Bob Sledding

We watch the Olympics throughout most of the day, so that you don’t have to.

It was a bit odd watching the ladies short program in figure skating, since it was the first appearance of favorite Kamila Valieva since she was permitted to compete after having tested positive for a banned drug.  The decision seemed to be pretty much roundly-condemned by most everyone, including former Olympians.  It was notable that after she finished, NBC analyst didn’t provide of word of analysis, but only said, “Pretty much all that can be said was that was the short program by Kamila Valieva.”  She skated well, as expected, and is in first place – though her score was 10 points lower than her last two competitions, and instead of being 20 points ahead of second place (as she was in the team event), she’s “only” 8.5 points ahead.

I had recorded the event when it was on live during the middle of the night, and watched yesterday morning, so I so the full event, not just the edited version for prime time.  I was sorry that Mariah Bell of the U.S. had a fall early in her program, but I just love her skating. She’s so enjoyable to watch.  Fortunately, the rest of her program went well, so she’s still in very good position to finish in the top 10.  And I thought another of the U.S. skater, Alysa Liu, a two-time U.S. champion despite being just 16 years old, was a total joy, with a smile on her face almost throughout her skate.  On the full event that I recorded, they showed some of the practice, and Liu was simply smiling throughout that.  And she too is in position to finish in the top 10.

The other day, when talking about various reasons Olympic TV rating were down, I brought up the Peacock streaming service, since NBC is making a big push to get viewers to watch the Olympics on it – to the extent of dropping their NBCsports channel.  So, I figured that I’d finally try it out to see how it came across.  (The fact that I haven’t even given it a look yet speaks volumes on its own.)  There was an impressively wide array of events to watch.  I tried three of them – and I got one of those spinning graphics to says it’s trying to load each time, and so I finally gave up on that.  Then I tried three other events, and they came up immediately – only to note that they’re premium channels, so if I wanted to watch them I’d have to subscribe.  Now, to be fair, subscribing for just the month in order to watch the Olympics wouldn’t have been much – I think it’s $5.  But since I wasn’t dying to watch those events (and had no guarantee they’d load…) and had plenty enough to watch on the free channels, I gave up on Peacock and went back to standard TV.  To be clear, I don’t know if everyone’s experience would be the same as mine.  In fact, it’s likely that those channels would load fine – though just as likely that at least some other people would have problems, too.  And I’ll perhaps try again another time.  But it certainly supported the idea that dropping the NBCsports channel doesn’t seem like a fully successful and mature one.  Yes, I know that NBC wants to get people to try and get used to using Peacock, and this was an understandable idea in theory.  Just a bit less so in practice.

Speaking of which, and to reiterate what I wrote the other day, I can’t help but believe the ratings are negatively impacted, too, by us being in a long period of the X-sports, most notably freestyle aerial jumping and snowboard jumping, but also things like the half-pipe and free-style sking.  I know for certain that the events have their devoted fans.  But the Winter Olympics need more for NBC than just these devoted fans, they need a massive audience that covers as many demographics as possible.  And these events really do come across like how they describe themselves, with “tricks.”  And as physically impressive as the tricks are – and they’re remarkable – after a while there is a sameness to flipping around in the air doing “tricks.”  And all the more when the competitors are covered with helmets and goggles, so there is an added sameness to who they all are.  All the more when there are periods when NBC and its sister USA Network cover the same event at the same time.  For most viewers, I suspect that these events are a lot of fun to watch…for a while.  And then the “Well, this is really boring” factor kicks in, and the channel gets switched.  The X Game sports were added to the Olympics to get more events and to attract younger viewers.  But I wonder if, even when possibly accomplishing both those goals, it also becomes counter-productive in the overall larger picture, being one additional factor helping drive the ratings down.

Alpine skiing is another matter, and last night they had the women’s downhill, one of the premiere disciplines.  We all know that downhill skiers go fast – incredibly fast.  And I’ve heard their speed mentioned in the past.  But for whatever reason, it never really kicked in how fast until now.  Women can reach around 80 miles an hour, while men can go to 90 MPH.  No, they don’t go at those speeds the whole way down the mountain, only during certain stretches, but…but still.  I rarely like driving in a car at 80 MPH, with a seatbelt.  To go down a mountain on skis and no protection at 80 miles an hour – or 90! -- is borderline maniacal.  When the land on the snow and bounce along, you sort of think, “Well, it’s on snow and snow is soft and fluffy.  And they have helmets.”  True, though the ground under the snow is frozen hard.  And the rest of their bodies are unprotected. And it’s at 80 freaking miles an hour.  If you got thrown out of car at 40 MPH, you’d likely end up in a hospital, if not far worse. 

I’ve also been watching a lot of the Aline sport of ski jumping.  Heading downhill and then go off flying as far as you can.  As I’ve been watching, though, a nagging thought I’ve had for years coalesced even more for me – what is the reason they determine the winner, not by how far you jump but by both distance and “style points.”  Style points??  You’re flying 100 yards through the air, the length of a football field, for goodness sake – the fact that you’re able to land on two skis and not crash, breaking every bone in your body, should be “style” enough.  If you can jump farther than anyone else, and do it upside-down, what difference does it make how your “style” was.  They don’t have “style” points in the long jump, the triple jump, the high jump and the pole vault.  It’s only who goes the farthest or the highest.  Who came up with the idea at the beginning that, “Hey, let’s insist the person flying the length of a football field through the air has to have ‘style’ when doing it, too!!”  Why wasn’t “farthest” good enough in a jumping event?!

More to come...