Technology making Winter Olympics more interesting to watch
For a sports junkie, the next two weeks will be a paradise. The usual dozen or more basketball games every day, NBA and NHL games and now the Olympics and Super Bowl are scheduled. For any person that enjoys sports, this variety of options is something to welcome.
The Olympic Games started on Wednesday, Feb. 2, with hockey and curling action. I am not sure how much fast action there is in curling but the excitement from the players and the careful strategies being mapped out make it a sport to watch. I tried curling in my younger years and it is fun to slide that heavy granite rock down the ice. The sweeping action we had was with primitive brooms compared to the hi-tech brooms they use now. But it is more fun to play than to watch.
Watching the different competitions on ice is one of the more popular sports in the Olympics. It is either competing on ice or snow in the winter games. For a person interested in the technology of sports, it is fun to compare the different advances in equipment. The different skates for figure skaters, for hockey players and speed skaters, and whether the blade is flat ground or hollow ground all makes watching sports more interesting. And if you think skis are just flat wooden things strapped to the athlete’s feet, you are mistaken. The differences in the events of downhill, slalom, cross country, and ski jumping are all different and are multilayered composites of material. The technology of the equipment makes it more interesting to watch.
After playing hockey in those younger years and then being a strength coach to NHL teams for several years, I enjoy watching that sport. After watching the women’s hockey games, their speed and stickhandling ability seems to indicate that they will do well in these games. Fast action and enough contact to liken it to football makes watching hockey interesting. One other nice thing is that it is continuous action with no timeouts to slow the game down. Players substitute during the game with no stop in the action.
Having been a runner for so many years, the sports of speed skating and cross country skiing are much easier to relate to. Between the sprints similar to a track meet and the longer 5K and 10K distance races that runners do on weekends, it makes these sports fun to watch. Knowing how runners are always recording their times of a race it seems amazing to see the times the athletes in these competitions can cover the different distances.
In speed skating, the times for 5K and 10K distances are only slightly over half the time a runner completes the distance. The longer blades for better surface contact and the gliding time between strokes make covering the distance on ice almost seem impossible. Having experienced pushing myself to run a new PR in a race and how the breathing and muscle soreness felt, I can only imagine what these speed skaters are feeling when they compete. It seems every year the records fall as the skaters get faster and faster. What always impressed me when I watched Eric Hayden set records many years ago was the tremendous quad muscles of his legs. As a youngster starting out lifting weights, the development of his legs was envied.
Cross country skiing is considered one of the highest aerobic demands on an athlete. Watching the side-to-side motion of the legs while attached by a toe hold to a ski you wonder, “How can the athletes move so fast”? The times in cross country skiing are faster than most runners can cover a 5K or 10K distance. I tried cross country skiing one year visiting my sister in Maine. It looked like it would be easy to figure out that side-to-side motion the athletes were doing. That is not quite as easy as it looks. It reminded me of being told to learn to walk before you try to run. It is not nearly as much fun to shuffle along when you are trying to imitate a cross country Olympic skier. My biggest problem was trying to turn and stop on those thin skis. Falling down turned out to be the best method for me to stop. And if you think getting up after falling is easy you are mistaken. The center of gravity of the body has to be over the skis before you can get up. When your backside is eight inches deeper in the snow below the skis this is a very difficult task. I will stick to watching that sport on television from now on.
