Underperforming

We watched a little bit of speed skating last night at the end of a long day of marathon TV viewing.

I was surprised to find out, that up to the point when we first started watching, that the U.S. men and women had not yet won a single medal in any of the events. Zero for 17 so far and counting.

That didn't change while we were watching. Some were blaming the new suits that had never been tested in competition, but a change to the old suits didn't help matters any. They all still lost and for the most part they all lost handily.

And they were expecting LOTS of gold and silver medals. The U.S. had several recent world champions and Olympic winners on their squad. They just didn't look very good in this competition. They ALL underperformed.

I have no idea what the real reason was, but between events labeled as ski-style, skate-cross and ski-cross, most of which no one has ever heard of, and all of these underperforming U.S. athletes, I really have no idea why anyone would want to watch MOST of the Olympic games.

They should just call it the Olympic Ice Games and just have figure skating and hockey. Countries would save boatloads of money by not  sending thousands of athletes to compete in made up sports, and there would always be something on TV to watch. Oddly enough, Olympic hockey is much easier to watch than its NHL counter-part. None of the bullies are invited and that makes for a much slicker viewer-friendly game.

As for me and my wife, it's time for another afternoon and evening of marathon TV viewing.

Between things like Netflix, Hulu, and On Demand programming, the U.S. TV viewing landscape is changing rapidly. Viewers are now programming their own TV schedule. And in the long run, I no longer think that vapid events like curling will make the cut. Even if they are part of something called The Olympics.