friday five: winter olympics

 

Joannie Rochette, who ought to receive the gold medal in courage and bravery in the face of heartbreak

At RevGals Songbird writes: It's been two weeks of snow, or not enough snow, of heartbreak before the action even began, of snowboards and skis and skates, of joy and sorrow. At our house, we've stayed up too late, and we don't even watch sports any other time!  

I love the Olympics, summer and winter! I watch all of it, even wrestling and weight-lifting in the summer. It's happy stuff, even with the sad stuff and the disappointments. And there's just something about it that I find riveting.


1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?
All of them. Like your family, I don't watch this stuff at other times.  Maybe it's the spirit of the games, the stories of the people or the unpredictability of prophesied outcomes, but I just have to watch it. All of it.  Even curling.

2) Some of the uniforms have attracted attention this year, such as the US Snowboarders' pseudo-flannel shirts and the Norwegian Curling team's -- ahem -- pants.  Who do you think had the best-looking uniforms?
There are so many uniforms of so much variety that I haven't latched onto a favorite. I do wonder about some of the US uniforms that make me think of pajamas (head to toe blue with the outline of stars in white all over them).


3) And Curling. Really? What's up with that?
Curling reminds me of croquet. Sort of. Watching the players is the most fascinating part of this sport, however. And unlike most of the others I think this game is really about strategy.

4) Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must.  (There will be a prize for the best answer, but be aware, this is a judged sport.)
The sport wherein our heroes don skis to demonstrate proficiency in extreme: airborne nose-to-where-the-ski-tips-would-ordinarily-be where no other physical effort seems apparent, landing as far from the takeoff point as possible; and ground level, squeeze every ounce of energy from your body to go up hills, down hills and on the flat with legs and arms moving mercilessly to propel oneself forward and cross the finish line first before dropping over, seemingly dead.

 5) If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?
This is a toughie, but I'm going to go with speed skating, just to show those sneaky South Koreans that it pays to skate fairly. And my legs would look a whole lot better than they do now.