As I write this, I'm watching a series of disastrous runs in the Women's Downhill competition at the Olympic Games. The ladies are biting it hard on the mountain, sliding out of control for what seems like an eternity before they finally come to a stop... their Olympic dreams having come to a bitter end.
This time.
There's nothing to say that they won't shake it off and come back victorious in 2014.
Everybody has disasters, but very few of us have them broadcast around the globe with the entire world watching. Forget the pain of crashing into a mountain at 80 miles per hour, the psychological trauma would be enough to drive a person insane.
But that's part of the game. The victory is so much the sweeter because the defeat can be so brutal.
What's NOT part of the game is douchebag television commentators being complete and total assholes as they cut the athletes to shreds during their run. I already loathe sports commentary with a passion because it's so ridiculously banal and distracting... but listening to these turds tonight has elevated my hatred to an entirely new level.
My favorite commentary was when Anja Pärson from Sweden was starting her run and the male commentator was compelled to say she "was a big failure in last year's world championships." Well, screw you, asshole... she's earned her place as an Olympiad in the Twenty-First Winter Games. She deserves more respect than some idiot diminishing such an accomplishment by daring to saddle her as a "big failure" in a past competition. What the hell have you done lately?
Sadly, Anja wiped out later down the track, which makes such a disgusting comment even more hurtful.
I cannot for the life of me understand why sports fans don't insist that commentators take the "less is more" approach and SHUT THE HELL UP unless they have something meaningful and constructive to add to the event. Non-stop chatter is just stupid, unnecessary, and leads to dumbass commentators doing idiotic shit like branding an Olympic athlete "a big failure" to avoid a moment of blissful silence.
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I whole-heartedly agree. Since the very first event I watched, men’s ski-jump, I’ve thought that these commentators have been unnecessarily rude and harsh.
I want to make a pitch for the old school sportscasters – especially the baseball and football ones in the days of my yoot – who served as the eyes of so many people and used words creatively. I’m thinking of national treasures like Vin Scully and Mel Allen. Red Barber. yes I’m old enough to have heard Allen and Barber. WHAT?
I think on the one hand there are so many athletes who carry themselves like they’re God’s gift to their sport I don’t mind when sometimes they get a kind of come-uppance, but I’m pretty sure the general negative stuff cast around on just anybody – or treated as something normal that you just do when at the mic – is endemic of our times.
Plus the announcers on Olympics are generally third-string nobodys we won’t hear again for another four years. Probably for a reason.
Yeah – where is Thumper and Flower and Bambi?! Did these assholes not READ as children?!
a the fuck men!!!
Amen! Watching those women fall last night was horrible. Not only where their hopes of medal shattered, they had to careen down the mountain, out of control, in front of a worldwide audience. It must have been humiliating for them. The commentary only served to make it worse.
They should have to be quiet during each run and save the commentary for after each athlete has gone.
I was watching that and heard that comment as well. Fucking idiot. Who the fuck is he to say she was a failure? I want to be fair and thing that he wanted to say she had a disappointing run at the World Championships and it came out wrong. But nah…fuck him!
I, personally, would like to install a mute button on Bob Costas’s forehead. Annoying little fucker.
I agree 100%
Hello mute button, hello iTunes. Goodbye banal annoying commentator bastards.
I totally agree with you Dave. I also find it difficult to understand how getting a silver or bronze in an event is a disappointment to anyone. That means they are the 2nd or 3rd best in the world.
Hell if I was in the Olympics I would just be glad to be in the Olympics – I’d still be proud even if I came in last place because I’d still be a world class athlete.
Thankfully the Canadian announcers don’t call people complete failures – they use nicer wording such as “had a disappointing showing in the “. Just sounds a little less assholish!
I’m in complete agreement, especially when it comes to the fuck tard Bob Costas.
It’s even worse with Luge. Really, if you’ve seen one luge, you’ve seen them all, save the wipeouts. (Which really aren’t fun to watch because luge accidents are usually serious or fatal. At least the skiers can usually shake it off and act like they enjoyed it.) As a viewer, you really can’t tell if the guy gets a tenth of a second better. So the announcers fill the silence with their annoying “This guy’s best speed is this, and he beat this guy, and blah, blah, blah.” Sometimes you just want to strangle those guys. Then they’d shut up!
They drove me nuts during that competition because in addition to everything you related, they kept calling them girls.
I try not to let that sort of nonsense get to me, but it’s the freakin’ Olympics!
I only get to watch the Olympics at the gym with the closed captioning on, which has its own kind of charm.
For instance, one woman came in ateth.