What’s the deal with the two-man luge? I mean, the one-man luge seems silly enough since it’s basically just glorified sledding, but why add a second man? I mean, how do you find a partner for the two man luge? I assume that the U.S. luge team assigns partners based on skill level or whatever, but wouldn’t that first trial run with another spandex-clad man laying directly on top of you seem kind of awkward, regardless of your sexual orientation? Do they spend time getting to know each other beforehand?
Outside of the several minutes every day I spend pondering these questions, the 2002 Olympics have yet to win my attention at all. Is it me, or are half of the events not even sports? I’m sure that figure skating, solo or in pairs, is extremely physically rigorous, but can we count it as a sport? We don’t count ballet, do we? And curling? What is curling? Glorified ice shuffleboard, minus the always entertaining antics of the elderly, who might at least interest a viewer by tripping, making inappropriate “old-people” comments or falling off the deck of the cruise ship. Plus, the biathlon is absolutely ridiculous and the snowboarders are all too stoned to stand straight up on the medal platform. Sure, hockey is a real sport, but if I wanted to see professionals play hockey, I could watch the NHL, which, coincidentally, nobody does.
The exciting aspects of Olympic sports are few and far between. In this postmodern, post-Cold War era, loyalty to one’s country is as out of fashion as snap-bracelets and Zubaz, without any of the kitsch value. I understand that we all felt that burning patriotism for a few weeks after Sept.. 11. I think at this point, however, most realize that coming together to help rebuild after a tragedy is a lot different, and indeed a lot more noble, than coming together to support someone you’ll never meet or care about as they try out-ski, out-luge or out-lutz some other unimportant person who happens to be from far away from you.
Throughout the whole mess, however, the biggest “luger” of them all has been NBC. Not only has event coverage been sparse, between-event coverage has been abundant and extremely boring with pointless and pithy analysis. Even worse, the so-called National Broadcasting Company hasn’t even sold highlight footage to ESPN. How am I, a busy man, to see Olympic highlights? Do they expect me to sit all day, staring vacantly at the glowing beacon of broadcasting misery that is Olympic coverage? I’m a Sportscenter watcher and I always have been, and I feel that it’s obnoxious that cable’s premiere sports highlight show should be denied access to what are supposedly the most important sports highlights of the moment.
Maybe they’re other people out there who share my beliefs and are willing to get proactive about this situation. Maybe they’ll rally and they’ll fight and push and pull and kick and scream and change the format of the Olympics or its coverage. Maybe they’ll devote every waking hour to bettering what was once a politically and emotionally important sporting event. Maybe someday, after enough hard work, they’ll establish the Olympics as worth watching again. More likely, however, if they share my opinions, they’ll do as I do, and stare idly out the window, comforting themselves with the realization that it’s only 38 days until opening day.
