Posted on 02/24/2006 5:36:16 AM PST by Howlin
8:00 a.m. - MSNBC
11:00 a.m. - USA Network
4:00 p.m. - NBC
5:00 p.m. - CNBC
Thanks Howlin. How are you feeling?
freepmail
US Men's curling team on their way to the bronze, first time an American team has medaled. Fenson's guys have done a bang-up job. I hope the sport finally catches on here.
I sure miss Eddie Eagle.
I just caught the end of the match on TV here at work.
Nice!
The first time a US curling team has won an Olympic medal!
That said, my complaint is the negativity and whining by the announcers and the media. The announcer during the figure skating yesterday showed his bitterness and pettiness and acted towards the Finnish skater (and others) and made me wonder if she had rejected him.
Perhaps the media is partially upset because those athletes they hyped did not perform as well as the media predicted.
Wahooo!!! Congrats to Julia Mancuso - Gold in the Giant Slalom.
Regardless of how you look at the medal picture, there's definitely an underlying story in Torino that's worth following. The U.S. may have won a lot of medals, but in most of the high-profile events that draw the most attention they have done very poorly -- even when Americans HAVE won medals. These events include alpine skiing (no medals for U.S. men, and one for U.S. women), ice hockey (no medal for men, and only a bronze medal for the heavily-favored women), figure skating (no medal for men, a silver for women, and Michelle Kwan out of the competition entirely). Even in a popular event where the U.S. has been "successful" (men's speedskating), we've gone from Chad Hedrick hoping to match Heiden's five gold medals to Chad Hedrick hoping to win two golds.
In the end, that will be the story of this years Olympics. The US had a poor showing considering the hype associated with some of our "popular" athletes.
Despite of the less-than-stellar achievements of the big names, some have been better than expected: medals in ice-dancing, and curling are some examples. And so far, with getting so many medals, plus the rank that is not much different (if not better) from Salt Lake City, I don't find this team a failure. Perhaps, it's the expectations that need to be adjusted (Chad Hedrick himself already said it's probably not a good decision on his part to compete in so many events).
One last note: apparently you haven't read that Mancuso won Ladies' Giant Slalom.
I think so too. I watched the womens free skating last night and I thought they (the announcers)were a little heavy and sometimes just catty. The judges and the crowd were more charitable than they were.
That how I describe this Olympics..a lot of media hype. Especially with the men's. I thought the olympics was supposed to be amateur competition. These athletes get paid when they win medals and it looks like they are already making commercials.
I agree. The media, in hope to sell their news, hyped several athletes to the point that many people (including some Freepers) feel really disappointed when the athletes were not up to the expectation. It's sad, considering many athletes actually have performed much better than expected, if this Olympics is remembered only by the 'failure'.
CONGRATS MEN'S CURLING!!!!
USA wins curling bronze medal
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060224-102333-6363r
http://www.bemidjicurling.org/
As far as I know, though I could be wrong, the US is the only nation that doesn't allow our Olympic athletes to be professionals if they compete in the games.
Other countries, especially in Skiing, allow their athletes to become professionals and still compete.
Either way, the athletes status as professionals or not makes little difference to me. After all, athletes need to earn money as much as the rest of us. IMO, the media hypes people up to the point they can not meaure up in many cases. It also seems some of our athletes were not in shape, physically and/or mentally to compete in the elite fields we find at an Olympics.
Maybe this year will be a wake up call for the USOC.
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