Immediate Post-Olympics Reactions

It seems to me that in years past I felt the urge to watch far more of the Winter OLympics than I did this year. They just weren't that exciting. I even had the sense that studio hosts like Bob Costas and Al Michaels were just going through the motions, that which is expected of them every four years. It isn't that the Games are too commercialized exactly, at least not in terms of the numbers and kinds of commercials. But there is a sense--or at least I had it--that false excitement kept getting pushed by NBC. Certainly they had reason to do that, given their huge financial investment in the Olympics. Vonn and Ohno going after gold just didn't have that compelling feel to it. Despite looking like he is barely 20, Ohno seems to have been around since at least Squaw Valley. It is almost always better to have excitement growing form the grass roots.

One problem with the Winter Games--though this existed four years ago and all times before--is that there are few events with head-to-head competition. The most compelling sports are usually those where you can watch the contenders facing off, not going after each other hours apart on a downhill ski course. The Winter Games needs more of this, and the snowboarding and skiing events in which multiple athletes go at the same time were genuinely exciting. It just isn't that compelling to watch a single athlete do something by themselves--even in skating, maybe for the first time, I found the Pairs and Ice Dancing to be more interesting than the Ladies competition.