While I appreciate your coverage of the variety of sporting events at the Olympics, I have a bone to pick with you.

First and foremost, these Olympics are being held in Vancouver, which is the same timezone as the west coast. Unlike games past where the events would be held in the middle of the night for Americans, these sports are held at approximately the same time we are awake. Despite this, we are not receiving footage of the competitions until 8pm.

This is unacceptable. I cannot browse the internet during the day without fear that various Olympics results will be “spoiled”. You have multiple stations on which you can broadcast. Why not show the events, live, during the day on USA? Or MSNBC? A majority of Americans have some sort of recording device (TiVo, DVR, etc.) and could tape these events to watch at their convenience. If you wanted to re-broadcast the highlights in prime time on NBC, more power to you.

This is another issue I must raise. The prime time broadcast spans from 8pm to midnight. As a hard-working, tax-paying citizen, I must get up at 6:30am to get ready to go to my job. Staying up until midnight, or in some cases later, certainly doesn’t help come morning time. And while I have no problem rolling out of bed, throwing on some clothes, and driving to work, I can assure you that my boss is less than stoked to see yawning, grumpy, bags-under-the-eyes-which-aren’t-all-the-way-open-in-the-first-place Caro. Even moving the broadcast from the 8pm-12a slot to 7-11pm would vastly improve this situation.

Finally, if you are censoring the Olympics and waiting until 8pm to show me the clips of the competition you think I might enjoy, please refrain from broadcasting spoilers. Last night I turned on the NBC Nightly News at 6pm. After several non-gaming stories, the announcer switched gears to the Olympics. Thinking this was a preview of what I would be shown later in the evening, it didn’t even occur to me to change the channel. However, without warning, the results of the Women’s Downhill were posted. Thank you for telling me that Lindsey Vonn won gold. Thank you for sharing this with me before you showed it to me in any broadcast. If you are going to keep me in suspense until 8pm, please do not spoil the results at 6pm.

Aside from these issues, I greatly appreciate your commitment to showing me what you consider the highlights of the Olympics on a bi-annual basis.

Sincerely,

Caro

Well according to Dick Button, this all stems from the new scoring system. In the past, skaters used to get a mark ranging from 0.0 to 6.0 depending on how well the judges perceived their routine was performed, and another set of marks (0-6) for how artistically pleasing the routine was. Pretty subjective, and the cause of a lot of controversy. Well enter new system. Everything is on a points system. The more moves you do, and the higher the difficulty of the moves, the more points you earn. Obviously skaters want to make the most points, so they’re going to throw in the most difficult moves.

Apparently grabbing the blade of your skate while doing something else at the same time is difficult. Like doing a spin while grabbing your skate, or grabbing your skate while your partner is lifting you. OK cool, grab a skate. Rack up the points.

Except that it’s SO. UGLY.

Like, in my opinion at least, it highlights the lack of flexibility of the skaters. Don’t grab your skate if you can’t fully extend your leg. It looks weird. And don’t grab your skate every 2 seconds. It’s annoying to watch. It’s not fluid. It’s not really….skating.

I get that the skaters need to accumulate the most amount of points if they want to win. And obviously you compete to win. But this whole skate grabbing thing really just makes it about the points. It’s not fun to watch. In fact, I almost turned off the pairs skating because it bothered me so much. Let’s be honest. Going back to the old scoring system they wouldn’t have scored more than a 4.0 on artistic impression.

Maybe if the skaters filled their routines with more jumps and spins and things, they would higher scores and not need to add fluff like skate grabbing to inflate their scores. And maybe I would enjoy pairs skating once again.

I’m absolutely in love with the Olympics, and while the Summer games are definitely my favorite of the two, the Winter Olympics never fail to provide me with joy. I mean what’s not to like about sports such as the Biathlon? Cross-country skiing + target shooting, two things that clearly go together. Or Curling – pushing a giant tea kettle down an icy path and sweeping ice out of its way. What a novel idea! LOL. Actually though, much to my surprise the 2006 US Women’s Curling Team was pretty attractive. I’m not sure where they find these people, but apparently attractive curlers do exist!

Seriously though, there’s tons of great winter sports, both random (see above) and high profile (skiing, snowboarding, figure skating, speed skating, etc). The one sport that bores the crap out of me is simple cross-country skiing. I mean yeah, it takes incredible skill and athleticism to ski cross-country. But why watch this when you can watch people ski AND shoot in the biathlon? I’m also personally not into hockey. I’m sure I’ll catch a game or two, but I definitely don’t plan to make a habit of watching all the games.

As always I’ll be cheering for the red, white and blue of the US and the green and gold of the land down under.

