Beijing 2022 - Winter Olympics News

Morrison · 07-12-2021, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by MABinPengChau:

In general, it seems people are more interested in the Summer Olympics. Except northern countries like Russia and ice hockey countries like Canada.

And a few people tuning in for the figure skating.

Some very random sports that are kind of Sweden/Norway specific like cross country skiing and shooting a gun (of course, US probably enjoys that as well...). But not exciting TV viewing.

The most arctic centric post ever

vmlinuz · 07-12-2021, 01:55 PM

I'm a big fan of winter sports and the winter olympics - I'm still annoyed that I didn't make the effort to go to the Korean games, and if the world were different I think it's pretty likely I'd be going to Beijing...

As for boycotting, I'm in two minds. I appreciate that for the athletes, it's the peak of a 4 year cycle, and for some of the smaller sports it's by far the most recognition they get, so I think it's fair enough for them to put the politics aside. A diplomatic boycott is a nice symbolic move, although it's true to say a lot of non-athletes wouldn't be travelling to these games anyway.

And I suspect biathlon is way too surgical for most Americans - why ski for 20 minutes then take a measly 6 shots with a crappy gun at a target that doesn't even bleed?

HK_Katherine · 07-12-2021, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by MABinPengChau:

Omicron arrived just in time for the Winter Olympics, pretty sure China is wetting its collective pants over the thought of all the covid that can come in and just how Sinovac can hold off community infection.

Of course, there will be NO official community infection, anywhere, in China...ever.

i reckon the yanks should have come and deliberately spread covid all over the place. Now THAT would have been payback.

Cornmeal · 07-12-2021, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by East_coast:

https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/art...m-winter-games

This is what Korea did last time round, their Canadian goalie carried the team. This "China" team is almost half Canadian (likely amateur leagues) and practicing in Russia. What else can you do with an automatic berth in the games? The Pyeong Chang hockey playoffs were some of the best I've seen, Germany upsets Canada and then almost has the gold in the bag when "the team formally known as Russia" comes back and rips it away!

Incidentally Korea's National Men's team had its biggest win against. . . HK, 44-0 in 1987! Still pales in comparison to the Slovakia Woman's win against Bulgaria in 2008, 82-0! That's 82 goals in 60mintues of playing time.

Winter Olympic sports are IMO way more intense than summer. Summer is just running around a track, throwing stuff inside the track, swimming indoors, and other forms of throwing, bouncing, jumping, and more running....with a few boats and things that float thrown in for good measure.

In hockey you have people skating up to 50kph shooting a hard rubber puck up to 170kph, luge and bobsleds moving up to 150kph, downhill skiing up to 250kph! The thing about these events (except Hockey) is that they translate into poor spectatorship, the human scale is diminished and you only see someone flying by a fixed camera somewhere on the route for a split second. They could do a lot to improve how these sports are conveyed to the audience, especially with drones so abundant and accurate now.

bdw · 07-12-2021, 07:58 PM

China's response to US boycott:

China Daily bureau chief Chen Weihua tweeted: “You’re not invited and not welcome, Mr Biden. Hope you will live long enough to see China boycotting Los Angeles Summer Games in 2028.”

Baklava · 07-12-2021, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by bdw:

China's response to US boycott:

China Daily bureau chief Chen Weihua tweeted: “You’re not invited and not welcome, Mr Biden. Hope you will live long enough to see China boycotting Los Angeles Summer Games in 2028.”

Wait, is this real or a parody? I can’t tell anymore