Vancouver 2010: A Fiasco In The Making

[dew]

I've been watching Olympics since Lillehammer '94 and these ones are the worst I've witnessed, from the organizational point of view. Counting even the crazy last-minute-everything in Athens '04. It stands out even more after the manic, sterile pefrection of Beijing two years back.

- Horrible weather. Maybe not a fault of the organizers, but Torino coped with it. If Italy can do it, why not Canada? U-ramp snowboarding was particularly affected, the racers couldn't train and the heavy wet snow was causing many falls. Hand in hand with bad weather and poor snow conditions goes rescheduling and cramped time scale. Alpine skiing got it bad, but what the hell... even hockey has weird times? It is probable that one team will get to play a last16 match at 21:00, then the last8 match the next day at 12:00.

- The luge/bobsled/skeleton track. It cost a guy his life, what the hell were the designers thinking? And the solution has hurt the sport and the competition - men were starting from women starting position, women were moved even lower in the track so they wouldn't gain speed, so the discipline was seriously lame. This might have cost Armin Zoeggeler his third gold, because he is known to have weaker starts. Now bobsled starts cannot be moved and they are facing the problem too. Eight different bobsleds including the Swiss world champions crashed in the trainings. FIBT, the bobsled federation, is facing criticism by forbidding the racers to talk about the track with the media under unspecified threats. Smooth. Luckily the bobsled is less probable to fly out into a pillar, eh. Oh and prior to the Olympics themselves, only Canadian teams were allowed to train on the track. What.

- Dilettantism in the interval starts in Nordic skiing. The chronometer is said to be atypical from what is commonly used and the start referees have trouble using it. The racers in biathlon and nordic combination started too soon or too late and their times had to be painfully recalculated in the finish. This might have cost Anne Karin Olofsson-Zidek a bronze medal in biathlon as she was released 14 seconds later and she lost contact with the racers in front of her. The final times were correct, but the whole races were somewhat influenced as the racers created wholly different groups.

- Figure skating. Oh FFS can they finally dump the 'sport' now? It's such a farce! Plyuschenko got robbed of gold because of sport politics and dirty refereeing and USA is cheering. The 'winner' Lysacek won with a boring, technically correct, but very tame performance. How could he win without jumping a single quad jump? That's preposterous. Plyuschenko called his performance womanly, others pointed out even junior skaters can do what he did. Is this perhaps a Canadian revenge for the Salt Lake City scandal? Elvis Stoiko, former multiple world champion, summarized it well in this article. Promoting the artsy dance parts over jumps and ignoring the difficulty of quads will only lead to everyone playing it safe and then it will be all about the art - so referees will be awarding the medals to whoever they want once again. Bah. Get ready for more revenges and politics in 2014 Sochi, Russia. Lysacek doesn't even have to bother participating, he's gonna get undergraded like hell.

- Speaking of retarded sports... short track skating. Out. Now. It's only there to popularize Olympics in Asia as they rule in this idiocy. Steven Bradbury (Australia) owning this sport in Salt Lake City, '02. I've seen a similar thing happening in 1500m semis now. Mehh. Similar retarded DQs and by-default qualifications happen in snowboard cross to a lesser degree too. Is it necessary to have joke sports just to pump up popularity? It should be just an accompanying competition, perhaps. They should be awarded cookies instead of medals.

- Last (so far of what I recall, anyways), but not least:


One might perhaps expect this in Beijing, heh. Good job, Vancouver.

[Nomad]

dew said:

- The luge/bobsled/skeleton track. It cost a guy his life, what the hell were the designers thinking? And the solution has hurt the sport and the competition - men were starting from women starting position, women were moved even lower in the track so they wouldn't gain speed, so the discipline was seriously lame.

The incident was a fluke. It had nothing to do with the design.

And moving the start down had little effect on speed anyway; the sleds still reached speeds in excess of 90 mph. He flew off the track because of the way he went down, G forces rendered him momentarily immobile and he couldn't steer himself correctly. Tens of thousands of sled runs preceded his accident.

[Cjwright79]

Sorry Dew but I think your concerns are trifling. It is rather unlikely that such a massive event could be staged without at least a few minor issues. But that's all they are. 99.9% of everything is going swimmingly.

[Graf Zahl]

Yes, except one dead athlete. And that was not a fluke as the repeated bobsled accidents show.

As for figure skating, nothing new here. That 'sport' isn't worth the honor of olympics if they can't get impartial judges - which they repeatedly proved they can't.

[Shaikoten]

Cooo lookuku coooo lookuku!



Good day.
Good day.

Hey dew eh? Take off hoser. You don't know. You need to sit back and have a nice beer. Beauty eh? Beauty.