The full schedule can be found here, but these are the highlights as I see them:

February 12, 2010

• Opening Ceremony!!!
• Ski Jumping (Quals)

February 13, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Downhill Update: Postponed to 2/15
  
• Biathlon – Women’s Sprint
• Freestyle Skiing – Women’s Moguls (Quals and Finals)
• Luge – Men’s Singles (1st and 2nd runs)
• Ski Jumping
• Speed Skating – Men’s and Women’s Short Track

February 14, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies’ Super Combined Downhill, Super Combined Slalom Update: Postponed to 2/18
• Biathlon – Men’s
• Figure Skating – Pairs Short Program
• Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Moguls ( Quals and Finals)
• Luge – Men’s Singles (3rd and 4th runs)
  
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ 3000m

February 15, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Downhill (originally scheduled 2/13)
  
• Figure Skating – Pairs Free Skate, Medal Ceremony
• Luge – Women’s Singles (1st and 2nd runs)
  
• Snowboard – Men’s
• Speed Skating – Men’s 500. The ice got majorly fucked up halfway through. Shani Davis wasn’t a medal contender so he decided to withdraw and save his energy. Sadness
  

February 16, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Super Combined Downhill, Super Combined Slalom
• Biathlon – Pursuit
• Curling – US vs. Japan, US vs. Norway, US vs. Germany (honestly I’ll only watch part of one of these, then get bored til closer to the finals)
• Figure Skating – Men’s Short Program
• Luge – Women’s Singles (3rd and 4th runs)
  
• Snowboard – Ladies’
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ 500m

February 17, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies’ Downhill
• Curling – US vs. Switzerland
• Luge – Doubles
• Snowboard – Men’s Halfpipe (Quals, Semis, and Finals)
• Speed Skating – Men’s 1000m, Short Track (various)
  

February 18, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies’ Super Combined Downhill, Super Combined Slalom (originally scheduled 2/14)
• Biathlon – Women’s and Men’s
• Figure Skating – Men’s Free Skate, Medal Ceremony
• Skeleton – Women’s and Men’s
• Snowboard – Ladies’ Halfpipe (Quals, Semis, Finals)
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ 1000m

February 19, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Super-G
• Figure Skating – Ice Dance Compulsory
• Skeleton – Women’s and Men’s
• Ski Jumping – Individual (Quals)

February 20, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies Super-G
• Bobsled – Two-Man
• Curling – US vs. Sweden, US vs. UK
• Freestyle Skiing – Ladies’ Aerials (Quals)
• Ski Jumping – Individual (Finals)
• Speed Skating – Men’s 1500, and Men’s and Ladies Short Track (various)
  

February 21, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Giant Slalom
• Biathlon – Men’s and Women’s
• Bobsled – Two-Man
• Figure Skating – Ice Dance Original Dance
• Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Ski Cross (Quals, Quarters, Semis and Finals)
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ 1500m

February 22, 2010

• Curling – US vs. Canada
• Figure Skating – Ice Dance Free Dance, Medal Ceremony
• Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Aerials (Quals)
• Ski Jumping – Team

February 23, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Giant Slalom
  
• Biathlon – Women’s Relay
• Bobsled – Ladies’
• Curling – US vs. Switzerland
• Figure Skating – Ladies’ Short Program
• Freestyle Skiing – Ladies’ Ski Cross (Quals, Quarters, Semis and Finals)
• Speed Skating – Men’s 10,000m

February 24, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies’ Giant Slalom
• Bobsled – Ladies’
• Freestyle Skiing – Ladies’ Aerials Finals
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ and Men’s Short Track, Individual and Relay, Ladies’ 5000m

February 25, 2010

• Curling – Women’s Semifinal, Men’s Semifinal
• Figure Skating – Ladies’ Free Skate, Medal Ceremony
• Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Aerials

February 26, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Ladies’ Slalom
• Biathlon – Men’s Relay
• Bobsled – Four-Man
• Curling – Women’s Bronze Medal Game, Women’s Gold Medal Game
• Snowboard – Ladies’ PGS (Quals, Semis, and Finals)
• Speed Skating – Men’s and Ladies’ Short Track, Individual, Relay, and Team Pursuit (Quarters and semis)
  

February 27, 2010

• Alpine Skiing – Men’s Slalom
• Bobsled – Four-Man
• Curling – Men’s Bronze Medal Game, Men’s Gold Medal Game
• Figure Skating – Exhibition Gala
• Snowboard – Men’s PGS, Men’s Parallel Giant Slalom (Finals)
• Speed Skating – Ladies’ and Men’s Team Pursuit (semis and finals)
  

February 28, 2010

• Closing Ceremony