Posted on 02/15/2014 10:54:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The snow in the Caucasus Mountains is dissolving, the white patches shrinking, and many athletes on Team USA seem to be melting down with them. Some Americans are drained, and others are dragging. When they ski or they skate, they think they went fast, but then they look up at the clock and are stunned to find they were a second slow, and finish eighth. Team USA’s self-esteem is leaking away, and it’s triggering anxious super-secret coaching meetings and conspiracy theories. What’s in the Russian water table — and why are those Swiss timers so suspiciously slow?
It must be a plot — some foreign machination, causing this massive slippage. Four years ago in Vancouver, the Americans won more medals than anyone, with 37, but halfway through Sochi, the 13 medals they have won somehow don’t feel quite as memorable as the ones they let get away. They can’t win so much as a foiled chocolate in speedskating, where they’ve yet to finish any better than seventh. U.S. speedskating coach Ryan Shimabukuro said: “The fact that we’re that far out, something’s up.”
“It’s a mystery to me,” skater Brian Hansen said. “I think it’s a mystery to a lot of people.”
A mystery! At least that’s something for the American television audience to grab on to, because there is precious little suspense otherwise, save for the matter of when Bob Costas will return from his eye infection, and that’s a dodgy matter too. Who or what is poisoning us?
What accounts for this? Ted Ligety was the gold medal favorite in Friday’s super combined, yet he finished 12th, while Bode Miller was sixth, both of them shooting up huge rooster-tails of snow, futilely.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Can’t seem to really care anymore. With America devolving down into such a degenerate sewer, via everything from fag-marriage to dope to Obama’s sheer lawlessness, it just changes the entire dynamic of how I look at the country. As America embraces evil, there’s less and less inclination to rally or support anything to do with it.
That being said...shouldn't our athletes be trained to win? Vince Lomarbdi said, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."
Sure, the medal count is not what the Olympics is all about. However....we're speaking about national pride. Some countries show their national pride just by sending a team. Other countries show their pride by fielding athletes that should be able to win. That's how I see the US. We should be able to win a ton of medals. And, subsequently....when we don't win in events that we should have been able to win....that shows there's a problem.
I’ll tell you why. The more that government gets more heavily invested in my personal decisions and detracts from my individual liberty, as the current is heading, the more I need to know about whether a person has furthered those means before I can root for them. If Obama was a world class athlete, and qualified for the olympic team, i dont care if he represented my country. I wouldnt root for him. I wouldnt root against him - I’d merely be disinterested. And thank you for your reply.
I did have fun watching the US -Russia shootout. And I confess that the Russia-Canadian women’s curling featured the two sexiest women’s teams ever. Period.
I’m just a little bitter with our government, is all. I doubt anyone here can blame me. It is a government of the people, right? It’s not some entity over which we have no control. We elect it. We enable it.
Notice I said NAZI Germany, Hitler thought medal count was very important.
Sure we train our athletes to win. And so do the other countries.
My national pride has never been tied to athletes. My sense of pride has never been tied to nouns or accidents of fate. The fact that some Olympic athlete was born in the same country as me, especially with a country this big, just really says nothing about me. My sense of self worth is tied to active first person verbs, things I did.
“We” can’t win a ton of medals in the Winter Games because they’re made up of sports we just plain aren’t interested in, so our top athletes don’t play them. The fact is the athletes we’re sending to these games are in our second and third tier, our first tier primarily play football and basketball, some land in baseball, a few in hockey, and we tend to get a smattering scattered through the Summer Games (especially swimming, which really helps our medal count). But skiing and skating just don’t draw our top people. We only do as well as we do because we’re huge and a lot of countries top tier isn’t as good as our second and third.
The only “problem” is that American only pay attention to these sports every 4 years. As long as that’s the case we will continue to be so-so in these games. Nothing you can do about it, unless you want to start forcing our top athletes into different sports.
“Conservatives are all for offshoring US jobs.”
No. offshoring is a rational response to a impossible tax and regulatory environment.
“We are letting our own country, fall to pieces right in front of our eyes.”
No. We elected the people who are instituting policies that result in the dismantling of the engine of innovation and production.
“Build up America. Now.”
Simple. Make government dramatically smaller, force people to be less dependent upon it by giving them less free stuff than they are getting now (including medicare, medicaid, social security, foodstamps, government retirements of all kinds, etc.), lower taxes dramatically
Don’t want to do the above? Then you quite literally hate America and don’t want people to be able to prosper here.
So how many people do you think could get elected on that platform today?
If you get a check from the government, you’re the problem.
You’d prefer they subsidised by gubmint?
I watch coverage from international media programming. Too many features pieces on american network at the expense of covering the event.
I want to see a race, not someone’s life story leading up to it.
I, for one, am enjoying the Olympics. Nothing made me smile more than to see Nicole Pikus-Pace win and climb the over railing into the stands to reach her family. She was so excited and happy. She got a silver medal in skeleton racing. Such joy. She is a charming winner and it brought tears to my eyes to see her happiness. You nay-sayers are missing the best of America. They deserve our cheering.
Don’t watch, don’t care. Professionals making tons of money. Who the hell cares. If you want to be an Olympian shut up, quit whining and do your job. Ugly ugly ugly! And the media is totally corrupt! Pathetic!
US traditionally doesn’t do all that great in the Winter Olympics.
US just needs to shut up and compete and stop the whining.
lol yep
I am surprised none of them has said... but! but! I thought everyone was suppose to get a medal!
lol
Great! That explains why our Curling teams suck!
“Nothing made me smile more than to see Nicole Pikus-Pace win and climb the over railing into the stands to reach her family. “
That’s how I felt when Jim Craig was searching for his father.
.
I don't know any conservatives for are all for that.
Do you have a list?
Nobody is building up America right now.
It's difficult when the government is tearing America down with things like Obamacare.
Build up America. Now.
Only possible if we shrink government. Now.
I’m with you dude.
If we have participation medals how much will we each be paid (redistribution to make it fair)? Oh, and Obama wants to eliminate the taxes on the medals that the athletes owe.
-PJ
Same here. I have not watched one second of coverage. It is sad, but I feel cheering for USA! is cheering for 0bama's coup.
She does indeed. Her name isn’t on the Global warming demand letter.
We at least have one sane athlete worthy of respect.
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