[TimeOfDeath]

I saw the women's luge and it looked pretty bad. Most women didn't have enough speed on the very first turn and their sled would slide back and forth, giving them no chance to catch up and get a good time (since the men were moved down to the women's start and the women were moved down to the junior start).

I'm loving the men's hockey, though. And the tv coverage here in Canada has been really good. Several Canadian stations are covering the Olympics with different events on each station.

[Snakes]

Figure Skating has gone downhill ever since the departure of Brian Boitano.

[Cjwright79]

Graf Zahl said:

Yes, except one dead athlete. And that was not a fluke as the repeated bobsled accidents show.

As for figure skating, nothing new here. That 'sport' isn't worth the honor of olympics if they can't get impartial judges - which they repeatedly proved they can't.

1. You'd have to be insane to start lugeing. It's just nuts. If lugers die, the issue is with their distinct disinterest in self-preservation, first and foremost. That said, I'm sure that whoever designed the course in Whistler was negligent.

2. Figure skating has merit when there are interesting skaters, like Katarina Witt or Nancy Kerrigan. Otherwise, I couldn't be bothered.

[dew]

Snakes said:

Figure Skating has gone downhill ever since the departure of Brian Boitano.

maybe in america. but russia invented quadruple jumps in the 90's, you know. now america is taking the sport back by not awarding their technical difficulty and wiping them out. let's just wear lovely costumes and dance! gay. the sport is a disgrace.

Cjwright79 said:

99.9% of everything is going swimmingly.

i disagree. it's obvious the organization is sloppy. everyone was afraid the italians would make a mess in torino, but it looks like vancouver will be remembered as the flawed olympics instead. i was watching the biathlon/skiing races live and it was a mess. the checkpoints were showing times according to the wrong intervals, but it was corrected in the central system without anyone knowing, so there were two entirely different result sheets. the tv commentaries were confused and thought the computer was being silly... everyone followed the non-adjusted results. racers would finish, cheer for being let's say 3rd, then they'd get dropped by 6 places. that's not 'swimmingly'.

the women downhill was also pretty hardcore, i haven't seen so many ugly falls for a long time. it wasn't a hard track, but because of weather, they had almost no trainings and the snow was low qualiaty. again, that isn't the smoothness one would expect.

Cjwright79 said:

If lugers die, the issue is with their distinct disinterest in self-preservation, first and foremost.

palm meets face.

[Quasar]

dew said:

- Horrible weather.

Is always a possibility when dealing with winter sports. The athletes aren't whining, they're getting out there and doing their best anyway.

dew said:

- The luge/bobsled/skeleton track. It cost a guy his life, what the hell were the designers thinking? And the solution has hurt the sport and the competition - men were starting from women starting position, women were moved even lower in the track so they wouldn't gain speed, so the discipline was seriously lame. This might have cost Armin Zoeggeler his third gold, because he is known to have weaker starts. Now bobsled starts cannot be moved and they are facing the problem too. Eight different bobsleds including the Swiss world champions crashed in the trainings. FIBT, the bobsled federation, is facing criticism by forbidding the racers to talk about the track with the media under unspecified threats. Smooth. Luckily the bobsled is less probable to fly out into a pillar, eh. Oh and prior to the Olympics themselves, only Canadian teams were allowed to train on the track. What.

As others have said, an unprecedented and unpredictable disaster. The slower starts are unfortunate, but we're dealing with a sport where you hurl yourself 90 mph on a sled, and they are still reaching those speeds even with the lower start. How is it any different than having the event on the usual Olympic tracks which are nowhere near as fast as the Whistler track?

dew said:- Figure skating. Oh FFS can they finally dump the 'sport' now? It's such a farce! Plyuschenko got robbed of gold because of sport politics and dirty refereeing and USA is cheering. The 'winner' Lysacek won with a boring, technically correct, but very tame performance. How could he win without jumping a single quad jump? That's preposterous. Plyuschenko called his performance womanly, others pointed out even junior skaters can do what he did. Is this perhaps a Canadian revenge for the Salt Lake City scandal? Elvis Stoiko, former multiple world champion, summarized it well in this article. Promoting the artsy dance parts over jumps and ignoring the difficulty of quads will only lead to everyone playing it safe and then it will be all about the art - so referees will be awarding the medals to whoever they want once again. Bah. Get ready for more revenges and politics in 2014 Sochi, Russia. Lysacek doesn't even have to bother participating, he's gonna get undergraded like hell.[/B]

After watching it last night, I believe the best performance won. The only thing I saw that was disgraceful were the faces the Russian was making during the medal ceremony. He could barely contain his acidic anger at not being handed a 5th consecutive medal, as if though he deserved it just for showing up. The fact is, his performance, although aimed at a slightly higher degree of difficulty, was NOT executed to par. It was wobbly; he seemed to be in danger of tipping over at any point, and he tripped. I thought it was far more interesting how Johnny Weir was treated by the judges - his almost flawless performance which looked good for bronze to me took 5th at the time and ultimately ended up 6th. They had something personal against him, it was obvious.

