Sochi Winter Olympic Games

Magicman · January 25, 2014, 09:25:59 AM

Forget the publicity and political hype, I love watching the Olympics; Winter or Summer does not matter.

Pat and I were volunteer workers at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, and were asked by the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee to work at their 2002 Winter Games, but declined. We will always wonder whether we should have??

Anyway it will be a refreshing change from the usual TV programming. I look forward to watching.

thecfarm · January 25, 2014, 09:32:32 AM

What I like too is to see the country that they are in. The history of it,the cities and the country life and the heritage and the people. I wonder how much I will see about Russia.

gspren · January 25, 2014, 09:32:49 AM

I enjoy watching the Olympics but this is one that I wouldn't go to in person. I sincerely hope it's uneventful in respect to the threats.

Qweaver · January 25, 2014, 10:47:47 AM

Me Too Magicman. Soft chair, hot coco, deer chili, flickering fire and big screen TV. Sarah and I will not get much work done those days.

Roger2561 · January 25, 2014, 12:44:18 PM

A friend of mine who I grew up with was saying that he feels the Olympics is a waste of time to watch. He said that the interest in it we had as kids is no longer there. I mentioned to him that when we were kids all we had was 2 TV channels to pick from for our viewing pleasure; either you watched the news or the Olympics. Today, with the hundreds of channels available to us there are too many distractions, so of course viewership and interest will be down. Plus, when they, the networks broadcast the events it's not live anymore, it's taped. With the computer one can watch the event live from work (not me) or where ever you happen to be at the time. What will help us where we live is we have 3 or 4 youngsters from neighboring towns who will be competing. I will watch to root them on regardless of how they do. One of them is the reigning Olympic gold medalist and reigning national champion in moguls. She has an excellent shot of bringing home the gold again. Good luck to all the US athletes and stay safe. Roger

Ken · January 25, 2014, 02:30:04 PM

My wife and I are both looking forward to watching the events.

thecfarm · January 25, 2014, 02:32:21 PM

Roger,what is the name of the mogul champ? I might not catch it,but just in case.

Roger2561 · January 25, 2014, 04:11:51 PM

Quote from: thecfarm on January 25, 2014, 02:32:21 PM
Roger,what is the name of the mogul champ? I might not catch it,but just in case.

Her name is Hannah Karney of Norwich, VT. She attended Hanover High School in Hanover, NH. She's a real sweet kid, down to earth. The kind of athlete one would want their kids too look to as a roll mode. If she does indeed win gold again this year, she'll make history doing so. It seems that champions past have never been able to win Olympic gold in back to back Olympics. She wants to change that part history. Last year at the world championships she won gold in the same event which was history in itself. That's never happened before so she has a great chance of repeating as Olympic champion. I'll be rooting her on.

thecfarm · January 25, 2014, 05:18:21 PM

Hannah Karney,got it. I'll be rooting for her too.

LAZERDAN · January 25, 2014, 06:16:42 PM

Hannah Kearney - TeamUSA.org She brings some serioius credentials I think we all should back her, kinda of like a forum adoption. It dosen't get any better Hannah from Hanover GO HANNAH USA Lazerdan (sorry I can't get the link to link )

moosehunter · January 25, 2014, 07:17:29 PM

I was going to start a post about Olympic games connection but there are already two in this thread! My brother in law is the ski tech for the Chinese aerial team. The ones that jump straight up in the air doing all manor of flips and twists. I will still be rooting for the American team but for him just being involved is a dream come true. Rumor is that the Chinese and the Americans are the only two aerial teams that have a full time ski tech. He has been traveling with them for about a month now. I enjoy watching just about any Olympic event.

clww · January 25, 2014, 07:26:42 PM

We'll be watching as much as we can once the games start.
My wife was an alternate for the '72 Munich games US swim team.

DonT · January 25, 2014, 09:59:11 PM

I always look forward to watching the Olympics.We get to watch some sports that are not always in the limelight,and watch some great athletes do there thing.I especially like the womans hockey,not played by professional athletes but some pretty good hockey games.Unfortunately I just read that the Canadian govt has issued a travel warning to anyone planning on attending the games,that they do not consider the area to be safe and advise against going, in light of the security concerns. Sad really.

WDH · January 25, 2014, 10:04:25 PM

The Olympic Games are my favorite sporting events. I never miss watching them. Ever.

florida · January 27, 2014, 05:14:35 AM

I enjoy the athletic part but can't bear the non-stop interviews and "color" as they call it. I think they show about 20 minutes of commercials during every hour too. I record it and watch the next night so I can blitz through all of that junk.

Stinny · January 27, 2014, 07:15:40 AM

The winter Olympics got me thinking about my old home town of Brattleboro Vt. My family lived there until 1967. I was 3 when we arrived, and 13 when we moved back to Maine. As a kid growing up, there was only one activity that I remember with so much interest now... ski jumping. The Brattleboro Outing Club had an amazing youth program for young jumpers, and I was one of them. Our next-door neighbors had 6 boys and most of them were jumpers too. We worked out, trained, competed in many jumping meets and dreamed about someday jumping at Harris Hill. Brattleboro's Harris Hill is a 90 meter ski jump that has been launching athletes into the air for 90 years. One of only 6 regulation sized and maintained hills in the US (they even have snow making), it's story is pretty cool. If you have any interest, you can go to their website... www.harrishillskijump.com

Back to my time there... I was too young to jump that hill but I sure do remember it well. Our youth program had us there all the time packing the outrun (the landing area below the jump). We'd start at the bottom, pack up with our 8' jumping skis, and ski back down to do it again. I remember being terrified just skiing down that outrun, never mind jumping. Thankfully, we moved before I had to face that demon. The biggest hill I ever jumped on was 30 meters. Even won a Maine state jumping event as a senior some years later (that's mostly because the guys I jumped against were only on the jumping teams at their schools because their coaches begged them to take their downhill skis off and give jumping a try). To this day, I have a great amount of respect for those who launch off those big jumps. According to a really good Yankee Mag article about Harris Hill, the reason ski jumping no longer is part of every northeast high school ski team's program is because of the "agony of defeat". Yup, that iconic intro to ABC's Wide World of Sports, where the jumper loses balance on the in-run and takes a bad tumble off the side of the jump. No matter that he was not badly hurt, that was too much for the school boards across the NE. Too bad really... I've always thought giant slalom and downhill was far more dangerous. Anyway, if you enjoy the Olympics, catch at least one of the jumping events and watch em fly. I sure will.

blackfoot griz · January 27, 2014, 09:30:17 AM

A young lady (kid?) from Whitefish, Montana made the team. 15 year old Maggie Voisin apparently is the youngest participant on the US team. Hope she does well! She just won a silver medal at the winter x games.