Evan Smith: Winter Olympics Thoughts

COMMENTARY / Evan Smith

I’m sitting here watching the climactic event of the Winter Olympics.

Unfortunately, I had to sit through an ice hockey game while I waited to watch the 50-kilometer cross-country skiing race.

It was worth sitting through the hockey game to get to watch dozens of skiers race shoulder to shoulder for two hours with the top two skiers finishing three-tenths of a second apart.

My favorite winter event shows little of my greatest complaint about the way that NBC shows the Olympics.

Yet, even here, the announcers seem to have to refer to the number of medals an athlete has won.

That’s the wrong way to measure sporting accomplishment.

A skier or a speed skater may have half a dozen chances to win, while a figure skater, curler or hockey player has only one.

Throughout the games, announcers kept comparing the number of medals someone had won to numbers won in the past. It’s a poor comparison because of the proliferation of events. Twenty years ago, there was no freestyle skiing, no snowboarding, no short-track. In the same time, one Nordic combined event has become four and three Alpine skiing events have become five.

Some proliferation has been a needed as women have approached equality with men.

But, I see no reason for four Nordic-combined events, and I liked the games without events like snowboarding and freestyle skiing, activities that would fit better in a circus.