It is a subjective sport unfortunately, and it has been plagued with corruption and scandals from its start. But, nobody makes you watch it if it really bothers you that much. Just ignore that it even exists if it isn't to your liking. Don't call for it to be destroyed just because of some problems.

dew said:- Speaking of retarded sports... short track skating. [/B]

A comment like that makes me think you must be trolling. Short track is the craziest, most exciting event.

[exp(x)]

Plushenko's free skate was not gold-worthy. All of his jumps were funky, and his routine was weak.

[CODOR]

dew said:
but russia invented quadruple jumps in the 90's, you know.

Russians may have invented quadruple jumps in the 1990s, but Kurt Browning was the first to land one in competition. In 1988.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

dew said:

London 2012: A Bigger Fiasco In The Making

fix'd

[dew]

Quasar said:

Is always a possibility when dealing with winter sports. The athletes aren't whining, they're getting out there and doing their best anyway.

of course they are doing the best they can. have i hinted otherwise? i enjoy their sport performances and i'm happy it's happening. but they are whining all the time, read the papers.

As others have said, an unprecedented and unpredictable disaster. The slower starts are unfortunate, but we're dealing with a sport where you hurl yourself 90 mph on a sled, and they are still reaching those speeds even with the lower start. How is it any different than having the event on the usual Olympic tracks which are nowhere near as fast as the Whistler track?

i'm not trying to pin the death of that georgian luger on them, i agree it was an unfortunate accident. but the designers went for speed records and disregarded danger issues. the amount of crashes (i mean the non-fatal ones) is unprecedented. after all those thousands of test runs on the track, they now realized it's dangerous and had to hack it up. that's your difference there.

After watching it last night, I believe the best performance won.

i disagree. he played it safe. it was a performance from the 80's, and the refs showed they are not interested in the sport progressing to higher standards. no quadruple jump should simply be an instant kick from the gold medal spot. saying a quad is 'slightly more difficult' is laughable. they should be promoted heavily, because they are the most exciting thing about this sport. i agree in regards of weir, though. the favouritism in figure skating is sickening.

It is a subjective sport unfortunately, and it has been plagued with corruption and scandals from its start. But, nobody makes you watch it if it really bothers you that much. Just ignore that it even exists if it isn't to your liking. Don't call for it to be destroyed just because of some problems.

i am unhappy about the status quo, so i should ignore the corruption and scandals, pretending it doesn't exist? it's still there and they are taking olympic medals for being favourites of the referees. it's you who should stop being a close eyed conformist.

A comment like that makes me think you must be trolling. Short track is the craziest, most exciting event.

here's a sport where your opponent's error can ruin your chances in every other race. sometimes, if the referees feel in the mood, they can qualify you after the race ends by default, but only sometimes. in 2002, a complete outsider has won the gold, because his opponents all fell in three consecutive races. this... thing is more than 50% about your immediate luck in those clusterfuck situations.

i'm a sports based person and such a principle angers me. i'm voicing my dissent, not trolling. i rarely post in EE exactly because of that - i don't want to get involved too much, because some smart ass will come and treat me like an evil outsider, because i have an opinion. thank you for making me realize how much of a mistake it was to post this thread in the first place. i'm retreating to speedrunning.

[Belial]

Short track and SBX are retarded.

As for safety issues, the organizers have shown in many events that they're dumb and careless. At least Petra Majdic got a medal for those broken ribs.

[Doom Marine]

NBC really fucking dropped the ball on the coverage of Men's Downhill Skiing. 30 fucking minutes and all I saw was commercials after commercials, and only six out of the sixty-something skiers were featured. Downhill skiing is like the superbowl of alpine sports and they fucking brushed it off like a high school track meet. Are they fucking serious?

On the other hand, figure skating was around the clock. What the fuck is that shit?

NBC fucking bought the broadcasting rights to the Olympics only to peddle it to fat fucking Americans who aren't athletic enough to appreciate the amount of force and balance it takes to navigate a mountain at 80 mph! I don't care about frilly dancers, I want to see some GS turning and Hannenkamm-styled runs!

FUCK NBC.

[Quasar]

dew said:

i'm a sports based person and such a principle angers me. i'm voicing my dissent, not trolling. i rarely post in EE exactly because of that - i don't want to get involved too much, because some smart ass will come and treat me like an evil outsider, because i have an opinion. thank you for making me realize how much of a mistake it was to post this thread in the first place. i'm retreating to speedrunning.

