Olympic Fever

Is it bad that I actually look forward to 5pm every evening? For it is when the Winter Olympic coverage (courtesy of BBC Sport) begins, and I can settle into an evening spent laughing at foreign names (Andreas Wank being one of my favourites) and craptastic commentary.

It is true that commentators seem to thrive on the misfortune and dashed hopes of the competing athletes. Excitement reached fever pitch the other day as Swede Anja Paerson suffered a truly ugly crash at the end of her treacherous Olympic downhill, and with good reason too. Crashes are almost eye-watering to watch, especially as the coverage seems to include replaying the same stricken fall over and over and over again, in order for the commentators to waste precious air time, analysing which part of the body the skier may have broken. More often than not, the competitor can get up and stumble off the course, in which case I am sure I seem to detect a hint of disappointment in the voices of the commentators: "Oh, he's up and walking off the course... but that was a severe crash, it looked like he had torn a ligament at the very least..!"

But for all the excitement of the fast-paced Super-G, downhill, luge, and the many other death-defying acts, one thing just not make sense: curling. I cannot help feeling that even if I sit down to watch even five minutes of this "sport", I feel like it is five minutes of my life I have wasted (I will not take my hours spent on Facebook into account on this occasion).

It makes me wonder if the teams actually have to train at all, for the most strenuous activity they seem to partake in is the act of sweeping the ice. Who knows; I am woefully and admittedly ignorant of the intricacies of curling. I am probably bypassing, in my former statement, whole months of dedicated training and team-work on the part of the Olympic teams. Infact I have just done a quick perusal of Google, and it would seem that the Canadian team have to follow a programme of intensive "Muscle Endurance" exercises, which I can only imagine would serve to strengthen the ability to release the stone - extreme lunges are obviously required.. Yet I would guess that more preparation goes into the mental strategies of the game then perhaps the physical side. Indeed, I could see curling as an excellent example of the adage "easy to learn, difficult to master".

It does not, however, stop the sport from being unbelievably dull to watch; I think it is one of the few activities (apart from darts, and possibly snooker) where it is possible to enter a state of zombie-like boredom. Indeed, it seems to provide a convenient time-filler when a skier crashes out of the latest freestyle-race, or a ski-jumper entirely misjudges their landing, to disastrous and delaying effect. And sadly (yet inevitably) now that Team GB are out of the running for the curling medals, the commentators make no secret of the fact they are 'let down', and all coverage and interest seems to diminish. But such is the nature of today's media in general, I suppose. It is fickle and precarious, a profitable nightmare for PR agents or respective celebrities. It gives pond-life like Katie Price the chance to make money on the back of her own name and behavoir (at the expense of her children) and seemingly wrecks havoc upon the private lives of the rich and famous - with too many examples to name.

This leads me onto another observation I made today, following my casual browsing of the morning's news. I saw splashed across the screen "Robert Pattinson FINALLY admits he's dating Kristen Stewart", which comes to me as no great surprise. But following his apparent comment at the BAFTAS that "We can't arrive at the same time because of the fans. It goes crazy. This was supposed to be a public appearance as a couple but it's impossible", it left me feeling rather sorry for the pair of them. The fact that Monsieur Pattinson apparently related this to the delightful tabloid, The Sun, makes the whole issue even more a product of the media's tricky representation of the people we are supposed to be so interested in. I, for one, resent the fact that my brain contains the piece of information that Katie Price puts fake eyelashes on her daughter, or even that Heidi Montag's face is basically a shrine to the achievements of plastic surgery. I really am not interested in the lives of people I will never meet; I prefer to extend my cares to the people around me in my own life. That is not to say that I do not appreciate the hard work of many talented individuals who truly deserve their fame.

Yet it is impossible not to be infected by the celebrity culture that has become an off-shoot of 21st century modern life, even in the Winter Olympics, when each new crash, or even Lindsay Vonn's use of make-up is raised on the same pedestal as the jaw-dropping achievements and atheletic finesse of the Olympic competitors themselves.