skill, endurance, and strength it takes for those swimmers to do what they do. I'm amazed by what Mark Spitz did and what Michael Phelps is attempting to do. I'm amazed by Dara Torres too. I was amazed that Neil was close to making a 4th Olympic team. And of course when I was younger and better


Of course there are things like the rowing events which I enjoy watching as well that have no stage like the Olympics. Getting to see fencing, handball, volleyball, etc, etc played at those levels is pretty fun too and there are other sports that I enjoy seeing on that stage but yeah, once every 4 years is fine for me. Many of them I can appreciate the effort and skill to be able to do what they are doing. It's still a glimpse into the extremes of what humans can do and I enjoy it. I get entertainment from watching a bit of the X-games, and snowmobile racing and the lumberjack competitions that you see on ESPN. I quite enjoy the worlds strongest man competitions as well.


I also agree that I don't see the point in soccer at the Olympics, the World Cup features a much higher level of skill. Basketball just needs to internationalize more since it has more professional leagues world wide than any other sport now I believe. Those leagues need to work together to integrate play or come up with something more like the world cup is. Olympic baseball (and there isn't any this year) used to be the stage for a few countries who love the sport and have tremendous players but have leaders that don't let those people play in the best leagues (MLB in the US or even the Japanese leagues). But yeah again that is something I think I would prefer to see in a stage more like the World Cup.

I like the huge variety of sport and atheletic competitions that I can catch at the Olympics, even though television coverage of the Olympics has pretty much always been horrible and this year I watch more of it streaming on line than I do on the TV. I care very little about the backgrounds of the athletes. I do like finding out about some of the training regiments and that, but I'd rather watch the competition than watch some interview with some irrelevant athlete.

As far as the medal counts? I don't really care. I don't need someone to root for to enjoy the competitions. So I don't need that extra artificial motivation. Well that isn't true. I do find it interesting to learn that something I just watched was the first medal winning performance for X country or the first one in 80 years or whatever. When I hear something like that I sometimes go rooting around for more information on that athlete/country and to find out what additional obstacles they had to overcome. Yeah I guess I do buy into the triumph of the human spirit crap just a bit. :)