Alright, I can accept that. I don't agree, but I can accept it. I didn't intend for you to take offense, so I apologize.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

Doom Marine said:

NBC really fucking dropped the ball on the coverage of Men's Downhill Skiing. 30 fucking minutes and all I saw was commercials after commercials

Is it me or are they showing more commercials now then ever? The cheap movie plugs are ridiculous too. I have pretty much stayed away from NBC's Prime time coverage in favor to watch Curling and Hockey on CNBC and MSNBC with limited commercial interruption.

[Quasar]

DoOmEr4LiFe said:

Is it me or are they showing more commercials now then ever? The cheap movie plugs are ridiculous too. I have pretty much stayed away from NBC's Prime time coverage in favor to watch Curling and Hockey on CNBC and MSNBC with limited commercial interruption.

They always do this any time something "big" is on, such as one-time events, big sports games, or network-broadcast-debut movies. The ad times increase by 1/2 at *least*, and they incessantly show the same few ads over and over.

If I have to hear very many more times how I don't know quack about AFLAC I am going to start flying around the room and quacking myself.

Also how about this "clean coal" propaganda shit? Coal is the most filthy fuel known in the history of mankind. Saying this shit on network tv is never going to change what is an undeniable scientific fact.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

Quasar said:

Also how about this "clean coal" propaganda shit?

Does that make me a bad person if I care more about who wins the Gold in an Olympic Hockey tournament than the dangers of coal on our environment? 'Cause I am so there.

[Cjwright79]

You know what? -- you guys are real negative Nellies! It's going great here.

[GreyGhost]

Quasar said:

Also how about this "clean coal" propaganda shit?

Heh - ask me about carbon sequestering technology. :)

It's little more than a public relations exercise that we'll be paying for via higher electricity tariffs.

[david_a]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the malfunctioning ice machines for speed skating...

There certainly have been a high number of flubs in this Olympics. I assume a lot of the officials are international so Canada can't be blamed for all of it, but a lot of that stuff is just embarrassing and inexcusable.

Don't get me started on NBC... Somebody kept track of actual competition coverage during one of the prime time nights: 40 minutes during 4 hours. NBC is losing cash on this and has absolutely pumped up the advertising - those "How to train your dragon" ads are a disgrace (Scottish vikings? F.U.). Bob Kostas couldn't be more smug if he tried. All those sappy Real American Hero promo pieces are vomit inducing. Chris Collinsworth should never be allowed in front of a camera. Also props to NBC for dumping the Canada vs USA hockey game on cable so they instead can show ice dancing. ICE. DANCING. It's figure skating without any redeeming value.

I don't get your gripes against short track, though.

Overall I still think the games are turning out OK.

[Shaikoten]

For those of you complaining about shitty coverage on NBC... I believe there should be some great options for streaming the more obscure Olympic events, or at least the under-covered ones, on whatever the website is. There were plenty of live feeds for Beijing when I wanted to watch a couple of obscure countries play baseball. I haven't checked in for the winter games because I can't be arsed.

[Belial]

Between Eurosport and the coverage on national TV I can't really complain.

More curling would've been nice though.

[Philnemba]

The only thing I watch on the Winter Olympics is Hockey(both Men's & Women's), Snowboarding, some skiing and a little bit of Bobsledding.

Also since I'm not the only person who believes this:Figure skating is boring as hell and should never be considered an Olympic sport.

[Kagemaru_H]

I was never really that interested in the Olympics. Amazing that I can just shrug it off considering all the propaganda they shove down your throat.

[TimeOfDeath]

There's been plenty of curling coverage here in Canada. I never watch curling, but I watched it today and I think I get it now heh. I saw that Polish ski jumper get a silver medal. And Czech is undefeated in men's hockey.

So, today I've seen lots of coverage for women's aerials qualifying, women's alpine skiing super g finals, men's curling, men's ski jumping finals, men's hockey (every single men's hockey game is televised - all countries, not just games against Canada), and men's cross-country skiing. And they show like every single run by every single competitor. Then later tonight you can see more curling, women's hockey playoffs, two more men's hockey games, men's speedskating, women's and men's short-track speedskating, and men's bobsledding. It's sick. And it's been like this every day. And the commercial breaks are short and infrequent.

Canadian stations that are covering the Olympics:

CTV
TSN
Sportsnet
OUTL
APTN (sometimes not English)
OMNI (not English)
CPAC (French)

[Kagemaru_H]

Until we have Cyber-Olympics, I'll just shrug this off.

[TimeOfDeath]

Someone should photoshop a cyberdemon shooting a rocket at a skier falling or losing their balance.