My favorite moment so far was the Korean short track skater taking himself and the other Korean off the podium on the last turn...and he nearly took the lead skater, another Korean, out too.

What do you think is going to happen to him when he gets back to Korea?

Well the guy was a terrible luger anyways, he had yet to make it down the track all week without crashing. He was a accident waiting to happen, he shouldn't have been at the Olympics at all.

What is even more pathetic is his other country men withdrew after the crash. What a Vagina. The least he could do is compete in honor of his dead brotheren.

Do you think there is a single Luger that doesn't realize death is a possibility when they compete?!? I imagine everyone here doing HPDE, wheel to wheel racing, time trials, etc all realize that bad things can happen. We don't plan on dying but it is inherently dangerous. That is part of why we do it. No one, to my knowledge, said before the incident - "gee, we should block off those poles". You can die stepping into the bathtub and slipping. You sure as hell can die doing 90mph in a partial ice tube on a glorified radio flyer sled.

I'd believe every country with a significant presence at the games, has better coverage than the we get in the USA. NBC has Cnbc, MSnbc, SciFi, Bravo, Universal and USA they could be putting coverage on. Other than USA, you can't convince me Olympics coverage wouldn't pull more viewers in than regular programming on those channels.

Wow, the Olympics have actually started? All I've seen are heartwarming stories of the athletes, and how they got started in their sport.

I refuse to watch this horrible shit.

Summer sucks too, if you don't care about swimming, that is. Want to watch people try to stab each other? Sucks for you then because you won't find fencing on at all, just some 13 year olds jumping and dancing and twirling batons.

Yes, there is some danger inherent to motorsports and shit can happen at track days. But that doesn't relieve track owners of their responsibility to maintain a safe facility, or at least to not expose drivers to more danger than can be reasonably reduced with some intelligent planning. I have become accustomed to seeing gravel traps and tire walls strategically placed around the tracks I visit, rather than bare concrete slabs placed two feet off the track at the end of a long straight.

The dead luger may not have been one of the world's best, but he would not have been the only one to go off there if they continued with the same configuration. There was not enough of a wall/roof (luger's "runoff room" if you will) on the high side of that turn to contain people that get a little high on the banking. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but engineers are supposed to use math so hindsight doesn't come into play.

I do worry about safety at these games. I was surprised at the fencing used in the downhill.
Most world cup class events use A netting (30 high, suspended by booms) and then several rows of B netting (6-8 foot high orange fencing).

The B fencing is designed to give, slowing the athlete down before they hit A netting.

At these Olympics, the mens course only had B fencing - in some places several rows of it. It is conceivable that an athlete could crash and clear the low B fencing, ending up in the trees.

The good news is nobody did, but it was not an impressive safety setup.

I was also surprised to read that the guy who won the downhill has his Dad setting the slalom course for the combined. How is that fair?

I've been trying to catch some, but have only managed to stumble upon a few hours of short track skating and sledding, a ski run or two. I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing some Olympics. Surely isn't anything else on TV. Coverage is a joke. Sad considering they didn't have to travel across the world, it's in southwest Canada for god sake.

Snow Cross....that shit was sweet.

And by the late 50s the politicians in this country were making noises about banning racing because of the complete lack of safety. The European political shitstorm after the 55 Lemans disaster (about 100 killed when a lot of the guts of a Merc went into a crowd) was incredible.

Point being, if they had proper safety layouts in place, the lugers would not have to use the kiddie course right now and the sport would be better off. Not to mention that guy would have lived to become a better luger.

I know its a PITA, but safety regs are the only reason racing survives anymore. So idiots who put steel girders right after a tricky high speed bend with inadequate barriers kinda make me shake my head.

The example mentined above is a good one. The fact that it is inherently dangerous is exactly the reason why they shuld pull their heads out.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it does not take an MIT grad to see that the ayout was just maybe a bad idea. They have people who are very well paid to figure this stuff out. Shoot, we have thousands of out-of-work engineers who would love to figure this out right now.

So they've been showing Olympics on CNBC when I get home. Last two nights from 6:30 to 9:00 pm what have they shown? Womens hockey. China vs. Ukrainaslavia and some country vs some other country. 3 hours, during semi prime time, of unwatchable no-contact hockey from countries we could care less about.

I guess they want to be able to say they were covering the games. NBC will point to the piss poor ratings and say no one watches the olympics. Total bullshit. No one watches womens friggin hockey! No one wants to watch Norswederland beat China 14 to 2.

Asses.

^ +1 to that. I was just getting on to bitch about the same thing. I've been working some crazy hours lately and it's killing me that I've been missing it. I get home all excited, now I've got my choice between curling and hockey. Is there someone who is actively trying to pick out the most boring events to put on tv? Give me some downhill skiing, speed skating, snow boarding, shit even figure skating would be better than this crap.

It better be some damned good coverage tonight...not happy that Parks and Rec and The Office aren't on.

I'd much rather see curling than womens hockey. If I want to see no-checking hockey I can go down to my local rink and watch a pick up game or B-league play.

DVR FTW. I have been watching the coverage a lot this week (DVR delayed) mostly due to being sick and trying to stave off home-bound boredom. I end up fast-forwarding through a lot more than just the commercials.

FTW:
Biathalon - Cool combo/balance between shooting and skiing. Ski too fast, too winded to shoot accurately, lose time anyway. Ski too slow, shooting is better, but you still lose for being too slow. LOL at the Chinese coach/spotter using a Zeiss spotting scope to check the Chinese woman competitor's shooting. EDIT: Well even Zeiss makes stuff in China now (http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=19430)
Alpine Downhill - Awesome speed, awesome air, awesome skill.
Stephen Colbert - Mocked the whole thing Colbert style during his Costas interview and then at the end climbed completely inside of the fake fireplace in the backdrop to 'warm himself'.

FTL
Figure skating - Just don't get it, at least not to the point where I wish I could do it. The female skaters have great bodies though and wear tastefully skimpy clothing.
Curling - rhymes with hurling, enough said. Why isn't shuffleboard a televised summer olympic sport?

Attention fahgsss! Men'sss figure ssskating is on tonight!


Rhinestones FTL. I wonder if Will Farrell to show up.

It would be more interesting if they were drunk and had to navigate a course with chicanes or something.

And there should be steep downhill sections too.

And the biathaloners should be able to shoot at them too.

Switzerland v Canada hockey is on CNBC right now...

Skeleton was run today according to the schedule. NBC is supposed to show it late night tonight.

This just in. The women in skeleton are hotter than the ones in luge. Not saying much, but attractive athletic women who like to haul ass head first against the clock = good TV.

This was a funny I found on Yahoo this morning.

Are You Stupid?