Random thoughts on the Winter Olympics.

I think that the Oympic Games need different medals for different events. I've been watching curling, and it's interesting, but it's not a sport. It's a game. To be precise it's a game of team ice shuffleboard. Alpine skiing, luge, skeleton, bobsledding, these things in and of themselves aren't sports either. They're activities. When these activities are done competitively, they become races. Is racing a sport? I don't know but I do know this: When person A wins a competition that invloves flying down a bobsled track at 90 miles an hour head first on a tiny sled, they deserve a bigger medal than the one person B gets for winning a few games of shuffleboard. This brings mind to the phrase "Olympic athlete". Curlers aren't athletes. By and large, they seem to be in pretty good shape, but the game that they play does not rise to the level of athleticism that say, oh I don't know, starting left wing on an Olympic hockey team does.

The Winter Olympics are all over the board, too. It seems like just about anything that you can do outside in cold weather is an Olympic sport, and there isn't a whole lot of focus. You'll see these snowboard events where dudes are just killing it (nice one, Shaun White) and then you see cross country skiing and target shooting. Super exciting professional level hockey tournament; ice dancing. Insane luge and skeleton events; SHUFFLEBOARD ON ICE. Spluh?

I think that perhaps the Olympics are simply becoming a bit antiquated. It seems that the format just can't keep up with the modern attention span. Time was an event like this would capture the imagination of literally the entire globe. These days we're all too busy firing off angry missives on our blogs which no one reads or pretending to be friends with celebrities on Twitter to give a shit.

At any rate, if curling is a sport in the Winter Olympics, then shooting pool and playing foosball should be Summer Olympic events, and the guy who sets the new world record in the 500 meters to win gold gets the same gold medal as the winner of the beer pong tourney.