JHZR2
Staff member
Originally Posted By: grampi
I started out watching the Olympics, but quickly got discouraged when I saw how poorly we (the US) were doing. We used to be on top, or at least in the top for gold medals, but in the last couple of winter Olympics, our athletes haven't been as competitive as they have been in the past, and the men especially. Our men's hockey team was a joke! What happened to these teams being made up of pro players? Don't they do that anymore? At least our women athletes are still doing well for the most part...
Ehh. I look at it like some high school sports - everybody gets to give a go at it, at least in heats. I know its not like that in all HS sports, but in many, you can still be part of the team and try. Yeah, I know that in these high end competitions, local championships create a national team, which then competes on a world stage for status to be able to go to the olympics, but at the end of the day there are only three medalists and a lot of competitors from a lot of countries. To go means a lot to them.
So then its about money. If the US has more money to send more people that can be good enough to at least show (if not medal), I dont know that I have an issue with that (so long as its not public money, or something stupid like college sport "scholarships" that arent about scholarly capability at all).
Id hope, for pride of my countrymen, that the US would have a high level of medals, and perhaps more importantly, the medal/athlete ratio would be high to show that we field a large, successful team. But again, if we have more (private) money, and the team gives more chances to more people to go and at least compete, I guess good for them. Other countries may only focus on certain programs, and those programs may be very strong, but if that's all they focus on, does the USA have greater "diversity" of sport?
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
The NHL refused to take a break for the Olympics this year, which definitely ruined the chances of the US and Canadian teams. You look at how many of the Winter Olympic medals are for sports that are totally marginal in the US like XC skiing, bobsled, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, biathlon, etc. and it makes complete sense that we get stomped by Norway and Germany in the medal count. The US does extremely well in "trick" skiing and boarding because those sports are wildly popular here...the ones that shock me are ski racing (hundreds of active programs in the US) and figure skating (also very popular in many parts of the country), and it's totally amazing to me that we don't have seem to have a man who is really a force in WC skiing other than the aging GS specialist Ted Ligety.
To a great extent, Im glad that the NHL didnt break. Professional sports at large are a different beast than people on a national team trying to compete on a world level. Pros may be better, but does that matter? The issue is more of if in some world sports, some leagues do take off and others dont. Or in sports where there arent pro/paid levels, where colleges or other high end entities do or dont let their people off.
And in some of the areas, like XC and curling, great that the USA made it to the podium. Those sorts of stories are what people want to see.
I started out watching the Olympics, but quickly got discouraged when I saw how poorly we (the US) were doing. We used to be on top, or at least in the top for gold medals, but in the last couple of winter Olympics, our athletes haven't been as competitive as they have been in the past, and the men especially. Our men's hockey team was a joke! What happened to these teams being made up of pro players? Don't they do that anymore? At least our women athletes are still doing well for the most part...
Ehh. I look at it like some high school sports - everybody gets to give a go at it, at least in heats. I know its not like that in all HS sports, but in many, you can still be part of the team and try. Yeah, I know that in these high end competitions, local championships create a national team, which then competes on a world stage for status to be able to go to the olympics, but at the end of the day there are only three medalists and a lot of competitors from a lot of countries. To go means a lot to them.
So then its about money. If the US has more money to send more people that can be good enough to at least show (if not medal), I dont know that I have an issue with that (so long as its not public money, or something stupid like college sport "scholarships" that arent about scholarly capability at all).
Id hope, for pride of my countrymen, that the US would have a high level of medals, and perhaps more importantly, the medal/athlete ratio would be high to show that we field a large, successful team. But again, if we have more (private) money, and the team gives more chances to more people to go and at least compete, I guess good for them. Other countries may only focus on certain programs, and those programs may be very strong, but if that's all they focus on, does the USA have greater "diversity" of sport?
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
The NHL refused to take a break for the Olympics this year, which definitely ruined the chances of the US and Canadian teams. You look at how many of the Winter Olympic medals are for sports that are totally marginal in the US like XC skiing, bobsled, skeleton, luge, ski jumping, biathlon, etc. and it makes complete sense that we get stomped by Norway and Germany in the medal count. The US does extremely well in "trick" skiing and boarding because those sports are wildly popular here...the ones that shock me are ski racing (hundreds of active programs in the US) and figure skating (also very popular in many parts of the country), and it's totally amazing to me that we don't have seem to have a man who is really a force in WC skiing other than the aging GS specialist Ted Ligety.
To a great extent, Im glad that the NHL didnt break. Professional sports at large are a different beast than people on a national team trying to compete on a world level. Pros may be better, but does that matter? The issue is more of if in some world sports, some leagues do take off and others dont. Or in sports where there arent pro/paid levels, where colleges or other high end entities do or dont let their people off.
And in some of the areas, like XC and curling, great that the USA made it to the podium. Those sorts of stories are what people want to see.
