Fumbled Returns: Take it to the limit

Friday, February 19, 2010

Take it to the limit

Maybe it's me, but this year there seems to be a big deal being made about crashes.

Lots of athletes crashing, and lots of officials making changes to courses as a result of these crashes.

Perhaps having the death of the Georgian Luger happen even before the games officially start set a more tragic and reactive tone for the entire Olympics but the point I wanted to make was that athletes have always , from time to time, crashed and gotten injured but I do not seem to remember officials making so many changes to courses as a result of people crashing.

This has happened to the Luge, the downhill and slalom courses, even some of the ice competitions, though that was mostly because the cheapo Zamboni they originally bought could not fix the ice appropriately.

I think all of these course crashes and "fixes" is a result of the industry of sports competition and athletes constantly pushing the limit of physical and technical ability.

Olympic athletes are special. They are the best of the best and as such have this drive and determination to constantly push themselves and their sport to new and higher and more dangerous limits.

This drive in turn makes the "sport" constantly look for ways to challenge the athletes.

Perhaps this year the sport has pushed the athletes more than it should have.

But still, I don't seem to remember officials making as many changes as they have this year. I am reminded of the old Wide World of Sports intro which shows the "agony of defeat" and thinking, "did anybody shorten the ski jump" as a result of this incident?

It seems that the only Olympic sport to not have been pushed to the limit and changed as a result of crashes is Curling.

Now I have to admit, we have been watching the Curling competition. I also have to admit that for such a none contact and physically demanding sport, it has gotten A LOT of air time. We have enjoyed watching it because it is intriguing to watch the strategy of the the sport and the technique involved.

But just like everything else, someone somewhere has found a way to push curling to the limit and prove that it is a sport of not only skill and strategy but of strength, speed and physical ability.

Strangely enough, I found these people pushing the limits of curling not on NBC Olympic coverage but on the Weather Channel and Colbert Nation.

So in the spirit of Fun Strip Fridays, I end this post with out takes of video which pushes Olympic coverage and interviews to new limits.

The Weather Channel proves that Curling is indeed a contact sport!

And Colbert pushes the coverage of the sport to new limits in his video spot.