Greetings from Vancouver!  Actually, I’m not in Vancouver, but neither are the Olympics, so who’s counting?  I did spend nearly 8 hours watching Sunday’s events with my wife and have provided a summary of the three events I found most intriguing.

Nordic Combine:

For those of you who think you missed this event, think again.  Odds are, you were probably watching it but had no idea that it was going on because the combination of ski jumping, and cross country skiing held several hours apart makes as much sense as a competition involving walleye fishing in April and ice climbing in February.  The announcers explained that the field of athletes from which to draw competitors for this event is surprisingly, extremely small.  The reason for the dearth of competitors, they said, was that one would need to live within 20 kilometers of a ski jump to have enough opportunities to practice enough times to be competitive on the World Stage which from the looks of it, is about three opportunities.  It also seems that one major deciding factor in one’s propensity to be a dominant Nordic Combine participant is having any interest whatsoever in using the ski jump even if it is, for example, 1.5 kilometers from one’s house.

Most of the athletes admitted to being bad at one or the other aspect of the event which is not surprising given that one is essentially a circus act, and the other is a test of endurance.  This year, an American won a silver medal – the first won by an American in the storied history of the Nordic combine. History would suggest that the event should explode in popularity as a result of this notoriety, but since the sport combines a boring type of skiing with flying 300 feet off a ramp like you were shot out of a cannon, all bets are off.

Luge:

Luge is not a new sport by any means but is one that should be watched each time as if it was the first time.  Conveniently, the fact that it involves grown men who look exactly the same sliding down a tunnel on large ice skate wearing Adidas socks making no movements that can be associated with a living person makes it very easy to feel as if one is watching it for the first time, each time.

This year, sadly, a young man died while doing some practice runs for the main event.  The most unfortunate part of this accident aside from the tragic loss of a 20 year old boy, was the fact that the announcers spent the entirety of the competition talking about the fact that the death resulted in the shortening of the track by nearly two football fields, which changed the whole dynamic of the race from being a complicated sport about strategic thinking and quick reaction time into a race that involved indistinguishable men sliding down a tunnel on a large ice skates.  The leveling effect of the track shortening, according to the announcers, essentially reduced the competition to a “paddling” contest, which is the part where the guys use their hands to get started.

The highlight of the announcing was when they ridiculed a 38 year-old Italian for what they regarded as a “sloppy” performance which they noted was vastly different from his typical “precision accuracy” and then failed to mention that his “awful” run had netted him the best single time in the competition and a silver medal.  This run and related analysis was a strong reminder for all who were watching that luge is essentially a science fair project involving different sized marbles and a ramp.  

This year, the competition was won by a 20 year-old from Germany, but the most popular competitor was from India, who the announcers noted had formerly been part of India's storied giant slalom tradition but decided he wanted to try luge one day and since nobody else in India had access to a 2,000 foot refrigerated ice tunnel, he was able to be the worst at not one, but two, Olympic sports.

Biathlon:

This oldie-but-goody involves the highly correlated skills of marksmanship and cross country skiing.   My mother in law believes it was a sport that evolved from the Native American traditions of walking around in the woods and shooting things with a bow and arrow but I suspect it originated during the same brainstorming session where someone suggested the Nordic Combine, which in all likelihood, was the meeting where Winter Olympic Officials were talking about how stupid it was that the Summer Olympics got to hand out a medal for every time anyone jumped in a pool.

The biathlon is not much of a television sport because instead of focusing on the confidence needed to lay on the ground and fire a .22 while wearing a one-piece stretch suit on national television, NBC spent most of its time focused upon the variability of the snow conditions, which caused only one athlete to fall and zero guns to discharge.

My mother in law told me she used to think the biathlon was silly too, until she tried to write a check shortly after exiting a Pilates class, which I have not tried, but which is apparently very difficult.  If she could just figure out how to work snow into the equation I think the Olympic Committee might have a new addition for the 2014 games!  Look out Michael Phelps.